Gold Elsie
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Title: Gold Elsie
Creator: E. Marlitt
Translator: A. L. Wister
Release date: March 28, 2013 [eBook #42426]
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/42426
Credits: Produced by Al Haines
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GOLD ELSIE ***
Produced by Al Haines.
GOLD ELSIE
FROM THE GERMAN
OF
E. MARLITT
AUTHOR OF "THE OLD MAM'SELLE'S SECRET."
BY
MRS. A. L. WISTER.
PHILADELPHIA:
J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO.
1868.
Entered, according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1868, by
J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO.,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States in and
for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
GOLD ELSIE
CHAPTER I.
It had been snowing all day long,--so steadily that the roofs and
window-sills were covered deep with spotless white cushions. And now
the early twilight fell, bringing with it a wild gust of wind that raged
among the falling snow-flakes like some bird of prey among a flock of
peaceful doves.
Although the weather was such that the comfort-loving inhabitants of any
small town would hardly have sent their dogs out of doors, not to
mention venturing their own worthy persons, yet there was little
difference to be seen in the size of the crowd that usually frequents
the streets of the large Capital, B----, between the hours of six and
seven in the evening. The gas lamps were an excellent substitute for
those heavenly lights which would not make their appearance. Carriages
were whirling around corners in such tempestuous haste that many a
pedestrian rescued life and limb only by a sudden leap aside, while
curses both loud and deep were hurled after the coachmen enveloped in
their comfortable furs, and the elegant coaches which contained behind
their glass doors charmingly dressed women, whose lovely flower-crowned
heads, as they peeped from among masses of muslin and tulle, certainly
had no suspicion of the fire and brimstone called down upon them. In
the warm atmosphere, behind the huge shop windows, elaborately curled
and frizzed wax heads, surrounded by blond and black scalps, stared out
upon the passers-by. Smiling shopmen displayed their fascinating
merchandise, and withered old flower-sellers stood among their
fresh-blooming bouquets, which exhaled beauty and fragrance beneath the
light of the lamps that shed a brilliant glare upon the slippery
pavement and upon the flood of human life streaming by, revealing the
pinched, blue features and the desperately uncomfortable movements of
all, old and young.
But stay,--not of all! A female figure has just entered one of the
principal streets from a narrow by-way. A small threadbare cloak
closely envelopes her slender form, and a worn old muff is pressed
against her breast, confining the ends of a black lace veil, behind
which two girlish eyes are glowing with the sunlight of early youth.
They look out joyously into the whistling snow-storm, rest lovingly upon
the half-open rosebuds and dark purple violets behind the glass panes of
the shop windows, and only veil their light beneath their long dark
lashes when sharp hail-stones mingle with the driving snow-flakes.
Whoever has listened while childish fingers, or sometimes fingers no
longer childish, confidently begin upon the piano a well-known melody,
which goes bravely on for a few bars, then is arrested by a frightful
discord followed by a wild grasping after every key on the instrument
except the correct ones, while the patient teacher sits by, ceasing to
attempt to evoke order out of chaos by the usual steady marking of the
time, wearily waiting until the panting melody is seized again and
carried on with lightning rapidity through several easy bars as over
some level plain,--whoever has thus had his ears stretched upon the
rack, can understand the delight with which this young girl, who has
just given two music lessons in a large school, offers her hot cheek to
the wind as to an energetic comrade, whose mighty roar can breathe
wondrous melodies through the pipes of an organ or over the strings of
an AEolian harp.
Thus she passes lightly and swiftly through the storm and crowd; and I
do not for an instant doubt that if I should present her now upon this
slippery pavement to the gentle reader as Fraeulein Elizabeth Ferber,
she would with a lovely smile make him as graceful a courtesy as though
they both stood in a ball-room. But this introduction cannot take
place,--and we really do not need it, for I forthwith intend to relate
to the reader my heroine's antecedents.
Baron Wolf von Gnadewitz was the last scion of a famous house whose
remote ancestry could be traced back into the dubious twilight which
even preceded that golden age when the travelling merchant, journeying
through some sequestered pass, was forced to surrender his costly stuffs
and wares to a knightly banner and shining steel-clad troup of retainers
as often as to the buff-coated highway adventurer. From those
illustrious times there had been handed down, in the crest of the
Gnadewitzes a wheel, upon which one of these same noble ancestors had
breathed out his knightly soul in consequence of having spilt rather too
much ignoble trading-blood in one of the above-mentioned assaults upon
his merchant prey.
Baron von Gnadewitz, the last of his race, was chamberlain in the
service of the Prince Royal of X----, and possessor of various orders
and large estates, as well as of those peculiarities of character and
disposition which were, in his estimation, befitting the high-born, and
which he was accustomed to designate as "distinguished," because all
common men, bound by work-a-day moral considerations, and compelled by
the stern necessities of life, lose all taste for the inimitable grace
and elegance of vice.
Baron Wolf von Gnadewitz was as fond of pomp and show as his
grandfather, who had forsaken the old castle Gnadeck upon a mountain in
Thuringia, the cradle of his line, and had built him in the valley below
a perfect fairy palace in the Italian style. The grandson allowed the
old castle to fall into decay, while he enlarged and improved the modern
mansion considerably. Yes, it seemed as though he entertained not the
smallest doubt but that his latest descendant would be found occupying
this favourite palace at the day of judgment, for the old castle was
quite dismantled in order that the vast chambers of the new abode might
be thoroughly furnished. But he reckoned without his host. Wolf von
Gnadewitz had a son, 'tis true,--a son who, at twenty years of age, was
so complete and thorough a Gnadewitz that the illustrious image of his
ancestor who had perished upon the wheel paled before him. This
promising youth one day, upon the occasion of the great autumn hunt in
the forest, struck one of his whippers-in a fearful blow upon the head
with the loaded handle of his hunting-whip--a fearful blow, but a
perfectly just punishment, as every one of the guests invited to the
hunt declared, for the man had stepped upon the paw of a favourite hound
so clumsily as to render the animal entirely useless for a whole day.
And thus it happened that, a short time afterward, Hans von Gnadewitz
was to be found not only upon the boughs of the genealogical tree in the
hall of the new castle, but suspended by a rope around his neck to a
bough of one of the actual trees in the forest. The beaten whipper-in
expiated the deed upon the scaffold, but that could not bring the last
of the Gnadewitzes to life again, for he was dead,--irrevocably dead,
the physicians said; and the long tale of robber-knights, wild excesses,
hunting orgies, and horse-racing came to an end.
After this terrible catastrophe, Wolf von Gnadewitz left the castle in
the valley, and indeed that part of the country, and dwelt upon one of
his many estates in Silesia. He took into his house to nurse him a
young female relative, the last survivor of one of the collateral
branches of his house. This young relative proved to be a girl of
angelic beauty, at sight of whom the old baron entirely forgot the
object for which he had invited her beneath his roof, and at last
determined to clothe his sixty years in a wedding-garment. To his
exceeding indignation, however, he now learned that there might come a
time, even to a Gnadewitz, when he could no longer be regarded as a
desirable _parti_, and he fell into a violent rage when his young
relative confessed that, in utter forgetfulness of her lofty lineage,
she had given her heart to a bourgeois officer, the son of one of his
foresters.
The young man possessed no worldly gear, only his sword and a remarkably
fine manly person; but he was rich in mind, accomplished, amiable in
disposition, and of stainless character. When Wolf von Gnadewitz, in
consequence of Marie's confession, turned her from his doors, young
Ferber carried her home with delight as his wife, and for the first ten
years of their married life would not have exchanged his lot with that
of any king on earth. Still less would he have made such an exchange in
the eleventh year, for that was the eventful 1848; but with it came
fierce struggles for him, and an entire alteration in his circumstances.
He was obliged to decide between two duties. One had been inculcated
while he was in his cradle by his father, and ran thus: "Love your
neighbour, and especially your German brother, as yourself;" the other,
which he had in later years imposed upon himself, commanded him to draw
the sword in his master's interest. In this strife the teachings of his
childhood conquered entirely. Ferber refused to draw the sword upon his
brethren; but his refusal cost him his commission, and with it all
assured means of subsistence. He retired from the army, and soon
afterward, in consequence of a severe cold, was stretched upon a
sick-bed, which he left only after years of disheartening weakness. He
then moved with his family to B----, where he obtained quite a lucrative
situation as bookkeeper in an extensive mercantile establishment. It
was high time, for his wife's small property had been lost shortly
before by the failure of a bank, and the remittances of money which came
to the distressed family from time to time from Ferber's elder and only
brother, a forester in Thuringia, were all that kept them from extreme
poverty.
Unluckily this good fortune was of short duration. Ferber's chief was a
pietist of the most severe description, and spared no one in his zeal
for proselytism. His efforts to convert Ferber to his own narrow dogmas
were met by such quiet but decided resistance, that the pious spirit of
the saintly Herr Hagen was seized with holy horror. Remorse at the
thought of affording protection and subsistence to such an avowed
free-thinker, gave him no peace by night or by day, until he had freed
himself from such a burden of guilt, by a note of dismissal, which
banished the tainted sheep from his fold.
About the same time Wolf von Gnadewitz went home to his ancestors, and
as during his earthly career he had strictly conformed to the Gnadewitz
custom of leaving no insult, fancied or otherwise: unavenged, no
worthier conclusion to his life could be found than the will which he
drew up with his own hands shortly before he descended into the narrow
chamber of lead which was to contain for all futurity his noble bones.
This manly document, which constituted sole heir to his large estates a
distant relative of his wife's, concluded with the following codicil:
"In consideration of the undeniable claim which she has upon my
property, I bequeath to Anna Marie Ferber, born von Gnadewitz, the
castle of Gnadeck in the mountains in Thuringia. Anna Marie Ferber will
understand my benevolent intention in her behalf in leaving to her a
mansion crowded with memories of the noble race to which she once
belonged. In full remembrance and consideration of the good fortune and
many blessings which have always hovered above this ancient pile, I hold
it entirely superfluous to increase my legacy further. But if Anna Marie
Ferber, blind to the value of my gift, should wish to sell or exchange
it in any way, her right to it must be abdicated in favour of the orphan
asylum of L----."
And thus, with the utterance of a biting satire, Wolf von Gnadewitz
betook himself to his funeral bed of state. Ferber and his wife had
indeed never seen the old castle, but it was notoriously a crumbling
heap of ruins, which the hand of improvement had not touched for fifty
years, and which, when the modern abode in the valley was completed, had
been stripped of furniture, tapestries, and, in the case of the main
building, even of the metallic roofing.
Since that time the ponderous oaken door of the principal entrance had
remained closed, and the dusty, rusty bolts and bars had never once been
withdrawn. The huge forest trees which were growing before it spread
abroad their mighty branches, and drooped them among the thick brushwood
at their feet, so that the deserted castle lay behind the green
impenetrable wall like a coffined mummy.
The lucky heir, who was greatly annoyed by seeing so large a part of his
woodland possessions in stranger hands, would gladly have purchased the
old castle at a high price, but the cunning clause at the conclusion of
the codicil forbade any such transaction.
Frau Ferber laid the copy of the will which had been sent her, and upon
which there dropped from her eyes a few tears of regret, upon her
husband's desk, and then took up her work,--some delicate
embroidery,--with redoubled, almost feverish industry. In spite of his
exertions Ferber had been unable to procure another situation, and was
now doing his best to maintain his family by translating, a labour but
poorly paid, and even by copying law papers, while his wife eked out
their scanty means by the proceeds of her needle, which she plied night
and day.
But dark as were the heavens above the struggling pair, one star rose
quietly among the black clouds and seemed not unlikely to indemnify them
by its radiance for all the storms with which fickle fortune had
overwhelmed them. A presentiment of this gentle light which was to beam
upon his gloomy path possessed Ferber when he stood for the first time
beside the cradle of his first-born, a daughter, and gazed into the
lovely eyes which smiled upon him from the baby face. All Frau Ferber's
friends had been unanimously of opinion that the little girl was a
charming creature, a wonderfully gifted child; indeed, they had declared
it did not look in the least like an ordinary baby, did not appear to
belong to the class of miserable little wretches, who, red as lobsters,
seem determined to scream their way through the world; but,--here they
had broken off; and it was intimated that were it not for fear of the
sneers of their liege lords, and the utterly prosaic tendencies of the
nineteenth century, they should certainly suspect that some benevolent
fairy had been at work in this case.
They contended as to who should be so far favoured as to hold the little
creature at the baptismal font, and should show the deepest tenderness
for the little god-daughter, declaring that the day of her baptism could
never be effaced from their remembrance; but this demand upon their
memories was altogether too great, for when Ferber fell into
difficulties, selfishness passed its finger over the recorded day, and
no trace of it remained in their minds.
This change, which little Elizabeth experienced in the ninth year of her
existence, disturbed her not at all. Her probable fairy protectress
had, in addition to other rich gifts, endowed her in her cradle with an
invincible joyousness of temperament and great force of will; so she
took from her mother's hand her scanty evening meal as gratefully and
gaily as she had once received the inexhaustible delicacies presented to
her by admiring god-parents; and when on Christmas-eve the room was
adorned only by a poor little Christmas-tree hung with a few apples and
gilded nuts, the child did not seem to remember the time when friends
had crowded around to deck its boughs with all imaginable toys.
Ferber educated his daughter himself. She never attended a school of
any kind, an omission in her training which cannot, unfortunately, in
the present age, be regarded as anything but an advantage, when we see
how many young girls leave school with far more knowledge upon some
subjects than is at all desirable or pleasing to the anxious mother, who
strives at home to preserve unsoiled her child's purity of mind and
heart, and often does not dream how her tender care is made of no avail
by the taint which one impure nature in the school will communicate, and
which may perhaps colour an entire after-life.
Elizabeth's pliant mind was finely developed beneath the control of her
gifted parents. Thoroughly to understand the study which occupied her,
and to appropriate its results in such a manner as to make them
inalienably her own were duties which she most conscientiously
fulfilled. But she gave herself to the study of music with an ardor
that inspires a human being only when engaged in a pursuit felt to be
especially his own. She soon far outstripped her mother, who was her
instructress, and as when a child she would often leave her playthings
if she saw a cloud upon her father's brow, to sit on his knee and divert
him with some tale of wonder, thus, as a girl, she would charm away the
demon of gloom from her father's mind by strange and delicious melodies
which lay like pearls in the depths of her soul, until she brought them
to light for the first time for his relief and enjoyment. And this was
not the only blessing springing from her rare talent for music. The
exquisite touch upon the piano, in the garret in which the family lived,
attracted the attention of several of the more aristocratic inhabitants
of the house, and Elizabeth soon had two or three pupils in music, and
had lately been employed in a large school as teacher of the piano, thus
sensibly increasing the means of subsistence of the family.
Here let us resume the thread of our story, and we shall not shrink, I
hope, from the trouble that we must take in following our heroine
through the wet streets upon this stormy evening to her home and her
parents.
CHAPTER II.
Even during the long walk through the streets, alternately straight and
crooked, gloomy and bright, Elizabeth enjoyed in imagination the
delicious sensation of comfort that the sight of the cosey room at home
always caused her. There sat her father at his writing-table with its
little study-lamp, ready to raise his pale face with a smile when
Elizabeth entered. He would take his pen, which had been travelling so
busily over the paper for hours, in his left hand, and with his right
draw his daughter down beside him to kiss her forehead. Her mother,
who, with her work-basket at her feet, usually sat close beside her
husband that she might share the light of his study-lamp, would welcome
her with tender loving eyes, and point to Elizabeth's slippers, which
her care had placed by the stove to warm. Upon the stove apples would
be roasting with a cheering hiss, and in the warm corner beside it was
the sofa-table, where the tea-kettle would be singing merrily above its
spirit-lamp, whose weak, blue light illumined the regiment of tin
soldiers, which her only brother, Ernst, a child six years of age, was
busily drilling.
Elizabeth mounted to the fourth story before she reached the dark,
narrow passage which led to her father's rooms. Here she hastily took
off her bonnet and placed upon her lovely fair hair a boy's cap, trimmed
with fur, which she drew from under her cloak. Then she entered the
room, where little Ernst ran toward her with a shout of joy.
But this evening the light shone from the sofa-table in the usually dark
corner by the stove, while the writing-table was left neglected in the
gloom. Her father sat upon the sofa, with his arm around her mother's
waist; there was a joyous light upon the countenances of both, and,
although her mother had evidently been weeping, Elizabeth instantly
perceived that her tears had been tears of joy. She stood still upon
the threshold of the door in great astonishment, and must have presented
a most comical appearance with the child's cap surmounting her amazed
countenance, for both father and mother laughed aloud. Elizabeth gaily
joined in their laughter, and placed the fur cap upon her little
brother's dark curls.
"There, my darling," she said, tenderly taking his rosy face between her
hands and kissing it, "that is yours; and there is still something left
to help on your housekeeping, mother dear," she continued, with a happy
smile, as she handed her mother four shining thalers. "They gave me my
first five thalers of salary at school to-day."
"But, Elsbeth," said her mother, with the tears in her eyes, as she drew
her down to kiss her, "Ernst's last year's cap is still quite
respectable, and you needed a pair of warm winter gloves much more."
"I, mother? just feel my hands; although I have been in the street for
an hour almost, they are as warm as if I had been holding them before
the fire. No; new gloves would be a most superfluous luxury. Our boy
is growing taller and stouter, and his cap has not kept pace with him;
so I consider the cap a necessary expense."
"Ah, you good sister!" cried the child with delight; "even the little
baron on the first story has not such a charming cap as this. How fine
it will look when I go hunting, hey, papa?"
"Hunting!" laughed Elizabeth; "are you going to shoot the unfortunate
sparrows in the Thiergarten?"
"Oh, what a miserable guesser you are, Madam Elsie!" the boy rejoined,
gleefully. "In the Thiergarten, indeed!" he added, more seriously;
"that would be pretty sport. No, in the forest,--the real forest,--where
the deer and hares are so thick that you don't even have to take aim
when you want to shoot them."
"I should like to hear what your uncle would say to this view of the
noble chase," said his father with a smile, taking up a letter from the
table and handing it to Elizabeth.
"Read this, my child," said he; "it is from your 'forester uncle,' as
you call him, in Thuringia."
Elizabeth glanced over the first few lines, and then read aloud:
"The prince, who sometimes prefers a dish of bacon and sauerkraut at my
table to the best efforts of his French cook in the castle of L----,
passed several hours with me at my lodge yesterday. He was very
condescending, and informed me that he purposed employing an assistant
forester, or rather forester's clerk, for he saw that my duties were too
onerous. I seized upon my opportunity,--the game was within shot, and
if I missed I had nothing to lose but a couple of charges fired into the
air; now was my time.
"So I told him how the jade, fortune, had played the very devil with you
for this many a year, and how, in spite of your fine talents and
acquirements, poverty had knocked at your door. My old master knew well
what I was driving at, for I spoke, as I always do, in good German. Thus
far in my life every one has understood what I had to say. It is only
the fops and fools of his court who fawn around him, who would persuade
him that good, honest German is too coarse for royal ears, and that he
must always be addressed in French. Well, my old master said that he
would like to offer you this situation as forester's clerk, because he
thought that with regard to myself,--and here he said a couple of things
that you need not hear, but which delighted me,--old fellow as I
am,--quite as much as when in old times, upon examination-day, the
schoolmaster used to say, 'Carl, you have done yourself credit to-day.'
Well, his highness has commissioned me to write to you, and he will
arrange matters. Three hundred and fifty thalers salary, and your fuel.
Now think it over; it is not so poor an offer, and the green forest is a
thousand times pleasanter than your confounded attics, where the
neighbours' cats are forever squalling, and where your eyes are blinded
by the smoke of a million chimneys.
"You must not think that I am one of those wheedling, parasitical
fellows who use their master's favour to benefit all their own kith and
kin. No; I can tell you that if you were not what you are, that is, if
you were not really talented and well educated, I would bite my tongue
out before I would recommend you to my master; and, on the other side, I
should always try to secure in his service such an honest, capable
fellow as yourself. No offence; you know I always like a plain statement
of a plain case.
