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give way to
grief. He struggled to be cheerful,--to be strong. But he could no longer
look into the familiar faces of his friends. He could no longer live alone,
where he had lived with her. He went abroad, that the sea might be
between him and the grave. Alas! betweenhim and his sorrow there
could be no sea, but that of time.
He had already passed many months in lonely wandering, and was now
pursuing his way along the Rhine, to the south of Germany. He had
journeyed the same way before, in brighter days and a brighter season

of the year, in the May of life and in the month of May. He knew the
beauteous river all by heart;--every rock and ruin, every echo, every
legend. The ancient castles, grim and hoar, that had taken root as it
were on the cliffs,--they were all his; for his thoughts dwelt in them,
and the wind told him tales.
He had passed a sleepless night at Rolandseck, and had risen before
daybreak. He opened the window of the balcony to hear the rushing of
the Rhine. It was a damp December morning; and clouds were passing
over the sky,--thin, vapory clouds, whose snow-white skirts were "often
spotted with golden tears, which men call stars." The day dawned
slowly; and, in the mingling of daylightand starlight, the island and
cloister of Nonnenwerth made together but one broad, dark shadow on
the silver breast of the river. Beyond, rose the summits of the
Siebengebirg. Solemn and dark, like a monk, stood the Drachenfels, in
his hood of mist, and rearward extended the Curtain of Mountains,
back to the Wolkenburg,--the Castle of the Clouds.
But Flemming thought not of the scene before him. Sorrow
unspeakable was upon his spirit in that lonely hour; and, hiding his face
in his hands, he exclaimed aloud;
"Spirit of the past! look not so mournfully at me with thy great, tearful
eyes! Touch me not with thy cold hand! Breathe not upon me with the
icy breath of the grave! Chant no more that dirge of sorrow, through the
long and silent watches of the night!"
Mournful voices from afar seemed to answer, "Treuenfels!" and he
remembered how others had suffered, and his heart grew still.
Slowly the landscape brightened. Down therushing stream came a boat,
with its white wings spread, and darted like a swallow through the
narrow pass of God's-Help. The boatmen were singing, but not the song
of Roland the Brave, which was heard of old by the weeping Hildegund,
as she sat within the walls of that cloister, which now looked forth in
the pale morning from amid the leafless linden trees. The dim traditions
of those gray old times rose in the traveller's memory; for the ruined
tower of Rolandseck was still looking down upon the Kloster
Nonnenwerth, as if the sound of the funeral bell had changed the
faithful Paladin to stone, and he were watching still to see the form of
his beloved one come forth, not from her cloister, but from her grave.
Thus the brazen clasps of the book of legends were opened, and, on the

page illuminated by the misty rays of the rising sun, he read again the
tales of Liba, and the mournful bride of Argenfels, and Siegfried, the
mighty slayer of the dragon. Meanwhile the mists had risen from the
Rhine, and the whole air was filled with golden vapor, through which
hebeheld the sun, hanging in heaven like a drop of blood. Even thus
shone the sun within him, amid the wintry vapors, uprising from the
valley of the shadow of death, through which flowed the stream of his
life,--sighing, sighing!



CHAPTER II.
THE CHRIST OF ANDERNACH.

Paul Flemming resumed his solitary journey. The morning was still
misty, but not cold. Across the Rhine the sun came wading through the
reddish vapors; and soft and silver-white outspread the broad river,
without a ripple upon its surface, or visible motion of the ever-moving
current. A little vessel, with one loose sail, was riding at anchor, keel to
keel with another, that lay right under it, its own apparition,--and all
was silent, and calm, and beautiful.
The road was for the most part solitary; for there are few travellers
upon the Rhine in winter. Peasant women were at work in the
vineyards; climbing up the slippery hill-sides, like beasts of burden,
with large baskets of manureupon their backs. And once during the
morning, a band of apprentices, with knapsacks, passed by, singing,
"The Rhine! The Rhine! a blessing on the Rhine!"
O, the pride of the German heart in this noble river! And right it is; for,
of all the rivers of this beautiful earth, there is none so beautiful as this.