Chapter VI: Part 6

Victor was too much of a man of the world to fall in love at first sight. But when he entered the garden, and a sweet, tall, and lovely figure came forward to greet him from behind the foliage, he felt as if all his blood had been driven in his face. It was Clotilda. She spoke to him, but he listened to the melody of her voice, instead of to her words, so that he did not understand what she was saying. Her quiet, reserved eyes, however, brought him to his senses; but still he could not help feeling glad that, as Flamin's friend, he had some claim upon her attention and her society. It seemed to him as if everything that she did was done by her for the first time in life; and he would no doubt have shown a strange embarrassment in her company if the Lord Chamberlain and his wife and a throng of guests had not come into the garden and surrounded him and distracted him by their compliments. Recovering his self-possession, he concealed his real feelings by giving full play to his faculty for malicious and witty sayings. But though he succeeded in amusing the company, he displeased Clotilda; for the talk fell on the topic of women.

"The thing which a girl most easily forgets," said the Lord Chamberlain, "is how she looks; that is why she is always gazing into a mirror."

"Perhaps that is also the reason," said Victor, "why no woman regards another as more beautiful than she is. The most that a woman will admit is that her rival is younger than herself."

Nothing fell upon Clotilda--and this is always found in the best of her sex--more keenly than satire upon womankind, and though she concealed the fact that she both endured and despised this sort of wit, she began to distrust the lips and the heart of the young Englishman, and treated him during this time with such cold civility, that he had to exaggerate his wild gaiety in order to conceal the grief that he felt.

But as she was walking at evening in the garden, a loose leaf blew out of a book that she was holding, and Victor picked it up and read: "On this earth man has only two and a half minutes--one to smile, one to sigh, and a half a one to love; for in the midst of it he dies."

"Dahore! This is a saying of Dahore!" exclaimed Victor. "Clotilda, do you know my beloved master Dahore?" Clotilda turned towards him, her face transfigured with a lovely radiance. Their two noble souls discovered at last their affinity in their common love for the wise and gracious spirit who had nourished their young souls. For some strange reason Lord Horion, as they found out as soon as they began to converse together in a sweet and sincere intimacy, had had them brought up by the same master; and Dahore, an eccentric, lovable man with a profound wisdom, had made them, in both mind and soul, comrades to each other, though he educated one in London and the other at St. Luna.

"He taught Flamin and me at the same time," said Victor, looking to see what effect the name of his friend had on Clotilda. She smiled sweetly, but mysteriously, when he went on to speak of his loving friendship for the son of Chaplain Eymann.

The next day he knew why her smile was so mysterious. Lord Horion arrived from Flachsenfingen with some extraordinary news. Flamin had been appointed a counsellor to Prince January. Never had Victor in his wildest dreams of his friend's advancement, imagined that he would obtain at a leap so high an important position as this. The young Englishman himself had been sent to study at Göttingen in order that he might be qualified to act as the prince's physician; but Flamin, without any labour, had suddenly obtained a place of authority almost equal to that occupied by Lord Horion.

Late that evening, however, Lord Horion revealed to his son a strange secret, in the light of which everything was explained. The Prince of Flachsenfingen was a man of a rather weak and evil character, over whom Horion ruled by sheer force of will. Prince January had had two children, a boy and a girl, and the English lord had had them brought up far away from the malicious influences of the court. In order that January might not interfere in the education of the heir, Horion had told him that the boy had perished in infancy in London. As a matter of fact, the child had been brought up with Victor.

"So Flamin is the heir to the throne of Flachsenfingen!" exclaimed Victor.

"Yes," said Horion, "and I have trained you to guide and direct him in the same way as I guide and direct his father. For the present, however, I must have complete control of the matter. Swear that you will not divulge the secret of Flamin's birth to him or to any one else, before I give you permission."

For a moment Victor hesitated. He remembered the promise that Flamin had wrung from him on the watch-tower, and this, he was beginning to see, might involve him in a perilous misunderstanding.

"Does Clotilda know?" he said.

"I revealed the secret to her when she came to St. Luna," said Horion, "under the same conditions that I am now revealing it to you. She swore to reveal it under no circumstances whatever, and you must do the same before you leave this spot."

So Victor took the oath with a strange mixture of misgiving and joy. As he walked back, slowly and thoughtfully, to the chaplain's house, he at last admitted to himself that he was deeply in love with Clotilda. Instead of returning to England and leaving Flamin in possession of the field, as he had resolved on doing, he was now at liberty to try and win the beautiful, noble girl. On the other hand, Flamin would misunderstand his actions, and this would bring both of them into great danger.

The next day Victor received his appointment as physician to the Prince of Flachsenfingen, and he was summoned to the court, together with Clotilda. He now divined what his father's intentions were in regard to him and the lovely young girl. Instead, however, of going with her to Flachsenfingen, he dressed himself in poor attire and set out on an aimless journey through Europe, without telling anyone where he was going.

_III.--Enmity_

Victor had a profound aversion from the wild and yet vacant kind of life that men pursued at the court of the Prince of Flachsenfingen. He was comforted in his separation by the thought that so long as it lasted he was spared from disturbing the delusions of her jealous brother. But when he at last came to Flachsenfingen, he was grieved to find that his beautiful lady had grown pale and sorrowful. Like a sweet flower taken from the clear fresh air of the forest and placed in a hot, closed room, she was pining in the close, heavy atmosphere of the court, which was so crowded and yet so lonely. At the sight of her distress, Victor forgot his promise to Flamin. Meeting her at evening in the forest near the palace, he sank on his knees before her in the dewy grass, and told her all his love for her, and of the promise he had made to Flamin. Clotilda stooped and clasped his hand, and drew him up, and he folded her to his breast.

