"Ah, Clotilda!" said Victor; for she was the form. She was dumb as the realm of spirits, for the dead one whom she had visited still clung around her heart; but she was great as a spirit from that realm: for the ethereal luminous nebula of the moon, the standing over the dead, the look into eternity, the lofty night, and the mourning exalted her soul, and one almost forgot that she wept.--Emanuel still held his wings spread out over the scene, and looked sublimely over the graves: "How all sleeps and rests here on this great green death-bed! I would lie down there and die.--Did not something just speak?--The thoughts of mortals are words of spirits.--We are night birds stealing through the dubious atmosphere, we are dumb night-walkers who fall into these pits, when they awake.--Ye dead! crumble not so mutely into dust; ye spirits, ye that come forth out of your buried hearts, flutter not so transparent around us!--O, man were vanity and ashes and a plaything and vapor on the earth, did he not feel that he were so[126]----O God, this feeling is our immortality"[127]---- Clotilda, by way of drawing him down from this desolating inspiration, took him by the hand and said: "Farewell, O worthy of veneration! I bid farewell this very day, because to-morrow I leave Maienthal. Live happily,--happily till we see each other again; my heart will never forget your greatness, but I shall see you again soon." ... Her melancholy at the thought of his predicted death, her fear of an eternal parting, stifled her remaining words, for she wanted to say more and thank him more warmly. Emanuel said: "We shall never see each other again, Clotilda; for I die in four weeks."--"O God! no!" said Clotilda with the most heart-felt and impassioned tone.--"My good Emanuel," said Victor, "torment not this tormented one.--Cheer thyself, O tortured one, our friend will certainly stay with us."--Here Emanuel raised his eyes to heaven and said with a look in which a world lay, "Eternal One! Couldst thou hitherto have so deceived me?--No, no, on the longest day thy stars will draw me upward, and thy earth will cool my heart.--And thee, thou good Clotilda, thou soul from heaven, thee, then, I certainly see to-day, God knows! for the last time with thy lovely cheeks and in thy earthly form,--I bless thee and bid thee farewell, but heavily and sadly, because I must still live so many days without thee. Go through life with soft influences breathing around thee, keep thy heart high above the many-colored mist of earth and above its storm-clouds,--indeed, thou hearest me not, thou bitterly weeping face; God pour solace into thy soul, let thy parting be more glad!--Thy friend will be with me when I go hence."--Here Victor grasped the hands of the trembling form, exhausted with weeping, who vainly wiped away her tears to see her teacher once more and press his image on her soul; and when Victor cried wildly, "Giulia! sainted one!