Waldfried Part 33

CHAPTER I.

Life is indeed a sacred trust. I now began to feel that great and n.o.ble duties yet claimed me.

I had become dull and listless. I had taken life as it came, resigning my will to outer influences, just as one without appet.i.te sits down to a meal, merely to gain nourishment.

I had become morbidly sensitive; every effort that was made to alleviate my sufferings and restore my accustomed spirits only served to pain me anew.

I was now experiencing the worst effect of grief--indifference to the world.

My path seemed to lie through dismal darkness; but at last I stepped out into the bright light of day and into the busy haunts of men.

The village street leads into the highway; the forest-brooks flow on until they reach the river that empties itself into the ocean.

Thus too has it been with my life.

Yielding to Joseph's earnest wishes, I had made a collection of specimens ill.u.s.trating every stage in the cultivation and growth of the white pine. When the collection was complete, I sent it to the great Paris Exposition.

I received a medal of honor. I did not really deserve it; it should in justice have gone to Ernst, who had acquainted me with the results of his careful study of the subject.

I have the diploma, and the medal bearing the effigy of Napoleon. I looked at them but once, and then enclosed them under seal. They will be found in the little casket that contains my discharge from the fortress and other strange mementoes of the past.

Joseph asked me to accompany him to Paris, and would listen to no refusal. He wanted to acquaint himself with the new methods of kyanizing railroad ties, and insisted that he could not get along without my aid.

I had not yet escaped from that condition in which it is well to resign one's self to the guidance of others.

I saw Paris for the second time. My first visit was in 1832 or 1833, and was undertaken with the object of making the acquaintance of La Fayette. In those days we fondly believed that Paris was to save the world.

Compared with what I now saw, all that had been done in the Parliament that was held in the High street of our little capital seemed petty and trifling.

Though storms were gathering, Jupiter Napoleon sat enthroned over all Europe, and ruled the thunder and the lightning.

I saw him surrounded by all the European monarchs, and often asked myself whether the world's life is, after all, anything but mummery.

One day, while I was sitting on a bench in the Champs Elysees, and gazing at the lively, bustling throng that pa.s.sed before me, I was approached by a Turco, who said to me:

"Are you not Herr Waldfried?"

My heart trembled with emotion.

Was it not Ernst's voice? Before I could collect my thoughts, the stranger had vanished in the great crowd that followed in the wake of the Emperor, who was just pa.s.sing by.

I caught another glimpse of the man with the red fez and called out to him; but he had vanished.

Had I been awake or dreaming?

It could not have been Ernst. He would not have left me after thus addressing me. And if it were he after all! I felt sure that he would return; so I waited in the hope of again seeing the stranger. The people who pa.s.sed me seemed like so many shadows, and I felt as if withdrawn from the world.

Night approached, and I was obliged to go to my lodgings. I told Joseph of all that had happened. He stoutly maintained that I must have been dreaming; but nevertheless went with me the next day to the Champs Elysees where, seated on a bench, we waited for hours without seeing any sign of the stranger.

On my journey homeward, I spent a whole week with my sister who lives in the forest of Hagenau. She can cheer me up better than any of my children can. Her excellent memory enabled her to remind me of many little incidents connected with our childhood and our parental home. In her house, I was, for the first time since my affliction, able to indulge in a hearty laugh.

In the eyes of my brother-in-law, the medal awarded me at the Exposition invested me with new importance; he never omitted to allude to this mark of distinction, when introducing me to his acquaintances.

On the 15th of August, Napoleon's _fete_ day, he actually wanted me to wear the medal on my coat. He could not understand why I would not carry it about with me constantly, so as to make a show of my medal of honor, notwithstanding the fact that the French consider their whole nation as the world's legion of honor. Every individual among them seems anxious to thrust himself forward at the expense of the rest.

My sister privately informed me that the young sergeant whom I met at her house was a suitor for the hand of her eldest daughter, and was only awaiting the satisfactory settlement of the proper dowry on his future wife. He was a young man of limited information, but was very polite and respectful towards me. He hoped to win his epaulets in an early war with Prussia, which had been so bold as to gain Sadowa and conclude a peace without paying France the tribute of a portion of her territory.

The young man evidently thought himself vastly my superior, and spoke of the future of the South German States in a patronizing and pitying tone. As I did not think it worth while to contradict him, he fondly thought that he was instructing me.

As a German, I found the Hagenau Forest of especial interest, from the fact that a part of it had been presented to the town of Hagenau by the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa.

I gave my brother-in-law many councils in regard to arboriculture; but, as the new ideas entailed work, he declined making use of them. He was very proud of his epaulets which were displayed in a little frame that hung on the wall; but he was devoid of all love for the forest, and indifferent to anything that helped the State without at the same time contributing to his personal advancement.

I pa.s.sed a delightful day with my brother-in-law the pastor.

I accompanied him to church, and was greatly moved to once again hear German preaching and German hymns. The organist was one of the most respected men of the neighborhood, and was the owner of a large forge.

I was introduced to him after the service. In the presence of others, he was quite reserved towards me; but during the afternoon, he visited the pastor, and, while we were seated in the arbor under the walnut-tree, we conversed freely in regard to the dangers that, in Alsace, menaced the last remnant of German inst.i.tutions and the Evangelical Church.

"France was happiest under Louis Philippe," said the pastor; and when the manufacturer ventured to inveigh against the Emperor, he replied that Napoleon was not so bad a man after all, but that the Empress was spoiling everything; that she was a friend of the Pope, and was endeavoring, at one and the same time, to destroy Protestantism and increase luxury.

I returned home. Johanna superintended my household affairs, and also the farm, with great judgment.

During the whole winter I was in delicate health, and in the following year I was obliged to visit the springs of Tarasp. Richard accompanied me.

I was indeed unwell, for when I rode through the Prattigau and the wild waters of the Land-quart roared at the side of the road, it seemed to me as if the stream were a living monster that was climbing up and seeking to devour me.

When on Fluella, I plucked the first Alpine rose. I wept. There was no one left to whom I could carry the flower that bloomed by the wayside.

Richard regarded me for a long while in silence, and at last said, "Father, I know what it is that moves your soul. Let it content you that you did so much to make her life a lovely one."

On those heights, where no plant can live, where no bird sings, where nothing can be heard but the rushing of the snow currents, where the fragments of rocks lay bare and bleak, and eternal snows fill the ravines, I felt as if I were floating in eternity--released from all that belonged to earth--and I called out her name--"Gustava!"

Ah, if one could wait until death should overtake him in this cold, bleak region, where naught that has life can endure.

I went on, and met people who had pitched their dwellings in lofty spots, in order to shelter and entertain tourists. My heart seemed congealed; but I can yet remember where I was when it again thawed into life. Neither the lofty mountains nor the mighty landscape helped me. I sat by the roadside and saw a little bush growing from among the rubble-stones and bearing the blue flowers called snakeweed. And it was there that I became myself again.

But look! A bee comes flying towards the bush. She bends down into the open blossoms; she overlooks none of them, from the top to the bottom of the bush, but seems to find nothing, and flies off to another flower. On the next branch she sucks for a long while from every flower-cup.

A second bee, apparently a younger one, approaches. She, too, tries flower after flower, and does not know that some one has been there before her. At last, however, she seems to become aware of the fact, and skips two or three of the blossoms until she at last finds one that contains nourishment for her.

Here by the wayside, just as up above where human footsteps do not reach, there grows a flower that blooms for itself, and yet bears within it nourishment for another.

I do not know how long I may have been seated there, but when I arose I felt that life had returned to me, and that I was in full sympathy with all that was firmly rooted in the earth or freely moving upon its surface.