"We must part, dearest," he said, "until my father sees fit to reveal to your brother the secret of his birth."

A nightingale broke out into a passion of song as Victor gathered up his courage to bid her farewell. The call of the nightingale was suddenly answered by another nightingale. It kept flying as it sang, and, with its voice muffled by the thick blossoms on the trees, it sent a languishing melody flowing out of a dim, flowering dell a hundred paces away. The two lovers, who dreaded and delayed to part, wandered confusedly after the receding nightingale into the hollow of the forest; they knew not that they were alone, for in their hearts was God. At last Clotilda recovered herself, and as the nightingale ceased, she turned round to say good-bye. But Victor lingered, and took both of her hands, though for very grief he could not bear to look upon her. With tears in his eyes he murmured, "Good-bye, my dearest. My heart is too heavy. I can say no more. Do not sorrow, darling. Nothing can part us now--neither life nor death."

Like a transfigured spirit bending down to an angel, he stooped and touched her sweet mouth. In a gentle kiss, in which their hovering souls only glided tremorously from afar to meet each other with fluttering wings, he took from her yielding lips the seal of her pure love. As he did so, there came a crashing sound from the dark trees around them.

"You scoundrel!" cried Flamin, rushing down into the hollow, his eyes gleaming in the moonlight, and his face white with anger. "Take it, take it! I will have your blood for this!"

He had two pistols in his hand, and he thrust one fiercely towards Victor. The Englishman drew Clotilda aside, and then went up to his friend, saying, "I have not wronged you. Believe me, Flamin, I remember the oath I gave you, and I swear that I have been faithful to you. Only wait until I see my father, and everything will be explained."

"I want no explanation, you faithless scoundrel," shouted Flamin, "Take it, or I will kill you where you stand."

In his blind fury he was pointing the muzzle of the pistol at the trembling form of Clotilda, and Victor snatched the weapon from him in order to save her.

"I will have blood for this--blood, blood!" Flamin kept saying, reeling about the floor of the dell like a drunken man.

"You are my brother, my brother!" cried Clotilda. "Don't you hear? You are my brother!"

She ran up to Flamin to take the pistol from him, but reeled and fell to the ground in a swoon. Victor looked at her wildly, and thinking that she was dead, turned upon Flamin.

"If you want blood," he said sternly, "take mine."

"You fire first," exclaimed Flamin.

Victor lifted his pistol up into the air and shot at the top of a tree; then he stood calm and silent waiting for Flamin to fire. His old friend pointed the pistol straight at his heart, but hesitated; and Clotilda recovered her senses and staggered to her feet, and threw herself before her lover. Flamin looked at them in gloomy wonder without lowering his pistol. He would have liked to kill them both with one shot, but the instinct of a life-long friendship unnerved him. He hurled his pistol away, saying, "It isn't worth troubling to kill a scoundrel like you," and then turned and strode fiercely through the forest.

* * * * *

Some weeks afterwards Victor was standing on the watch-tower at St. Luna alone, with a letter from Lord Horion in his hand. He looked down from the height, and he was tempted to throw himself over. He had regained the friendship of Flamin, but it seemed to him that he had now lost all hope of winning Clotilda. For Lord Horion had explained the whole of the strange, tortuous policy which he had used in regard to Prince January. He informed Victor that he had introduced Flamin to the prince, and had proved to him that the young man was his heir. "They asked me, my dear Victor," Horion went on to say in his letter, "a question which I was surprised at your not asking. If Flamin is the son of the prince, where is the son of Chaplain Eymann whom I took to London to be educated with him? My dear boy, I have no son, and you really are the child of Eymann and his good wife. This secret I felt bound to reveal to the prince at the same time that I was forced to reveal the secret of Flamin's birth. It was because I wished to postpone the revelations until you were established in the prince's good graces that I made you take the oath that you took so unwillingly."

Victor felt that what the heir to a great English nobleman might aspire to, the son of a poor country clergyman could never hope to attain. By a strange vicissitude of fortune he now found himself in the same position as that in which Flamin had been when they met on the watch-tower after their long separation. His mournful meditations were suddenly interrupted by two figures who had silently crept up the stairs of the tower. They were Flamin and Clotilda, and each of them put an arm around Victor and led him to the parsonage. On the way he learnt that Clotilda had known all along that he was the son of Chaplain Eymann.

* * * * *

Titan

The climax of Jean Paul Richter's inspiration, and of his
obscurity, was reached in "Titan," published during 1801-3. He
meant it to be his greatest romance, and posterity has
confirmed his judgement. Of all his works, it is the most
characteristic of its author. It has all the peculiarities of
his style, peculiarities that are reflected in the prose of
Thomas Carlyle, his most eminent British admirer and
interpreter. The book itself took ten years to write, and
according to his correspondence, Richter intended to call it
"Anti-Titan," having in view his attacks on the material
selfishness of the age which, to gain its own ends, would move
mountains. The motive--a comparison between a man of moral
grandeur and one of grandiose immorality--came to Richter
while he was engaged on "Hesperus," a fact that explains why
certain characters from the earlier romance reappear in
"Titan."