"But there is another matter to be considered. You ought to live with
me, and it could be very easily arranged if you were a bachelor, whom
four walls would content, with a chest for his solitary wardrobe. But,
unfortunately, there is no possible room in my lonely old rat's-hole of
a forest-lodge for an entire family. It is in rather a tumble-down
condition, and has needed a doctor for some time, but I suppose the
authorities will do nothing for it until the old balconies come
crumbling about my ears. The nearest village is half a league, and the
nearest town a league from the lodge; you cannot possibly walk these
distances every day, in the miserable weather that we have here
sometimes.
"Now old Sabina, my housekeeper, who was born in the nearest village,
has made a wild suggestion which I herewith impart to you. Old castle
Gnadeck, the deceased Baron Gnadewitz's brilliant legacy to you, is, as
I have told you, situated at about a rifle's shot distance from the
lodge. Well, Sabina says that when she was a strong hearty
girl,--which, by the way, must have been something beyond a quarter of a
century ago,--she was a chambermaid in the Gnadewitz household. Then
the new castle was not entirely furnished, and did not suffice to
contain the crowd of guests yearly invited to the great hunt. And so
part of the building connecting the two principal wings of the old
castle was somewhat repaired and furnished. Sabina had to make and air
the beds and attend to the rooms, to her great terror, and no
wonder,--her old brain is perfectly crammed with all sorts of witch and
ghost stories,--for the rest she is a most respectable person, and rules
my household with a steady rein.
"She maintains most firmly that this part of the castle cannot be in a
crumbling condition, for it was then in an excellent state of
preservation, and would, she is sure, afford a capital shelter for you
and yours. May be she is right; but are your children bold enough to
brave the ghostly inhabitants that are said to haunt those old walls?
"You know how vexed I was about your worthless legacy, and that I have
never once been able, since the death of the sainted Wolf von Gnadewitz,
to induce myself to visit the old ruin. But after hearing Sabina's tale
yesterday afternoon, I made one of my men climb a tree which stood upon
the only spot which could give you a glimpse into the robber's nest, and
he declared that everything had fallen into decay there. And this
morning I have been to the authorities in the town, but they would not
give me the keys of the castle without special permission from your
wife, and made, besides, as much fuss about it as if the treasures of
Golconda lay hid in the mouldy old rooms. None of those who placed the
seals upon the doors could tell me what sort of a place it was, for they
never entered it, under the impression that the ceiling might fall and
dash out their prudent brains, but contented themselves with placing a
dozen official seals as large as your hand upon the principal entrance
door. I should very much like to investigate matters with you, so pray
decide quickly and start with your family as soon as possible."
Here Elizabeth dropped the letter and looked with sparkling eyes at her
father.
"Well, how have you decided, father dear?" she asked hastily.
"Ah," he replied gravely, "it is quite a hard task to tell you our
resolution, for I see by your face that you would not for the world
exchange this gay populous city for the loneliness and quiet of the
Thuringian forest. Still, you must know that my application to the
Prince of L---- for the place in question lies sealed in that envelope.
However, it is only reasonable that your wishes should be consulted in
some degree, and we can be induced to leave you here in case----"
"Ah, no; if Elizabeth will not go I would rather stay here, too,"
interrupted the little boy, clinging anxiously to his sister.
"Never fear, my darling," she said to him with a laugh; "I shall find a
place in the carriage, and if I could not, you know I am as bold as a
soldier, and can run like a hare. My longing for the greenwood, which
has been the fairy-land of my imagination ever since I was a very little
child, shall be my compass, and I shall get along bravely. What will
papa do when, some evening, a weary way-worn traveller, with ragged
shoes and empty pockets, prays for admission at the gate of the old
castle?"
"Ah, then, indeed, we must admit you," said her father, smiling, "if we
would not draw down upon our crumbling roof the hostility of all good
spirits who protect courage and innocence. But you will have to pass by
the old castle if you wish to find us, and knock at some modest peasant
hut in the valley, for the ruined old pile will scarcely afford us an
asylum."
"I am afraid not, indeed," said his wife. "We shall work our way
laboriously through wild hedges and thick underbrush, like the
unfortunate suitors of the Sleeping Beauty, to find at last----"
"Poetry itself!" cried Elizabeth. "Why, the first delicious bloom will
be brushed from our woodland life if we cannot live in the old castle!
Certainly there must be four sound walls and a whole roof in some one of
its old towers, and with heads to plan and strong willing hands to
execute, the rest can be very easily arranged. We will stop up cracks
with moss, nail boards over doorways that have lost their doors, and
paper our four walls ourselves; we can cover the worm-eaten floors with
homemade straw mats; declare war to the death upon the gray-coated,
four-footed little thieves who would invade our larder, and soon banish
all cobwebs by a good broom skilfully wielded."
With glowing looks, quite carried away by her dreams of the future home
in the fresh green forest, she went to the piano and opened it. It was
an old, worn-out instrument, whose hoarse, weak tones harmonized
perfectly with its shabby exterior; but, nevertheless, beneath
Elizabeth's fingers Mendelssohn's song, "Through the dark green Forest,"
rang deliciously through the little room.
Her parents sat quietly listening. Little Ernst dropped asleep.
Without, the howling of the storm was lulled, but the snow was driving
noiselessly past the uncurtained window in huge flakes. The opposite
chimneys, no longer smoking, had put on thick white night-caps, and
looked stiffly and coldly, like peevish old age, into the little attic
room, which enclosed, in the midst of the snow-storm, a perfect spring
of joy and gaiety within its four walls.
CHAPTER III.
Whitsuntide! A word that will thrill with its magic the human soul as
long as trees burst into leaf, larks soar trilling aloft, and clear
spring skies laugh above us. A word which can awaken an echo of spring
in hearts encrusted with selfishness and greed of gain, chilled by the
snows of age, or deadened by grief and care.
Whitsuntide is at hand. A gentle breeze flutters over the Thuringian
mountains, and brushes from their brows the last remains of the snow
which whirls mistily into the air and leaves its old abiding-place in
the guise of luminous spring clouds. Freed from their wintry garments,
the mountains deck their rugged brows with wreaths of young strawberry
vines and bilberries. In the valley below, the rippling trout-stream is
flowing forth from the dark forest directly across the flower-strewn
meadow.
The lonely saw-mill is clacking merrily, while its low thatched roof
shines white with the fallen blossoms of the sheltering fruit trees.
Before the windows of the scattered huts of the wood-cutters and of the
villagers many an accomplished bullfinch was singing in his little cage
the airs which were the fruits of a course of instruction in high art,
daring the winter in the hot, close room of his master. And his
brothers in the forest were trilling wilder but far sweeter lays, for
their little throats inhaled the clear air of freedom.
Where, a few weeks before, the melted snow had foamed down from the
mountain tops in a bed created by its own torrent, beautiful moss was
now weaving a soft carpet, that would soon quite conceal the scarred
breast of the mountain, while here and there, through the thick green
the silver thread of some little stream glittered in the sunlight.
Upon the highway running through a charming valley of the Thuringian
forest the Ferbers were travelling, in a well-packed carriage, toward
their new home. It was very early in the morning; the bell from a
distant church-tower had just tolled the hour of three, wherefore only
the shabby old sign-post by the roadside and a herd of stately stags
were permitted the sight of a happy face that looked upon this lovely
forest for the first time.
Elizabeth leaned far out of the window of the dark carriage, and inhaled
deep draughts of the invigorating air, which she maintained had already
cleared away from her eyes and lungs all the dust of the city. Ferber
sat opposite, sunk in thought. He too was refreshed by the beauty and
tender grace of the forest; but he was more deeply moved by the delight
in the eyes of his child, who was so susceptible to the charms of nature
and so unspeakably grateful for the change in their circumstances. How
busy her hands had been since the Royal answer to Ferber's application
for the new office had been received! There had been much to do. She
had shared faithfully in all the cares which their departure from the
city brought upon her parents. It is true the prince had sent his new
official a considerable sum of money for travelling expenses, and the
forester uncle, too, had shown his usual generosity; but with the
greatest economy it did not suffice, and therefore Elizabeth had
employed every hour which she usually had for recreation in sewing for a
large ready-made linen establishment,--occupying herself thus with her
needle for many a night, after her unsuspecting parents were sleeping
soundly.
There had been one bitter experience amid all the busy hurry, which had
cost the young girl many tears. She had seen her dear piano borne off
upon the shoulders of two strong men to its new possessor. It had to be
sold for a few thalers, because it was old and frail,--too frail to be
transported to the new home. Ah, it had been so true a friend to the
family! Its thin, quavering voice had sounded in Elizabeth's ears
tender and dear as the voice of her mother. And now, probably,
unfeeling children would thrum upon its venerable keys, and tease the
old instrument to speak more strongly, until it should be mute forever.
But this sorrow was past, and lay behind her, with much beside which she
had sacrificed and endured silently; and as she sat looking out into the
morning twilight, with eyes sparkling with delight,--eyes that seemed to
read behind the misty veil of the dawn all kinds of brilliant prophecies
for the future,--who could have discerned in that figure, glowing with
the elasticity of youth, one trace of the fatigue of the last busy
weeks?
For another half hour the travellers drove along the smooth, level
highway, and then turned aside into the thick forest by a well-kept
carriage-road. The sun was just rising in the eastern sky, and shot his
rays upon the earth in splendid amazement at the diamonds with which she
had adorned herself during his absence. In the night a heavy shower had
come up, much rain had fallen, and the large drops were still hanging
upon twig and leaf, falling pattering upon the roof of the carriage
whenever the postillion touched one of the overarching boughs with his
whip. What a glorious forest! From the thick underbrush at their feet
the trees reared their colossal trunks, and above, their boughs
intertwined in a fraternal embrace as though determined to defend their
peaceful, quiet home from light and air as from two deadly enemies. Only
here and there a slender, green-tinted sunbeam would slip from bough to
bough down upon the feathery grass and the little strawberry-blossoms,
sprinkled everywhere like snow-flakes, even laying their little white
heads impertinently upon the road.
After a short drive the wood grew less dense, and soon the retired Lodge
appeared in the midst of a meadow in the heart of the forest. The
postillion sounded his horn. A tremendous barking of dogs was heard; and
with a loud whirr a large flock of doves soared, terrified, into the air
from the pointed gable of the house.
A man in a hunting uniform was standing at the open door,--a gigantic
figure, with a huge beard that almost covered his breast. He shaded his
eyes with his hands as he looked keenly at the approaching carriage, but
suddenly running down the steps, he tore open the door, and threw his
arms around Ferber, as the latter sprang out. For one instant the
brothers stood in a close embrace; then the forester gently released the
slender figure of the younger, and, holding him by the shoulder at arm's
length, gazed searchingly into his pale worn countenance.
"Poor Adolph!" he said at last, and his deep voice trembled with
emotion. "Has fate brought you to this? But wait awhile, we will have
you sound and well again; it is not too late. A thousand welcomes to
you! And now let us stick together until the last great trumpet call,
when we shall not be asked whether we will stay together or not."
He tried to master his emotion, and helped his sister-in-law and little
Ernst, whom he embraced and kissed, to descend from the carriage.
"Well," said he, "you must have been knocked up at an early hour, I must
say, and that's hardly the thing for women."
"What can you be thinking of, uncle?" cried Elizabeth. "We are no
slug-a-beds, and know exactly how the sun looks when he says good
morning to the world."
"Halloa!" cried the forester with a laugh of surprise. "Who is that
quarrelling with me in the corner of the carriage? Come out instantly,
little one."
"I, little? Well, sir, you will be finely surprised when I do get out
and you see what a tall, stately maiden I am!"
With these words Elizabeth sprang down from the high carriage and stood
on tiptoe, drawing herself up to her full height beside him. But
although her slender, graceful figure was something above middle size,
she seemed at this moment like a pretty king-bird measuring itself with
an eagle.
"Look," she said, in a rather disappointed tone, "I am nearly up to your
shoulder, and that is more than tall enough for a respectable girl."
Her uncle, holding himself as erect as possible, looked down upon her
with a roguish smile of great self-satisfaction for a moment, then
suddenly picked her up in his arms as though she had been a feather, and
amid the laughter of the others carried her into the house, calling in a
voice of thunder--
"Sabina, Sabina, come here, and I will show you how the wrens look in
B----."
He put his terrified burden down in the hall as gently and carefully as
though he were handling some brittle plaything, took her head tenderly
between his large hands, kissed her forehead again and again, and said,
"That such a queen of Liliput, such a moonshine elf, should dream of
being as large as her tall uncle! But, forest fairy as you are, you
know all about the sun, for your head is covered with its beams."
As she was carried into the house upon her uncle's arm the girl's hat
had fallen from her head, revealing a mass of fair hair, the golden
colour of which was all the more remarkable as her delicately pencilled
eyebrows and long lashes were coal black.
In the mean while an old woman entered from a side door, and at the head
of the first flight of stairs several boyish faces appeared, which,
however, vanished as soon as they found themselves perceived by the
forester. "Oh, you need not run away," he cried, laughing. "I have
seen you peeping. They are my assistants," he turned to his brother;
"the fellows are as curious as sparrows, and to-day I really cannot
blame them," and he glanced archly at Elizabeth, who, standing aside,
was binding her loosened braids around her head. Then he took the old
woman by the hand and presented her, with an air of comical solemnity:
"Fraeulein Sabina Holzin, Minister of the Interior to the Forest Lodge,
High Constable in all stable and farm affairs, and to every one therein
concerned, and, lastly, absolute monarch in the kitchen department.
While she is putting the dinner on the table do just as she tells you,
and all will go well with you; but, if she begins with her stock of old
proverbs and ghost stories, get out of her way as quickly as possible,
for there is no end to them. And now,"--he turned to the smiling old
woman, who was a miracle of ugliness, and who yet prepossessed all in
her favour by her honest eyes, by an expression of roguery and fun that
lighted up her face, and especially by the spotless cleanliness of her
attire,--"now bring us as quickly as you can whatever pantry and cellar
will afford: I know you baked our Whitsuntide cakes earlier than usual,
that our travellers might have something to refresh them after their
fatigue."
With these words he opened the door opposite to the one from the kitchen
through which the old woman disappeared, and showed his guests into a
large apartment with bow-windows. But Elizabeth lingered behind,
looking through the door which led into the court-yard, for, between the
white picket fences which shut in the feathered tribes on each side of
the enclosure, she saw gay beds of flowers, while three or four
late-blossoming apple trees stretched their rosy bloom-laden branches
over one corner of the space. The garden was large, climbing a short
distance up the mountain side by terraces, and even enclosing within its
realm a beautiful group of old beeches, outlying members of the forest.
While Elizabeth, entranced, stood thus in the hall, the door of a side
wing of the house opened and a young girl stepped out into the
court-yard. She was strikingly beautiful, although her figure was
rather diminutive, a defect for which nature had seemed to wish to
indemnify her by gifting her with a pair of large eyes that glowed like
dazzling black suns. Her abundant dark hair was arranged evidently with
an eye to coquettish effect, and several charmingly curled locks had
escaped just above the pale forehead. Her dress, too, although of
simple material, betrayed in its arrangement the greatest care, and the
observer could not but suspect that the skirt was so artistically looped
not merely that the hem might be kept from the dust, but also with an
eye to the neat little boot which it revealed, and which certainly was
not made to be hidden beneath the heavy woollen stuff of the dress.
She had in her hand a bowl full of grain, and threw a handful upon the
stones at her feet. A great noise ensued; the doves fluttered down from
the roof, the fowls left their roosts and nests with loud cacklings, and
the watch-dog felt it his duty to assist in the universal clamour by
barking loudly.
Elizabeth was astonished. It is true, her uncle had been married, but
he never had any children, as she knew; who then was this young girl, of
whom no mention had been made in his letter? She descended the steps
that led to the court-yard, and approached the stranger: "Do you live at
the Lodge?" she asked, kindly.
The black eyes were riveted searchingly upon her for one moment, with a
look of unmistakable surprise, then an expression of annoyance flitted
across her delicate lips, which closed more tightly than before; the
eyelids fell over the glittering eyes, and she turned silently away, as
though entirely unconscious of the presence or address of any one, and
continued feeding the fowls with the grain.
Just then Sabina passed through the hall with the coffee-tray. She
beckoned confidentially to Elizabeth, who stood amazed, and, when she
drew near, bade her follow her into the house, saying: "Come, child, you
can do nothing with her."
In the sitting-room, Elizabeth found all as comfortable and happy as if
they had lived together for years. Her mother was sitting in a large
arm-chair, which the forester had pushed near a window that commanded a
lovely view down one of the vistas of the forest. A large striped cat
had sprung confidingly into her lap, where it was purring with
satisfaction beneath the small hand that was gently stroking it. And
for little Ernst, the four walls of the room were a perfect museum of
all imaginable curiosities. He had climbed into one chair after
another, and was then standing in speechless admiration before a glass
case containing a gorgeous collection of butterflies. The two men were
seated, side by side, upon the lounge, in deep consultation concerning
the future abode of the family, and, as Elizabeth entered, she heard her
uncle say, "Well, if the old ruin on the mountain cannot afford you
shelter, you must stay here with me. I can move my writing-table and
all my other matters out of your way for awhile, and then I will besiege
the authorities in the town until they consent to add another story to
the right wing of my old house."
Elizabeth took off her travelling cloak, and assisted old Sabina to set
the table. The first shadow had fallen upon the enjoyment that had
filled her soul. Never before had any advance of hers been met with
unkindness. That she owed this exemption from the ill humour of others
to her beauty, the charm of her manner, and the childlike purity of her
nature, which exercised an unconscious influence upon all around her,
had never occurred to her. She had taken it for granted that she should
experience only kindness from all, since she was conscious of meaning
well by all the world. Her disappointment at the repulse was all the
greater, because the sight of a young girl of about her own age had
caused her such surprise and joy; and the beautiful face of the stranger
had interested her deeply. The studied arrangement of the girl's dress
had not struck her, as she herself had never yet known the desire of
heightening her attractions by the aids of the toilet. Her father and
mother had always assured her that no time spent in the cultivation of
mind and heart was lost, and that if they were what they should be, her
exterior could never be unattractive, whatever might be the form with
which nature had endowed her.
The thoughtful expression of Elizabeth's face did not escape her
mother's notice. She called her to her, and her daughter began an
account of the meeting; but at the first words the forester turned
towards her. A deep wrinkle appeared between his bushy eyebrows, and
made his face dark and gloomy.
"Indeed," he said, "have you seen her already? Well, then, let me tell
you who and what she is. I took her into my house some years ago, that
she might assist Sabina in her housekeeping. She is a distant relative
of my deceased wife, and has no parents, brothers nor sisters. I wished
to do good, but I have provided myself with a perpetual
scourge,--although I do not deserve it. She had not been here a month
before I discovered that she had not a single healthy thought in her
entire composition; she is a mass of exaggerated ideas and inconceivable
arrogance. I had half a mind to send her back to the place she came
from, but Sabina, who has still less cause than I to love her, entreated
me not to do it. Why, I cannot tell, for the girl gave her a great deal
of trouble, and was insolent. I did all I could to tame her haughty
spirit by giving her regular duties to perform, and for awhile matters
went on pretty well. But about a year ago a certain Baroness Lessen
came to live over at Lindhof,--that is the name of the former Gnadewitz
property, which the heir-at-law sold to a Herr von Walde. The possessor
himself, who has neither wife nor child, is a kind of antiquary, travels
a great deal, and leaves his only sister under the charge of the
aforesaid baroness, more's the pity, for she turns everything upside
down. Years ago, when I used to hear great piety spoken of, all my
veneration was excited, and I wished at least to take my cap off; but
now, when I hear of such things, I clench my fist and pull my hat down
over my eyes, for the world has greatly changed. The Baroness Lessen
belongs to those pious souls who grow cruel, hard, and narrow-minded out
of what they call pure fear of the Lord; who persecute a fellow-creature
who does not cast his eyes down hypocritically, but lifts them to heaven
where God dwells, as persistently as a hound hunts down game. This is
the herd to which my excellent niece belongs; there could not be a
better soil for all the weeds that her brain generates, and all sorts of
annoyances are the consequence. She made acquaintance with a
lady's-maid over there, and spent all her leisure time with her. At
first I was content enough, until all at once she began with her
plans,--for our conversion, as she calls it. Sabina was a miserable
sinner, because she would not leave off work, at least ten times a day,
to pray; the poor old thing, who never misses church every Sunday at
Lindhof, even through wind and rain, and often with rheumatism racking
her old bones, and who has lived a faithful, laborious life, infinitely
more religious than sixty years of idleness spent upon her knees. And
then my fine moralist attacked me; but there she found her match, and
contented herself with a single effort. Then I forbade all intercourse
with Lindhof; but my prohibition was of little use, for whenever my back
is turned she takes occasion to slip over there. Of course, there can
be no question of any gratitude towards me; I have no bond of union with
her as her guardian, and that makes my task of guiding and guarding her
doubly difficult. God only knows what insane idea has taken possession
of her now, but for two months she has been perfectly dumb, not only
here at home, but everywhere. For that space of time not a single word
has passed her lips. Neither sternness nor gentle entreaty produces the
slightest effect upon her. She attends to her duties just as she used
to do, eats and drinks like every one else, and is not one whit less
vain or wise in her own conceit. But because she grew pale, and did not
look very well, I consulted a physician, who had formerly known her,
with regard to her health. He assured me that her physical health was
excellent, and advised that she should be treated with gentle firmness,
as the minds of several of her family had previously been somewhat
affected. He said, too, that she would grow tired of her entire
silence, and would begin talking some fine day like a magpie. I am
content to wait; but in the mean time it is a sore trial to me. All my
life I have longed to have happy faces around me, and would rather eat
bread and salt with cheerful people than the costliest dainties with
morose companions. Come, my Fair one with the golden locks," he
concluded, stroking Elizabeth's head with his huge hand, "push your
mother's arm-chair up to the table, tie a napkin round the neck of that
little rogue who is staring his eyes out at my case of rifles, and let
us breakfast together, for you all need repose, and must rest your weary
limbs after your long journey. After dinner we must begin to think of
Castle Gnadeck; but first strengthen your eyes with a little sleep, lest
they should be dazzled by the splendour which will flash upon them up
there."
