The World's Greatest Books - Volume 1 Part 13

For the King of Carthage said, When he saw the fair young maid: "Daughter!" and the maid replied: "Father!" And they laughed and cried.

For she had been stolen when She was young by Christian men.

And the captain of Beaucaire Bought her as a slave-girl there.

Once her lover loved her well Now, alas! he cannot tell Who she is. Does he forget-- Auca.s.sin--his Nicolette?

Auca.s.sin leaped down the castle steps, and took his lady in his arms.

Then she went to the house of her G.o.dfather, the captain of the town, and washed all the brownness from her face, and clad herself in robes of rich silk. And, early on the morrow, Count Auca.s.sin wedded her, and made her Lady of Beaucaire; and they had great joy of one another. And here my song-story ends. I know no more.

BERTHOLD AUERBACH

On the Height

Berthold Auerbach, a German poet and author of Jewish descent, was born at Nordstetten, in Wurtemberg, on February 28, 1812. On the completion of his studies at the universities of Tubingen, Munich and Heidelberg he immediately devoted himself to literature. His first publication dealt with "Judaism and Recent Literature," and was to be followed by a series of novels taken from Jewish history. Of this intended series he actually published, with considerable success, "Spinoza" and "Poet and Merchant." But real fame and popularity came to him when he began to occupy himself with the life of the general people which forms the subject of his best-known works. In these later books, of which "On the Height" is perhaps the most characteristic and certainly the most famous, he revealed an unrivalled insight into the soul of the Southern German country folk, and especially of the peasants of the Black Forest and the Bavarian Alps. His descriptions are remarkable for their fresh realism, graceful style and humour. In addition to these qualities, his last books are marked by great subtlety of psychological a.n.a.lysis.

"On the Height" was first published at Stuttgart in 1861, and has been translated into several languages. Auerbach died at Cannes on February 8, 1882, when all Germany was preparing to celebrate his 70th birthday.

_I.--A Peasant Nurse in a Royal Palace_

Walpurga was as in a dream. It had all happened so quickly! Only a fortnight ago, on the walk home from Sunday Ma.s.s at the village church, her Hanse had to make a hay bed for her on a stone-heap by the roadside. She had thought she could not get back to the cottage in time, but she recovered after a while and bravely walked home. Her mother was with her in the hour of suffering, as she had been with her through all the joys and sorrows of her simple life. Then came the supreme joy of the awakening, with a new life by her side, a baby-girl groping helplessly for the mother's breast. Then--was it only yesterday?--when she was waiting for the return of the christening party, a carriage drove up with the village doctor and an elegant stranger. There was much beating about the bush, and then it came out like a thunderbolt. The stranger was a great doctor from the capital, entrusted with the mission to find in the mountains an honest, comely peasant woman, and married she must be, to act as wet-nurse for the expected crown prince or princess.

Then Hanse came home with the merry party--there was much storming and angry refusal; but finally the practical sense of the peasant folk prevailed. It was, after all, only for a year, and it would mean comfort and wealth, instead of hunger and grinding poverty. And scarcely had their consent been wrung from them, when shouting and cheering announced the great event of the crown prince's birth. Then came that strange, long drive over hill and dale, through the dark night; and now, in the Royal Palace, she tried to collect herself, to grasp the meaning of all that splendour, the unintelligible ceremonious talk and bearing of those about her. She was to be taken at once to see the queen and her precious charge.

Walpurga was full of happiness when she left the queen's bedroom.

Touched by the comely young peasant-woman's naive and familiar kindliness, the queen, who seemed to her beautiful as an angel, had kissed her, and, on noticing a tear, had said: "Don't cry, Walpuga! You are a mother, too, like myself!" The little prince took to his nurse without much trouble, and she soon became accustomed to her new life, although her thoughts often dwelt longingly on her native mountains, her own child and mother and husband. How they would miss her! She knew her Hanse was a good man at heart, but not particularly shrewd, and easily gulled or led astray.

Meanwhile, her high spirits, her artless bluntness, the quaint superst.i.tions of the mountain child, gained her the goodwill and approval of the king and queen, of Dr. Gunther, the court physician, of the whole royal household, and, above all, of the lady-in-waiting, Countess Irma Wildenort.

_II.--The Love Affairs of a King_

Countess Irma's letters to Emmy, her only convent friend, contained little of idle gossip and of things that had happened. They had no continuity. They were introspective, and took the form of a diary taken up at odd moments and left again to be continued, sometimes the following day, sometimes after a week. They revealed intellectual development far in advance of her years, and clear perception of character.

"The queen lives in an exclusive world of sentiment and would like to raise everybody to her exalted mood--liana-like, in the morning-glow and evening-glow of sentiment, never in white daylight. She is most gracious towards me, but we feel it instinctively--there is something in her and in me that does not harmonise....

"Here all of them think me boundlessly nave, because I have the courage to think for myself....

