On the Heights: A Novel
"Yes, I understand what you mean," replied the queen; "and it is wise of you thus to look forward to a return to your home. The thought that you might be unable to content yourself there, has often troubled me. Believe me, we who ride in carriages are no better off than those who are walking barefoot through yonder stubble."
"I know it," said Walpurga. "No one can eat more than his fill, as my father used to say, and queens must bear their children in pain and sorrow, just like the rest of us; no one can save them from that."
The queen made no reply, and looked out of the other side of the carriage.
Countess Brinkenstein motioned Walpurga to be silent; for, while it was difficult to induce her to talk, when she had once begun, she did not know when to stop.
The queen was only silent because she wished to say something in French, to Countess Brinkenstein, and had refrained from doing so on account of Walpurga's precious admonition.
"My dear child," said the queen at last, "I would, gladly, give up everything, if I knew that I could thereby render mankind happy and contented. But what good would it do! Money wouldn't help the people, and it is not we who have brought about this inequality. God has ordained it thus."
Walpurga could easily have answered her, but thought it best to leave something for the morrow; for her father had often said: "It isn't well to catch all the fish in one day." She therefore remained silent.
The queen felt greatly constrained by her promise not to speak French in Walpurga's presence. There was much that she desired to say and with which the peasant woman had no concern.
"How beautiful! how lovely is the world," she murmured to herself, and then closed her eyes, as if fatigued with the splendor which had opened before them, after her long seclusion. And while she lay there, her head thrown back on the cushion, she looked like a sleeping angel, so peaceful, so tender, as if mother and child in one.
"The soft cushions almost make me think I am sitting on clouds," said Walpurga, when they reached their journey's end.
She was unspeakably happy in the country. The broad prospect, the clear skies, the mountains, the large and beautiful garden with its comfortable seats, the fountains, the swans-all delighted her. There was also a fine dairy-farm, about a quarter of a mile distant, where the cow-stable was much finer than the dancing floor at the Chamois inn.
Walpurga was out in the open air during the greater part of the day. The queen lived for her child alone, and Walpurga was again talkative and natural. All the affected ways that she had acquired while in the city, had left her.
In her first letter home-she could now write for herself-she said: "If I only had you here for one day, to tell you about everything; for, if the sky were nothing but paper and our lake nothing but ink, I couldn't write it all. If it were only not so far off, Hansei; a pound of fish here costs twice as much as with us. We're living in the summer palace now, and just think, mother, what such a king has. He has seven palaces, and they're all furnished, every one with a hundred beds, rooms, kitchens and all of them filled, and when they go from one palace to another they needn't take a fork or a spoon along. Everything here is silver, and the doctor and the apothecary and the preacher and the court people and the horses and the carriages, all move out here with us. There's a whole town here in the palace, and I've the best beer and more than I care for; and when one gets up in the morning everything is as neat and clean as a new-laid egg. There's not a leaf on the paths, and then there's a house all made with glass. The flowers live in it; but I daren't go in, because it's too hot in there. They keep it heated the whole year round, and it's filled with great palms and other trees from the east, and, in the pond, there's a fountain, and the water rises up as high as our church steeple. And just think of all such a king can have. All day long, when the sun shines, there's a rainbow there, sometimes above and sometimes below. Of course, he nor no one else can make the sun; and they all do their best to please me. I hardly can say I like a thing, before they give it to me at once.
"The queen is just like a companion with me. Just like you, Stasi. I wish you much joy at your wedding. I only heard of it from Zenza. You shall have a wedding present from me; let me know what you'd like to have. But now I beg of you, just tell me how it goes with my child. It didn't please me to know that you had weighed it on the butcher's scales, and that it's so heavy. I wouldn't have thought, mother, that you would have allowed it, or that you, Hansei, would have given way to the innkeeper. Beware of that fellow. It was only last night that I dreamt you and he were rowing across the lake, and that he clutched you and dragged you into the water. Then all was over. And then the Lady of the Lake appeared, and she looked like the good countess who is now away. She's the best friend I have here, and promised to visit you on her way back. You can tell her and give her everything just as if it was myself. They've just brought me my dinner. Ah, dear mother, if I could only give you some of it. There are so many good things here and there's always so much left. Don't let yourself want for anything, or Hansei either, and my child least of all, for we can now afford it, thank God! And I want to be with you for a long while yet, dear mother. It often makes me feel bad that I can't be a mother-I mean a true mother; but when I come home I'll make it all up to my child; and Hansei, put all your money out at interest until I get home; remember, it doesn't belong to us, but to our child, whom we deprive of its mother.
