The Ice-Maiden: and Other Tales Part 7

"Earth can give me no more!" exclaimed Rudy.

The evening bells resounded from the Savoy and Swiss mountains; the bluish-black Jura arose in golden splendour towards the west.

"G.o.d give you that which is most excellent and best, Rudy!" said Babette.

"He will do that," answered Rudy, "to-morrow I shall have it!

To-morrow you will be entirely mine! Mine own, little, lovely wife!"

"The boat!" cried Babette at the same moment.

The boat, which was to convey them back, had broken loose and was sailing from the island.

"I will go for it!" said Rudy. He threw off his coat, drew off his boots, sprang in the lake and swam towards the boat.

The clear, bluish-grey water of the ice mountains, was cold and deep.

Rudy gave but a single glance and it seemed as though he saw a gold ring, rolling, shining and sporting--he thought on his lost engagement ring--and the ring grew larger, widened into a sparkling circle and within it shone the clear glacier; all about yawned endless deep chasms; the water dropped and sounded like a chime of bells, and shone with bluish-white flames. He saw in a second, what we must say in many long words. Young hunters and young girls, men and women, who had once perished in the glacier, stood there living, with open eyes and smiling mouth; deep below them chimed from buried towns the peal of church bells; under the arches of the churches knelt the congregation; pieces of ice formed the organ pipes, and the mountain stream played the organ. On the clear transparent ground sat the Ice-Maiden; she raised herself towards Rudy, kissed his feet, and the coldness of death ran through his limbs and gave him an electric shock--ice and fire. He could not perceive the difference.

"Mine, mine!" sounded around him and within him.

"I kissed you, when you were young, kissed you on your mouth! Now I kiss your feet, you are entirely mine!"

He vanished in the clear blue water.

Everything was still; the church bells stopped ringing; the last tones died away with the splendour of the red clouds.

"You are mine!" sounded in the deep. "You are mine!" sounded from on high, from the infinite.

How happy to fly from love to love, from earth to heaven!

A string broke, a cry of grief was heard, the icy kiss of death conquered; the prelude ended; so that the drama of life might commence, discord melted into harmony.--

Do you call this a sad story?

Poor Babette! For her it was a period of anguish.

The boat drifted farther and farther. No one on sh.o.r.e knew that the lovers were on the island. The evening darkened, the clouds lowered themselves; night came. She stood there, solitary, despairing, moaning. A flash of lightning pa.s.sed over the Jura mountains, over Switzerland and over Savoy. From all sides flash upon flash of lightning, clap upon clap of thunder, which rolled continuously many minutes. At times the lightning was vivid as sunshine, and you could distinguish the grape vines; then all became black again in the dark night. The lightning formed knots, ties, zigzags, complicated figures; it struck in the lake, so that it lit it up on all sides; whilst the noise of the thunder was made louder by the echo. The boat was drawn on sh.o.r.e; all living objects sought shelter. Now the rain streamed down.

"Where can Rudy and Babette be in this frightful weather!" said the miller.

Babette sat with folded hands, with her head in her lap, mute with sorrow, with screaming and bewailing.

"In the deep water," said she to herself, "he is as far down as the glaciers!"

She remembered what Rudy had related to her of his mother's death, of his preservation, and how he was withdrawn death-like, from the clefts of the glacier. "The Ice-Maiden has him again!"

There was a flash of lightning, as dazzling as the sunlight on the white snow. Babette started up; at this instant, the sea rose like a glittering glacier; there stood the Ice-Maiden majestic, pale, blue, shining, and at her feet lay Rudy's corpse. "Mine!" said she, and then all around was fog and night and streaming water.

"Cruel!" moaned Babette, "why must he die, now that the day of our happiness approached. G.o.d! Enlighten my understanding! Enlighten my heart! I do not understand thy ways! Notwithstanding all thy omnipotence and wisdom, I still grope in the darkness."

G.o.d enlightened her heart. A thought like a ray of mercy, her last night's dream in all its vividness flashed through her; she remembered the words which she had spoken: "the wish for the best for herself and Rudy."

"Woe is me! Was that the sinful seed in my heart? Did my dream foretell my future life? Is all this misery for my salvation? Me, miserable one!"

Lamenting, sat she in the dark night. In the solemn stillness, sounded Rudy's last words; the last ones he had uttered: "Earth has no more happiness to give me!" She had heard it in the fullness of her joy, she heard it again in all the depths of her sorrow.

A couple of years have pa.s.sed since then. The lake smiles, the coast smiles; the vine branches are filled with ripe grapes; the steamboats glide along with waving flags and the pleasure boats float over the watery mirror, with their two expanded sails like white b.u.t.terflies.