"The king loves reserve, but also gay freeness. The queen is too serious--eternal organ sound; but you cannot dance to an organ, and we are young and love to dance.

"A peasant woman from the mountains is nurse to the crown prince. I was with her at the king's request. I stood by the cot when the king arrived. He said to me gently: 'It is true, an angel stands by the child's cradle.' He laid his hand upon mine, which rested on the rail of the cot. The king went. And just imagine what occurred. The nurse, a fresh, merry person with blue eyes, buxom and ma.s.sive, a perfect peasant beauty, to whom I showed friendliness, so as to cheer her up and save her from feeling homesick, the nurse tells me in bald words: 'You are an adulteress! You have exchanged loving glances with the king!'

"Emmy! How you were right in telling me that I idealise the people, and that they are as corrupt as the great world, and, moreover, without the curb of culture.

"No! she is a good, intelligent woman. She begged my pardon for her impertinence; I remain friendly towards her. Yes, I will."

Irma's devotion to her king had something of hero-worship. And the king, who loved his wife sincerely, but was, and wanted to be, of a heroic nature, and who was averse to all that savoured of self-torment and sentimentality, was attracted by Countess Irma's intellectual freedom and _esprit_. He felt in her a kindred spirit. Her company was stimulating; it could not affect the even tenour of his conjugal love.

But the queen, in her sentimental exultation, sought ever for new "doc.u.ments" to demonstrate the depth of her affection. And now she wanted to give the supreme proof by renouncing her Lutheran faith to enter into a yet closer union with her Catholic husband. To the king this sacrifice seemed not only sentimentally weak, but politically unwise. He received the confidence coldly, and begged her to reconsider the matter. He sent Dr. Gunther, who, in spite of his democratic tendencies, was held in high esteem by the king, and had great influence over the queen, to exercise his persuasive powers--with no result.

Where wisdom and experience had failed, the voice of Nature, speaking out of Walpurga's childish chatter, succeeded. Walpurga told the queen of her father--how one day on the lake, on hearing the choral singing of the peasants, he had said: "Now I know how the Almighty feels up there in Heaven! All the Churches, ours, and the Lutheran, and the Jewish, and the Turkish, they are all voices in the song. Each sings as he knows, and yet it sounds well together up there." The queen was radiant next day, when she informed her spouse that she had the courage of her own inconsistency and that she had resolved to do his will. The sacrifice was received with coolness. Was it that her n.o.ble act was construed as further evidence of weakness?

The king had left town for some distant watering-place, and had requested Irma to write to him at times. Knowing her love of flowers, he had given orders for a fresh bouquet to be placed every day in her room, and, perhaps to conceal the favour, in the rooms of two other ladies of the court. Irma considered both the thought and the expedient unworthy of her hero, and resolved not to write to him. She spent much of her time at the studio of a professor of the academy, who not only modelled a bust of her for a figure of Victory to be placed on the new a.r.s.enal, but gave her instruction in his art. In spite of this new occupation, she found herself in a state of feverish excitement, which became almost unbearable when the queen showed her a pa.s.sage in a letter just received from the king. "Please make Countess Irma send me regular reports about our son. Remember me to the dear fourth leaf of our clover-leaf."

She was indignant at this unworthy attempt at forcing her to write. Was Walpurga right after all? Were lovers' glances to be exchanged over the child's cradle? She longed for solitude and peace. On the way to her room she had to stop to think where she was. A gallop might cool her feverish head. She ordered her horse to be saddled, but had scarcely changed into her riding-habit when a letter was handed to her, which was unsealed with trembling fingers. It was a simply worded invitation from her father, who wished to see her again after her long absence at court.

Here was salvation, balm for her aching heart! She gave a few orders, then hurried to the queen's apartments to obtain leave of absence; and, accompanied by her maid, sped to her paternal home the same evening as fast as the horses would carry her.

The days pa.s.sed quickly at the manor house, where Irma, for the first time, gained an insight into the n.o.ble mind and firm character of her father. In his many soothing talks Count Eberhard told her of his regrets at having been forced by circ.u.mstances--her mother's death before Irma had reached the age of three, and his inability to give her a proper education in his mountain retreat--to send her first to her aunt, then to the convent, and thus neglecting his duties as father. A word from him would have decided her to remain under his roof, but the old philosopher held that each intelligent being must work out its own destiny, and would not influence her decision. His slighting remarks about the monarchic system, about the impossibility of the king, with all his n.o.ble intentions, being able to see the world as it is, since everybody approaches him in pleasing costume, struck the final jarring note and destroyed the complete understanding between father and daughter. A half jocular joint letter from the king and his _entourage_, in which the signatories expressed in exaggerated terms their longing for her presence at court, decided her to return.