After breakfast, while her father and mother were asleep and little
Ernst was dreaming in a large bed of the wonders of the forest-lodge,
Elizabeth unpacked in the upper room, which her uncle had resigned to
her, all that was necessary for the coming night. She would not for the
world have gone to sleep. She went repeatedly to the window and looked
across to the wooded mountain which arose behind the lodge. There,
above the tops of the trees, she could see a black streak, which stood
out distinctly against the clear blue sky. That was, as old Sabina
said, an ancient iron flag-staff upon the roof of Castle Gnadeck, from
which in times long gone by the proud banner of the Gnadewitzes had
flouted the air. Was there behind those trees the asylum for which she
longed, where her parents might rest their feet, weary with long
wandering upon foreign soil?
And then her eyes sought the court-yard below, but the dumb girl did not
appear again. She had not come to breakfast, and seemed to wish to
avoid all intercourse with the guests at the lodge. For this Elizabeth
was very sorry. Although her uncle's account had not been promising, a
youthful spirit is not quick to resign its illusions, and would rather
be undeceived by the bursting of its gay bubble than admonished by the
experience of age. The beautiful girl, who could so determinedly
conceal her secret behind closed lips, became doubly interesting to her,
and she exhausted herself in conjectures as to the cause of this
silence.
CHAPTER IV.
After a most cheerful dinner, Sabina brought from the cupboard a pipe,
which she filled and handed with a match to the forester.
"What are you thinking of, Sabina?" he said, rejecting it with a comical
air of displeased surprise. "Do you think I could find it in my heart
to sit here and smoke a quiet pipe while Elsie's little feet are dancing
with impatience to run up the mountain, and she is longing to poke her
little nose into the magic castle? No, I think we had better start at
once upon our voyage of discovery."
All were soon ready. The forester gave his arm to his sister-in-law,
and they started off through the court and garden. After they had gone
a little way, they were joined by a mason from the neighbouring village,
whom the forester had sent for that he might be at hand if necessary.
They walked up the mountain by a tolerably steep and narrow path through
the thick forest, but this path gradually broadened, and at last led to
a small open space, on one side of which arose what seemed like a tall
gray rock.
"Here I have the pleasure," said the forester to his brother, with a
sarcastic smile, "of revealing to you the estate of the lamented Baron
von Gnadewitz in all its grandeur."
They were standing before a lofty wall, which looked like one solid
block of granite. They could see nothing of any buildings that might be
behind it, because the surrounding forest was too thick and close to
allow of a sufficiently distant point of observation. The forester led
the way along the wall, at the base of which thick underbrush was
growing, until he reached a large oaken door with an iron grating in the
upper half of it. Here he had had the matted growth of underbrush
cleared away, and he now produced a bunch of large keys which had been
handed over to Frau Ferber as she had passed through L---- the day
before.
The utmost exertions of the three men were necessary before the rusty
locks and bars would move, but at last the door creaked, or rather
crashed upon its hinges, and a thick cloud of dust floated up into the
air. The explorers entered and found themselves in a court-yard bounded
on three sides by buildings. Opposite them was the imposing front of
the castle, with a flight of broad stone steps, and a clumsy iron
balustrade, leading to the entrance door upon the first story. Running
from each side of the main building were gloomy colonnades, whose
granite pillars and arches seemed to defy the tooth of time. In the
centre of the court-yard a group of old chestnut trees stretched their
aged boughs above a huge basin, in the midst of which couched four stone
lions with wide open jaws. Formerly four powerful streams of water must
have poured through them from the bowels of the earth, filling the
entire basin; but now there was only a small stream trickling through
the threatening teeth of one of the monsters, sufficing to sprinkle with
moisture the grass and weeds growing in the cracks of the stone basin,
and, by its low, mournful ripple, giving a faint suggestion of life in
this wilderness. The outer walls of the structure and the colonnades
were all that could be regarded without terror in this space. The
window frames, from which every pane of glass had been broken, showed
the sad desolation within. In some rooms the ceilings had already
fallen in; in others, the joists were bent as though the lightest touch
might send them crashing down. Even the stone steps seemed half hanging
in the air,--some mossy fragments had already become detached from them,
and had rolled into the centre of the court-yard.
"We can do nothing here," said Ferber. "Let us go on."
Through a deep, dark portal they entered another court-yard, which,
although much larger than the first, by its striking irregularity
produced an impression of far greater desolation. Here, a dreary,
crumbling pile of masonry projected far out, and formed a dark corner
never visited by a sunbeam; there, a clumsy tower shot into the air,
throwing a deep shadow upon the wing at its back. An old elder bush,
leading a straggling existence in one corner, with its leaves covered
with fallen crumbs of mortar, and some dry grasses between the stones of
the pavement, made the scene yet more desolate. No noise disturbed the
deathlike silence reigning here. Even the jackdaws soaring in the air
above ceased their chatter, and the echoes of the footsteps upon the
stone pavement had a ghostly sound.
"Yes, those old knights," said Ferber, almost appalled at the sight of
the desolation around him, "have heaped up these piles of granite, and
thought that this cradle of their race would proclaim the splendour of
their name through all coming centuries. Each has altered and arranged
his inheritance after his own taste and convenience, as we see from
these different kinds of architecture, and lived as if there were no end
to it all."
"And yet each lodged here but for a little space," interrupted the
forester, "and paid his landlord, the earth, for his lodging with his
own crumbling bones,--now turned to dust. But let us go on.
Brr--rr!--it makes me shiver. Death everywhere,--nothing but death!"
"Do you call that death, uncle?" suddenly exclaimed Elizabeth, who had
hitherto been awed and silent, pointing, as she spoke, through a door
which was half concealed by an interposing column. There, behind a
grating, fresh sunny green was shining, and young climbing roses leaned
their blossoms against the iron bars.
Elizabeth ran towards the door, and, exerting all her strength, pushed
it open. The space upon which she entered had probably been the former
flower-garden, but such a name could scarcely be applied to the tangled
wilderness of green, where not even the narrowest vestige of a path
could be discerned, and where here and there only the mutilated remains
of a statue appeared among the mass of shrubs, bushes, and parasitical
plants. A wild grape-vine had climbed to the upper story of the
building, and taken firm hold there of the window-sills,--its green
branches and wreaths falling thence like a shower upon the wild roses
and lilac bushes beneath. And in this secluded, blooming spot of
ground, a buzzing and humming were heard, as if Spring had assembled
here her entire host of winged insects. Countless butterflies fluttered
over the flowers, and golden beetles were running glittering across the
broad fern leaves at Elizabeth's feet. And above this little world of
bloom and busy life several fruit trees and magnificent lindens waved
their leafy crests, while upon a slight elevation were seen the remains
of what had once been a pavilion.
The garden was surrounded upon three sides by buildings; the square was
completed by a high, green wall, which had been constructed of earth,
like a dam, and above which the trees of the forest waved a greeting to
their neighbours within. Here were also the same signs of
decay,--tolerably well preserved outer walls,--complete ruin within.
Only one building of two stories, connecting two high wings, attracted
attention from its closed appearance. The light did not shine through
it, as through its doorless and windowless companions; its flat roof,
finished in front and at the back by a heavy stone balustrade, must have
bidden defiance to time and tempest, as had also the gray window-panes
which peeped out here and there from the tangled growth of vines that
covered everything. The forester measured it with a keen glance, and
declared that this must be Sabina's famous building,--possibly the
interior might not be in as crumbling a condition as the rest of the
castle,--only he could not understand how they were to get into the old
swallow's nest. Certainly, the rank growth around the base of the walls
would have obscured all trace of steps or door, even were there any such
entrance. They determined, therefore, to venture up into one of the
large side wings by a worn but tolerably secure flight of stone steps,
and thus attempt to arrive at the interior of the connecting building.
They succeeded in gaining ingress to the tall wing, although they could
keep their footing only by clinging to the uneven walls. They first
entered a large saloon which had the blue sky for a ceiling, and whose
only decoration was a few green bushes growing through its walls.
Remnants of galleries, worm-eaten joists, and various fragments of
frescoed ceiling were heaped up in piles, over which the explorers had
to scramble as best they might. Then followed a long suite of rooms in
the same utterly desolate condition. Upon some of the walls fragments
of family portraits were still hanging, upon which, strangely and
comically enough, only an eye, or, perhaps, a pair of delicate folded
hands, or a mail-clad, theatrically-posed leg, was yet distinctly to be
traced. At length they reached the last apartment, and stood before a
high-arched doorway which had evidently been bricked up.
"Aha!" said Ferber, "here they intended to cut off this building from
the universal desolation. I think that before we venture any further
upon this break-neck expedition it would be well to knock out these
stones."
His proposal was at once favourably received, and the mason began his
task; he soon penetrated into a recess in the wall, which he assured
them was double at this spot. The other two men lent their assistance,
and a thick oaken door was revealed behind the masonry that they cleared
away. This door was not locked, and yielded readily to the mason's
strong arm. They entered an entirely dark, close room. One slender
sunbeam, straying through a crack showed them where to find a window;
the bolt of the shutter, rusty from long disuse, resisted for some time
the strength of the forester, and the trees upon the outside opposed an
additional obstacle to their exertions. At last the shutter yielded
with a crash; the golden-green sunlight streamed in through a high
bow-window and disclosed an apartment not broad, but very deep, the
walls of which were hung with Gobelin tapestry. Upon each of the four
corners of the ceiling were painted the arms of the Gnadewitzes. To the
surprise of all, this room was entirely furnished as a sleeping
apartment. Two canopied beds, with hangings dingy with age, that
occupied the two long walls of the room, were all made up; the pillows
were covered with fine linen cases, and the silken coverlid still
preserved its colour and texture. Everything that could conduce to the
comfort of an aristocratic occupant was here, buried, indeed, beneath a
mass of dust, but in a state of excellent preservation. Beyond this
apartment, and opening into it, was another much larger, with two
windows; it was also completely furnished, although in antique style,
and evidently with furniture hunted up from various other rooms for the
purpose. An antique writing-table, its top most artistically inlaid and
resting upon strangely carved claw feet, harmonized but poorly with the
more modern form of the crimson sofa; and the gilt frames, in which hung
several well-painted hunting pictures, did not accord with the silver
mountings of the huge mirror. Nevertheless, nothing was wanting that
could complete the solid comfort of the room. A thick, though somewhat
faded carpet was laid upon the floor, and a large antique timepiece
stood beneath the mirror. A small boudoir, also furnished, and from
which a door led to a vestibule and a flight of steps, opened from the
larger apartment. Behind these rooms were three others of a similar
size, with windows looking upon the garden; one of these, containing two
beds and pine furniture, was evidently intended for the servants.
"Well done!" cried the forester with a smile of satisfaction; "here is
an establishment that exceeds the wildest flights of our modest fancy.
If the sainted Gnadewitz could see us now he would turn in his leaden
coffin. All this we owe, I suppose, to the neglect of a housekeeper or
to the forgetfulness of some childish, old steward."
"But do you think we ought to keep these things?" asked, in a breath,
Frau Ferber and Elizabeth, who had been silent hitherto from wonder.
"Most certainly, my love," said Ferber; "your uncle left you the castle
with everything which it contained."
"And little enough it was," growled the forester.
"But in comparison with our expectations a perfect mine of wealth," said
Frau Ferber, as she opened a beautiful glass cabinet containing
different kinds of china; "and if my uncle had actually endowed me with
an estate in my young days, when I was full of hope and enthusiasm, I
doubt whether it would have made as much impression upon me as does this
unexpected discovery, which relieves us all of so much anxiety."
In the mean time Elizabeth had gone to the window of the first room
which they had entered, and was trying to part the boughs and vines
which grew so thick and strong all along this side of the building that
they formed a barrier through which only a greenish twilight penetrated.
"It is a pity," she said, as she found that her efforts were vain; "I
should have liked some glimpse of the forest outside."
"Why, do you think," said her uncle, "that I shall allow you to live
behind this green screen, which shuts out air as well as light? Rely
upon me to take that matter in charge, my little Elsie."
They next descended the stairs. These, too, were in perfect
preservation, and led to a large hall with a huge oaken table in the
centre, surrounded by spindled-legged, straight-backed chairs. The
floor was of red tiles, and the panels on walls and ceiling were covered
with beautiful carving. This large apartment was provided with four
windows and two doors opposite to each other; one of these led into the
garden, and the other, which was opened with difficulty, into a narrow
open court-yard lying between the building-and the outer wall. Here the
syringas and hazel bushes were growing everywhere, making an absolute
thicket, through which, however, the three men penetrated, and reached a
little gate in the outside wall which communicated with the forest
without.
"Now," said Ferber, delighted, "every obstacle to our living here is
removed. This entrance is most valuable. We shall never have to pass
through the older court-yards, which are really dangerous places,
surrounded as they are by crumbling ruins."
They made one more tour through their newly found home with an eye to
its future arrangement, and the mason was ordered to be upon the spot
the next day that he might convert one of the back rooms into a kitchen.
Then, after the oaken door leading into the large, ruinous wing had been
well bolted and secured, they took their way through the gate in the
wall, an undertaking difficult indeed, on account of the thick bushes
which opposed their progress, but infinitely preferable to the perilous
path by which they had entered.
As the returning party entered the garden of the forest lodge, Sabina
came towards them, in great anxiety to learn the results of their
expedition, accompanied by little Ernst, who had been entrusted to her
care while his mother and sister were away. She had prepared the table
with its snowy cloth and shining coffee-service upon a shady knoll under
the beech trees, and now clapped her hands with delight upon hearing of
all they had found.
"Ah! gracious Powers," she cried, "I hope the Herr Forester understands
now that I knew what I was talking about. Yes, yes, all those things
were left there and forgotten, and no wonder. As soon as the young lord
was buried, old Gnadewitz packed off as quick as he could, and took
every servant with him except the old house-steward Silber, and he was
childish with age, and besides had enough to do to take care of all that
was left in the new castle; it was crowded with furniture and plate, and
he had a hard time to keep it all right; so everything was left in the
old rooms, and no one knew anything about them. Ah, I've dusted and
cleaned everything there often enough, and frightened indeed I was
whenever I came to that old clock, for it plays such mournful music when
it strikes, it used to sound like something unearthly, when I was all
alone at work in the old place. Ah, how time flies, I was young then!"
Then came an hour of rest and comfortable discussion, while they drank
their coffee. As Elizabeth had decided that nothing could be more
charming than to awaken in their own rooms upon Whit-Sunday
morning,--when the ringing of the church-bells in the surrounding
villages would come softly echoing through the forest glades,--a view of
the matter in which her mother sympathized, they determined to undertake
all the necessary repairs and cleaning immediately, that they might
occupy the rooms upon the eve of Whit-Sunday, and the forester placed
all his men at their disposal.
Sabina had taken up her position upon a grassy bank at a short distance
from the table, that she might be at hand if wanted; and that she might
not be idle, she had pulled up a couple of handfuls of carrots from the
garden and was busily scraping and trimming them. Elizabeth sat down
beside her. The old woman gave a sly glance at the delicate white
fingers, that contrasted so with her own brown, horny hands, as they
picked some carrots up from her lap.
"Don't touch," she said, "that is no work for you,--you will make your
fingers yellow."
"What matter for that?" laughed Elizabeth. "I will help you a little,
and you shall tell me a story. You were born here, and must know many a
tale about the old castle."
"You may be sure of that," replied the old housekeeper. "The village of
Lindhof, where I was born, belonged to the Lords von Gnadewitz time out
of mind, and you see in such a little place as that every one talks and
thinks of the great people who rule over it. Nothing happens of any
account in the castle that is not described and handed down from father
to son in the village, and, long after the lords and ladies are dust,
their stories are told by the village girls and boys.
"Now there was my great-grandmother, whom I remember perfectly, she knew
many a thing that would make your hair stand on end; but she had a
monstrous respect for every one at Gnadeck, and used to bob down my head
with her trembling hands whenever a Gnadewitz drove by our cottage,--for
I was but a little thing then, and did not know how to make a
respectable courtesy. She knew about all the lords who had lived at the
old castle for hundreds of years; yes, many a thing that had happened
there, that must have outraged God and man.
"Afterwards, when I lived at the new castle, and had to sweep the long
gallery where their pictures were all hanging upon the wall,--pictures
of people whose very bones had mouldered away,--I often used to stand
still before them and wonder to see them looking so like everybody else,
when they used to make such a fuss about themselves, as if God Almighty
had brought them down to the earth with his own hands. There were not
many beauties among the women. I often thought, in my stupid way, that
if pretty Lieschen, the most beautiful girl in the village, could only
have been painted and hung in such a rich gold frame, with a silken
scarf and such quantities of jewels upon her neck and in her hair, and
the blackamoor with his silver waiter standing just behind her lovely
face and neck, she would have looked a thousand times prettier than the
lady who was so ugly, and frowned so with pride and arrogance that two
great wrinkles went up to the very roots of her hair. And yet she was
the very one that the family was proudest of. She had been a very
wealthy countess, but hard and unfeeling as a stone.
"Among the men, there was only one whom I liked to look at. He had a
frank, kind, honest face, and a pair of eyes black as sloes; but he had
shown how true it is that the good always get the worst of it in this
world. All the others had a fine time of it as long as they lived. Many
of them had done harm enough in their time, and yet their death-beds
were as calm and peaceful as if they had always been just and true; but
poor Jost von Gnadewitz had a sad fate. My great-grandmother's
grandmother had known him when she was a very little girl. Then they
always called him the wild huntsman, because he never left the forest,
but would hunt there from morning until night. In the picture he had on
a green coat and a long white feather in his cap, that was most
beautiful to see dangling among his coal-black curls. He was
kind-hearted, and never harmed a child. While he lived all the
villagers prospered, and they wished he might live forever.
"But all of a sudden he left this part of the country, and no one knew,
for some time, where he had gone, until one night in a dreadful storm he
came back as quietly as he had gone away. But always after that he was
a changed man. The people of Lindhof prospered as before, but they saw
no more of their master. He dismissed all his servants, and lived alone
in his old castle with only one favourite attendant.
