On the Heights: A Novel

"I don't understand you."

"What I mean is, that long confinement to the sickroom and careful nursing are apt to produce, in the invalid, a certain sensitiveness and an almost imperceptible change in manner. It is well to escape from this hothouse mood into the open air; to be once again among the trees which are proof against all weathers, and to inhale the fresh, life-giving breeze."

The king was often present during these readings, and frequently felt moved to express his thoughts on the weightiest and most beautiful passages in Tasso. Irma often trembled. Every word she uttered seemed wicked. She felt that she no longer had a right to speak of pure and holy subjects, but the king was so cheerful and unconstrained that she speedily dismissed all concern.

"You are spoiling me, and will make me quite vain," said the queen, one day. "I have another wish. I long to go from flowers to works of art. I often feel like visiting the picture-gallery and the collection of antiques. When we move among the achievements of art the deepest impression we receive is, that human beings who lived long ago, have bequeathed their best possessions to us, and that eyes long since closed in death, look down upon us with their undying glances, and are still with us."

At the words "undying glances," the king and Irma looked at each other with involuntary surprise. To them, the words were suggestive. Irma composed herself and replied:

"I cannot help joining in Your Majesty's wish: from flowers and trees to works of art! Surrounded by pictures and statues, the soul dwells in an ideal atmosphere; life everlasting environs us; we inhale the very breath of genius which, although its possessors may have vanished from earth, endures for ever. When I was forced to the conclusion that I was without real artistic talent, I envied the monarchs to whom is vouchsafed the happiness of encouraging talent and genius in others. That is a great compensation."

"How beautifully she interprets everything," said the queen, addressing her husband; and it was with a mingled expression of delight and pain that the king regarded the two ladies. What was passing in his mind? He admired and loved Irma; he respected and loved his wife. He was untrue to both. Irma and the queen went through the galleries and the collection of antiques, and would sit for hours, looking at the pictures and statues. Every remark of the queen's was met by an observation of Irma's, which was in full accord with hers.

"When I look at and listen to you two," said the king, "and think of where you resemble each other and where you differ, it seems as if I saw the daughters of Schiller and Goethe before me."

"How singular!" interposed the queen, and the king continued:

"Goethe saw the world through brown, and Schiller through blue eyes; and so it is with you two. You look through blue eyes, like Schiller's, and our friend through brown eyes, like those of Goethe's."

"It won't do to let any one know that we flatter each other so," said the queen, smiling. Irma looked up to the ceiling, where painted angels were hovering in the air. There is a world of infinite space where no one can supplant another; it is only in the everyday world that exclusiveness exists, thought she to herself.

The more the queen gained in strength, the more marked was the change from a subdued, to a bright and cheerful vein.

It seemed as if Irma's wish was about to be realized. The life-renewing power of spring which reanimates the trees and the plants, seemed to extend its influence over human life. It seemed as if the past were buried and forgotten.

It was on the first mild day of spring, and they were walking together in the palace garden, when the queen said:

"I can't imagine that there ever was a time when we did not know each other, dear Irma." She stopped and looked into Irma's eyes with an expression radiant with joy. "You once told me about a Greek philosopher," said she, addressing Doctor Gunther, who was walking after them with the captain of the palace-guard, "who thought that our souls had a previous existence, and that our best experience, in this world, is merely the recollection of what we have experienced or imagined to ourselves in some earlier state of being."

"Without accepting this fanciful theory," replied Gunther, "there is much in life which may be regarded as destiny. I believe that all living truths which we take up into ourselves, and which thus, as it were, become a part of our being, were intended for us. Our mind, the whole constitution of our being, is destined for and attuned to it. There is thus perfect correspondence between our destiny and our capacity. But I beg Your Majesty to regard yourself as destined, at present, to step into your carriage. We must not let the first walk be too long."