_I.--Liana_

For many years Albano, the young Spanish Count Cesara, had lived within sight of the capital city of the state of Hohenfliess; yet he had never entered it--his mother, so his father told him, had shut it against him, desiring that he should be reared in the Carthusian monastery of rural life, not sullied in his youth by mingling with courtiers and men of the world.

And now the gates of Pestitz were open to him. Contemplate the heated face of my hero, who at last is riding into the streets, built up in his fancy of temples of the sun, where who knows but that at every long window, on every balcony, his beloved Liana may be standing?

Gaspard, Count Cesara, Knight of the Fleece, had met his son, for the first time in Albano's memory, at Lake Maggiore, and Albano had come away from the meeting with a feeling of chill that poisoned his heart, eager as it was to love and be loved, and a vague, discomposing sense that in his birth there was a mystery. But the thought of his father's coldness, all thoughts that troubled and confused, were forgotten on his entry into Pestitz, in the eager hope of seeing Liana, his beloved, and his friend, her brother, Charles Roquairol; for neither his beloved nor her brother had he ever yet in his life beheld.

The love and the friendship were of the imagination, and the imagination was begotten of the accounts given by Von Falterle, the accomplishments-master of Albano in the village of Blümenbuhl, and of his former pupil Liana, daughter of the Minister von Froulay. It was his wont to paste up long altar-pieces of Liana's charms, charms which her father had sought to enhance by means of delicate and almost meagre fare, by shutting up his orangery, whose window he seldom lifted off from this flower of a milder clime--until she had become a tender creature of pastil-dust, which the gusts of fate and monsoons of climate could almost blow to pieces. In Albano's silent heart, therefore, there was to be seen a saintly image of Liana, the ascending Raphael's Mary, but, like the pictures of the saints in Passion-week, hanging behind a veil.

And as for her brother, the madcap Roquairol, who in his thirteenth year had shot at himself with suicidal intent because the little Countess Linda de Romeiro, Albano's father's ward, had turned her back upon him, could our hero's admiration be withheld from a youth of his own age who already possessed all the accomplishments and had tasted all the passions?

When Albano entered Pestitz, eager that his dreams of love and friendship should be realised, the aged Prince of Hohenfliess had just departed this life, and Liana, intimate friend of the Princess Julienne, daughter of the dead prince, was smitten with temporary blindness, due to emotion and consequent headache. Albano first beheld her in the garden of her father, the minister, standing in the glimmer of the moon. The blest youth saw irradiated the young, open, still Mary's-brow, and the delicate proportions, which, like the white attire, seemed to exalt the form. Thou too fortunate man!--to whom the only visible goddess, Beauty, appears so suddenly, in her omnipotence!

Ah, why must a deep, cold cloud steal through this pure and lofty heaven?

The inauguration of the new prince was held--of the enfeebled Prince Luigi--upon whose expected speedy decease the neighbouring princely house of Haarkaar founded its hopes of acquiring the dominions of Hohenfliess. It was on the night of an inauguration ball that Albano, having poured out his heart to Roquairol in a letter, met his long-hoped-for friend, and sealed their affections by declaring that he would never wed Linda de Romeiro, whom it was thought Count Gaspard had designed for his son's bride, and for whom Roquairol's youthful passion had not been extinguished.

When Liana recovered her sight, she was sent to Blümenbuhl for restoration of health--to the home of Albano's foster-father, the provincial-director Wehrfritz. Thither often came Albano; thither also came Roquairol, to bask in the wondering admiration that Rabette, Albano's foster-sister, bestowed on him with all the fervour of her innocent rural mind. Albano's dream was fulfilled; he loved Liana in realty as he had loved her in imagination. Roquairol thought he loved Rabette; in truth, her simplicity was to this experienced conqueror of feminine hearts but a new and, for the moment, overmastering sensation.

On a glorious evening Albano and Liana stood on a sloping mountain-ridge; overhead was a heaven filled with a life-intoxicated, tumultuous creation, as the sun-god stalked away over his evening-world. He seized Liana's hands and pressed them wildly to his breast; flames and tears suffused his eyes and his cheeks, and he stammered, "Liana, I love thee!"

She stepped back, and drew her white veil over her face.

"Wouldst thou love the dead?" she said.

He knew her meaning. Her friend Caroline, whom she had loved and who had died, had appeared in a vision, and announced that she would die in the next year.

"The vision was not true!" cried Albano.

"Caroline, answer him!" Liana folded her hands as if in prayer; then she raised the veil, looked at him tenderly, and said, in a low tone, "I will love thee, good Albano, if I do not make thee miserable."

"I will die with thee!" said he.

Charles appeared with Rabette; he, also, had spoken frantic words of love, and Rabette clung around him compassionately, as a mother around her child.

A few more days of joyous life at Blümenbuhl, and Liana returned to her home at Pestitz. Then for weeks Albano saw nothing of her, heard nothing of her. Liana was in sore trouble. Her father had disapproved of the match; what mattered much more to her, her mother also. The mother's opposition was on the quite decisive ground that she could not endure Albano.