The carriage having been sent to the valley in advance, Count Eberhard walked down with Irma, until they came to the apple-tree which he had planted on the day of his daughter's birth. He stopped, and picked up a fallen apple. "Let us part here," he said. "Take this fruit from your native soil. The apple has left the tree because it has ripened; because the tree cannot give any more to it. So man leaves home and family. But man is more than the fruit of a tree. Come, my child, I hold your dear head; don't weep--or weep! May you never weep for yourself, and only for others! Remain faithful to yourself! I would give you all my thoughts; remember but the one: Yield only to such pleasures as will be pleasure in recollection. Take this kiss. You kiss pa.s.sionately. May you never give a kiss that does not leave your soul as pure and full as it is now.

Farewell!"

_III.--Walpurga Returns Home_

Twelve months had pa.s.sed since Walpurga's arrival at court. Her trunks were now packed; she had given a last kiss to the boy prince; and now she asked her Hanse, who had brought a carriage from the village to take her home, to wait in the corridor while she took leave from Countess Irma. She found Irma still in her bed, very pale, with her hair in loose strains on the pillow.

"I wanted to give you a souvenir," said Irma, "but I think money will be best for you. Look on the table, and take it all. I don't want any of it. Take it, and don't be afraid; it is real money, won honestly at the tables. I always win, always!... Take your kerchief and wrap it up." The room was so dusky that Walpurga looked around in superst.i.tious fear. The money might be evil; she quickly made the sign of the Cross over it, and put it into her ample pocket. "And now, farewell," said Irma. "Be happy.

You are happier than any of us. If ever I don't know where to go, I shall come to you. You'll have me, won't you? Now go--go! I must sleep.

And don't forget me, Walpurga. Don't thank me, don't speak!"

"Oh, please let me speak, just one word! We both can't know which of us will die, and then it would be too late. I don't know what's the matter with you. You are not well, and you may get worse. You often have cold hands and hot cheeks. I wronged you that day, soon after I arrived. I'll never think bad of you again, no one shall say evil of you; but, please, get away from the castle! Go home, to----"

"Enough," exclaimed Irma, thrusting forth her hands as though Walpurga's words were stones thrown at her. "Farewell; and don't forget me." She held out her hand for Walpurga to kiss; it was hot and feverish.

Walpurga went. The parrot in the ante-room screamed: "Good-bye, Irma."

Walpurga was frightened, and ran away as though she were chased.

Walpurga's homecoming was not pleasure unalloyed. She did not miss the luxuries to which she had become accustomed. She rather relished the hard, manual labour, to which she applied herself with full energy. But her baby was a stranger to her, cried when she wished to take her up, and became only gradually accustomed to her. Her faculties had been sharpened, too; she felt a certain shyness in her husband, noticed his weaknesses, and was deeply hurt when, on the second evening after her return, he went to the inn, "so that people should not say he was under her thumb." Then, Hanse, coaxed by the shrewd innkeeper, had set his heart upon acquiring the inn, now that they had "wealth," and upon thus becoming the most important man in the village. But with much tact and cleverness Walpurga made him give up the plan, thereby arousing the innkeeper's hostility, which became rampant when the reunited couple did not appear at a kind of fete which he gave, ostensibly in their honour, but really to benefit by the proceeds. By this slight the esteem and admiration of the whole village were turned to ill-will and spite.

Hanse and Walpurga were almost boycotted; but their isolation made them draw closer together, work harder, and enjoy to the fullest the harmony of their domestic life. Moreover, the freehold farmer, Grubersepp, who was a personage in the district, and had never before deigned to take much notice of Hanse, now called at the cottage and offered his advice on many questions. When on a Sunday the village doctor and the priest were seen to visit the cottage, opinion began to veer around once more in the good people's favour.

It was Walpurga's old uncle Peter, a poor pitch-burner, who was known in the district as the "pitch-mannikin," who brought the first news that the freehold farm, where Walpurga's mother had in her young days served as a maid, was for sale at a very low price for ready money. It was six hours from the lake, in the mountains--splendid soil, fine forest, everything perfect. Hanse decided to have a look at it, and Grubersepp went with him to value it. The uncle's description was found to be highly coloured; but after some bargaining the purchase was effected, and soon the news was bruited about the village that Hanse had paid "in clinking golden coin."

The whole village, with a bra.s.s band, was a.s.sembled on the sh.o.r.e when Hanse and Walpurga, with their family and worldly possessions, embarked to cross the lake on the first stage of their "flitting." All vexations were forgotten in the hearty send-off, and as the boat glided across the silent lake it was followed by music, cheering, jodling, and the booming of mortars.

They approached the opposite sh.o.r.e and Hanse pointed out the figure of Uncle Peter waiting for them with the cart and the furniture, when Walpurga suddenly ceased rowing, and gave a startled cry.

"Heavens! What's that? I could swear, when I was singing I thought if only my good Countess Irma could see us here together, how happy she would be. And just now it seemed to me as though----"

"Come on, let's land," said Hanse.

On the sh.o.r.e a figure in a fluttering garment was running up and down.

It suddenly collapsed when the wind carried a full sound of music across the lake. Then it rose again, and vanished in the reeds.

"Have you seen nothing?" asked Walpurga.