"And at last it began to be whispered that he was busy with magic and
the black art up there, and no one dared to go near the castle even at
high noon, let alone the dark night. But my old great-grandmother was a
bold, saucy girl, and used sometimes to pasture her goats right under
the walls of the castle court-yard. Well,--once as she was leaning
against a tree there, gazing at the high walls, and lost in thoughts
concerning all that might be going on behind them, suddenly an arm
appeared above them white as snow, and then a face fairer than sun,
moon, and stars, my grandmother said, and at last with a sudden spring a
young maiden stood upon the top of the broad wall, and, stretching her
arms up into the air, cried out something in a strange tongue that my
grandmother could not understand, and was just about to leap down into
the deep ditch full of water that then entirely surrounded the castle,
when Jost appeared behind her, and, putting his arms around her, begged
and implored her so that a stone would have melted at such entreaties
wrung from a heart full of terror and anguish. And finally he took her
up in his arms like a child, and they both disappeared from the wall.
But the veil became loosened from the maiden's head and floated away
across the ditch to where my grandmother was standing. It was
exquisitely fine, and she carried it home in great glee to her father;
but he declared it was woven by the devil, and threw it into the fire,
forbidding my grandmother ever to go up the mountain near the castle
again.
"Some time after,--certainly a whole year after Jost first shut himself
up so closely at Gnadeck,--he came down the mountain very early one
morning on horseback; but you would hardly have known him, his face was
so haggard and pale, all the paler for the full suit of black that he
wore. He rode very slowly, and nodded sadly to every one whom he met;
he never came back to this place again; he was slain in battle, and his
old servant with him--'twas at the time of the thirty years' war."
"And the beautiful girl?" asked Elizabeth.
"Ah, no one ever heard tale or tidings of her again. Jost left a large
sealed packet in the town-house at L----, and said that it was his last
will, and must be opened whenever news of his death should be received.
But a short time after his departure, there was a terrible fire in
L----; a great many houses, and even the church and the town-house, were
burned to the ground with everything which they contained, and of course
the packet was destroyed.
"Before Jost left, the pastor from Lindhof went to see him several
times; but the reverend gentleman kept as quiet as a mouse, and, as he
was already very old, he soon departed this life, and everything that he
knew was buried with him. So no living being knows anything about the
strange maiden, nor ever will know till the day of judgment."
"Oh, never trouble yourself to keep the matter quiet, Sabina," called
the forester to her from the table, as he shook the ashes out of his
pipe. "Elsie had better get used as soon as possible to the terrible
conclusions to your stories. Tell her at once--for you know all about
it--how the beautiful maiden one fine day flew up the chimney and away
upon a broomstick."
"No, I don't believe that, sir, although I know----"
"That the whole country is swarming with such creatures, all ripe for
the gallows," interrupted her master. "Yes, yes," he continued, turning
to the others, "Sabina is one of the old Thuringian stock. She has
sense enough, and her heart is in the right place; but when there is any
question about witchcraft she loses one and forgets the other, and is
nearly ready to turn any poor old woman away from the door, just because
she has red eyes, without giving her a morsel of food."
"No, indeed, sir, I'm not quite so bad as that," the old woman declared
with some irritation. "I give her something to eat; but I always stick
my thumbs in the palms of my hands, and never answer one of her
questions,--there's no harm in that!"
Every one laughed at this charm against witches and witchcraft, which
the old servant told with the utmost gravity as she arose and emptied
the carrot-tops from her apron, that she might prepare the afternoon
meal, which was to be eaten earlier than usual, as there was much to do
in the old castle before nightfall.
CHAPTER V.
As Elizabeth opened her eyes the next morning, the tall clock in the
room below was striking eight, and she started up with the provoking
consciousness that she had overslept herself; and it was all owing to a
vivid and terrible dream. The golden atmosphere of poetry, which had
yesterday hovered around Sabina's narrative, had become a gloomy cloud
in the night, the shadow of which embittered and burdened the first
moments of her awakening. She had been flying in deadly terror through
the spacious, dreary halls of the old castle, always pursued by Jost.
Thick curls were waving wildly above his pale forehead, beneath which
his black eyes gleamed upon her, and she had just stretched out her arms
in greater terror than she had ever experienced in her life before, to
defend herself from him, when she awoke. Her heart was still beating
violently, and she thought with a shudder of the wretched girl upon the
castle wall, who, pursued, perhaps, as she had been, had sought relief
in death, when she was again captured by her tormentor.
She sprang up and bathed her face in cold water; then she opened her
window and looked out into the courtyard. There sat Sabina under a pear
tree, busy with her churn. All the feathered crowd of the place stood
around, looking impatiently for the crumbs that she threw to them from
time to time from a bowl upon the table by her side, while she improved
the occasion to rebuke the arrogant and greedy, and to console the
oppressed and down-trodden.
When she saw the young girl, she nodded kindly, and called up to her to
say that every one in the lodge had been busy up there in the old castle
since six o'clock. When Elizabeth reproached her for letting her sleep
so long, she assured her that she had done so by the express desire of
her mother, who thought that her daughter had overtasked her strength in
the last few weeks of excitement and exertion.
Sabina's kind, placid face, and the fresh air of the morning soothed
Elizabeth's nerves at once, and brought back her thoughts to the world
of reality which was just now opening so brightly before her. She took
herself seriously to task that, despite her uncle's fatherly admonition,
she had leaned out of the open window until midnight upon the previous
night, gazing across the moonlit meadow into the silent forest. But
common sense often plays a poor part when opposed to excited fancy.
Where it should conduct a rigid examination and discriminate wisely, it
suddenly finds itself deserted in the judgment-seat, and must retire in
confusion, while the varied and motley spectacle which fancy conjures up
proceeds without interruption. Thus Elizabeth's self-reproaches soon
vanished before the picture which presented itself to her memory, and
still threw around her all the magic of a moonlit night in the forest.
As soon as she had dressed, and drank a tumbler of fresh milk, she
hastened up to the castle. The sky was overcast, but only with those
light, thin clouds which foretell a fresh although not a sunny, spring
day. Therefore the birds' morning concert was of longer duration than
usual, and the dew-drops lay as large and full in the cups of the
flowers as if their existence for the day were not threatened.
As Elizabeth entered the large gate of the castle, which stood wide
open, a huge green mound, piled up by the fountain, met her eye. It was
formed of thistle stalks, ferns, and bramble bushes, which had been torn
from their home in the garden, and were here bidding farewell to their
long, merry life. The path through the arched gateway of the second
court-yard to the grating was strewn with green boughs and leaves, as
though a joyous marriage train had been passing through the old ruins;
and even on the sill of a high window, that showed the remains of
coloured glass in the lacework of the stone rosette of its pointed arch,
some boughs had been caught as they were carried past, and the trailing
end of a wild vine was coiling its living green lovingly around the
stone trefoil of the Holy Trinity, which betrayed unmistakably that the
dark, dreary hall within had once been the chapel of the castle.
The garden, where it had yesterday been impossible to take two steps,
seemed to Elizabeth entirely changed. A considerable part of it had been
cleared, and showed distinct traces of having been tastefully laid out.
She could easily proceed along a partially cleared path, across which
timid hares and squirrels ran fleetly now and then, until she reached
the green rampart which had only been seen from a distance yesterday.
At each end of the long, grassy embankment, broad, worn, stone steps led
up to a low breastwork, over which one could look out into the forest,
and there, where the trees were somewhat thin, through a green vista
down into the valley, where the forest lodge, with the white doves
dotting its blue-slated roof, was nestling cosily. At the foot of the
embankment, just where the broad path terminated, was a little stone
basin, into which a strong stream of crystal water flowed through the
mouth of a mossy little marble gnome. Two lindens arched their boughs
above this gurgling brook, and threw their grateful shade upon the
tender forget-me-nots, which grew here in masses in the damp earth and
wreathed the little basin with their heavenly blue.
Directly opposite the embankment lay her future habitation, which, with
its window-shutters thrown back and the large door on the ground-floor
wide open, looked so bright and hospitable to-day that Elizabeth
welcomed with joy the thought that she was looking upon her home. Her
gaze wandered over the garden, and she thought upon those moments of her
childhood when, her little heart full of unconquerable longing, she had
lingered behind her parents during some pleasant walk, and, with her
face pressed close against the iron grating, had gazed into some strange
garden. There she had seen happy children playing carelessly upon the
greensward; they could bend down the lovely roses that hung in such
clusters, and inhale their fragrance as long as they liked. And what a
pleasure it must be to creep under the flower-laden boughs and sit there
in the green, just like grown-up people in an arbour! But there was
nothing for her then but the look and the longing. No one had ever
opened the barred door to the child with the wistful eyes, who would
have been only too happy if they would have thrust a few flowers through
the grating into her little hands.
While Elizabeth was standing upon the embankment, the forester appeared
at one of the upper windows of the dwelling. When he saw her graceful
figure leaning against the low breastwork, as, with her beautiful head
half turned towards the garden, she seemed sunk in a reverie, his
features were illumined by an expression of pleasure and quiet delight.
And Elsie soon found him out, and nodding to him gaily, bounded down the
steps towards the house. Little Ernst ran to her in the hall, and she
took him up in her arms.
The assistance which the little boy had afforded had been, according to
his own enthusiastic account, invaluable indeed. He had carried bricks
for the mason who had been mending the hearth, had helped his mother to
shake out the beds, and declared with pride that the lords and ladies
upon the woollen hangings looked far handsomer since he had brushed off
their dusty faces. He threw his arms around his sister's neck as she
carried him up-stairs, assuring her all the way that he liked it a
thousand times better here than in B----.
The forester received Elizabeth in the antechamber above. He scarcely
gave her time to say good morning to her parents, but conducted her
instantly into the gobelin-hung apartment. Ah, what a transformation!
The green lattice-work that had obscured the window had vanished.
Without, beyond the outer wall, the forest retreated like side-scenes on
either side, opening a full view of a distant valley that was to
Elizabeth a perfect paradise.
"There is Lindhof," said the forester, pointing to a large building in
the Italian style, which lay tolerably near to the foot of the mountain
upon which Gnadeck stood. "I have brought you something that will show
you every tree upon the mountains over there, and every blade of grass
in the meadows of the valley," he continued, as he held an excellent
spy-glass before her eyes.
And then the grand, solemn mountain domes seemed to approach, their
granite peaks, sometimes crowned by a solitary fir, breaking through the
forest here and there. Behind these nearest summits towered countless
ranges in the blue misty light, and from a distant, dim valley which
separated two giant mountains, arose two slender, shadowy gothic towers.
A little river, a highway bordered by poplars, and several gay villages
enlivened the background of the valley. In front lay Castle Lindhof,
surrounded by a park laid out in princely style. Beneath the windows of
the castle extended a closely shaven lawn, beset with small,
quaintly-shaped beds glowing with all the colours of the rainbow.
Thence Elizabeth's eyes soon wandered, and rested delightedly upon the
mysterious gloom of an avenue of magnificent lindens, their heavy
foliage interlacing above their brown trunks, while here and there
drooping boughs swept the ground beneath with their broad leaves. They
bordered a little crystal lake, which just now looked melancholy enough
amid all its flowery surroundings, for its depths mirrored a cloudy sky.
Now and then a swan stretched its white neck curiously among the
low-hanging linden boughs, and sent a shower of feathery spray from its
wings to sprinkle their old trunks.
Hitherto Elizabeth had allowed the glass to range restlessly hither and
thither, but now she attempted to hold it steadily, for she had made a
discovery which excited her interest most powerfully.
Under the last trees of the avenue stood a couch. A young lady lay upon
it, her charming head thrown back so that a part of her chestnut curls
fell down across the pillow. Beneath the hem of her long white muslin
dress, which enveloped her form to the throat, peeped out two tiny feet
encased in gold-embroidered satin slippers. She held in her delicate
almost transparent hands some auriculas, which she was thoughtlessly
twisting and waving to and fro. Her lips alone showed any colouring;
the rest of her face was lily-pale; one would almost have doubted its
being informed with life had not the blue eyes gleamed so wondrously.
But these eyes with their depth of expression were riveted upon the
countenance of a man who, sitting opposite, appeared to be reading aloud
to her. Elizabeth could not see his face, for his back was turned
toward her. He seemed young, tall, and well made, and had a profusion
of light-brown hair.
"Is that lovely lady over there the Baroness Lessen?" asked Elizabeth,
eagerly.
The forester took the spy-glass. "No," said he, "that is Fraeulein von
Walde, the sister of the proprietor of Lindhof. You call her charming,
and certainly her head is lovely, but she is a cripple; she walks upon
crutches."
At this moment Frau Ferber joined them. She too looked through the
glass, and thought the countenance of the young lady most beautiful.
She was particularly struck with the expression of gentle kindness
which, as she said, "transfigured the features."
"Yes," said the forester, "she is kind and benevolent. When I first came
here the whole country around was full of her praises. But matters are
changed indeed, since the Baroness Lessen has had the control of affairs
over there. No more alms are distributed among the poor, unless they
are earned by hypocrisy. Woe to the wretch who asks any assistance
there! He will be turned away without a penny, if he ventures to hint
that he would rather listen to the pastor in the village church on
Sundays than go to the castle chapel, where the chaplain of the baroness
every week calls down fire and brimstone, and every imaginable pain of
hell, upon the heads of the ungodly."
"Certainly such violent measures are poorly fitted to win souls to
heaven and inspire people with Christian love," said Frau Ferber.
"They destroy all good, and foster hypocrisy, I tell you!" cried the
forester, angrily. "Do they not set an example of it themselves? They
are always reading in the Bible of Christian humility, yet every day
they grow haughtier and more supercilious. Why, they would actually
persuade us that their high-born bodies are moulded of a different clay
from those of their poor brothers in Christ. It stands written, 'When
thou doest thine alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand
doeth;' but no hen ever makes more to-do over her newly-laid egg than
these people over their charities. There are perpetual collections,
fairs, and lotteries for the poor, and the whole neighbourhood is
black-mailed, but when it comes to taking the money from, where it is
plentiest, their own purses,--oh, that's carrying the joke too far, as
the saying goes. I know people who have been for twenty years
collecting subscriptions from others to found a poor-house. These very
people have a yearly income of six thousand thalers, but of course it
never occurs to them to add one penny from their own store in aid of
their charitable project. They must purchase a reputation for
benevolence and Christian self-sacrifice more cheaply than that. Zounds!
how it enrages me to see people wearing their piety so pinned upon their
sleeves! Over there in the castle a bell is set ringing just so many
times a day, that every one in the country around may say, when they
hear it, 'They are having prayers at the castle.' The closet, where God
has commanded us to shut to the door and kneel in prayer, is altogether
too small to suit their taste. And it is not only this trumpet-blowing
that outrages me. I hold it to be actually wicked to make such a mere
everyday form of the worship of the Holiest. Do you suppose that the
maid-servant, with a hot smoothing-iron in her hand, or the cook, who is
just putting her roast to the fire, can rejoice in the sound of that
bell?"
"It is most certainly a dubious kind of piety," said Frau Ferber,
smiling.
"Or even the gracious ladies themselves, who are busy with the last
novel or a piquante bit of court scandal--for an interest in all such
things is quite consistent with the loftiest piety--do you suppose they
are able to divert their thoughts in one instant from worldly affairs
and turn them all heavenwards? But these people run in and out of the
kingdom of heaven without any thought or preparation, and congratulate
themselves upon the honour that they are doing to the Creator."
"And does Herr von Walde sympathize with these reforms of the baroness?"
asked Frau Ferber.
"From everything that I can gather from the villagers, I should judge
not; but how does that mend the matter? He is probably at this moment
prying into the pyramids that he may throw light upon antiquity; how
should he know that his cousin here is zealously doing her best to blow
out the advancing light of the present? Besides, I dare say he has a
crack in his own brain. The prince of L----, who knows him well, wished
some years ago to make a match between him and a young person of quality
at court, but, as I hear, my gentleman refused the alliance because the
fair one's pedigree was not sufficiently long."
"Why, perhaps then he may install as mistress of Lindhof some fair
daughter of a fellah, whose ancestors lie among the mummies at Memphis,"
said Elizabeth, laughing.
"I don't believe he will marry at all," rejoined the forester. "He is
no longer young, is too fond of a wandering life, and has never shown
any love for women's society. I'll wager my little finger that that
fellow there with the book in his hand thinks just as I do, and already
in his inmost soul regards Lindhof and all the other charming estates in
Saxony, and God only knows where else, as his own."
"Has he any claims to them?" asked Frau Ferber.
"Most certainly. He is the son of the Baroness Lessen, whose family is
the only one in the world related to the brother and sister von Walde.
The baroness was first married to a certain Herr von Hollfeld; that
young man is the fruit of that marriage, and by the death of his father
he came into possession of Odenberg, a large estate on the other side of
L----. The fair widow was fully conscious that her freedom must be made
available to assist her up at least one step in the ladder of human
happiness and perfection, and naturally this could only be attained by a
marriage with high rank, wherefore Frau von Hollfeld one day became
Baroness Lessen. 'Tis true the baron's name had been made somewhat
notorious by several acts on his part which people of common, low-born
ideas might call dishonourable; but what matter for that? Was he not a
lord chamberlain, and did not the keys of his office unlock many a door
for him where St. Peter's would have availed nothing, in spite of the
power given to them? However, the baron died after two years of
marriage, leaving his widow a little daughter and an enormous amount of
debts. I have no doubt she is glad enough to queen it at Lindhof, for I
hear that she has no part or parcel in her son's property."
Here a maid from the lodge interrupted them with bucket and broom,
giving unmistakable signs that she was about to begin the duties of her
office in this apartment. The spy-glass was hastily closed, and while
the forester went into the garden to renew his labours there in clearing
away the luxuriant green from the lower window-sills, Frau Ferber and
Elizabeth busied themselves with dust-cloths and brushes in restoring
the furniture of the room to something of its original appearance.
CHAPTER VI.
Whitsuntide was over. The brazen bells had retired into private life,
and looked black and silent through the loopholes in the bell-towers,
that seemed like the coffins of the melodious life which had so lately
streamed forth from them during the holidays. But the bright
flower-bells in the forest, hanging loosely on their stalks, could not
forget the festival. They had joined in bravely when the air had
quivered with the brazen clang, and still rang gently with every breeze
that swept through the underbrush. What did they care that the
wood-cutter, his holiday clothes and face all laid aside, tramped past
them in his heavy boots, whistling some rude melody! The forest heeded
not, but kept up the same mysterious murmur amid its branches like a
thousand-voiced whisper of prayer, and the little birds sang as before
their matin and vesper hymns in God's praise.
Up in old Castle Gnadeck, as in the forest, the festal spirit of the
holidays still reigned, although Ferber had already entered upon the
duties of his office, often making unavoidable visits to L----, while
Frau Ferber and Elizabeth had, through Sabina, received several large
orders from a ready-made linen establishment in L----, and were besides
busy every day for some hours in the garden which even in this first
year gave promise of abundant fruit and flowers. Notwithstanding this
constant industry, there was a holiday air pervading the whole place,
arising from the consciousness in the minds of each one of the family
that there had come a happy turn in their affairs; they were continually
comparing their present with their former situation, and the new and
unaccustomed life of the forest had an almost intoxicating effect upon
their spirits.
Her parents had given Elizabeth the gobelin room, because there was the
finest prospect from its windows, and because the girl when she had
first entered it had declared that she liked it best of all. The gloomy
door which led into the huge old wing Had been walled up and gave no
sign that such a dreary waste lay beyond it. The further end of the
room was filled by one of the renovated canopied bedsteads, and by the
window stood the antique writing-table, with its quaint inkstand and
writing utensils of porcelain, and two vases filled with lovely flowers;
while just outside the window, embowered in the topmost branches of a
syringa bush, was the canary's cage; its occupant vying with the forest
songsters in its shrill trilling with all the envy of some spoiled
bravura singer.
While they were arranging the room, and Frau Ferber was every moment
bringing in some new piece of furniture to add to it a greater air of
comfort and luxury, her husband went to the longest wall, and,
stretching his arms across it, banished to the anteroom the lounge that
had just been placed there.
"Stay,--this space I appropriate," he said with a smile. Then he
brought a large bracket of dark wood and nailed it upon the wall, which
was wainscoted neatly to the ceiling on this side. "Here," he
continued, as he placed upon the bracket a bust of Beethoven, "this
mightiest mortal shall be enthroned alone."
"But that looks so blank and bare," said Frau Ferber.
"Only wait until to-morrow or the day after, and you will, I am sure,
admit that my arrangements are not to be despised, and that Elizabeth
will have both pleasure and profit from them."
