Andreas Hofer Part 15

"Ah, there they are quarrelling again," exclaimed Elza, laughing.

"Come to me, sweet Lizzie; sit down by my side on this bench and give me your hand. I am so glad that you are here, for it always seems to me as though I were a lonely orphan when my dearest Lizzie, with her pretty face and her merry laughter, is absent from me. But here, Lizzie, you must look upon me with due awe to-day, for to-day I am not only your friend and sister, but I am the castellan! My father will be absent four days, and I represent him here. He delegated his whole power to me, and intrusted me with all the keys.

Treat me, therefore, with great respect, Lizzie."

"That is what I always do, Elza," said Lizzie, tenderly, pressing the slender white hand of her friend to her lips. "You are always my better self, and I obey you because I love you, and I love you because I obey you so gladly!"

"Well, then, I command you, Lizzie, to be our guest all day and stay with us until nightfall. Oh, no objections, Lizzie; if you love me, you must obey!"

"And I obey you willingly, Elza; only when my father sends for me, I must go, for you know we must not violate the fourth commandment; our worthy priest would never forgive us."

"When your father sends for you, Eliza, I shall myself go down to him and beg him to leave you here. Well, then, you belong to us for the whole day, and we will consider now how we shall spend this day.

Cousin, do not stand there in silence all the time, staring at the glaciers, but look at us and propose quickly some excursion for us to make to-day."

"What could I propose?" asked the young officer, shrugging his shoulders.

"I submit rather silently and obediently to your proposals, for Miss Eliza would certainly reject all my proposals merely because I make them."

Eliza burst into merry laughter. "Elza, dearest Elza," she exclaimed," he calls me 'Miss Eliza!' No sir, let me tell you, a poor Tyrolese girl like me is no 'miss,' no aristocratic lady; people call me Lizzie, only Lizzie; do not forget that!"

"People here call her 'beautiful Lizzie,'" said the officer in a low voice, casting an admiring glance on the young girl.

"That does not concern you, sir," she replied, blushing like a crimson rose; "you do not belong to the people here, and you must not call me anything but Lizzie, do you hear? I think the notions which city folks entertain about beauty are different from those of peasants like us. We consider the daisy and the Alpine rose beautiful; though they are but small flowers, yet they suit us.

However, the city folks laugh at our taste, and step recklessly on our flowers. They consider only the proud white lilies and the large gorgeous roses beautiful flowers. I do not belong to them, I am only a daisy; but my Elza likes this daisy and fastens me to her bosom, and I rest there so soft and sweetly."

She encircled Elza's neck with her arms, leaned her head against her breast, and looked tenderly up to her with her hazel gazelle eyes.

Elza bent over her and kissed her eyes and white forehead. Ulrich von Hohenberg looked at them both with a tender, ardent glance; then he averted his head to conceal the crimson glow suffusing his cheeks.

At this moment the door opened, and the castellan's overseer entered with an air of hurry and self-importance.

"Miss Elza," he said, "the wood-cutters have brought wood and are waiting for a receipt. Besides, the head dairy-woman wishes to see you about the b.u.t.ter which she is to send to town; and the cattle- dealer has arrived, and--"

"I am coming, I am coming," exclaimed the young lady, laughing. "Do you see, Lizzie, what an important person I am? But for me the whole machine would stand still and sink in ruins. Fortunately, I am equal to the occasion; and set the wheels in motion, and the machine can go on. You may stay here and consider how we are to amuse ourselves to-day. In the mean time I shall regulate our domestic affairs a little, and when I come back, you will inform me what pleasure you have devised for us to-day."

"No, Elza, let me go with you," begged Eliza, almost anxiously, "I shall a.s.sist you--"

"You cannot help me outside, Lizzie," said Elza, laughing; "but here you can take my place and be my cousin Ulrich's companion. Be merry, my dear children, until I come back!"

She nodded pleasantly to them, took the large bunch of keys from the table, and swinging it noisily in her hand, skipped through the room and out of the door.