The railroad to Chillon is opened; it leads into the Rhone valley; strangers alight at every station; they arrive with their red covered guide books and read of remarkable sights which are to be seen. They visit Chillon, they stand upon the little island, with its three acacias--out on the lake--and they read in the book about the betrothed ones, who sailed over one evening in the year 1856;--of the death of the bridegroom, and: "it was not till the next morning, that the despairing shrieks of the bride were heard on the coast!"

The book does not tell, however, of Babette's quiet life with her father; not in the mill, where strangers now dwell, but in the beautiful house, near the railway station. There she looks from the window many an evening and gazes over the chestnut trees, upon the snow mountains, where Rudy once climbed. She sees in the evening hours the alpine glow--the children of the Sun encamp themselves above, and repeat the song of the wanderer, whose mantle the whirlwind tore off, and carried away: "it took the covering but not the man."

There is a rosy hue on the snow of the mountains; there is a rosy hue in every heart, where the thought dwells, that: "G.o.d always gives us that which is best for us!" but it is not always revealed to us, as it once happened to Babette in her dream.

The b.u.t.terfly.

The b.u.t.terfly wished to procure a bride for himself--of course, one of the flowers--a pretty little one. He looked about him. Each one sat quietly and thoughtfully on her stalk, as a young maiden should sit, when she is not affianced; but there were many of them, and it was a difficult matter to choose amongst them. The b.u.t.terfly could not make up his mind; so he flew to the daisy. The French call her _Marguerite_; they know that she can tell fortunes, and she does this when lovers pluck off leaf after leaf and ask her at each one a question about the beloved one: "How does he love me?--With all his heart?--With sorrow?--Above all?--Can not refrain from it?--Quite secretly?--A little bit?--Not at all?"--or questions to the same import. Each one asks in his own language. The b.u.t.terfly flew towards her and questioned her; he did not pluck off the leaves, but kissed each separate one, thinking that by so doing, he would make himself more agreeable to the good creature.

"Sweet Margaret Daisy," said he, "of all the flowers you are the wisest woman! You can prophesy! Tell me, shall I obtain this one or that one? Which one? If I but know this, I can fly to the charming one at once, and pay my court!"

Margaret did not answer. She could not bear to be called a _woman_, for she was a young girl, and when one is a young girl, one is not a woman.

He asked again, he asked a third time, but as she did not answer a single word, he questioned her no more and flew away without further parley, intent on his courtship.

It was early spring time, and there was an abundance of snow-drops and crocuses. "They are very neat," said the b.u.t.terfly, "pretty little confirmed ones, but a little green!" He, like all young men looked at older girls.

From thence he flew to the anemones; but he found them a little too sentimental; the tulips, too showy; the broom, not of a good family; the linden blossoms, too small--then they had so many relations; as to the apple blossoms, why to look at them you would think them as healthy as roses, but to-day they blossom and to-morrow, if the wind blows, they drop off; a marriage with them would be too short. The pea blossom pleased him most, she was pink and white, she was pure and refined and belonged to the housewifely girls that look well, and still can make themselves useful in the kitchen. He had almost concluded to make love to her, when he saw hanging near to her, a pea-pod with its white blossom. "Who is that?" asked he. "That is my sister," said the pea blossom.

"How now, is that the way you look when older?" This terrified the b.u.t.terfly and he flew away.

The honeysuckles were hanging over the fence--young ladies with long faces and yellow skins--but he did not fancy their style of beauty.

Yes, but which did he like? Ask him!

The spring pa.s.sed, the summer pa.s.sed, and then came the autumn. The flowers appeared in their most beautiful dresses, but of what avail was this? The b.u.t.terfly's fresh youthful feelings had vanished. In old age, the heart longs for fragrance, and dahlias and gillyflowers are scentless. So the b.u.t.terfly flew to the mint. "She has no flower at all, but she is herself a flower, for she is fragrant from head to foot and each leaf is filled with perfume. I shall take her!"

But the mint stood stiff and still, and at last said: "Friendship--but nothing more! I am old and you are old! We can live very well for one another, but to marry? No! Do not let us make fools of ourselves in our old age."

So the b.u.t.terfly obtained no one.

The b.u.t.terfly remained a bachelor.

Many violent and transient showers came late in the autumn; the wind blew so coldly down the back of the old willow trees, that it cracked within them. It did not do to fly about in summer garments, for even love itself would then grow cold. The b.u.t.terfly however preferred not to fly out at all; he had by chance entered a door-way, and there was fire in the stove--yes, it was just as warm there, as in summer-time;--there he could live. "Life is not enough," said he, "one must have sunshine, liberty and a little flower!"

He flew against the window-panes, was seen, was run through by a pin and placed in a curiosity-box; one could not do more for him.