ng-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_
steeple-obelisk the sky rested _bluer_, and _darker_; and, behind it,
wavered the withered summit of the May-pole