The Minister von Froulay had more specific reasons for his hostility-- the most specific of all being that he had designed his daughter for one Bouverot, a disreputable court intriguer, his leaning towards Bouverot being based on financial liabilities, and stimulated by financial expectations. The minister's lady detested Bouverot, but in desiring separation between Liana and Albano, she was her husband's ally. Behold, then, Liana torn between duty towards her mother and love for Albano.

Once Albano saw her, but heard no explanation. The prince was wedded to the Princess of Haarbaar, and it was at a wedding festivity in the grounds of the pleasure palace of Lilar that Albano looked upon his beloved. But she was pledged for the time to tell him nothing, and she told him nothing. The princess looked curiously at her, for Liana exactly resembled the princess's younger sister, the philanthropic Idoine, who devoted herself to the idyllic happiness of her peasantry in the Arcadian village that it was her whim to rule.

To the aged and saintly court chaplain, Spener, Liana at last brought her perplexities. Here the history moves in veils. How he extorted from her the promise to renounce her Albano for ever is a mystery watched and hidden by the Great Sphinx of the oath she swore to him.

On the next day Albano was summoned, and stood with quivering lips before the beloved.

"I am true to you--even unto death," she said; "but all is over."

He looked upon her, wild, wondering.

"I have resigned you," she said; "and my parents are not to blame. There is a mystery that has constrained me--"

"Oh, God!" he cried. "Is it thus with external fidelity and love?" In whirling, cruel passion he pictured his love, her coldness, his pain, her violated oath.

"I did not think thou wert so hard," she said. "Oh, it grows dark to me; let me to my mother!"

Albano gazed into the groping, timid face, and guessed all--her blindness had returned!

The mother rushed up. "May God bring you retribution for this!" cried Albano to her. "Farewell, unhappy Liana!"

For many days Albano lived without love or hope, in bitter self-reproach; every recollection darted into him a scorpion-sting. And to him in his agony came the tormenting news that the fickle Roquairol had deserted Rabette. He drove the false one from his presence; sister and brother, beloved and friend, were now utterly lost to him.

At length he learned that Liana had recovered her sight, and that she was dying. Once more, for the last time, he was admitted to her presence. She reclined in an easy-chair, white-clad, with white, sunken cheeks.

"Welcome, Albano!" she said feebly, but with the old smile. "Some day thou wilt know why I parted from thee. On this, my dying day, I tell thee my heart has been true to thee." She handed him a sheet with a sketch she had made with trembling hand of the noble head of Linda de Romeiro. "It is my last wish that them shouldst love her," she said. "She is more worthy of thee."

"Ah, forgive, forgive!" sobbed Albano.

"Farewell, beloved!" she said calmly, while her feeble hand pressed his. For a while she was silent. Suddenly she said, with a low tone of gladness, "Caroline! Here, here, Caroline! How beautiful thou art!" Liana's fingers ceased to play; she lay peaceful and smiling, but dead.

_II.--Linda De Romeiro_

Albano's state for a long time was one of fever. He lay dressed in bed, unable to walk, in a burning heat, talking wildly, and as each hour struck on the clock, springing up to kneel down and utter the prayer, "Liana, appear, and give me peace!" to the high, shut-up heavens.

"Poor brother!" said Schoppe the librarian, his old preceptor and dear friend. "I swear to thee thou shalt get thy peace to-day."

He went to Linda de Romeiro, now in Pestitz after long wandering, and placed his design before her. Would the Princess Idoine, Liana's likeness, appear before Albano as a vision and give him peace? Linda consented to plead with Idoine. But Idoine made a difficulty. It was not the unusualness and impropriety of the thing that she dreaded, but the untruthfulness and unworthiness of playing false with the holy name of a departed soul, and cheating a sick man with a superficial similarity.

At length Idoine gave her decision. "If a human life hangs upon this, I must conquer my feeling."

As eight o'clock struck, Albano knelt in the dusk, crying, "Peace, peace!"

Idoine trembled as she heard him; but she entered, clothed in white, the image of the dead Liana.

"Albano, have peace!" she said, in a low and faltering tone.

"Liana!" he groaned, weeping.

"Peace!" cried she more strongly, and vanished.

"I have my peace now, good Schoppe," said Albano softly, "and now I will sleep."

Time gradually unfolded Albano's grief instead of weakening it. His life had become a night, in which the moon is under the earth, and he could not believe that Luna would gradually return with an increasing bow of light. Not joys, but only actions--those remote stars of night--were now his aim. As he travelled with his father in Italy after his recovery, the news of the French Revolution gave an object to his eagerness.

"Take here my word," he wrote to Schoppe, "that as soon as the probable war of Gallic freedom breaks out I take my part decidedly in it, for it."

But at Ischia, Albano was dazzled by a wonder; he saw Linda de Romeiro. When she raised her veil, beauty and brightness streamed out of a rising sun; delicate, maidenly colours, lovely lines and sweet fullness of youth played like a flower garland about the brow of a goddess, with soft blossoms around the holy seriousness and mighty will on brow and lip, and around the dark glow of the large eye.

As Albano and Linda walked on the mountain Epomeo, looking upon the coasts and promontories of that rare region, upon cities and sea, upon Vesuvius without flame or thunder, white with sand or snow, Albano's heart was an asbestos leaf written over and cast into the fire--burning, not consuming; his whole former life went out, the leaf shone fiery and pure for Linda's hand. He gazed into her face lovingly and serenely as a sun-god in morning redness, and pressed her hands. "Give them to me for ever!" said he earnestly.

