He walked with his bride into the Castle garden:  she hastened quickly through the Castle, and past its servants’ hall, where the fair flowers of her young life had been crushed broad and dry, under a long dreary pressure; and her soul expanded and breathed in the free open garden, on whose flowery soil destiny had cast forth the first seeds of the blossoms which today were gladdening her existence.  Still Eden!  Green flower-chequered chiaroscuro!  The moon is sleeping under ground like a dead one; but beyond the garden the sun’s red evening-clouds have fallen down like rose-leaves; and the evening-star, the brideman of the sun, hovers, like a glancing butterfly, above the rosy red, and, modest as a bride, deprives no single starlet of its light.

[Illustration:  BRIDAL PROCESSION From the Painting by Ludwig Richter]

The wandering pair arrived at the old gardener’s hut, now standing locked and dumb, with dark windows in the light garden, like a fragment of the Past surviving in the Present.  Bared twigs of trees were folding, with clammy half-formed leaves, over the thick intertwisted tangles of the bushes.  The Spring was standing, like a conqueror, with Winter at his feet.  In the blue pond, now bloodless, a dusky evening sky lay hollowed out, and the gushing waters were moistening the flower-beds.  The silver sparks of stars were rising on the altar of the East, and, falling down, were extinguished in the red sea of the West.

The wind whirred, like a night-bird, louder through the trees, and gave tones to the acacia-grove; and the tones called to the pair who had first become happy within it:  “Enter, new mortal pair, and think of what is past, and of my withering and your own; be holy as Eternity, and weep not only for joy, but for gratitude also!” And the wet-eyed bridegroom led his wet-eyed bride under the blossoms, and laid his soul, like a flower, on her heart, and said:  “Best Thiennette, I am unspeakably happy, and would say much, but cannot!  Ah, thou Dearest, we will live like angels, like children together!  Surely I will do all that is good to thee; two years ago I had nothing, no, nothing; ah, it is through thee, best love, that I am happy.  I call thee Thou, now, thou dear good soul!” She drew him closer to her, and said, though without kissing him:  “Call me Thou always, Dearest!”

And as they stept forth again from the sacred grove into the magic-dusky garden, he took off his hat; first, that he might internally thank God, and, secondly, because he wished to look into this fairest evening sky.

They reached the blazing, rustling, marriage-house, but their softened hearts sought stillness; and a foreign touch, as in the blossoming vine, would have disturbed the flower-nuptials of their souls.  They turned rather, and winded up into the churchyard to preserve their mood.  Majestic on the groves and mountains stood the Night before man’s heart, and made that also great.  Over the white