"Mademoiselle Kramer, who is with me all day, was born here. She'd rather be in the city, and she says it used to be much prettier here than it now is; that everything used to be like the little garden yonder, where there are walls and rooms with doors and windows, all made of shrubbery. It's all very pretty and I like to go there, but when I've been there a few minutes I am almost frightened to death: for I feel as if I and the trees were bewitched, and I get away as soon as I can. Mademoiselle Kramer is a very good person, but nothing is quite to her taste. She's been used all her life to riding and fine eating and sitting about; and mother, just think of what I have eaten here-live ice! People here are so clever they can preserve ice and make it up so that you can eat it. Yes, if that could satisfy one's appetite, there wouldn't be any hungry people with us in the winter, or even in the summer, further up the mountains. And mother, you once told me a fairy-tale about walls that have ears; but this is no fable, it's true and quite natural. They have speaking-trumpets, running through the whole palace, and you can speak through them, and if I want anything in my room, all I've got to do is to go up to the wall and say so and in a minute it's there.
"This is a beautiful day and that makes me think that you have it as well as we, and that the same sun that shines on us here shines on you, too.
"The main business here is taking walks. Every one must take walks here. They call it taking exercise, so that they can get up their appetite and keep their limbs from getting stiff. They even take the horses out walking when there's nothing for them to do. Early in the morning, the grooms ride out a long way with them and then come home. I often wish the horses could only take me home for an hour. I often get homesick, but I am well and hearty and only hope it is the same with you. Your
"Walpurga."Postscript. – Why haven't you mentioned a word about the little gold heart which my countess sent to my Burgei? And no one is to send me any more petitions, or to come to me. I won't receive another one. As long as I live, I'll be sorry for having anything to do with Zenza and Thomas; but perhaps it's all for the best and may be he's turned out better. Don't think hard of it, dear Hansei, but I beg you, once more, to have very little to do with the host of the Chamois. He's a rogue, and a dangerous one at that, but you needn't tell him that I say so, for I want the ill-will of no one. I send my love to all good friends. I must stop now, my hand is quite stiff with writing.
"Stop! I must begin again. I send you a picture of myself and my prince. It was taken in a sort of peepshow, before we came out here, and now, as long as the world lasts, the prince and I will always be together, and I'll be holding him in my arms. But I am still with you, dear Hansei, and you, dear mother, and, most of all, with my dear child that I bear in my heart where no one can look. Don't show the picture to any one.
"But, dear me! what good will it do if you don't show it? Mademoiselle Kramer tells me that they've made a hundred thousand pictures of me and the prince, and now I am hanging up in all the shops, and wherever I go they know me as well as the king and the queen, whose pictures hang next to mine. I feel as if I wanted no one ever to see me again, but when I think of it, it's really an honor after all. I am out in the world now, and must let them do what they please with me.
"But I shall ever be true to you, and I am at home nowhere but with you, and am always there in thought."
CHAPTER XIV
"How goes it, Walpurga?" asked Baum, one morning, when the nurse was looking out of the window of the ground floor.
"Oh, dear," replied she, "this is a real paradise."
"Indeed!"
"Could it be any finer in paradise? The people live without care and have nothing to do but eat and drink and laugh and go out walking."
"You're right there; but still it was finer in paradise, for there father Adam couldn't covet another man's wife, as his was the only one in the world."
"What queer notions you have," said Walpurga, laughing; and Baum, feeling flattered, added:
"In paradise they had no use for servants, no coachman, no cook, no house, no clothes. There were no boots to be cleaned, because there were none, and there were no coats and shirts to be woven, and sewed and mended."