She inclined modestly her beautiful head upon his breast, but immediately raised it again, with its large, moist eyes, and said hurriedly, "Go now! Early to-morrow come, Albano! Adio! Adio!"

Count Gaspard bestowed his paternal consent on the union, and the lovers returned separately to Hohenfliess. A difference arose; Albano was still bent on warring for France, Linda sought to dissuade him. They quarrelled, and parted in anger.

On the day after the quarrel Linda received a letter in Albano's handwriting begging forgiveness, and asking for a meeting in the gardens of Lilar. She went there at the appointed evening hour, although, owing to the night-blindness from which, like many Spaniards, she often suffered, she could not see her lover. But she kissed him, and heard his burning words of love.

But Albano had not written, and had not entered Lilar. Roquairol's old passion for Linda was undiminished; his rage at Albano was beyond bounds. He could mimic Albano's writing and voice; he knew of Linda's night-blindness. On the next night, in the presence of Albano and Linda, he slew himself with his own hand.

The death of Roquairol lay like a blight between the lovers. They parted for ever.

_III.--Idoine_

"War!" This word alone gave Albano peace. He made himself ready for a journey to France, and ere he set forth he sought out the little spot of earth, beneath a linden-tree, where reposed the gentle Liana, the friendly, lovely angel of peace.

Suddenly, with a shudder, he beheld the white form of Liana herself leaning against the linden. He believed some dream had drawn down the airy image from heaven, and he expected to see it pass away. It lingered, though quiet and mute. Kneeling down, he exclaimed, "Apparition, comest thou from God? Art thou Liana?"

Quickly the white form looked round, and saw the youth. She rose slowly, and said, "My name is Idoine. I am innocent of the cruel deception, most unhappy youth." Then he covered his eyes, from a sudden, sharp pang at the return of the cold, heavy reality. Thereupon he looked at her again, and his whole being trembled at her glorified resemblance to the departed--prouder and taller her stature, paler her complexion, more thoughtful the maidenly brow. She could not, when he looked upon her so silently and comparingly, repress her sympathy; she wept, and he too.

"Do I, too, distress you?" said he, in the highest emotion.

"I only weep," she innocently said, "that I am not Liana."

"Noble princess," he replied, "this holy spot takes away all sense of mutual strangeness. Idoine, I know that you once gave me peace, and here I thank you."

"I did it," she said, "without knowing you, and therefore could allow myself the use of a fleeting resemblance."

He looked at her sharply; everything within him loved her, and his whole heart, opened by wounds, was unfolded to the still soul. But a stern spirit closed it. "Unhappy one, love no one again; for a dark, destroying angel goes with poisoned sword behind thy love."

Idoine turned to go. He knelt, pressed her hand to his bosom, and only said, "Peace, all-gracious one!" Idoine, after a few swift steps, passed out of his sight.

Albano hastened preparations for his journey; but ere the preparations were ended, a letter was brought to him that caused him to abandon the project altogether. It was a letter from the long-dead Princess Eleonore, wife of the old prince who had died when Albano had first entered Pestitz. Now, in the fullness of time, was the letter placed before Albano's eyes and the token of the fullness of time was the death, without issue, of Prince Luigi, and the seeming inheritance of his dominions by the House of Haarkaar.

Thus the letter began:

"My son,--Hear thine own history from the mouth of thy mother; from no other will it come to thee more acceptably.

"The birth of thy brother Luigi at a late period of our married life annihilated the hopes of succession of the house of Haarkaar. But Count Cesara discovered proofs of some dark actions which were to cost thy poor brother his life. 'They will surely get the better of us at last,' said thy father.

"Madame Cesara and I loved each other; we were both of romantic spirit. She had just borne a lovely daughter, called Linda. We made the singular contract that, if I bore a son, we would exchange; with her, my son could grow up without incurring the danger which had always threatened thy brother in my house.

"Soon afterwards I brought forth thee and thy sister Julienne at a birth. 'I keep' I said, to the countess, 'my daughter, thou keepest thine; as to Albano, let the prince decide.' Thy father allowed that thou shouldst be brought up as son of the count. The documents of thy genealogy were thrice made out, and I, the count, and the court chaplain Spener, were put in possession of them. The Countess Cesara went off with Linda to Valencia, and took the name Romeiro. By this change of names all would be covered up as it now stands.

"Ah, I shall not live to be permitted openly to clasp thy son in my arms! May it go well with thee, dearest child! God guide all our weak expedients for the best.

"Thy faithful mother,

"ELEONORE"

Albano stood for a long time speechless. Joy of life, new powers and plans, delight in the prospect of the throne, the images of new relations, and displeasure at the past, stormed through each other in his spirit.

He went out, and in the twilight stood upon the mountains, whence he could overlook, but with other eyes than once, the city which was to be the circus and theatre of his powers. He belongs now to a German house, the people around him are his kinsmen; the prefiguring ideals, which he had once sketched to himself at the coronation of his brother, of the warm rays wherewith a prince as a constellation can enlighten and enrich lands, were now put into his hands for fulfilment. His pious father, still blessed by the grandchildren of the country, pointed to him the pure sun-track of his princely duty: only actions give life strength, only moderation gives it a charm.