And on the next day, which had been Whitsun-eve, he went to town with
the forester. They returned toward evening, but did not enter through
the gate in the garden wall. The great gate was flung wide open, and
four strong men bore in a large and shining object through the ruins.
Elizabeth was standing near the kitchen window, engaged, for the first
time in her new home, in preparing the evening meal, when the men
entered the garden with their burden.
She cried out, for it was a piano--a large, square piano, which was
immediately borne up stairs and placed in the gobelin room under
Beethoven's bust. Elizabeth laughed and wept at the same moment, as she
rapturously embraced her father, who had expended his little capital,
the proceeds of the sale of their furniture in B----, that he might
provide her again with what had been the delight of her life. And then
she opened the instrument and a flood of rich melody filled the rooms
where the silence of death had reigned for so many years.
The forester had come with her father to enjoy Elizabeth's surprise and
delight. He now leaned silently against the wall, as the wondrous
sounds flowed forth from beneath the girl's touch. For the first time
he heard the true speech of the glowing life that animated the delicate
young frame. How thoughtful and inspired was the air of the
finely-shaped head which crowned her graceful form, so suggestive of
earnest maidenhood! Hitherto only jests and merry repartee had been
exchanged between uncle and niece. He often called her his butterfly,
because of the airy grace of her motions and her quickness of mind,
which never left her at a loss for a reply to his merry attacks; but his
favourite name for her was "Gold Elsie," for he maintained that her hair
was such perfect gold that he could see it shining and shimmering in the
darkest parts of the forest as she approached, and that it heralded her
coming to him as the jewel in the giant's shield had once announced his
approach to Childe Roland.
When Elizabeth had finished she spread her arms above the instrument as
if to embrace it, and, leaning her head upon it, smiled the happiest
smile; but her uncle approached her softly, gave her a silent kiss upon
the forehead, and departed without a word.
From this time he came up every evening to the old castle. As soon as
the last rays of the setting sun had faded from the tree-tops, Elizabeth
sat down at the piano. The little family took their places in the large
low window-seat, and lost themselves in the fairy world, which was
opened to them by the great master whose image looked down from the wall
upon the inspired young performer. And then Ferber would think of how
Elizabeth had portrayed the free life in the forest when the letter from
her uncle had first arrived in B----. 'Tis true no elves or gnomes
appeared, but the spirits which the mightiest of the masters of music
had imprisoned in sound floated forth from their prison-house on a flood
of melody, breathing into the solemn silence around a mysterious life--a
life of whose joys and sorrows every sympathetic human soul is
conscious, although to genius alone is granted power to embody and
reveal them.
One afternoon they were all sitting together at their coffee. The
forester had brought his pipe and newspaper, and begged of Elizabeth a
cup of the refreshing beverage. He was just about to read aloud an
interesting article in his paper, when the bell at the garden gate
sounded. To the astonishment of every one, when little Ernst ran to
open it, a servant in livery entered and handed Elizabeth a note. It
was from the Baroness Lessen. She began by saying much that was
flattering with regard to the young girl's masterly performance upon the
piano, to which she had listened for the two or three previous evenings
while walking in the forest, and concluded by preferring a request that
Elizabeth would consent, of course for a stipulated consideration, to
come to Castle Lindhof every week and play duets with Fraeulein von
Walde.
The style of the letter was extremely courteous; nevertheless the
forester, after a second perusal of it, threw it angrily upon the table,
and said, looking steadily at Elizabeth,--
"I hope you will not consent?"
"And why not, my dear Carl?" asked Ferber in her stead.
"Because Elizabeth is, and always will be, far too good for those people
down there!" cried the forester, with some irritation. "But if you
choose to see what you have carefully planted, choked up and ruined by
poisonous weeds and mildew--why, do it."
"It is certainly true," replied Ferber quietly, "that my child has known
until now none other than a parent's care. We have endeavoured most
conscientiously, as was our duty, to cherish every germ of good, to
foster every plant of tender growth. But we have had no idea of
producing a mere hot house flower, and alas for us and for her, if all
that we have unweariedly tended and nourished for eighteen years is so
loosely planted in the soil that it can be torn thence by the first
blast of life! I have educated my daughter to live in the world; she
must battle her way among its storms, as we all must. If I should be
taken from her to-day, she must herself guide the helm which I have
hitherto held for her. If the people in the castle below are not fit
associates for her, matters will soon arrange themselves. Either both
parties will feel their unsuitability to each other and all intercourse
will cease, or everything that offends Elizabeth's principles will pass
by her like idle wind, leaving no impression. Why, you yourself never
avoid a danger, but rather prove your strength by meeting it bravely."
"But, zounds! I am a man, and can take care of myself!"
"And how do you know that Elizabeth hereafter will possess any support
except what she finds in herself, or have any sharer in the
responsibility of her actions?"
The forester cast a keen glance at his niece, whose earnest eyes were
riveted upon her father's face. He who was to her the embodiment of
wisdom and tenderness was echoing her own ideas, and the expression of
her beautiful face showed what she felt.
"Father," she said, "you shall see that you have not been mistaken--that
I am not weak. I never could endure the trite image of the ivy and the
oak, and shall most certainly not illustrate it in my own person. Be
comforted, uncle dear, and let me go down to the castle," she said,
smiling archly at the forester, whose forehead showed a deep frown of
decided irritation. "If the people there are heartless, don't suppose
for one moment that they will make a cannibal of me, and that I shall
eat my own heart up. If they try to crush me with supercilious
arrogance, my own inner standard of action shall be so high that I can
look down in pity upon the harmless arrows of their scorn; and if they
are hypocrites, I shall turn with all the more delight to gaze into the
sunny face of truth, and be more deeply convinced of the ugliness of
their black masks."
"Fairly spoken, oh incomparable Elsie, and incontestably true,--if only
these same people would kindly hand you their masks to examine. But you
will awake some day to find that what you have believed to be gold is
only the merest tinsel."
"No indeed, dear uncle; I will not foolishly allow myself to be imposed
upon. Remember, we have had many trials since my childhood; they have
not been borne without teaching me some good lessons. Certainly we must
all trust somewhat in our own strength, and I shall not despair for a
long time, even if upon my first experience of the world I plunge into
an abyss of Egyptian darkness, full of frightful monsters. But look,
uncle dear, to what your zeal for my soul's welfare has brought
you,--your coffee looks as though it could be skated upon, and your
meerschaum is at its last gasp."
The forester laughed, although the laugh was not from his heart. And
while Elizabeth refilled his cup for him and handed him a lighted match,
he said to her: "You must not suppose that my ammunition is exhausted
because I say to you, 'Well, well, go and try it.' I look forward to
the satisfaction of seeing the courageous chicken come flying back again
some day, only too thankful to creep under the sheltering wing of home."
"Aha!" laughed Frau Ferber, "you have no idea of the stern determination
in that little head. But let us decide. I advise Elizabeth to pay her
respects to the ladies to-morrow."
The next afternoon at about five o'clock Elizabeth descended the
mountain. A broad, well-kept path led through the forest, which melted
imperceptibly into the park. No gateway separated its carefully-tended
grounds, with their clumps of trees and feathery grass, from the wild
woods beyond.
Elizabeth had put on a fresh light muslin dress, and a small, white,
round straw hat. Her father walked with her as far as the first meadow,
and then she went bravely on alone. No human being crossed her path
during her long walk; it even seemed as though the trees rustled more
softly here in the leafy avenues and arcades than in the forest beyond,
and as if the birds modulated their notes more gently. She started at
the noise of the crunching gravel beneath her tread as she approached
the castle, and wondered to find how timid the intense quiet had made
her.
At last she reached the principal entrance, and caught sight of a human
face. It was a servant, who was busy in an imposing vestibule, but who
moved as noiselessly as possible. Upon her request that he would
announce her to the baroness, he slipped up the broad staircase fronting
the hall door, at the foot of which stood two lofty statues, their white
limbs half concealed by the orange trees placed at their bases. He soon
returned, and assuring her that she was expected, led the way quickly up
the stairs, scarcely touching the steps with the tips of his toes.
Elizabeth followed him with a beating heart. It was not the grandeur
around her that oppressed her, it was the sensation of standing all
alone in this new untried sphere. The servant conducted her through a
long corridor, past the open doors of several apartments, which,
furnished with extraordinary splendour, were heaped with such a
profusion of elegant trifles that a simple child, unused to such luxury,
would have supposed herself in a fancy-shop.
Her guide at last carefully opened a folding-door, and the young girl
entered.
Near the windows, opposite Elizabeth, upon a couch lay a lady in
apparently great suffering. Her head was resting upon a white pillow,
and warm coverings were spread over her entire figure, which, in spite
of its wrappings, betrayed decided embonpoint. In her hand was a
vinaigrette.
She raised her head slightly, so that Elizabeth could see her face
distinctly; it was round and pale, and at first sight by no means
unprepossessing. Upon a closer view, the large blue eyes, that
glittered beneath light eyelashes and elevated eyebrows as light, looked
cold as ice, an expression in nowise softened by the supercilious lines
about her mouth and nostrils, and by a broad, rather projecting chin.
"Oh, Fraeulein, it is very kind of you to come!" cried the baroness in a
weak voice, which nevertheless sounded harsh and cold, as she pointed to
a lounge near her, and motioned to Elizabeth, who courtesied politely,
to sit down. "I have begged my cousin," she continued, "to arrange
matters with you in my room, as I am really too ill to take you to
hers."
This reception was certainly courteous, although there was a
considerable amount of condescension in the lady's tone and manner.
Elizabeth sat down, and was just about to reply to the question how she
liked Thuringia, when the door was suddenly flung open, and a little
girl of about eight years of age ran in, holding in her arms a pretty
little dog, struggling and whining piteously.
"Ali is so naughty, mamma, he will not stay with me!" cried the child,
breathlessly, as she threw the dog upon the carpet.
"You have probably been teasing the little thing again, my child," said
her mother. "But I cannot have you here, Bella; you make so much noise,
and I have a headache. Go away to your room."
"Oh, it's so stupid there! Miss Mertens has forbidden me to play with
Ali, and gives me those tiresome old fables to learn; I cannot bear
them."
"Well, then, stay here; but be perfectly quiet."
The child passed close to Elizabeth with a stare and an examination of
her dress from top to toe, and mounted upon an embroidered footstool
before the mirror in order the easier to reach a vase of fresh flowers.
In a moment the tastefully arranged bouquet was thrown into the wildest
disorder by the little fingers, which busied themselves with sticking
single flowers into the delicately embroidered eyelet-holes of the
muslin curtain. During this operation large drops of the water, in
which the flowers had been placed, dropped from the stems upon
Elizabeth's dress, and she was obliged to move her chair, as there
seemed no likelihood that any stop would be put to the proceeding,
either by the little Vandal herself or by her mother's prohibition.
Elizabeth had only had time to move, and to reply to the reiterated
question of the baroness, that she already felt very happy and, quite at
home in Thuringia, when the lady hastily arose from her reclining
posture, and, with an amiable smile upon her lips, nodded towards a
large portiere, which was drawn noiselessly aside and on the threshold
of the door appeared the two young people whom Elizabeth had lately seen
through the spy-glass; but how strangely ill-assorted they now seemed to
be, as she saw them thus standing together. Herr von Hollfeld, a
slender figure of great height, was obliged to bend very much on one
side to afford any support to the little hand that rested upon his arm.
The sylph-like little figure, which had lain upon the couch in the park,
was no taller than a child's. The exquisitely lovely head was sunk
between the shoulders, and the crutch in her left hand showed how
helpless was her crippled condition.
"Forgive me, dearest Helene," cried the baroness, as the pair entered,
"for troubling you to come to me; but, as you see, I am again the poor
wretched creature upon whom you are so ready to bestow your angelic pity
and kindness. Fraeulein Ferber," here she motioned towards Elizabeth,
as if presenting her, and the young girl rose, blushing, "has had the
kindness to come, in compliance with my note of yesterday."
"And, indeed, I am very grateful to you fordoing so!" said the little
lady, turning towards Elizabeth with a smile of great sweetness, and
holding out her hand. Her glance measured the blushing girl before her
with an expression of surprise, and then rested upon the heavy golden
braids that appeared below the hat. "Oh, yes," she said, "I have
already seen your lovely golden hair; yesterday as I was walking in the
forest you were leaning over a wall up there at the old castle."
Elizabeth blushed yet more deeply.
"But because you were there," continued the little lady, "I lost the
pleasure for which I had clambered up the height, the pleasure of
hearing you play, which I had enjoyed on the previous evening. So young
and child-like, and yet with such a thorough appreciation of classic
music! it seems impossible! You will make me very happy if you will
play often with me."
Something like a shade of displeasure flitted across the features of the
baroness, and a close observer might have noticed a scornful contraction
of her lips, but it was lost upon Elizabeth, whose attention was
entirely absorbed by interest in the unfortunate little lady whose
delicate silvery voice seemed to come fresh from the depths of her
heart.
In the mean time, Herr von Hollfeld pushed a chair for Fraeulein von
Walde close to the lounge, and left the room without uttering a word.
But as he went out by the door directly opposite to Elizabeth, she could
not help noticing that he directed a last long look at her before slowly
closing it after him. It disturbed her, for his expression was of so
strange a kind that she hurriedly glanced over her dress to see if
anything there could have struck him as odd or unsuitable.
For the last few moments Bella had been sitting upon the carpet, playing
with the dog. It would have been a charming picture, if the whinings
and uneasy movements of the little animal had not betrayed that the
child was teasing it. At each loud cry from the dog, Fraeulein von
Walde started nervously, and the baroness said, mechanically, "Don't
tease him so, Bella!" At last, however, when the animal uttered a most
piteous howl, the mother raised her forefinger threateningly, and said,
"I must call Miss Mertens."
"Oh," replied the child contemptuously, "I don't care for her! She
doesn't dare to punish me, for you told her she mustn't."
At this moment, the portiere was gently drawn aside, and a pale, faded
gentlewoman appeared. She courtesied to the ladies, and said, timidly:
"The chaplain is waiting for Bella."
"But I won't have a lesson to-day!" the little girl cried, taking a ball
of worsted from the table and throwing it at the speaker.
"Yes, my child, you must," said the baroness. "Go with Miss Mertens,
and be a good little girl, Bella."
Bella, as though the matter affected her no more than it did Ali, who
had retreated behind the sofa, threw herself into an arm-chair and drew
her feet up under her. The governess was about to approach her, but at
an angry look from the baroness she retired to the door again.
This disgraceful scene would probably have lasted much longer if the
baroness had not brought up a _corps de reserve_ to her assistance in
the shape of a box of bonbons. The child, after she had crammed her
mouth and pockets full, left her seat, and, pushing aside the hand which
her governess held out to her, ran out of the room.
Elizabeth sat petrified with astonishment. The delicate features of
Fraeulein von Walde also showed evident disapproval; but she said
nothing.
The baroness sank back among her pillows. "These governesses will be my
death," she sighed. "If Miss Mertens could only learn how to treat,
judiciously, a child of Bella's sensitive, nervous temperament! She
never takes into account social position, temperament, and physical
constitution. She would model all after the same pattern--the daughter
of a grocer or a peer; a finely-strung, sensitive nature, or a robust,
rude, day-labourer physique--'tis all the same thing to her. Miss
Mertens is a disagreeable, pedantic schoolmistress; her English, too, is
detestable. Heaven only knows in what mean little English county she
learned her native tongue!"
"But really, dear Amalie," said Fraeulein von Walde, "I do not find her
English impure," and her voice sounded exquisitely kind and soothing.
"There you come with your never-failing angelic amiability; but,
although I do not understand English, I can always hear, in one instant,
how much more high-bred your accent is, my dear, when you are talking
with her."
Elizabeth inwardly doubted the value of this estimate, and Fraeulein von
Walde blushed with a deprecating gesture.
But the baroness continued: "And Bella hears it, too; she will not open
her lips when her governess speaks English to her, and I cannot blame
her in the least; it provokes me excessively when this person blames the
child for obstinacy."
Under the influence of her irritation the voice of the baroness, which
had at first been very weak and suffering, had grown perceptibly
stronger. She suddenly seemed to become aware of this herself, and
closed her eyes with an expression of great weariness. "Oh heavens!"
she sighed, "my unfortunate nerves are too much for me. I grow excited
instead of being kept quiet; these vexations are poison both to my mind
and body."
"I would advise you, Amalie, when you are as nervous and weak as you are
to-day, to leave Bella without a fear to Miss Mertens' care. I am
convinced that nothing can be better for her. While I fully understand
your touching anxiety on the child's account, I can confidently assure
you that Miss Mertens is far too gentle and cultivated a person to do
anything that would not conduce to her welfare. You look quite worn
out," she continued, sympathizingly. "We had better leave you alone;
Fraeulein Ferber will certainly have the kindness to accompany me to my
room."
So saying she arose, and leaning over the baroness imprinted a gentle
kiss upon her cheek. Then she laid her hand upon the arm of Elizabeth,
whom the baroness dismissed with a gracious nod, and left the apartment.
As they slowly walked through the various corridors, she told Elizabeth
that it would be a special delight to her brother, who was so far from
her, if she should resume her music. He used to sit alone with her
listening to her playing for hours, until a nervous malady that had
attacked her had forced her to give up her beloved music for a long
time. Now she felt much stronger, and her physician had also given his
consent; she would be very diligent, that she might surprise her brother
upon his return home. Elizabeth then took leave.
She hastened with winged speed through the park, and along the path
which ascended the mountain. In the forest glade just before the open
garden gate her parents were awaiting her return, and little Ernst ran
lovingly to meet her. What an air of home breathed all around her here!
The greeting that she received showed how she had been missed; the
canary was singing merrily in his green embowered cage, the garden
laughed in beauty, and in the background, under the group of lindens
above the cool spring, the snowy table was spread for supper.
The Italian castle with all its splendour, its aristocratic air, and its
oppressive silence, only broken by the clamour of a spoiled child, faded
behind her like a dream of the night; and when she had imparted her
impressions of all that she had seen and heard to her parents, she
concluded with the words: "You have taught me, father dear, never to
form any settled judgment of others upon a slight acquaintance with
them, for such judgment runs a fair chance of being unjust, but what can
I do with my unruly fancy? Whenever I think of the two ladies, I see in
imagination a lovely young weeping willow, whose elastic graceful
branches are the constant sport of a furious tempest."
CHAPTER VII.
From this time Elizabeth went regularly to Lindhof twice a week. The
day following her first visit Baroness Lessen had arranged the hours for
the lessons in a very courteous note, and had insisted upon a most
generous compensation for Elizabeth's time. These lessons soon proved a
source of much enjoyment. Helene von Walde, owing to the absence of all
practice for many years, was very deficient in technical knowledge and
capacity, and could not be compared at all with Elizabeth; but she
played with much feeling, her taste was refined and cultivated, and she
was entirely free from the wretched habit, common to most dilettanti, of
depreciating whatever lay beyond her reach. Baroness Lessen was never
present during the music lessons, and therefore the moments of rest
gradually became especially delightful to Elizabeth. At such times a
servant usually brought in some light refreshments. Helene leaned back
in her armchair, and Elizabeth seated herself upon a cushion at her
feet, and listened enchanted to the flute-like silvery voice of the
unfortunate lady as she recounted many an experience of the past. The
image of the absent brother here played a principal part. She was never
weary of telling of his care and thoughtfulness for her, of how,
although he was many years her senior, he was continually studying how
to gratify and humour her childish whims and peculiarities. She related
how he had purchased Lindhof only because, upon a visit which she had
formerly made in Thuringia, she had experienced great benefits from the
pure Thuringian air; everything showed how dearly he loved her.
One afternoon, when they had been practising unusually long, a servant
entering announced a visitor.
"Stay and drink tea with me this afternoon," said Fraeulein von Walde to
Elizabeth. "My physician is here from L----, and several ladies from
the neighbourhood have just arrived; I will send some one up to the
castle that your mother may not be anxious about you. My tete-a-tete
with the doctor will not last long, and I shall soon be with you again."