"You dreadful creature," exclaimed Walpurga. She felt as if Baum's words had almost torn the clothes from her; her face was crimson. Baum quickly answered:
"I'm sorry I look so dreadful in your eyes. In my eyes you're so beautiful that I-" He was interrupted by a servant who called him away.
Walpurga quickly drew back into the room. She was angry at Baum. How could any one use such language to a married woman? "And yet," thought she, with a self-complacent smile, "Baum's a well-mannered person, after all; and why shouldn't one crack a joke, now and then?" She looked in the large mirror for a moment and smiled.
"Yes, when Hansei sees you again, he'll hardly know you; it's the good living that does it. But I'll say to myself every day: 'It won't last long; you're only hired here for a while. But dancing's pleasant, even if the dance doesn't last long,'" said Walpurga, as if to console herself. All sort of dance tunes occurred to her and she kept humming them to the prince.
Walpurga roamed about through the beautiful park as if in a dream. She imagined that the trees, the sky and the birds were all enchanted and in a strange world; that they would suddenly awaken and all would vanish. But everything went on in its quiet course, each day as beautiful as the one that preceded, like the sun rising anew every day, the flowers that are constantly giving forth their fragrance, or the spring that never ceases to flow.
Walpurga had a special liking for Mademoiselle Kramer's father, who was governor of the castle. He was a venerable man who raised lovely flowers in his little lodge, and she could talk to him as with her own father.
Walpurga was sitting out of doors for the greater part of the day. Mademoiselle Kramer was always with her and two servants within ready call. The queen would also often join them.
The queen had a beautiful snow-white setter of which the child was especially fond. Walpurga requested her to let the prince often have the dog, because it is well for a child to have a living animal about it.
"She is right," said the queen, addressing the court lady at her side; "animal life awakens human consciousness."
Walpurga stared at her in surprise. The queen had said she was right, but added words that she did not understand.
"Just look," said she to the queen, "how fond the bees are of our child. They won't hurt him-you needn't fear. The bee is the only creature that came out of paradise without being spoiled."
The queen manifested her pleasure at the manner in which Walpurga's thoughts were, interwoven with tradition.
Walpurga observed that the queen had but little worldly wisdom and gave her the benefit of hers whenever opportunity presented itself.
"Do you know what that is?" she once asked, while they sat in the shrubbery.
"A tree."
"Yes, but do you know it's a sacred tree and that lightning doesn't strike where it grows?"
"No, I never knew that."
"And then of course, you don't know why. Now my mother told me all about it. The Virgin was once crossing a mountain and was caught in a fearful storm. So she stood under a great large hazel-tree and remained safe, and, because it had protected her she blessed it for all time. You can make magic wands from hazel twigs. The serpent-king dwells under the hazel-tree and, sometimes, under the weeping willow. Do you know why the weeping willow drops its branches so sadly?"
"No, I don't know that either. You're full of wisdom," said the queen, smiling.
"I'm not, but my mother is. I don't know half as much as she. She's very clever, and told me about the weeping willow. The rods with which they scourged our Saviour were made from the weeping willow, and ever since that time she droops her branches with shame."
Walpurga was quite happy to think that she could teach the queen something. She felt that she was quite a different being from all in the palace and that the queen was the only one who understood her. She was always happy and cheerful when with her and opened her whole heart to the queen. "You're quite a stranger in the world; you've never, in all your life, seen how the burghers and farmers sit in their rooms of an evening, what they eat, what they talk of, what they wish for, and what makes them happy or gives them pain. I once heard my father tell a story. It was about a prince and a princess who grew up as shepherds, and didn't know who they were until they were grown up, when they said to him: 'you're a prince,' and to her: 'you're a princess,' and they became right good and honest people. Of course they'd been out in the world, and had learned how people live and what they need. I only wish that we could send our prince out the same way. I think it would be good for him and the whole country, too. If servants are running after you all day long, it's just as if you were in a prison, the people form a living wall around you."
"We can all be honest and good," replied the queen.