The queen and Irma seated themselves in the carriage which awaited them at the Nymph's Grove. They drove on slowly, and the queen said:

"You cannot imagine, dear Irma, how timid and fearful I was when I first came here." She told her how she had looked into the eyes of the multitude that surrounded her, and had asked herself: "Who of all these does, in truth, belong to you?" and how encouraged she had felt when Irma spoke to her, as it were, with her warm, brown eyes.

"And they were speaking to you," replied Irma. "I should have liked to say to you: 'Sweet being! imagine that we have known each other for years, and feel just as if we had been friends forever.' I fancy that we both felt thus because we were both timid and fearful. It was the first time I had ever been at court, and I felt as if I couldn't help taking the lord steward's staff out of his hand, and supporting myself on it."

"How strange! I had the very same thought," said the queen, "and, now that I think of it, I can still recollect that the lord steward looked at me incessantly."

The affection of the two ladies was cemented by a hundred little memories. The carriage drove on slowly, but their thoughts took in days and months. There was a turn in the road; they had just reached the place where the statue had been shattered.

"It was a terrible night," said the queen, "when that happened, and it seems to me that simple-minded Walpurga is right when she says that it is wrong for us thus to expose the undraped human figure."

"I must be permitted to differ with Your Majesty," replied Irma. "The free-why should we mince words? – the nude, beautiful human form is the only one in accord with free nature. All frippery is subject to changes of taste and fashion. The human form as shaped by the hand of nature, is alone fitted to stand in her temple."

"You are a free soul; far freer than I am," said the queen. They alighted. Irma accompanied the queen to her apartments and then returned to her own. When she found herself alone she threw up her hands, exclaiming:

"What is the greatest punishment? It is not hell, where other guilty ones suffer with us! No; to be conscious of guilt and yet condemned to remain beside a pure and happy creature; that is far worse than all the torments of hell!"

"God keep you, Irma! God keep you!" shrieked the parrot. Irma started with a shudder.

CHAPTER XV

Spring returned, ushered in by the merry singing of larks and finches, and bringing with it the latest Paris fashions. The queen now appeared in public, and the ladies of the capital were delighted to pattern their costumes after hers.

The queen drove out, with Irma beside her, and Walpurga and the prince opposite.

"You must not worry when you're at home again," said the queen to Walpurga.

Addressing the queen in French, Irma said, with a smile: "Countess Brinkenstein would disapprove of your manifesting any interest in the future fortunes of one whose term of service is at an end."

With a degree of boldness that surprised her two well-wishers, Walpurga said: "There'll be one advantage at any rate, for, at home, they won't treat me as if I were deaf and dumb."

"How do you mean?"

"Why, they wouldn't, while I was about, say things that I can't understand."

Irma endeavored to pacify her, but without avail. Walpurga's longing for home had made her exacting and dissatisfied. She felt ill at ease everywhere, and felt sure that the very people who had done so much to humor and spoil her would soon get along without her.

There was another and a deeper cause for her feeling annoyed when Irma spoke French. A youthful-looking nurse from one of the French cantons of Switzerland had become a member of the prince's household. She could not understand a word of German, and that had been the principal reason for engaging her. The prince was to speak French before he acquired any other language.

Walpurga and the new-comer were, as regarded each other, like two mutes. Nor was she otherwise favorably disposed toward the tall, handsome girl with the French cap. She was, indeed, quite jealous of her. What had the foreigner to do with the child? She was, at times, angry at the child itself.

"You'll soon parlez vous so that I shan't be able to understand a word," she would say, when alone with him, and would feel quite angry; and, the very next minute, she would exclaim: "God forgive me! How well it is that I'll soon be home again. I can count the days on my fingers."

Mademoiselle Kramer now told Walpurga that a chamber2 had been prepared for the crown prince.

"He has rooms enough already," said Walpurga.

Mademoiselle Kramer was again obliged to undertake the difficult task of explaining the court custom, in such matters, to Walpurga, who made her go over the various names again and again. She would always begin thus:

"The crown prince will have an ayah-"

"Ayah? what sort of a word's that? what does that mean?"

"It means the prince's waiting-maid. And when his royal highness becomes four years old, he will have a new set of officers; and so on, as he grows older, only the new set will always be of higher rank than those who precede them."