Lizzie had followed her a few steps; then, as if arrested by a sudden thought, she paused and returned slowly to the balcony. She cast a quick glance on the officer, who was leaning against the wall on one side of the balcony, and, with his arms folded on his breast, did not avert his eyes from her.

Eliza gave a start and withdrew to the other side of the balcony.

There she sat down on the bench like a timid little bird, and allowed her eyes to wander dreamily and thoughtfully over the landscape. And, indeed, the view which they enjoyed from the, balcony was wondrously beautiful. On one side extended the splendid valley, with its meadows clad in the freshest verdure of spring, its foaming white mountain-torrents, its houses and huts, which disappeared gradually in the violet mists bordering the horizon. On both sides of the valley rose the green wooded heights, interspersed here and there with small verdant pastures and clearings, on which handsome red cows were grazing or lying in majestic repose. Behind the clearings black pines and firs dotted the slopes, which, however, in their more elevated portions became more and more bare; where the trees ceased, appeared here and there again green pastures, and on them, gray and small, like birds' nests, the huts of the mountain cow-keepers, who, the most advanced sentinels, as it were, were guarding the frontiers where the war between nature and man commences, the frontiers of the snowy region and the world of glaciers. Behind the cow-keepers' huts flashed already ma.s.ses of snow from several mountain-gorges; farther above, the snow had spread its white silver veils far and wide over all the mountain- peaks, so that they glittered and sparkled with indescribable beauty in the bright morning sun, and loomed like swans' necks up to the azure sky.

Below, in the foreground of the valley, at the foot of Castle Weissenstein, lay the village of Windisch-Matrey, with its scattering groups of handsome houses, from whose midst arose the church, with its tall, pointed steeple. From the standpoint which she occupied, Eliza was able to distinctly survey the market-place and its crowds of men, which, in the distance, resembled busy black ant-hills. She gazed upon them fixedly, and the small specks seemed to her practised eye like human forms; she thought she could distinguish several of them, and, among others, the tall and powerful form of her father; she thought--

"Eliza," said all at once a low voice by her side--"Eliza, you do not want to see me, then? You are still angry with me?"

She gave a start, and crimsoned, when, on looking up, she saw young Ulrich von Hohenberg standing close in front of her, and gazing at her with ardent and beseeching eyes.

"No, sir," she said, "I really did not see you."

"That is to say, Eliza, you are still angry with me?" he asked, eagerly. "You are silent, you avert your head. My G.o.d! Eliza, what did I do, then, to incur your anger?"

"Not much, perhaps, for city folks, but by far too much for a poor peasant-girl," she said, with eyes flashing proudly. "You told me you loved me, you tried forcibly to embrace and kiss me, and begged me to go up early in the morning to the yellow grotto, where you would wait for me. You told me further not to say a word about it to anybody; it should remain a secret between you and me, and I should not even mention it to the priest at the confessional. That was not honest of you, sir; nay, it was bad of you to try and persuade me to such mean things. It showed me that you cannot be a good man, and that your friendship for me is prompted by evil intentions."

"I do not feel any friendship for you, none whatever," said the young man ardently, seating himself by her side, seizing her hand in spite of her resistance, and pressing it to his heart. "I do not want to be your friend, my sweet, beautiful, wild Alpine rose; no, not your friend, but your lover. And I commence by loving you with intense ardor, by desiring and longing for nothing, and thinking of nothing but you alone. Oh, Eliza, believe me, I love you intensely-- by far more than Elza, more than your parents, more than all your friends together."

"More, perhaps, but not better," she said, shaking her head, and gently withdrawing her hand from him.