"And make good men and women of our children," added Walpurga. "Do you know what I'd like? I'd like, as long as I live, to take all trouble from you, and if sickness came to you, to be sick in your place."
"Yes that's very well; but let us be quiet now."
The queen was all happiness. She saw to the bottom of a simple peasant woman's heart, and into a new world that revealed itself to her in her child.
CHAPTER XV
Baum availed himself of every opportunity to speak with Walpurga. He was in deep affliction; his wife was seriously ill, and Walpurga endeavored to console him. In return, Baum lent a willing ear to all her complaints, for she had just heard from home, that Zenza denied all knowledge of the little golden heart that Countess Irma had sent to the child.
"Ah, and so your countess has a golden heart left to give away," said Baum in a mocking voice. "You ought to be glad to have such a friend."
"And so I am. Oh, if she were only here again, then it would be a real paradise. I don't worry about Zenza's making away with the golden heart; there must be some bad people, or else the world would be too beautiful."
"And I tell you, it's only half a life when the king's away. Just wait till he comes back and see how it will be then. When there's no man about, it isn't a complete house."
The queen approached and Baum withdrew.
"What was that man saying to you?" asked the queen.
"We were telling each other of our troubles; he has great longing for the king and I, dear queen, have great longing for my Countess Irma."
"I long for her, too; but she has asked to have her leave of absence extended for another fortnight."
Peacefully and calmly, the days passed by. Walpurga's favorite resort was in the neighborhood of the dairy-farm; for there were cows there, and cows are the same everywhere, and don't know that they belong to the king, or that their milk is served at his table.
Walpurga remarked this one day to Baum, who had discovered that he could meet her there, and he replied:
"Oh, how clever you are; if I only had got a wife like you."
"There are dozens like me."
"Oh, not so clever as you are. You could get far in the world, if you only wanted to."
"How far should I go?" said Walpurga. "I want to go home and no farther."
"No one will think the worse of you for that, but one can make a new home."
"I don't understand you."
"I can't explain now. Countess Brinkenstein is coming. Meet me in the shrubbery behind the chapel, this evening when they're all at table, I've something good to tell you."
Walpurga had not time to reply. Baum saw Countess Brinkenstein approaching and, in a loud voice, gave the dairy inspector an order from the head cook, and then walked away quickly, respectfully saluting the countess as he passed.
Countess Brinkenstein administered a severe reproof to Mademoiselle Kramer for having allowed Walpurga to stand there with the prince, and chatter with the servants.
Mademoiselle Kramer made no reply, and only motioned Walpurga to go into the vine-clad arbor.
Walpurga was busy conjecturing what sort of advice Baum might have to give her. He knew lots of things and perhaps knew of some clever stroke, by which Hansei, her mother and the child might be brought to the palace. But Hansei wouldn't do for a lackey. Perhaps, though, they could make him court fisherman or chief woodsman of the royal forest.
When evening came, she was quite uneasy. It was not the right thing for her to have a secret meeting with any man but her husband; but, perhaps the place may be given away to-morrow, and then it would be too late. She sat by the window and looked up at the stars. Her cheeks glowed, she drew a deep breath.
"What ails you?" inquired Mademoiselle Kramer.
"I feel so warm and oppressed."
"I'll send for the doctor."
"I don't need the doctor. Just let me sit here quietly. But no; let me walk up and down in the garden for a few minutes and I'll feel better."
"The maid can go with you."
"No, I don't need any one; I'll feel better if I go alone."
"But, I beg of you, don't go too far, and come back soon. You've seen, to-day, how every misstep of yours draws reproof on me."
"Yes, I'll come back soon."
Walpurga went out at the back door. The gravel grated under her footsteps and she trod more lightly. The air was laden with the perfume of the flowers; the swans in the lake uttered a strange sound, like a deep, muffled trumpet tone; the sky sparkled with countless stars and, just as Walpurga looked up, she saw a brilliant meteor and exclaimed: "Hansei!"
In her innermost heart she wished for nothing but her husband's happiness. She stopped when she had uttered his name. She felt as if she had better return. She was a married woman and oughtn't to meet a strange man at night, even though it was by the chapel.