He descended to Blümenbuhl. The funeral bell of the little church of Blümenbuhl tolled for Luigi. Albano joined his sister Julienne, and they betook themselves with Idoine and Rabette to the church. At the bright altar was the venerable Spener; the long coffin of the brother stood before the altar between rows of lights. Here, near such altar-lights, had once the oppressed Liana knelt while swearing the renunciation of her love. The whole constellation of Albano's shining past had gone down below the horizon, and only one bright star of all the group stood glimmering still above the earth--Idoine.

After the solemn service, Idoine addressed herself to him oftener; her sweet voice was more tender, though more tremulous; her maidenly shyness of the resemblance to Liana seemed conquered or forgotten. Her existence had decided itself within her, and on her virgin love, as on a spring soil by one warm evening rain, all buds had been opened into bloom.

"How many a time, Albano," said Julienne, "hast thou here, in thy long-left youthful years, looked toward the mountains for thine own ones--for thy hidden parents, and brothers and sisters--for thou hadst always a good heart!"

Here Idoine unconsciously looked at him with inexpressible love, and his eyes met hers.

"Idoine," said he, "I have that heart still; it is unhappy, but unstained."

Then Idoine hid herself quickly and passionately in Julienne's bosom, and said, scarcely audibly, "Julienne, if Albano rightly knows me, then be my sister!"

"I do know thee, holy being!" said Albano, and clasped his bride to his bosom.

"Look up at the fair heaven!" cried Julienne. "The rainbow of eternal peace blooms there, and the tempests are over, and the world's all so bright and green. Wake up, my brother and sister!"

* * * * *

PETER ROSEGGER

The Papers of the Forest Schoolmaster

In Austrian literature the "story in dialect" is a modern
development. Its founder and most distinguished exponent is
Peter Kettenfeier Rosegger, who was born at Alpel, near
Krieglach, on July 31, 1843, and who has spent his lifetime
among the people of the Styrian Alps. Mr. Rosegger first
attracted attention in 1875 with a volume of short stories,
bearing the general title of "Schriften des
Waldschulmeisters," or "Papers of the Forest Schoolmaster,"
and since then he has written a large number of similar tales,
all more or less sentimental in tone, and all dealing with
certain aspects of peasant life. "The Papers of the Forest
Schoolmaster," which takes the form of a diary, is not only
one of the most winsome idylls that has come from Herr
Rosegger's pen, but it exhibits a delicacy of touch, a keen
penetration into the mysteries of human life, and a deep
insight into nature in her various moods; and under all there
is a strong current of romance and a great sense of the poetry
of things--qualities that have made its author one of the
foremost prose poets in recent German literature.

Mist and rain made it impossible for me to ascend the "Grey Tooth" for some days after I had arrived at Winkelsteg, the highest village in the remotest valley, and I was temporarily lodged in the schoolhouse, which had been deserted since the schoolmaster, who--so I was told--had lived in this out-of-the-way corner for fifty years, had disappeared last Christmas. The whole next day the rain continued to beat against the window. There was nothing to be done, and I spent my time in arranging the scattered but numbered sheets of the vanished schoolmaster's manuscript, which I found littered in the drawer allotted to me for my scant belongings. And then I began to read that strange man's diary, the first page of which only bore the words:

_The Papers of the Forest Schoolmaster_

So I am at last settled in this wilderness. And I will write it all down, although I know not for whom. My father died when I was seven, and I was taken charge of by an itinerant umbrella-maker who taught me his trade, and on his death left me his stock of some two dozen umbrellas, which I took to the market. A heavy shower just at midday helped me to sell them rapidly, and I only retained one for my own protection and for that of an elegant gentleman who, unable to secure a carriage, made me accompany him to town to save him from getting drenched. He made me tell him all about myself, and offered to take me as apprentice in his bookshop. He was a kind master. When he discovered' that I was more interested in the contents of his books than in my work he secured me admission in a college. I studied hard, and obtained my meals at the houses of private pupils whom I undertook to coach. My friend Henry, a clothmaker's son, had procured me a post as teacher to Hermann, the son of the Baron von Schrankenheim. I was treated with every consideration in his house, and became deeply attached to my pupil's sister. Of course, the case was hopeless then; but in a few years, when I should have passed my examinations and taken my degrees--who knows?

An indiscreet speech, which offended my teachers, made an end to all my dreams. I was ploughed, and I resolved at once to leave the town, and to seek my fortune in the world. I first enlisted with Andreas Hofer to fight the French invaders, and was carried off a prisoner into France. Then only I learnt that the Tyrolese were rebels against their own emperor, that I had fought for a bad cause; and to atone for it I took service with the great Napoleon's army. I was among those who escaped from the Russian disaster, and, in my enthusiasm for Napoleon, whom I regarded as the liberator of the peoples, fought for him against my own country. At Leipzig I shot Henry, my best friend, whom I only recognised when in his agony he called me by my name. Then only my eyes were opened. Failure had dogged my every step. A hermit's life in the wilderness was all that was left for me. This resolve I communicated to the Baron von Schrankenheim, who, after vain attempts to dissuade me from my purpose, spoke to me of this wilderness, his property, where I could do real good among the rough wood-cutters, poachers, shepherds and charcoal-burners, who, cut off from the rest of the world, eked out their existence without priest or doctor or schoolmaster. Winkelsteg was to be my hermitage; and now I am here, a schoolmaster without a school. I shall have to study these rough folk and gain their confidence before I can set to work.