And so saying she left the room. Scarcely ten minutes had elapsed
before the door opened and Fraeulein von Walde entered, leaning upon the
arm of a gentleman whom she presented to Elizabeth as Doctor Fels, from
L----. He was tall, with an intellectual countenance, and as soon as he
heard Elizabeth's name he entered into a lively conversation with her,
comically assuring her that his own surprise and horror, as well as that
of the entire respectable population of L----, had really known no
bounds when it was reported that old Castle Gnadeck had received within
its crumbling walls inhabitants of flesh and blood.
Suddenly there was a rustling in the antechamber, and upon the threshold
of the door appeared two figures of rather singular exterior. Their
great resemblance of feature plainly revealed their relationship as
mother and daughter. Both wore dark dresses, which, contrary to the
prevailing mode, fell limp and close around them, large scarfs of black
woollen stuff, and brown, round straw hats, tied, in the case of the
mother, with black ribbon, while the daughter had a lilac bow beneath
her chin.
Helene von Walde received the ladies courteously, presenting them as
Frau and Fraeulein Lehr, and Elizabeth afterwards learned that, residing
in L----, they spent their summers in lodgings in the village of
Lindhof.
Immediately after their entrance the Baroness Lessen appeared, leaning
upon her son's arm, and accompanied by a gentleman who was addressed by
those present as Herr Moehring, the chaplain.
The baroness was dressed in dark silk, but with the greatest elegance,
and made a most imposing appearance. She paused for an instant upon the
threshold of the door, and seemed to be disagreeably surprised at
Elizabeth's presence. She measured her with a haughty look of inquiry,
and replied to her courtesy by a scarcely perceptible inclination of the
head.
Helene noticed the look, and approaching her said in a soothing whisper,
"I kept my little favourite with me to-day--I had already detained her
so long."
This excuse did not escape Elizabeth's ear. It offended her, and she
would willingly have flown away through the window near which she was
standing, had not pride induced her to stay and brave the arrogance of
the baroness. The great lady seemed entirely pacified by the
explanation of what had occurred without her consent. She put her arm
around Helene, stroked her curls tenderly, and said a hundred caressing
things to her. Then she requested those present to follow her to the
adjoining room, where tea was prepared. She did the honours of the
tea-table, and discovered a talent, by no means to be despised, for
leading and carrying on the conversation. With admirable tact, she
contrived always to make Helene the centre of attention without in the
least wounding the self-love of the others.
Elizabeth sat silent between the doctor and Fraeulein Lehr. The
conversation possessed little interest for her, inasmuch as it related
to people and circumstances entirely strange to her. Frau von Lehr had
much to say, and seemed perfectly instructed in every matter, private or
public, that had taken place during the last few weeks among the people
living around Lindhof. She spoke in a peculiarly mournful, suppressed
tone of voice, and at the conclusion of the rehearsal of each exciting
piece of news cast down her eyes and inclined her head with great
apparent humility and resignation, as though she were a lamb suffering
for the sins of the world. Now and then she drew forth from a huge
reticule which she carried a small bottle of rose-water, with which she
moistened her eyes, as they seemed weak with perpetual casting towards
heaven.
What a contrast between her and Helene's madonna face, as it leaned
against the dark plush of the lounge, reminding Elizabeth more than ever
of the water-lily lying dreamily with its snow-white leaves upon the
dark surface of the lake! To-day there was a strange glow upon the
delicate features. It was not that all traces of suffering had
vanished, but there was a peaceful light of content in her eyes, and a
happy smile wreathed the pale lips as often as she took up from her lap
the bouquet of rosebuds which Herr von Hollfeld had presented to her
when he entered. He sat beside her, and sometimes joined in the
conversation. As soon as he opened his lips the ladies were silent,
listening with the greatest attention, although his talk was anything
but fluent, and, as Elizabeth soon discovered, betrayed not the
slightest originality of mind.
He was a very handsome man, of about four and twenty. There was great
repose in the finely-cut features, which at first seemed to indicate
manliness and strength of character; but any such impression which their
regularity might have produced was effaced by a searching glance into
his eyes. Those eyes, although they were large and faultless in shape,
had no depth whatever, and never lighted up with that meteoric flash
which so often reveals the man of intellect, even when he does not
speak. Its want can be atoned for by that mild glow which speaks of
deep sensibility, and which, although it does not instantly impress us,
gradually attracts and enchains us. But there was nothing of this to be
discovered in Herr von Hollfeld's fine blue orbs.
This sentence, however, would have been echoed by but few, for it was
the present fashion, especially at the court of L----, to regard Herr
von Hollfeld as a prodigy, whose silence gave warrant of unfathomable
depths of intellect and sensibility,--in which opinion the ladies in and
around Lindhof most cordially joined, as was illustrated by the conduct
of Frau von Lehr's very stout daughter, who leaned forward, directly
across the modestly shrinking Elizabeth, and listened, as if to the
enunciation of a new gospel, whenever Herr von Hollfeld opened his lips.
And she, too, appeared quite willing to allow her light to shine.
"Were you not charmed with the lovely sermons with which Herr Moehring
edified us during the holidays?" she asked, turning to Elizabeth.
"I regret not having heard them," she answered.
"Then you did not attend divine service?"
"Oh, yes! I went with my parents to the village church at Lindhof."
"Indeed!" said the Baroness Lessen, turning for the first time toward
Elizabeth, and smiling sarcastically. "And were you greatly edified at
the village church at Lindhof?"
"Most truly was I, gracious lady," Elizabeth quietly replied, looking
calmly into the contemptuous eyes that were turned upon her. "I was
deeply affected by the simple, earnest words of the preacher. His
discourse was not delivered in the church, but under the trees outside.
When the service was about to begin it was evident that the little
church could not contain the crowd of worshippers, and an altar was
constructed under God's free sky. Such altars might often be erected."
"Unfortunately, they often are," said Herr Moehring, who until then had
spoken little, contenting himself with confirming all Frau von Lehr's
remarks by an amiable smile or an assenting nod. Now, however, his
broad, shiny face grew purple, and, turning to the baroness, he
continued, contemptuously: "Yes, most gracious lady, it is only too
true; the old idols are being replaced in the sacred groves, and we
shall have druids sacrificing to them beneath the oaken shades."
"Really, that never occurred to me. With the aid of my wildest
imagination I should never have dreamed at the time that I was assisting
at a heathen sacrifice," rejoined Elizabeth. She smiled, but continued
with serious warmth: "It seemed to me, on that glorious spring morning,
as the tones of the organ streamed forth from the open doors and windows
of the church, and that reverend old man spoke in such devout tones, as
it did when I entered the temple of God for the first time in my life."
"You seem to have an excellent memory, Fraeulein," Frau von Lehr here
remarked: "How old were you at that time, if I may ask?"
"Eleven years old."
"Eleven years old! Oh, heavens! how can such a thing be possible?"
cried the lady in holy horror. "How possible with Christian parents!
Why, my children were familiar with the house of God from their earliest
years, as you can testify, my dear doctor."
"Yes indeed, madame," he replied with great gravity. "I remember that
you ascribed the attack of croup, by which you lost your little son at
two years of age, to a couple of hours in the cold church."
Elizabeth looked up quite terrified at her neighbour. The doctor had
joined in the conversation hitherto only by throwing in a sarcastic word
here and there very drily, which amused Elizabeth greatly, inasmuch as
he was always met by a reproving glance from the baroness. When the
young girl began to speak she had not noticed him any more than had the
others, whose entire attention had been occupied with the wretched
heathen child, so that no one had observed how he was bursting with
inward laughter at the daring replies of the young stranger, and their
effect upon those present. His answer appeared thoughtless and cruel to
Elizabeth; but he must have known his companions well, for Frau von Lehr
was not at all offended, but replied with great unction: "Yes, the Lord
took the pious little angel to himself; he was too good for this world;"
then, turning to Elizabeth, she said: "And so you were shut out from the
Lord's kingdom for the first eleven years of your life?"
"Only from His temple, gracious lady. As a little child I was
instructed in the history of Christianity, and with my first thoughts
were blended ideas of God's wisdom and love. I cannot remember the time
when I did not hear of them from my father; but it is a firm principle
of his never to allow very young children to go to church; he says they
are entirely incapable of appreciating the importance and meaning of
what they see and hear there; the sermon, which must be entirely beyond
their comprehension, wearies them, and they conceive a dislike to the
place. My little brother Ernst is seven years old, and has never yet
been to church."
"Oh, happy father, who has the courage to frame and execute such plans
for his children's culture!" exclaimed Doctor Fels.
"Well, what hinders you from letting your children grow up without care,
like mushrooms?" asked the baroness with malice.
"That I can readily tell you in a very few words, most gracious lady. I
have six children, and cannot afford to have masters for them at home.
My profession prevents me from teaching them myself, and, therefore, I
am obliged to send them to the public school and subject them to its
laws, which require them to attend church regularly. Just as little can
I carry out my views with regard to another subject,--the putting of the
Bible into the hands of young children. The Sacred Book, which contains
the holy principles that should regulate all our thoughts and actions,
and, as such, should be regarded with veneration by the young,--does not
belong in their hands at a time when childhood, with rare exceptions,
seeks amusement instead of instruction, and is always curious to
investigate whatever is forbidden and mysterious. And, therefore, I
know,--and any observant teacher will admit,--that children who devote
themselves constantly to the perusal of the Bible, for which they are
commended by thoughtless parents, do not always search for the text of
the last sermon,--but read much else beside,--often meeting with words
and expressions which a careful mother would guard them from hearing at
home, but whose significance is often made only too clear by their
intercourse with other children not so carefully educated, left to the
charge of ignorant and vulgar servants. And suppose, even, that they
seek explanation of certain words and phrases from their mothers only;
an intelligent mother will always know, 'tis true, how to reply to their
queries, but she must, most certainly, forbid them the use of many
expressions which they find in the Bible,--let us recall to mind the
Song of Solomon,--and so the first seeds of doubt and unbelief are sown
in the childish mind, which is wanting in the strength that only moral
culture and riper understanding can give."
Here the Baroness Lessen arose with a gesture of impatience. Upon her
full cheeks, usually so pale, two round, crimson spots had appeared, a
sign to all who knew her, of great irritation. Fraeulein von Walde, who
had been a passive listener to the conversation, also arose, took her
cousin's arm, and, leading her to the window, asked whether she would
not like to hear a little music from Elizabeth and herself.
This propitiatory proposal was received with a gracious inclination of
the head,--the more especially as the baroness did not feel herself
quite equal to the doctor in a war of words; and, as everyone must have
seen her indignation, she was quite willing to have it supposed that the
beautiful, soothing music was the cause of her refraining from
annihilating the impious defamer of her holy zeal, for she was
perpetually presenting Bibles to poor children.
She took her seat in a windowed recess, and looked out upon the
landscape, upon which the first shadows of approaching evening were
falling. Her look was cold and cruel,--an expression often seen in a
certain kind of light-blue eye, shaded by white eyelashes. The corners
of her mouth were drawn down, a sign of great displeasure, which did not
vanish even when Schubert's Erlking, arranged for four hands, was
performed in a masterly manner by Helene and Elizabeth. The waves of
melody broke against that breast unfelt, as the waves of the ocean upon
a rocky shore.
When the last chord died away, the ladies arose from the instrument, and
the doctor, who had stood immovably, listening, hastened towards them.
His eyes sparkled as he thanked them for a treat which, as he assured
them, was richer than any he had enjoyed for years. Here Fraeulein von
Lehr's face grew scarlet, and her mother cast a malicious glance at the
unlucky enthusiast. Had not her daughter the preceding winter played
several times in public in L----, for the benefit of some charitable
association, and had he not attended every concert? However, the doctor
did not appear to notice the storms that he was calling down upon his
head. He discussed Schubert's compositions in a manner that manifested
refined perception and a thorough knowledge of his subject.
Suddenly there was a harsh clash of chords upon the piano; it seemed as
though fingers of bone were belabouring the keys. They looked round
with a start. The chaplain was seated at the instrument, with head
thrown back and inflated nostrils. He raised his hands for a second
attack, and began a beautiful choral, which his horrible playing
converted into torture for sensitive ears. Still it might have been
endured, when, to Elizabeth's horror, he began to sing in a nasal,
snuffling tone;--that was too much. The doctor seized his hat, and
bowed to Helene and the baroness, the latter only vouchsafing him a
slight wave of the hand in token of dismissal, without turning her face
from the window.
An incomparable expression of humour hovered upon the doctor's features.
He pressed Elizabeth's hand cordially as he departed, and took leave of
the rest with a courteous bow.
As soon as the door closed behind him, the baroness arose with
excitement and approached Helene, who was sitting in a corner of the
sofa.
"It is intolerable!" she cried, and her sharp voice sounded muffled, as
if suppressed anger were choking her, while her searching gaze rested
full upon the little lady, who looked up to her almost timidly. "How
can you, Helene, here in your own house, hear our rank, our dignity as
women,--yes, even our holy of holies, which we are bound so faithfully
to defend,--assailed so grossly without one word of reply?"
"But, dear Amalie, I cannot see."
"You will not see, child, in your inexhaustible patience and
long-suffering, that this doctor insults me whenever he can. Well, I
must submit to that, for this is not my house, and besides, as a
Christian, I would rather endure wrong than resort to retaliation. But
this submission must cease when the sacred claims of the Lord are
assailed. Here we should strive and struggle, and not grow weary. Is
it not actually blasphemous for this man to seize his hat, and, _sans
facon_, take his departure from the room while our hearts are being
stirred and elevated by the lofty thoughts which the truest form of
music, the choral, can alone express?"
She had spoken louder and louder, until she did not perceive that her
voice was entirely destroying the effect of a touching phrase, just
delivered by the unwearied chaplain, whose efforts had not been
intermitted for an instant.
"Ah, you must not blame the doctor for that," said Fraeulein von Walde.
"His time is precious; most likely he has a patient to see in L----; he
was about to leave just before we began to play."
"While that heathenish Erlking was going on, the worthy man entirely
forgot his patients," the baroness interrupted contemptuously. "Well, I
must submit. Unfortunately, in our degenerate days, the scoffers of our
faith have gained the upper hand."
"But, for heaven's sake, Amalie, what do you want me to do? You know
only too well that Fels is indispensable to me. He is the only
physician who knows how to relieve me when I am in great suffering,"
cried Helene, and her eyes filled with tears, while her cheeks were
suffused with a blush of irritation.
"I thought, Fraeulein Helene,"--began Frau von Lehr, who had hitherto
sat in her corner silently, and on the watch, like a spider in its
web,--"I thought that the welfare of our souls should be our first
consideration; care for our poor bodies should, in my estimation, rank
second in our view. There are many other skilful physicians in L----,
with as great a reputation for learning as Dr. Fels enjoys. Believe me,
my dear, it often gives great pain to our Christian friends in L---- to
know that a scoffer, an infidel, is admitted to your confidence as your
friend and adviser."
"Even if I consented to sacrifice myself so far," replied Helene, "as to
employ another physician, I dare not take such a step without first
obtaining my brother's consent; and I know that I should meet with
determined opposition there, for Rudolph is warmly attached to the
doctor, and puts entire confidence in him."
"Yes, more's the pity!" cried the baroness. "I have never been able to
comprehend that weakness in Rudolph's character. Doctor Fels imposes
upon him utterly with his seeming frankness, which might better be
called insolence. Well, I wash my hands of the affair, only for the
future I must decline any visits from the doctor, and entreat you, my
dear Helene, to excuse me when he is with you."
Fraeulein von Walde made no reply. She arose and looked sadly around
the room for an instant, as if missing something. It seemed to
Elizabeth that her eyes sought Herr von Hollfeld, who had left the room
unperceived a short time before.
The baroness took up her lace shawl, and Frau von Lehr and her daughter
prepared for departure. Both paid several compliments to the chaplain,
who had finished his performance, and was standing at the piano rubbing
his hands with embarrassment; and then all took leave of Helene, who
replied to their good-nights in a tone of great exhaustion.
As Elizabeth descended the stairs she saw Herr von Hollfeld standing in
a retired, dimly-lighted corridor. During his mother's outbreak of anger
he had sat quietly turning over the leaves of a book, never joining in
the conversation by word or look. His conduct had disgusted Elizabeth,
who had hoped that he would have stood by Helene and silenced his mother
by a few serious words. She was still more displeased when she noticed
that he was steadily regarding herself while he was apparently occupied
with his book. He might easily have seen her displeasure in her face,
but he continued to stare most insultingly. She felt herself at last
blush deeply beneath his gaze, and she was the more provoked at feeling
this, as the same thing had occurred against her will several times
before. It was remarkable that she never went home from Castle Lindhof
without chancing to meet Herr von Hollfeld either in the hall, upon the
stairs, or stepping suddenly from behind a tree in the park. Why these
meetings at last became painfully embarrassing to her she could not have
explained to herself. She thought no more about it, and usually forgot
him entirely before she reached her home.
He was standing now in the dark passage. A black slouched hat was
pulled down over his face, and his summer coat had been exchanged for a
light cloak. He seemed to be waiting for some one, and as soon as
Elizabeth had reached the last stair approached her hastily, as though
about to address her.
At the same moment Frau von Lehr and her daughter appeared on the
landing above.
"Aha, Herr von Hollfeld," cried the elder lady, "are you going to walk?"
The young man's features, which had seemed to Elizabeth strikingly
animated, instantly assumed a quiet expression of entire indifference.
"I have just come in from the garden," he said negligently, "where I
have been refreshing myself in the soft night air. Attend Fraeulein
Ferber home," he said authoritatively to a servant who issued from the
servants' room with a lantern, and then with an obeisance to the ladies,
he retired.
"How glad I am," said Elizabeth, as an hour later she was sitting at her
mother's bedside relating the events of the afternoon, "that to-morrow
will be Sunday. In our dear little simple village church I shall forget
all the disagreeable impressions which the last few hours have left upon
my mind. I never could have believed that I could have listened to a
choral without being moved to aspiration and devotion. But to-day I was
really angry, when, amid the clatter of the teacups, and after an hour
passed in talk certainly not inspired by love of our neighbour, I
suddenly heard those tones which have always been sacred to hours of
meditation and serious thought. Behind all this religious zeal there
lies hidden boundless arrogance,--that I saw clearly to-day; but if
others feel as I do, these people will scarcely make many proselytes.
Acknowledge, mother dear, that I am not naturally antagonistic, and yet
to-day I felt for the first time in my life an irresistible desire to
defy and contradict."
And then she spoke of Herr von Hollfeld and his strange behaviour in the
hall, adding that she could not understand what he could possibly have
wished to say to her.
"Never mind, we will not puzzle ourselves about that," said Frau Ferber.
"If he should ever propose to accompany you on your way home, do not
fail to reject such an offer peremptorily. Do you hear, Elizabeth?"
"But, dearest mother, what are you thinking of?" cried the girl with a
laugh. "The skies will fall before such a thing happens. If he could
allow Frau Lehr and her daughter, who consider themselves persons of
distinction, to go home without an escort, he will hardly condescend to
notice my insignificant self."
CHAPTER VIII.
About a week after the arrival of his relatives the forester had
published an edict in his domicile, which, as he said, had been hailed
with joy by his prime minister, and in accordance with which the duty of
taking their mid-day meal every Sunday at the Lodge was imposed upon the
Ferber family. Those were joyous days for Elizabeth.
Long before the first sound of the church bell they usually set out for
church. In her fluttering white dress, her soul filled with the
consciousness of youth and happiness, convinced that such a clear,
lovely day, must bring joy with it, Elizabeth walked beside her parents,
and looked eagerly for the moment when the round gilt ball upon the
village church tower at Lindhof emerged from the waves of green in the
valley below them; then from the dark and silent forest paths to the
right and left, groups of church-goers from the different hamlets around
would appear and join them with kindly greetings, until, while the bells
were ringing, the whole assembly arrived in the meadow just before the
church, where the forester was usually awaiting them. He welcomed them
from a distance with sparkling eyes and a flourish of his hat in the
air. In every movement of his tall figure, in his whole bearing, might
be read that inflexible integrity which never bowed to the mighty ones
of the earth, that expression of manly power and force of character from
which we expect to see quick resolve and bold action result, but which
never suggests the tender emotions of a sensitive nature. Elizabeth
declared that it was always a touching surprise when a single gentle
star beamed forth at night from a sky covered with clouds, and that the
sudden look of melting tenderness that occasionally illumined her
uncle's frank, determined countenance, affected her in like manner. And
she had many an opportunity of observing this change of expression, for
she had grown to be the apple of his eye. He had never had any
children, and now poured forth all the paternal affection of which his
large, warm heart was capable, upon his brother's lovely child, who, he
felt with pride, resembled himself in many points of character, although
in her they were transfigured by the charm of feminine delicacy and
refinement.