"No, let me keep your hand!" he exclaimed hastily, seizing it again; "let me keep it, Eliza, for I tell you I love you better too than all the others; I love you with my soul, with my heart, with my blood, with my life! Oh, believe me, sweet, lovely child; believe me and give me your heart; follow me, and be mine--mine forevermore! I will give you a happy, brilliant, and beautiful existence; I will lay at your feet all the pleasures, enjoyments, and charms of this world--"

"Sir," interrupted Eliza, hastily, jumping up, and fixing her eyes upon him with a strange, ardent expression, "I hope I understand you right, and my ears do not deceive me? You offer me your hand? You want to marry me and make me your wife?"

The young man gave a slight start and dropped his eyes. Eliza saw it, and a sarcastic smile played round her lips. "Why do you not speak?" she said. "Reply to me. Did I understand you? Did you make serious proposals of marriage to me? Will you go down to my father this very day and say to him: 'Listen, sir. I, the aristocratic gentleman, I, Captain Ulrich von Hohenberg, want to marry your daughter Lizzie. I think this country girl, with her manners, her language and bearing, is well fitted to a.s.sociate with my aristocratic and distinguished family, and my parents in Munich would be overjoyed if I should bring to them this Tyrolese girl as their daughter-in-law, and a brown cow and a white goat as her dower.' Tell me, sir, will you go down to my dear father, the innkeeper of Windisch-Matrey, and say that to him?"

"But, Eliza," sighed the young man, mournfully, "if you loved me only a little, you would not immediately think of marriage, but would forget every thing else, allow your whole past to sink into oblivion behind you, and think of nothing but the fact that I love you intensely, and that you return my love."

"But I do not admit at all that I love you," said Eliza, proudly; "on the contrary, you alone say and swear that you love me, and I reply that I do not believe you."

"And why do you not believe me, cruel, beautiful girl?"

"Because you utter so many fine phrases which amount to nothing at all. You tell me that you are very fond of me, but I think if you love any body with all your heart, you must be anxious to preserve him from misfortune, and do all you can to make him happy, even though it were at the expense of your own happiness. But you, sir, do not intend to make me happy; on the contrary, you are bent on plunging me into misery and disgrace, and that is the reason why I contend that you do not love me."

"Then you have a heart of stone," cried Ulrich von Hohenberg, despairingly; "you will not see what I am suffering, nor how intensely I love you."

"Sir," said she, smiling, "if I cannot comprehend it, pray explain to me how you love me."

"I love you as the most beautiful, lovely, and charming creature I have ever known and admired. I love you as a girl whose innocence, naturalness, and goodness, fill my heart with ecstasy and profound emotion; by whose side I should like to spend my whole life, and united with whom I should wish to seek for a lonely island of happiness to dream there--remote from the world, its prejudices and follies--a sweet, blissful love-life, from which only death would arouse us."

"Sir, if you really love me in this manner, you need not run away with me to seek elsewhere in foreign lands the 'lonely island of happiness,' as you call it, for in that case you would have it round you wherever we might be, and, above all things, here in our mountains. But, look, it is just as I said; you are desirous to find a 'lonely island of happiness'--that is to say, n.o.body is to find out that the aristocratic gentleman loves the poor Tyrolese girl, and that is the reason why you want us to hide in the mountains or elsewhere, and see if we can be happy without the blessing of the priest, our dear parents, and all other good men."

"Oh, Eliza, have mercy on me. I swear to you that I love you intensely; that I would be the happiest of men if I could marry you publicly and make you my wife in the face of the whole world, that-- "

Eliza interrupted him by singing with a smiling air, and in a merry, ringing voice:

"Und a Bisserle Lieb' und a Bisserle Treu'

Und a Bisserle Falschheit ist all'zeit dabei!"

[Footnote: "And a bit of love, and a bit of truth, And a bit of falsehood, make life, forsooth!"]

"No, no falsehood," cried Ulrich, "only the irksome, terrible necessity, the--"

The loud crash of a rifle, finding an oft-repeated echo in the mountains, interrupted him. Eliza uttered a cry of dismay and jumped up.

"Jesus Maria!" she murmured in a low voice, "it is the signal. It has commenced!"