_The Forest Folk_

Strange trades are carried on in this wilderness. These people literally dig their bread out of earth and stone and ant-heaps, scrape it off the trees, distill it out of uneatable fruit. There is the root-digger, whose booty of mountain ovens is said to go to far Turkey to be turned into scent. He would long have given up digging, to live entirely on poaching, but for his hope to unearth some day treasure of gold and jewels. One of these "forest-devils" has just died. He never worked at all. His profession was eating. He went from village to village and from fair to fair, eating cloth and leather, nails, glass, stones, to the amazement of his audience. He died from eating a poisonous root given him by some unknown digger--they say it was the devil himself. His funeral oration was delivered by a pale, bent, quiet man, known as the Solitary, of whose life nobody can give one any information.

Then there is the pitch-boiler. You can smell him from afar, and see him glitter through the thicket. His pitch-oil is bought by the wood-cutter for his wounds, by the charcoal-burner for his burns, by the carter for his horse, by the brandy-distiller for his casks. It is a remedy for all ailments. The most dangerous of all the forest-devils is the brandy-distiller. He is better dressed than the others, has a kind word for everybody, and plays the tempter with but too great success.

Black Matthias is dying in his miserable hut. His little boy and girl are playing around him, and his wife bids them be silent. "Let them shout," says Matthias; "but try and keep down Lazarus' temper." On his death-bed Matthias told me the story of his life--how he, a jolly, happy fellow, fell into the recruiting-officers' trap, escaped from their clutches, was betrayed by his own village people, and flogged through the line, and how they rubbed vinegar and salt into his wounded back; how he escaped from the battlefield and found refuge in this wilderness--a changed man, quarrelsome, with an uncontrollable temper, which led him into many a brawl; and how, under great provocation, he had stabbed a wood-burner at the inn, and had been beaten within an inch of his life by the wood-cutters. His life was now ebbing away fast, and he had good reason to fear that his uncontrollable temper would live in his son. Hence his exhortation to his wife. Black Matthias died a few hours after he had told me of his sad life.

And so I get to know them all, and make friends with them all, especially with the children, and with the shepherd lad Berthold and the poor milkmaid Aga. There was a wedding down at Heldenichlag, where they have a parish church, and dancing and merrymaking at the inn all night. Next morning Berthold went to the priest. He wanted to marry Aga, but the priest told him he was too young, too poor; he could come back again in ten years! The poor lad is left speechless and does not know how to explain _why_ he wants to be united for ever with his Aga. Sadly he leaves the room, but out in the open air his spirit returns to him. On the second day of the wedding feast there was no holding him. He was the wildest and merriest of the lot. In the afternoon we all returned to Winkelsteg in the forest.

1815.

I know I must begin with a church. And at last I have obtained the baron's consent. I have designed the plan myself--it must be large enough to hold all who are in need of comfort here, and bright and cheerful, for there is darkness enough in the forest. And the steeple must be slender like a finger pointing heavenwards. Three bells there must be to announce the Trinity of God in one Person, and to sing the song of faith, hope, and love. And an organ there must be, but no pictures and gilding and show.

_Autumn_, 1816.

I have been taking a census. How very limited is their range of names. They have no family names, and only some half dozen Christian names! This must be altered. I must invent names for them, according to their occupation or dwelling or character: Sepp Woodcutter, Hiesel Springhutter, and so forth. They like their new names; only Berthold gets angry and refuses to take a name. "A name for me? I want no name; I am nobody. The priest won't let me marry. Call me Berthold Misery, or call me Satan!"

_May_, 1817.

I have been ill--the result of being snowed up on the way home from a visit to a forester who had been wounded by a poacher. The danger is over now, but my eyes continue to suffer. The forest folk have been very good to me, and much concerned about my progress. And now I am able to go out again. To-day I was watching a spider in the thicket, when I saw Aga rushing towards me. "Ah, it's you!" she cried. "You must help us. We want to live in honour and decency. The priest won't marry us. You can ask for our blessing." The next moment Berthold had joined her and they were kneeling before me. And I pronounced the words which I had no right to pronounce. I married them in the heart of the green forest.

_St. James's Day_, 1817.

Matthias's widow is in despair. Lazarus has disappeared. In a fit of temper he threw a stone at her, then gave a wild yell and rushed away. "It was a _small_ stone, but there is a heavy stone upon my heart," laments the mother; "his running away is the biggest stone he could have thrown."

_St. Catherine's Day_, 1817.

Lazarus' sister found a letter pinned on to a stick on her father's grave, which she often visits. It was from her brother, and told them not to worry--he is "in the school of the Cross." And then there was another letter to say that he was well, and thinking of them all. They answered, imploring him to return, and fixed the note and a little cross on the tomb. It is still there, and has never been opened.

_March_, 1818.

Berthold is gone among the wood-cutters, and has got his hut. A little girl was born to Aga yesterday, and I was sent for to baptise it. I am no priest, and must not steal a name from the calendar. So I called her Forest Lily, and baptised her with the water of the priest.

_Summer_, 1818.

The first Sunday in these forests! The church is finished, and the bells have summoned the people from the whole neighbourhood. The priest has come from Heldenichlag to dedicate the church, and the schoolmaster to play the organ. But some of the folk grumble because there is no inn by the church; and I hear that the _grassteiger_ has applied for a spirit license. This is the shadow of the church!