"Yes, I can easily understand it," thought Walpurga; "new people and new palaces, constant change; how lucky that your eyes and your limbs are fast to you; if it wasn't for that, they'd be getting you new ones every year or two."

Walpurga felt reassured when she learned that Frau von Gerloff, a lady of noble birth and, hitherto, first waiting-woman to the queen, had been appointed as ayah to the prince. Walpurga had known her for a long while and said to her:

"If any one had asked me who should take charge of the prince, you'd have been my first choice. This is only another proof of the queen's wisdom and her kind heart. She gives up her dearest friend for the sake of her son."

Walpurga deemed it necessary to give Frau von Gerloff various directions as to the management of the prince. The good lady listened to her patiently. When Walpurga next saw the queen, she felt it necessary to express her satisfaction with the arrangements which had been made.

"You'd have done very well," said she to Madame Leoni, the queen's second waiting-maid; "but our good queen can't afford to part with both hands at once."

Madame Leoni smiled her thanks, although she really felt mortified and thought that she had been slighted because of her being a commoner. But the first law of court life is: "Take offense at nothing."

The slumbering infant-prince had no idea of the jealous feelings which already played about his cradle.

By degrees, Walpurga got her effects ready, and, when packing up certain articles, she would say: "No one would dream that heart's blood is clinging to you."

Doctor Gunther had given orders that Walpurga should often leave the prince for a while, in order that he might gradually grow accustomed to her absence.

Mademoiselle Kramer, who, during the first few days accompanied her on her walks, found the occupation a difficult one, for Walpurga wanted to stop at every shop window, and whenever she saw men or women whose costume resembled that worn at her home, wanted to go up to them and inquire whence they had come, and whether they knew her husband, her child and her mother. Mademoiselle Kramer soon wearied of the office of guide, and would sometimes allow Walpurga to go out alone, on which occasions she would entrust her with her watch, so that she might return at the proper time. Walpurga's great delight was to watch the soldiers parading at guard-mounting, and her route generally led her beyond the city gates. She would walk along the highway that led to her home. This comforted her, and she would often think of how she had felt when coming to the palace by that very road. It seemed to her as if ages had passed since then, and it was not without an effort, at times, that she induced herself to retrace her steps. She would often stand there listening, and imagining that she could hear her child's voice borne on the breeze. Which child? Her heart was divided and she hurried back to the prince. It was well he rested so quietly in the arms of the Frenchwoman. Walpurga, however, was vexed at this circumstance, and laughed triumphantly when he wanted to be taken by her as soon as he noticed her.

"Yes, you're a true soul," said she. "When men are good, they're a great deal better than women. Your other father, my Hansei, is very good, too, and he's coming, day after to-morrow, and you'll shake hands with him when he comes, – so."

Walpurga observed that the ayah was almost beside herself at this mode of treating the child, and that it cost Mademoiselle Kramer an effort to prevent her from putting a veto upon it; but this only made Walpurga the more wanton in her mad pranks with the prince.

"Now don't forget," said she, "that I gave you myself to feast upon. The others only give you what comes from the kitchen. We two are one, and day after tomorrow my Hansei will come, and then I'll go home, and when you're a big boy you must come and see me; and if it's in cherry time, I'll give you the best cherries. And my Hansei will go hunting with you and will carry your gun for you, and you'll shoot a great big stag and a roe, and a chamois, and we'll roast them. I'll stick a nosegay on your hat, and then we'll row over the lake together, and I'll give you a kiss, and then I'll bid you good-by."

The child laughed heartily, while Walpurga looked into his eyes and spoke to him thus. Then it laid its little head on her cheek, and Walpurga cried out:

"Mademoiselle Kramer! Mademoiselle Kramer! he knows how to kiss already: he's kissing me now. Yes, you're the right sort of a man and a king's son to boot; they always begin betimes."