And she repaid his affection with the clinging love and filial care of a
daughter. She soon discovered how to make many an addition to his
domestic comfort, and where Sabina's penetration or capacity were at
fault, she effected many an improvement, with so much tact that the old
servant was never offended, whilst a new life opened upon her uncle,
surrounded by Elizabeth's tender care.
On the return from church, her uncle led Elizabeth by the hand, "just
like a little school-girl," as she said, and, indeed, it looked like it.
The excellent sermon which they had just heard, furnished matter for
abundant conversation and exchange of newly-developed thoughts and
sentiments; while the birds twittered and sang as though determined to
vindicate their right to speak here, and the golden-green sunshine came
quivering through the tops of the trees, flecking their heads as they
passed with its transfiguring light.
At the farthest end of the long dim forest aisle, for it was a very
narrow path which led from the Lodge to the village of Lindhof, a little
point of light indicated the meadow, in the middle of which stood the
old house. With every step the picture grew more distinct, until at last
they could distinguish Sabina waiting for them at the door, shading her
eyes with the corner of her white apron, and retreating into the house
when she saw them, that she might take her stand behind the soup tureen,
which was smoking upon the table beneath the beeches, where she
fulfilled her duty with the air of a general upon a rampart.
But to-day Sabina had prepared a particularly delicious repast, for in
the centre of the table was piled a huge crimson pyramid, the first
wood-strawberries of the year, hailed with delight by little Ernst, and
by full-grown Elizabeth too. The forester laughed at the enthusiasm of
the big and little child, and declared that he had a surprise to offer
as well as Sabina,--he would have the horse harnessed and take Elizabeth
to L----, where he had a little business to attend to,--a long-promised
pleasure. The young girl accepted his proposal with delight.
At table Elizabeth related the occurrences of the previous evening. Her
uncle shook with laughter.
"The doctor's a bold fellow," he said, still laughing; "but 'tis of no
use, he has drunk his last cup of tea at Lindhof."
"Impossible, uncle,--it would be outrageous!" cried Elizabeth,
earnestly. "Fraeulein von Walde would never permit such a thing, she
will resist with all her might."
"Well," he said, "I wish we could question the little lady to-day with
regard to her sentiments towards the doctor, and you would see. How can
a strong will inhabit such a frail dwelling? That imperious woman will
soon influence her, and there is none to resist, for 'Heaven is high,
and the Czar afar,' as the Russians say. We know, Sabina, that many a
strange thing has happened since the rule of the baroness began, eh?"
"Ah, yes indeed, Herr Forester!" replied the old woman, who was just
putting a dish upon the table. "When I think of poor Schneider,--she is
the widow of a day-labourer in the village," she said, turning to the
others; "she always worked hard to make both ends meet, and no one could
say a word against her, but she had four children to feed, and lived
from hand to mouth. And matters went badly with her last harvest, and
she had nothing to give her children to eat, so she was driven to do
what was wrong, and took an apron full of potatoes from a splendid field
belonging to the castle. But the overseer, Linke, who happened to be
standing behind a tree not far off, saw her, sprang out upon her
instantly, and knocked her down. Even if he had stopped there 'twould
not have been so bad, but he kicked her brutally as she lay upon the
ground. I had been to Lindhof, and as I was passing beneath the cherry
trees near the village, on my way home, I saw some one lying upon the
ground,--it was the poor woman, bleeding profusely, and with not a soul
near her. She could not move, so I called some people, who helped me to
carry her home. The Herr Forester was absent, but I was sure of his
permission, and so I nursed and tended her as well as I could. The
people in the village were furious at the overseer,--but what could they
do? There was some talk of arresting him, but it all came to nothing.
Linke is one of the saints, he is the baroness' right-hand man, turns up
his eyes, and does everything in the name of the Lord. It must never
get abroad that such a pious man could behave so inhumanly, and so the
baroness drove to town every day, and was wonderfully condescending,
and, in short, the story was hushed up, and the poor woman, who has
never entirely recovered, had to get along as best she might, for
neither she nor her children ever had a bite or a drop from the castle
all the while that she was sick. Ah! yes, the overseer and the
baroness' old waiting-maid make a hard time of it for the poor people,
they keep a close watch to see who misses prayers or chapel over there,
and they have been the means of depriving many an honest man of work at
the castle."
"Don't say any more about it," said the forester. "I cannot relish my
food when I think of these things, and our pleasant Sunday, to which I
look forward all the week, must have no other shadows upon it than those
cast by the white, fleecy clouds up there."
As soon as the meal was concluded the forester's modest little equipage
made its appearance. He handed in Elizabeth, and seated himself by her
side. As she nodded a farewell to the others, she glanced up at the
house, and started with actual terror at the eyes which were gazing down
upon her from a window in the upper story. 'Tis true, the head
disappeared instantly, but Elizabeth had time to recognize the mute
Bertha, and to convince herself that she was the object of that look of
rage and hate, although she could not divine its cause. Until now
Bertha had withdrawn herself entirely from all intercourse with the
Ferber family. She never appeared when Elizabeth was at the Lodge. She
took her Sunday dinner alone in her own room, and the forester allowed
her to please herself in the matter. He had no desire to establish any
relation between the two girls.
Frau Ferber had once made an attempt to address the unfortunate girl.
Her gentle feminine nature could not believe that mere wilfulness was
the spring of Bertha's extraordinary behaviour. She suspected the
existence of some deeper cause, perhaps of some secret grief, which made
her indifferent to her surroundings, or rendered her so irritable that
she chose to remain silent rather than be engaged in perpetual strife.
A gentle word from her, a kindly advance on her side, would, she hoped,
unseal Bertha's lips; but she succeeded no better than Elizabeth had
done. She was even so outraged by the girl's manner that she strictly
forbade all further attempt at intercourse with her upon Elizabeth's
part.
After a charming drive, Elizabeth and her uncle reached their
destination.
L---- was certainly a small town, and bore the unmistakable impress of a
small town, although the court resided there from the appearance of the
first primrose to the fall of the last autumn leaf, and its inhabitants
took the greatest pains to adapt themselves, in their social life, to
the manners and customs of a large Capital. But the loud, uneasy
creaking of the machinery of a most complicated domestic economy could
not be drowned by the rustle of the most flowing and elegant crinoline.
The honest townsfolk, who left their dwellings, with doors wide open, in
perfect safety, to earn their daily bread in the little uneven streets,
or in the strips of meadow land between their houses, fell as far short
of being peacocks as did the ducks, that daily delighted to swim in the
little brook running directly through the town, of becoming stately
swans.
The situation of the place was undeniably delightful. In the centre of a
not very spacious valley, nestled at the foot of an eminence whose
summit was crowned by the royal castle and domain, it lay buried in the
dark, rich green of avenues of lindens, and surrounded in spring by the
lovely blossoms of countless orchards.
The forester took Elizabeth to the house of an assessor, one of his
friends. She was to wait for him there until he had concluded his
business. Although made cordially welcome by the lady of the house, she
would gladly have turned round and followed her retreating uncle,--for
she found herself, to her vexation, in the midst of a large assemblage
of ladies. Her hostess informed her that, in honour of her husband's
birthday, she had gotten up a set of tableaux from mythology, to
rehearse which was the cause of the present gathering. At the
coffee-table, in a pleasantly-furnished apartment, eight or ten ladies
were seated, already dressed in mythological costume, and upon the
arrival of the stranger, they measured her with glances that seemed to
penetrate every plait and fold of her simple attire.
All the goddesses, without exception, had submitted themselves, in their
costume, to the sceptre of the royal fair of France, and wore their
white robes over abundant crinoline, which was then the fashion, "For,"
said Ceres, a trig little blonde, upon whose flushed brow a whole
harvest was waving, "one looks so forlorn without crinoline;" and how
else could her dress have supported the huge bunches of wheat ears and
red poppies with which it was adorned? How Dame Ceres had managed this
difficulty in her days of splendour was a problem which no one took the
pains to solve.
Perhaps the artificial light of the evening would be favourable to the
remarkable arrangement of some of the toilets, but now the bright
sunlight illuminated and revealed with cruel sincerity every pasted bit
of gold-paper, every paper-muslin scarf that should have represented
satin, and every basting stitch in the improvised tunics. Several
old-fashioned paste shoe-buckles glittered in the girdle of Venus; and
the silver crescent upon the forehead of Diana showed the blotting-paper
behind it at every movement of the head which it adorned.
The hostess went from one to the other of her guests, exerting herself
for the entertainment of all.
"What a shame!" she said, entering the room after a short absence, "Frau
Raethin Wolf has sent to say that her Adolph cannot come to-night; he is
in bed with a fever. As soon as the note came, I ran across myself to
Doctor Fels; but there is no doing anything with that man upon the
subject of his children's education. He repeated his former refusal,
and so ungraciously, that I am quite outraged. He says that he
considers any part in such entertainments with grown-up people entirely
unfit for half-grown boys like his Moritz, who get their heads filled
with a sense of their own importance, their minds distracted from their
lessons,--and Heaven knows what besides. He told me, most insolently,
that he thinks I should have done better this evening to have provided
my suffering husband--suffering, indeed, he is as lively as a fish in
the sea, except for a touch of rheumatism--with a supper that he liked,
than to have worried him with such buffoonery, which will only deprive
him of his usual comfort and night's rest, and do no living creature any
earthly good."
"How coarse! how rude! He is always pretending to be a connoisseur of
art, and doesn't understand it one whit better than my little finger,"
was heard from one and the other of the ladies.
"Let my experience console you, dear Adele," said Ceres. "Were it not
that my husband cannot dispense with his services as a physician, Fels
should never darken my doors again. When I had that children's
fancy-ball last winter, which was acknowledged to be a great success, he
refused my invitation to his children; and what do you think he said to
me, when I begged him to allow his little girls to come,--'Does it
really give you pleasure to see such monkey-tricks?' I never will
forgive him!"
Elizabeth suddenly seemed to see the doctor's intellectual face, with
its searching glance, sarcastic smile, and the slightly contemptuous
play of its finely-formed lips. She laughed inwardly at his rude
replies; but she was struck at the same time by the depressing thought,
how hard it is for a man to live up to his convictions.
"But what would you have, Frau Director?" broke in Flora, a delicate,
languishing figure with a pretty but very pale face, who had hitherto
been entirely occupied in smiling upon her flower-decked reflection in
an opposite glass. "He has treated us no better. Two years ago he told
my father and mother to their faces, that it was not only folly but want
of principle--just think of such a thing!--to allow me to go into
society so young, with my constitution. Papa and mamma were
furious,--as if they did not know best about their own children! It was
well that we all knew what prompted such tender care on his part. His
youngest sister was then still unmarried, and, naturally enough, she was
by no means pleased to see young girls usurping her place in society.
Papa would have dismissed the doctor upon the spot, but mamma depends
upon his prescriptions. Well, they paid no attention to his advice,
and, as you see, I still live."
The silence of the assemblage confirmed Elizabeth's conviction that the
triumph which Flora spoke of was a very doubtful one, and that this
delicate creature, with her narrow chest and pallid face, would still
have to atone severely for the physician's neglected counsel.
Suddenly a barouche slowly passing down the street attracted the ladies
to the window. Where she was sitting Elizabeth could plainly see the
object of the universal curiosity. In the elegant vehicle sat the
Baroness Lessen and Fraeulein von Walde. The latter had her face turned
towards the assessor's house, and she looked as if she were diligently
counting the windows of the lower stories. Her cheeks were slightly
flushed, always a sign in her of inward agitation. The baroness, on the
contrary, was leaning back negligently among the cushions, and appeared
to be entirely unconscious of everything around.
"The Lindhof ladies," said Ceres. "But, Heavens! what is the meaning of
that? They are entirely ignoring Doctor Fels' windows. There stands
the doctor's wife. Ha, ha! what a long face; she tried to bow, but the
ladies have no eyes in the backs of their heads."
Elizabeth looked across at the opposite house. A very beautiful woman,
with a lovely fair-haired child in her arms, was standing at the window.
There certainly was a puzzled look in her pleasant blue eyes, but the
delicate oval of her face was not in the least lengthened. Attracted by
the movements of the child, who stretched out his little arms towards
the fantastic heads at the windows of the assessor's house, she looked
across, and, archly smiling, nodded to the ladies, who kissed their
hands, and replied to her salutation by all sorts of tender pantomime.
"Strange!" said the hostess; "what could the ladies mean by passing by
her house without nodding to her? They never went by without stopping
before to-day. Frau Fels would stand on the carriage-step for ever so
long, and Fraeulein von Walde seemed to like her so much--the baroness,
'tis true, often made a wry face. It certainly is very strange; but we
must wait and see what the future will bring forth."
"Herr von Hollfeld must have stayed at Odenberg. He was with the ladies
this morning when the carriage passed," said Diana.
"How will Fraeulein von Walde endure the separation?" asked Flora, with
a sneer.
"Why, is there anything in that quarter?" asked the hostess.
"Don't you know that, child?" cried Ceres. "We can't tell yet what his
sentiments are, but beyond all doubt she loves him passionately. In
fact, it is almost certain that the love is all on one side; for how can
such an unfortunate cripple inspire affection,--and in such a cold
nature as Hollfeld's, which has been unmoved by the greatest beauties?"
"Yes, true enough," said Venus, with a glance at the mirror, which
Flora, in spite of her emaciation, had entirely monopolized. "But
Fraeulein von Walde is enormously rich!"
"Oh, he can have the wealth at a cheaper rate," said Flora. "He is said
to be heir to the sister and brother too."
"Oh, the brother!" rejoined Venus. "He had better not rely upon his
chances there. Herr von Walde is a man in the prime of life, and may
marry at any time."
"Nonsense!" cried Ceres, excitedly. "The woman is yet to be born, or
rather sent down from heaven, who can touch him. He is haughtiness
itself, and has less heart than his cousin. How provoked I used to be
at the court-balls, to see him standing in the doorway with his arms
crossed as if they were glued together, and looking down so arrogantly
upon the crowd. Only when the princess, or one of the royal family,
requested him to dance did he stir from the spot, and then he was at no
pains to conceal that he cared not a bit for the honour. Well, we know
well enough what his requisitions are for the woman at whose feet he
will lay the proud name of von Walde--Ancestors! ancestors she must
have, and her pedigree must date from Noah's ark."
All laughed, except Elizabeth, who remained very grave. Fraeulein von
Walde's behaviour had made a deep impression upon her. She was annoyed,
and felt that her views of human nature had been lowered. Was such a
change possible in the course of a few short hours? The fact just
stated by the ladies, that Helene von Walde loved the son of the
Baroness Lessen, would have fully explained the influence exercised by
the latter to any one of a practical, matter-of-fact nature,--but not to
Elizabeth.
The elevating sentiment, described by the poets of all ages and all
climes as the truest and most ennobling of which human nature is
capable, could not possibly be an incentive to unworthy conduct; and it
was equally hard to imagine how Herr von Hollfeld could inspire that
sentiment. Here she judged from the one-sided, personal point of view
from which we are prone to pass sentence on others; but whether from the
instinct of her true womanly nature, or whether she really possessed the
clear insight that sees in the lines of the face the clear indications
of the soul within and traces them to their source, we cannot
say,--certainly, in this case, her judgment of a man with whom she had
had scarcely any intercourse was entirely correct.
Herr von Hollfeld was certainly not calculated to personate the ideal of
a refined feminine nature. He neither possessed intelligence nor wit,
was inordinately vain, and by no means content with the interest excited
by his fine person. He was fully aware that most women will forgive
defects of person sooner than defects of mind; and therefore he adopted
the mask of silence and reserve, behind which the world is so ready to
see great intelligence, originality, and strength of character. There
was no man living who could boast of being upon intimate terms with Herr
von Hollfeld; he was cunning enough to elude every attempt to test the
quality of his mind, and avoided all earnest conversation with men,
while women, as soon as they perceived the rough shell of his repellant
behaviour, were only too ready to cry, "the sweeter the kernel." Herr
von Hollfeld understood his part,--he was moved by secret desires and
hopes, which were strengthened by the difficulty attending their
attainment. Animated by no lofty aspirations, he was the slave of
avarice and sensuality. To make his position a brilliant one from a
worldly point of view, he disdained no petty intrigue, and his office as
chamberlain at the court of L---- opened the way to many such. He
deceived and lied, and was all the more dangerous on account of the
frank honest seeming behind which men never suspected the low schemer,
or women the vulgar sensualist.
Elizabeth was glad when she saw her uncle turn the corner and approach
the house. With a sigh of relief she took her place in the carriage at
his side. She took off her hat, and bathed her hot forehead in the
fresh, delicious evening breeze that swept gently by. The last rays of
the sun were just gilding the trembling leaves of the poplars by the
roadside, and there was a rosy light upon the fields of blooming grain;
but the forest that enclosed in its bosom Elizabeth's home lay dark and
gloomy beyond, as if it had already forgotten the sunny life which had
penetrated its inmost recesses so short a time before.
The forester glanced several times at the silent young girl at his side.
Suddenly he transferred both reins and whip to one hand, took hold of
Elizabeth's chin, and turned her face up to him.
"Come, let me see, Elsie!" he said. "What! why, zounds! you have got
two wrinkles there in your forehead as deep as old Sabina's furrows.
What has happened? Come, out with it! Something has vexed you, hey?"
"No, uncle, I am not vexed, but pained that you were so right in your
estimate of Fraeulein von Walde," replied Elizabeth, while a deep blush
of emotion covered her face.
"Pained because I was right, or because Fraeulein von Walde has acted
unworthily?"
"Well, because what you prophesied was evil, and----"
"And therefore it follows that you should be angry with me. He is
always the criminal who tells the truth in such a matter. And pray,
which of the utterances of my worldly wisdom has been justified by
time?"
She told him of Helene's conduct, and of what the ladies had said. The
forester smiled meaningly.
"Oh women, women, and those women in especial! They prophesy an
immediate marriage if two people only say good morning to each other.
But perhaps they are right in this case,--it clears up much to my mind
that has hitherto seemed inexplicable to me."
"But, uncle, you cannot believe that any one would sacrifice the best
feelings of our nature to such a preference?"
"Many other things have happened, my child, for the sake of such a
preference, and although I do not for one moment defend Fraeulein von
Walde's weakness and submission; still, I shall henceforth judge her
more leniently. She succumbs to the power which leads us to forget
father and mother for another's sake."
"Ah! that is just what I cannot understand," said Elizabeth, earnestly.
"How can any one love a stranger better than father or mother?"
"Hm!" rejoined the forester, touching the horses lightly with his whip,
to accelerate their speed. This "hm" was followed by a clearing of his
throat, and he changed the subject, for he justly thought, "If that be
so, she will never understand my definition of love, although I should
speak with the tongues of angels." And he himself?--Far, far in the
past lay the time when he had carved the dear name upon the trees, and
trained his deep voice to sing love songs; when he had walked miles for
a single smile, and had hated as his bitterest enemy the man who dared
to regard with favour the object of his adoration. He looked back and
rejoiced in that wonderful time, but to paint it with its tempests of
excited feeling,--its tears and laughter, its hopes and fears,--was more
than he could do.
"Do you see that perpendicular black streak just above the forest
there?" he asked, after a long silence, pointing with his whip to the
mountain which they were approaching.
"Yes, indeed, it is the flag-staff upon Castle Gnadeck. I saw it a few
moments ago, and am now rejoicing unspeakably in the thought that there
lies a spot of earth that we may call our own,--a place from which no
one has the right to drive us. Thank God, we have a home!"
"And such a home!" said the forester, as his beaming eyes looked around
the horizon. "When I was quite a little child, how I longed for the
Thuringian forest! It was all because of my grandfather's stories. In
his youth he had lived in Thuringia, and had the tales and legends of
his home at his tongue's end; and when I had reached man's estate, I
came hither. Then all the forest which we see before us belonged to the
Gnadewitzes, but I would not enter their service,--my father had told me
too much about them. I was the first Ferber from time immemorial who
had renounced their service. I applied to the Prince of L----. The
last of the Gnadewitzes divided his forests because the Prince of L----
was willing to pay an immense sum of money that he might enlarge his own
woodland possessions. And thus it happened that the most ardent desire
of my youth was gratified, for I live now in the house that may be
called the cradle of the Ferbers. You know that we came at first from
Thuringia?"