In the evening, as I went back to the church, I saw a youth, apparently at prayer, who took to his heels the moment he found he was discovered. I caught him up and recognised. Lazarus! But I could not get a word out of him. I rang the church bells, and soon the lad was surrounded by the astonished villagers. He only murmured, "Paulus, Paulus!" and refused to take the proffered food, though he looked half starved. I took him back to his mother the same evening.

_December_, 1818.

Lazarus must have been through a miraculous school. He has completely lost his evil temper, but he refuses to speak clearly of his life during the past year, though he mumbles of a rock-cave, a good dark man, of penance, and of a crucifix. We have no priest. I have to look after the church, ring the bells, play the organ, sing and conduct prayer on Sundays. I hear bad news of Hermann, my old pupil. He is said to be leading a wild life in the capital. I cannot believe it.

_Summer_, 1819.

And now we have a priest--as strange and mysterious as the altar crucifix which I had taken to the church from the rock valley. On the last day of the hay-month, when I entered the church to ring the bells, I found "the Solitary" reading mass on the highest step of the altar. I asked for an explanation, and he answered with a rusty voice that he would tell me all next Saturday at a desolate place he appointed in the forest.

The Solitary has told me the whole sad story of his life. He was born in a palace, and had been rocked in a golden cradle. He had drained the cup of pleasure to the very dregs, and then, prompted by his tutor, had joined a religious order, taken the binding vow, and renounced his fortune to the order. A girl, whom he had known before, implored him not to leave her and her child in distress. It was too late--he was now penniless and irrevocably bound. She drowned herself and haunted his dreams, even after he had become a priest under the name of Paulus. Blind obedience was exacted from him by his order, and when he refused to betray a king's confession he was sent as missionary to India. After his return he became a zealot, exacting severe penance from sinners, and through his severity driving a man to suicide. In his remorse he, too, had sought refuge in this wilderness, where no one knew him, and where one day he found Lazarus, took him to his cave, and taught him to tame his quick temper. I had always thought the first pastor at Winkelsteg should be a repentant sinner, and not a just man. We have now our priest.

_Winter_, 1830.

For more than ten years I have neglected my diary, partly because I was no longer alone, but had a friend and companion in "the Solitary," partly because I was busy with the building of the schoolhouse. I have my own ideas on education. The child is a book in which we read, and into which we ought to write. They ought to hear of nought but the beautiful, the good, the great. They ought to learn patriotism--not the patriotism which makes them die, but that which makes them live for their country.

Berthold has become a poacher. I have already had to intercede for him with the gamekeeper. Then, one winter's night, Forest Lily, his daughter, was sent out to beg some milk for the babies. Snow fell heavily, and she did not return. For three days they searched, and finally found her huddled up with a whole herd of deer in a snow-covered thicket of dry branches--kept alive by the animals' warmth and the pot of milk she was taking home. When Berthold heard that the forest animals had saved his child, he smashed his gun against a rock, and shouted, "Never again! never again!"

_Carnival Time_, 1832.

In the parsonage lies a farm-hand with a broken jaw. Drink and quarrel and fight--it is ever the same. The priest has warned them often enough. He has called the brandy-distiller a poison-brewer, and a few days ago the distiller came to the parsonage, armed with a heavy stick. He poured out his complaints. The priest was spoiling his honest business. What was he to do? He took up a threatening attitude. "So you have come at last," said Father Paulus; "I was going to come to you. So you won't give them any more spirits--you are a benefactor of the community! I quite agree with you. You will prepare medicines and oils and ointments from the roots and resin? I'll help you, and in a few years you will be a well-to-do man."

The distiller was speechless. He had said nothing of the sort, but it all seemed so reasonable to him. He grumbled a few words, stumbled across the threshold, and threw his stick away as far as it would fly.

_March 22_, 1832.

Our priest died to-day.

I can scarcely believe it. But there is no knocking at the window as I pass the parsonage--no friendly face smiling at me. And I can scarcely believe that he has gone.

_Ascension Day_, 1835.

A few days ago I had a letter from my former pupil, our present master. He was ill, tired of the world, and wanted to find peace and rest in the mountains. He remembered his old teacher, and asked me to be his guide. I went to meet him, and he behaved so strangely that I thought I was walking with a madman. On the second day he seemed better. He wanted to ascend at once the highest peak, known as the "Grey Tooth." And as we passed the dark mountain lake, we saw a beautiful young woman bathing. She looked like a water-nymph. But when she saw us she disappeared under the water, and did not show herself again. Was she drowning herself from very modesty? I pulled her out of the water, we dressed her; then fear gave her strength, she jumped up and ran away. It was my "Forest Lily."

Hermann no longer insisted on climbing the mountain. He came with me to Winkelsteg, remained three days, made Berthold gamekeeper, and arranged that he should forthwith marry Aga in our church. Before he left he said to me: "She thought more of her maidenhood than of her life. I never knew there were such women. This is a new world for me--I, too, belong to the forest. I entrust her to you--teach her if she wants to learn, and take care of her. And keep the secret If I can be cured, I shall return."

_Summer_, 1837.

It has come to pass. Schrankenheim has broken through class prejudice. Two days ago he was married to Forest Lily in our church. They have left us, and have gone to the beautiful city of Salzburg.