It seemed as if she wanted to make known all the love she had for the child during the few days that yet remained to her at the palace, and she did this both from affection and spite, for she desired to show the Frenchwoman how very much she and the child loved one another. He would never grow to love the foreigner as much as he loved Walpurga, and then she would sing:

"Standing by yon willow tree,Scarcely weeping, thou dost seeMy bark put off from shore."As long as willows grow,As long as waters flow,Thou'lt see me nevermore."

While she sang, the boy crowed and laughed, and Walpurga protested to Mademoiselle Kramer, that she would wager her head he understood everything already.

"And besides," said she, with an angry glance at the Frenchwoman, "the language that little children speak is the same all the world over. Isn't it so? The French don't come into the world speaking gibberish." Then she would sing and dance about, and kiss the child again. It seemed as if she must repress all her sadness, and, in one outburst, give vent to all her joy.

"You excite the child too much; you will do it harm," said Mademoiselle Kramer, endeavoring to quiet her.

"That won't harm him; he's got the right stuff in him. No Frenchwoman can spoil him."

Walpurga was in a restless and contradictory mood. She had long known that the tie would be broken, and had often wished and hoped for that end. But now when the moment of separation approached, all painful memories vanished. She felt that she could never again live alone. She would always miss something, even the trouble and excitement; and, besides, everything had always come all right again. She felt hurt, moreover, that the others seemed so indifferent about her leaving them. And the child-why hadn't it sense enough to speak and say: "Father and mother, you mustn't do this; you mustn't take my Walpurga away?"

But now others controlled the child. What would they do with him? Why should she no longer be allowed to interfere, and to say things should be thus and so? She had nursed him from the first day of his life, and they had been together day and night. And how would the days and nights be when they were no longer together?

When Walpurga had finished her supper, she held up the empty dish to the child and, with a bitter tone, said:

"Do you see this? I'm of no more use now than this empty platter."

Nor did she care to sleep. She felt that she could not lose a minute of the time that was yet left her with the child. Although she did at times drop asleep, she would wake up in a fright; for, in her dream, she had heard children crying-one far off by the lane, and another beside her-and had thought she was standing between them, and that she must divide herself: must be there and here. And then, too, she had heard the cow bellowing and pulling at the rope, just as it had when fastened to the garden hedge. Walpurga saw it all, quite distinctly; and the cow had such large eyes, and she could feel its warm breath against her face. Then she would wake up and rub her eyes and all would be quiet again, and she would know that it was a dream.

It was the day before her departure. Walpurga bitterly regretted that she had not told Hansei to come sooner. He might have remained there a day, and she would then have had some one to stretch out his hand in welcome, while now she could only offer hers in farewell.

She walked the streets and looked up into the blue sky-the same blue sky that rested over her home. She went through the little street in which Doctor Gunther lived. She read the name on the door-plate and walked in. A servant conducted her into the doctor's ante-room, where many patients were waiting to see him. Walpurga gave her name to the servant. All looked at her in astonishment. She was asked to come in without waiting for her turn, and said that she had only come to say good-by. Gunther told her to go into the garden and wait there for him until his office hours were over. She did so. Madame Gunther was sitting on the steps that led into the garden. She called the peasant woman to her, and when she learned who she was, told her she might wait there. Walpurga sat down. Madame Gunther went on with her work and did not speak a word. She had a decided prejudice against the nurse. Her husband had often told her of Walpurga's peculiarities, and Madame Gunther had concluded that they were full of coquetry, and that she was trying to make a show of her simplicity. Walpurga's appearance only confirmed her in this opinion.

"You are going home again, aren't you?" asked Madame Gunther, at last; for she did not wish to be uncivil.

Walpurga told her how happy she would be at home again.

Madame Gunther looked up. She was one of those persons who are rendered truly happy when freed from a prejudice. Entering into conversation with Walpurga, she soon found that the nurse had been led to exaggerate certain traits of her strong nature, but that it was just this strength of character that had prevented her from losing herself in the new scenes through which she had passed.

Madame Gunther now urged her to keep a stout heart and to avoid making herself unhappy by comparing her home with what she had left behind her in the palace.