Something ran across the path. Was it a cat, a martin or a weasel?
"Return," said an inner voice, but she went on, nevertheless. She reached the arbor. Baum stepped forth from behind a vine-clad column. He held out both his hands to her and she offered him her own. He tried to draw her closer to him but she stood firm.
"What have you to tell me?" asked Walpurga.
"Nothing but what's good. You see, we lesser folks must help each other, and you're so much to me that I could do anything for you."
"If you can do me a good service, I shall be grateful as long as I live-I and my husband and my child. Tell me quick; I'm in a hurry."
"Then we can leave it for some other time."
"No, tell me now. What do you mean?"
"I really meant nothing at all, but you see we must always wait on others, and so I thought that we might have a quarter of an hour to ourselves. I only wanted to tell you that you are the light of my life, my happiness. When I look at you, and listen to you, I'd like to do-I don't know what, and I can't tell."
"It isn't necessary, either; and let me tell you, this is very wicked of you."
"Is it wicked that I love you to distraction?"
"Yes, and doubly wicked that you fooled me here and made me believe that you had something good to tell me."
"And so I have," said Baum, quickly; "forgive me for what I've done; if you do, I'll tell you the rest."
"Yes, I'll forgive you, but make haste."
"Well," said Baum with great composure, "it's simply this. He who stands at the manger and doesn't eat, is a fool. Do you understand me?"
"Of course; it doesn't take much to know that."
"Yes, but you don't take my meaning. A court like this is a full manger, and you'll be a great fool if you go away without having taken enough to satisfy yourself and your child for life."
"I'd like to know how that can be done. You've got to eat every day, and can't stuff yourself with enough to last for a lifetime."
"You're clever, but you might be more so. Just listen! What I mean is this. A good position, or a profitable situation, should give one a chance to make himself comfortable for life. The tenant of the dairy-farm will have to leave next spring or, at the latest, in the fall, and I think you ought to manage it with the queen and the rest of them, so that your husband should get the position, and then you could be here all your life and you and yours would be well provided for. Take my word for it, I know what the quality are. If you leave here without having secured a good situation, not a cat will remember you. But if you remain here, you'll be well taken care of to the end of your days, and the older the prince gets, the more he'll think of you; and when he becomes king, he'll provide for you, your family, your child and even your grandchildren. Is that wicked advice?"
"No; on the contrary, it's very good and I'll remember it. That, indeed, would be bread and lots of butter."
"Oh, I've never seen or heard so sensible a woman as you are. You deserve a better lot; but that can't be helped, and if you remain here, I'll often have the pleasure of seeing you and speaking a word with you, for I hope we'll be good friends; shall we not?"
"Yes, indeed, and my Hansei will also be a good friend to you. There's not a false drop of blood in his body and he's clever, too, only he's not much of a talker; and he loves me just as much as gold; he's true and kindhearted, and I won't let any one say a word against him."
"I haven't said anything against him," replied Baum, and Walpurga was obliged to admit that this was the case; nevertheless, she could not help feeling that any offer of love to another man's wife is an insult to her husband, for it implies as plainly as words can express it: "He is not the right man, for he has such and such faults; I alone am worthy of you."
Sighing deeply, Baum answered:
"Oh, if one could only double his life."
"I should think one life was enough for any man."
"Certainly, if one hasn't wasted it. One can only live once, you know."
"Yes, in this world; but in the next it begins anew."
"I mean in this world, too. But it's very hard, let me tell you, if one's whole life has been wasted through a stupid blunder. Must one bear with it and make no attempt to change it? We've both of us blundered."
"Who?"
"While I was a soldier, I became acquainted with the valet of the late king. He was very fond of me and took great pleasure in helping me forward; but he well knew what he was about. I thought it a wonderful piece of luck, when I found I was to marry his daughter. It was only too late, when I discovered that she was sickly and irritable and without a healthy drop of blood in her body. And is my whole life to be wasted, because of this blunder? And is no love left for me in the world? And with you, it's just the same; with both of us, you and I-but why should it be too late, even now?"