"Oh yes, I have known that from my childhood."
"And do you know the story of our origin?"
"No."
"Well, it was long ago, and perhaps I am the only one who now knows
anything about it, but it shall not be lost, for remembrance is all the
gratitude that posterity can show for a brave action,--so now you shall
hear the story, and then you can tell it again.
"About two hundred years ago,--you see we can trace back a considerable
pedigree,--the only pity is that we have no idea who the mother of our
race was,--if you should ever be asked any questions concerning her by
the Baroness Lessen, or others, you can answer with confidence that we
suspect her to have been either Augusta von Blasewitz,--for the story
dates from the thirty years' war,--or a vivandiere: perhaps she was a
good, honest woman, who clung to her husband through all the hardships
of the war, although I cannot forgive her for forsaking her
child,--well, then, about two hundred years ago, as the wife of the
huntsman Ferber opened her door in the morning--the very door that now
shuts upon my home--she saw a little child lying upon the threshold. She
clapped the door to again in a great hurry, for the forest was then
swarming with gypsies, and she thought it would prove to be one of their
dirty brats. But her husband was more of a Christian, and took the
child in. It was scarcely a day old. A paper was pinned upon its
breast, stating that the child was born in holy wedlock, that he had
been baptized by the name of Hans, and that whoever would take care of
him should receive further revelations concerning him at some future
day. Hidden in the child's dress was found a purse containing some
money. The huntsman's wife was a good woman, and when she heard the
child was born of Christian parents, and was probably the son of some
honest soldier who had left it here that it might not be exposed to the
dangers of the war, she took it to her heart and brought it up with her
own little girl as if they had been brother and sister. It was well for
him that she did so, for no one ever heard another word about his
relatives. His foster-father afterwards adopted him, and, to make his
happiness complete, he married his foster-sister. He, as well as his
son and grandson, lived where I live now, as foresters to the
Gnadewitzes, and they all died there. My grandfather was the first who
left this place with his master for one of the estates in Silesia. As a
boy, I was much disappointed that some countess mother did not turn up
in the end who should recognize the foundling as her son, stolen from
her by the malice of an enemy, and bear him home in triumph to her
castle. Later in life I learned to endure the want of this romantic
termination to the story with a good grace, as I considered that in such
case my own appearance here would have been very dubious, and my honest
name pleased me too much to wish it changed for any other; but imagine
my sensations when I stood for the first time upon the threshold where
the little foundling had passed the most helpless moment of his life,
when, deserted by his natural parents, sympathy had not yet supplied
their place. The worn stone is undoubtedly the same upon which the
child lay, and as long as I live here or have anything to do with the
place, it shall never be removed."
Suddenly the forester leaned forward and pointed through the boughs, for
they had entered the wood.
"Do you see that white spot?" he asked.
The white spot was the cap of Sabina, who was sitting at the door of the
Lodge waiting for them. When she saw the carriage, she rose quickly,
shook the contents of her apron, which proved to be a quantity of
forget-me-nots, into a basket, and came to assist Elizabeth to alight.
The horse trotted, neighing, behind the house, where he was awaited and
received with a caressing pat. Hector laid himself down upon the
ground, wagging his tail contentedly, and the doves and sparrows, which
the noise of the arrival had frightened away, returned and hopped
fearlessly about upon the green painted bench and table under the
linden, where, as the little rogues well knew, the forester was in the
habit of taking his morning and evening meals. He went into the house
for a moment that he might exchange his uniform for the more comfortable
garment worn at home, and soon returned, pipe and newspaper in hand, to
the linden, where Sabina soon began to lay the table.
"'Tis a fact, it's a silly piece of Sunday work for such an old woman as
I am," said the housekeeper, laughing, as she passed Elizabeth, who,
sitting upon the stone step which now possessed such an interest for
her, continued the weaving of the wreath which Sabina had begun. "But I
have been used to such work from my youth. I have two little black
pictures up in my room, likenesses of my blessed father and mother; they
certainly deserve that I should honour them and hold them in loving
remembrance, so I hang fresh flowers around them every Sunday, as long
as there is a blossom to be had. A couple of children from Lindhof bring
me fresh ones every Sunday, and to-day they brought me so many that
there is enough for a wreath for Gold Elsie; if she puts it in a dish of
water it will keep fresh all through the week."
Elizabeth sat a long time this evening with her uncle. A flood of
memories came rushing over his mind, called forth by his narration of
the old story of two hundred years before. He recalled many a wish,
plan, and aspiration of his youth, which now provoked only a smiling
sigh of sympathetic pity,--they had all vanished before the actual, like
dust before the wind. He talked them over now, as one who, standing
upon the land, hears the dash of the breakers afar that cannot reach
him. Sometimes he would make some witty attack, in the midst of his
recollections, upon Elizabeth, who would parry his thrusts and retort
merrily.
Meanwhile a light arose behind the trees, which had blended
undistinguishably with the dark heavens, but which now stood out in
strong relief against the bright background. Single rays shot like
silver arrows between interlacing boughs, and lay motionless like oases
of light upon the dim meadow, until at last the moon arose, large and
victorious, above the tops of the trees, and its full lustre flooded the
landscape. The gentle breeze of evening had long since folded its
wings,--you could have counted the shadows of the linden leaves upon the
moonlit earth, so distinct and motionless they lay. All the clearer was
heard the gurgle of the little fountain in the court-yard of the Lodge,
and the low, indefinite murmur from the woods, which Elizabeth called
"the sleepy rain" of the forest.
"There," said Sabina, crowning Elizabeth's head lightly with the
forget-me-not wreath, which she had just completed. "Carry it home so,
and you'll not crush it."
"Then it may stay there," said she, laughing, as she arose. "Many
thanks for my ride! Good-night, uncle, good-night, Sabina!"
And then she hastened through the house and garden, and was soon outside
the gate, which she closed behind her, and flew along up the narrow
moonlit forest path. In the dwelling-room above, the lamp was burning;
in spite of the bright moonlight, its beams were distinctly visible, for
the front of her home lay in deep shade.
As she reached the little clearing, a remarkable shadow fell across her
path. It was neither a tree nor a post, but the figure of a man, a
stranger, who had been standing upon one side of the path, and now, to
her terror, approached her. The apparition courteously removed its hat,
and Elizabeth's terror vanished on the instant, for she saw before her
the smiling, good-humoured countenance of a well dressed, rather elderly
man.
"I pray your pardon, Fraeulein, if I have frightened you," he said, as
he looked kindly over the large, shining glasses of his spectacles into
her face. "I assure you, I have no designs either upon your life or
your purse, and am simply a peaceful traveller, returning to his home,
who greatly desires to know what the light in the ruins yonder may
betoken; and yet this moment convinces me that my question is quite
superfluous. Fairies and elves are holding their revels there, while
the fairest among them keeps guard in the forest around, that none may
invade their charmed circle with impunity."
This gallant comparison, trite as it may appear, was not ill applied at
this moment, for the slight girlish figure in white robes, with the blue
wreath crowning her angelic countenance, and bathed in moonlight, might
well have been mistaken for a fairy vision, as it glided so lightly
among the trees of the wood.
She herself laughed inwardly at the quaint compliment, but with a little
pique at the thought of resembling such a mercurial elfish being, and
she replied to the old gentleman with maidenly dignity.
"I am really sorry," she said, "to be forced to lead you back to
realities, but I fail to see anything in the light yonder, except a
commonplace lamp in the dwelling-room of a forester's clerk in the
service of the Prince of L----."
"Ah!" laughed the gentleman, "and does the man live all alone in those
uncanny old walls?"
"He might do so with a quiet mind, for over those whose consciences are
pure nothing uncanny can have any power. Nevertheless some loving
creatures bear him company, among the rest, two well-fed goats and a
canary bird, not to mention the owls, who have retired into private life
in great indignation, since the frivolous conduct of human beings does
not assort at all well with the solemn views of life entertained by
their grave worships."
"Or perhaps because they shun the light and cannot endure----"
"That the new arrival should adore the truth?"
"Perhaps that, too; but I was about to suggest that they fly from the
two suns that have suddenly arisen in the old ruins."
"Two suns at once? That would be a terrible experience for their poor
owls' eyes, and might even prove too much for a fire-worshipper,"
replied Elizabeth, laughing, as she passed him with a slight
inclination, for her parents had just emerged from the gate in the wall,
and were advancing towards her. They had come out with some anxiety
when they heard Elizabeth's voice and that of a stranger, and they
gently reproved her, after she had related her little adventure, for
entering so thoughtlessly into conversation with strangers.
"Your badinage might have had unpleasant consequences for you, my
child," said her mother. "Fortunately, they were gentlemen."
"Gentlemen?" interrupted her daughter, with surprise. "There was only
one."
"Look around," said her father; "you can see for yourself."
And certainly just where the path began to descend into the valley, two
hats were plainly to be seen.
"So you see, mother dear," said Elizabeth, "what an entirely harmless
encounter it was. One never stepped out from behind the bushes, and
there was certainly not an atom of the brigand to be seen in the kind
old face of the other."
When she went to her room she carefully took the wreath from her head,
laid it in fresh water, and placed it before the bust of Beethoven, then
she kissed the forehead of the sleeping Ernst, and said good-night to
her father and mother.
CHAPTER IX.
"Hallo, Elsie, do not run so!" shouted the forester, the next day at
three o'clock in the afternoon, as he came out of the forest with his
rifle on his shoulder and crossed the meadow towards the Lodge.
Elizabeth was running down the mountain, her round hat hanging upon her
arm instead of resting upon the braids that glanced in the sunlight, and
as she reached the house she flew laughing into her uncle's arms, which
he extended to receive her.
She put her hand into her pocket, and stepped back a few paces. "Guess
what I have in my pocket, uncle," she said, smiling.
"Well, what can it be? No need to puzzle one's brains long about it.
Probably a little sentimental hay,--a few dried flowers, kept for the
sake of the melancholy associations that they recall,--or some printed
sighs over the woes of the world, bound in gilt pasteboard?"
"Wrong, indeed; twice wrong, Herr Forester, for, in the first place,
your wit glances harmlessly aside from me, and in the next--look here!"
She drew a little box from her pocket, and lifted the cover. There,
upon green leaves, was comfortably lying a large lemon-coloured
caterpillar, with black spots, broad bluish-green stripes upon its back,
and a crooked horn upon its tail.
"By all that is wonderful, Sphinx Atropos!" cried the delighted
forester. "Ah, my sunbeam, where did you find that exquisite specimen?"
"Over at Lindhof, in a potato-field. Isn't it beautiful? There, let us
shut the box carefully, and put it back in my pocket."
"What! am I not to have it?"
"Oh yes; you can have it,--that is if you are inclined to pay for it."
"Zounds! What a girl you have become! Come, give it to me,--here are
four groschen."
"Not for the world. You can't have it for one farthing less than
twelve. When many a ragged, yellow old bit of parchment,--that one can
hardly bear to touch,--is paid for with its weight in gold, certainly
such a perfect piece of Nature's workmanship is worth twelve groschen."
"Yellow old parchment! never breathe such a word into scientific ears,
if you value your reputation."
"Ah, there are none such to be breathed into here in the forest."
"Take care; Herr von Walde----"
"Is hiding in the Pyramids."
"But he might suddenly return and take a certain self-conceited young
person to strict account. He is cock-of-the-walk among learned men."
"Well, for aught I care, they may raise monuments in his honour, and
strew laurels in his path, as much as they choose. I cannot forgive him
for forgetting, in the midst of all that dead lumber, the claims that
the living have upon him. While he is engaged in an enthusiastic
search, perhaps, for some wonderfully preserved receipt by Lucullus, or
lost in investigations as to whether the Romans did actually feed their
fish upon the flesh of slaves, the poor employed upon his estate starve
under the baroness' rule--actually crushed beneath the yoke of modern
slavery."
"Hallo! how his left ear must burn! What a pity that he cannot hear
this confession of faith! Here are your twelve groschen, if you must
have them. You want to buy some trinket or other, a feather, or ribbons
for your hat, hey?" he said, smiling.
She held her hat out at arm's length before her, and contemplated with
admiration the two fresh roses which she had stuck into the simple band
of black velvet that encircled it. "Does not that look lovely?" she
asked. "Do you think I would voluntarily hide my head beneath nodding
plumes when I can have roses, fresh roses? And there is your
caterpillar, and now you shall know why I want to black-mail you. This
morning the poor widow of a weaver in Lindhof came to my mother, begging
a little assistance. Her husband had had a fall, which injured his arm
and his foot, so that he has not been able to earn anything for weeks.
My mother gave her some old linen and a large loaf of bread. She could
do nothing more, as you know. See, here I have fifteen groschen,--from
my money-box,--there is not another farthing in it just now, and three
from little Ernst, who would gladly have sold his tin soldiers to help
the poor woman, and with the price for the caterpillar I shall have a
whole thaler, which I shall carry to the poor thing immediately."
"Let me see. Here is another thaler; and, Sabina," he called into the
house, "bring out a piece of meat from your pickling-tub, and wrap it up
in green leaves. You shall take that too," he said, turning again to
Elizabeth.
"Oh, you dearest of splendid uncles!" cried the girl, taking his large
hand between her slender palms and pressing it tenderly.
"But take care," he continued, "that the piece of good salt meat does
not turn into roses. It would be a sad change for the poor weaver's
wife. You seem to be following in the steps of your saintly namesake."
"Yes; but fortunately I have here no cruel Landgrave to fear. And if I
had, I would tell the truth in spite of him."
"Gracious gods, what a heroic soul it is!"
"But I think the courage to tell a lie would be far greater, even though
it were a pious one."
"True, true, my daughter. I think I could hardly have done it either.
Ah, here comes Sabina!"
The old housekeeper issued from the door, and whilst she wrapped up the
meat for Elizabeth, in accordance with the forester's directions, she
whispered to him that Herr von Walde, who had yesterday arrived from
abroad, had been waiting for him for some time.
"Where?" he asked.
"Here in the dwelling-room."
Now they had been standing directly beneath the open windows of this
room. Elizabeth turned quickly round, blushing scarlet, but could see
no one. Her uncle, without turning, shrugged his shoulders with an
infinitely comical gesture, stroked his long moustache, and whispered,
with a suppressed laugh: "Here's a nice state of things! You have
settled matters finely,--he has heard every word.7"
"So much the better," replied his niece, throwing her head back with an
air of defiance. "He does not hear the truth very often, perhaps."
Then bidding farewell to her uncle and Sabina, she walked slowly away
through the forest in the direction of Lindhof.
At first she was annoyed at the thought that Herr von Walde had been
obliged, entirely against his will, to listen to the judgment which had
been passed upon him. Then she was sure that she should have told him
just the same truth to his face. And as it was scarcely to be supposed
that he would ever trouble himself about her estimate of him, it
certainly could do him no harm that he had been involuntarily the
auditor of a frank, impartial sentence passed upon him, even although
such sentence came from the lips of a young girl. But how had it
happened that he had returned so suddenly and unexpectedly? Fraeulein
von Walde had always spoken of her brother's absence as likely to
continue for several years, and the day before she had had not the
slightest expectation of his return. And then her encounter of the
previous evening flashed into her mind. The old gentleman had said that
he was a traveller returning home; but it was impossible that he, with
his smiling, good-humoured face, could be the grave, haughty proprietor
of Lindhof, who, perhaps, was the person that had remained concealed
beneath the trees while his companion was getting an answer to his
inquiries. But what could Herr von Walde want with her uncle, who, as
she knew, had never stood in any relation to him whatever?
These and similar thoughts occupied her mind upon her way to the
weaver's. Husband and wife were delighted by the unhoped-for
assistance, and heaped Elizabeth with profuse professions of gratitude
as she left the house.
She passed through the village, and directed her steps to Lindhof, where
she had promised to practice as usual. The lesson had not been
postponed, notwithstanding the return of Herr von Walde. The
proprietor's return had worked a great change in the whole look of the
castle. All the windows of the lower story on the south side, which had
so long been dark and closed behind their white shutters, now reflected
the sunlight in a long, shining row. The apartments within were
undergoing a thorough airing and dusting. A glass door stood wide open,
revealing the interior of a large saloon. Upon one of the steps which
led down to the garden at the back lay a snow-white greyhound, with his
slender body stretched out upon the hot stone and his head resting upon
his forepaws; he blinked at Elizabeth as though she had been an old
acquaintance. At an open window the gardener was arranging a stand of
flowers, and the old steward Lorenz was walking through the rooms,
superintending everything.
It was remarkable that all the people whom the young girl met had, as if
by magic, entirely altered their whole expression. Had a tempest swept
through the sultry atmosphere and a fresh breeze filled all the rooms,
so that voices sounded clearer, and bent forms grew straight and
elastic? Even old Lorenz, whose face had always worn so grim and
depressed a look, as though there were a weight of lead upon his
shoulders, shot real sunshine from his eyes, although he was scolding
one of the maids; Elizabeth looked on in surprise. She had only seen
him before gliding about upon the tips of his toes, and in low,
suppressed tones announcing guests to the ladies in the drawing-room.
In amazement at this sudden bursting into bloom of new life and
activity, Elizabeth turned towards the wing appropriated to the ladies.
Here the deepest silence still reigned. In the apartments of the
baroness the curtains were closely drawn. No noise penetrated through
the doors by which Elizabeth passed. The air of the passages was heavy
with the odour of valerian, and when at the lower end of one of the
halls, Elizabeth saw through an open door one human face, what a change
met her eye! It was the baroness' old waiting-maid who looked out,
probably to see who was so bold as to invade the solemn repose of the
corridor. Her cap was set upon her false curls all awry, and the curls
themselves were but loosely put on. Her countenance wore a troubled
expression, and a round, red spot on each cheek, betokened either high
fever or some violent, mental agitation. She returned Elizabeth's
salute shortly and sullenly, and disappeared into the room, closing the
door noiselessly behind her.
When Elizabeth reached Fraeulein von Walde's apartment, she thought that
she had arrived at the last act in the mysterious drama which had begun
in the baroness' rooms, for no "come in" answered her repeated knock.
Not only were the curtains here drawn, but the shutters also were closed
as she saw when she gently opened the door. The profound quiet and the
darkness deterred her from entering, and she was about to shut the door
again when Helene, in a weak voice, called to her to enter. The little
lady lay on a couch at the farther end of the room, her head resting on
a white pillow, and Elizabeth could hear that her teeth were chattering
as if with cold.
"Ah, dear child," she said, and laid her cold, damp hand upon her young
friend's arm, "I have had a nervous attack. None of my people have
observed that I am lying here so ill, and it has been terribly lonely in
this dark room. Pray open the windows wide,--I need air, the warm air
of heaven."
Elizabeth immediately did as she desired, and when the daylight streamed
in upon the pale face of the invalid, it revealed traces of violent
weeping.
The sunshine aroused more life and motion in the room than Elizabeth had
anticipated; she was startled by a loud scream which proceeded from one
corner. There she discovered a cockatoo, with snow-white plumage and a
brilliant yellow crest, swinging to and fro upon a ring.
"Heavens! what a fearful noise!" sighed Helene, pressing her little
hands upon her ears. "That terrible bird will tear my nerves to
pieces!"
Elizabeth's glance rested amazed upon the little stranger, and then
explored the rest of the apartment, which looked like a bazaar. Upon
tables and chairs were lying costly stuffs, shawls, richly-bound books,
and all kinds of toilet articles. Fraeulein von Walde noticed
Elizabeth's look, and said briefly, with averted face: "All presents
from my brother, who returned home quite unexpectedly yesterday."
How cold her voice was as she said it! And there was not the slightest
hint of pleasure to be discovered in her features, swollen with weeping;
the large eyes, usually so soft and gentle, expressed only vexation and
annoyance.
Elizabeth stooped silently and picked up a gorgeous bouquet of
camellias, that was lying half faded upon the floor.
"Oh yes," said Helene, sitting up, while a slight flush appeared on her
cheeks, "that is
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