"How is that you know all about it?" asked Walpurga; "have you ever been among strangers?"

"I can put myself in your place," said Madame Gunther with a smile. She was rapidly winning her way to Walpurga's heart.

She asked her into the room; and, when Gunther came down, he found Walpurga on the steps, with his fatherless little grandchild on her lap.

"And now you know my wife, too," said Gunther.

"Yes; but too late."

Gunther also advised Walpurga to keep up her spirits after she got home, and, as he, too, was a native of the Highlands, he gave her a merry description of what her welcome would be.

Gunther said he would see her once more, at the palace, and his wife shook hands with her, saying:

"May you be happy at home."

"I mean to send your mother a present," said the doctor. "Tell her to try and think of the young student who danced with her at the Kirchweih3 many years ago, when she was betrothed to your father. I'll send you six bottles of wine to-day. Tell her to drink them in remembrance of me, but not to take too much at a time."

"I thank you for my mother, and I feel already as if I had been drinking the best of wine," said Walpurga. "My Countess Irma was right, for she always said Madame Gunther would be a lady after my own heart, and now all that I can wish you is, that, to the end of your days, you may be as happy as you've made me."

No notice was taken of her allusion to Irma. Encouraged and strengthened, Walpurga returned to the palace.

CHAPTER XVI

The queen came to Walpurga that evening and said: "I shall not say farewell to you. Don't let us speak of parting. I only wish to thank you with all my heart, for the love you've shown me and my child."

"Oh, queen! how can you thank me. I'll tell no one on earth that the queen has thanked me," cried Walpurga. "But it's only because you're so kind and want to make parting easy to me. Believe me, I'd gladly give every drop of blood in my veins for you and our child. Oh good God! our child-I daren't say that any longer. I, must go; but when I get home, I'll have my own child again."

"Yes, Walpurga; that is what I was about to tell you. The greatest happiness on earth is to be at home, and, by this time, you must have seen that it is all one, whether that home be a palace or a cottage."

"You're right there; you can't get more than your fill of eating and sleeping, anywhere. My Hansei'll be here to-morrow morning. May I bring him to the queen and to the king, and to the good ladies and gentlemen of the court, so that he may thank them, too?"

"Never mind that, Walpurga. There's no need of it. Indeed, Doctor Gunther forbade my taking leave of you; but I may, for all that, say good-by to you again, to-morrow. Believe me, I feel very sorry to part with you."

"If the queen wishes it, I'll remain, and my husband and my whole brood can come too."

"No, you had better go home again. If I ever get into your neighborhood, I will pay you a visit. I shall not fail to tell my son how kind you've been to him. He shall never forget you."

Walpurga had put the child in the cradle and cried out;

"Just look! he's talking. We grown-up folks don't understand what the children say, but he understands us." Walpurga now joyfully related that the prince had kissed her, and tried to persuade him to give his mother a kiss, but he would not.

"I shall leave something good for you behind me," said Walpurga to the queen. "I've found something that'll be good for you." Her face glowed with pleasure, and the queen asked:

"What is it?"

"I've found a friend, one of the best of friends, for you. Madame Gunther can speak right to one's heart; just as you do, but in a different way. I think you ought to visit her right often. It would do you good if you could, once in a while, spend an hour in a good neighbor's house. You'd always feel much better after it."

Walpurga eagerly told how delightful it was to visit one's neighbors. The queen smiled at Walpurga's ignorance of the conditions of court life, and explained to her that she could only have intercourse with those who visited the palace. Walpurga was very sorry that she could not bring about a meeting of the two ladies.

The queen retired.

"Now she's gone," said Walpurga. "I've said nothing at all; and I feel as if I had ever so much to say to her." She felt as if she ought not to leave the queen-as if she were her only true friend, a faithful companion who, if others were to menace her queen with harm, would hasten to her aid.

She thought of the time the queen had kissed her. How much they had experienced together since that time. Could it be possible that it was scarcely a year ago.