On the Heights: A Novel

In his funeral sermon, the preacher had said: "Behold the trees! A few weeks ago, they were dead. But with the spring, they return to life." "The pastor oughtn't to have said that," remarked Hansei; "not that way, at any rate. He might convert children by that, but not us. What does he mean by talking about trees in that fashion? The trees that still have life in them will get new leaves in the spring, but the dead ones won't; they'll be cut down and others will be planted in their place."

-

We all of us have a strange feeling of loneliness-a feeling that something is missing. Uncle Peter is the most inconsolable of all.

"Now I must wander about the world alone; I haven't brother or sister left. She was the pride of our family," he repeats again and again.

Heretofore, he always slept in the garret, with the servants; but now Hansei has placed the old pensioner's room at his disposal. He is quite proud of it, but often complains, saying: "Why did I have to wait so long for all this? How stupid it was of my sister and me. We might have moved in there. Could we have found a prettier place? Oh, how nicely we would have lived there, and you could have gone along with us. Oh, how stupid old age is. We don't see the good nests till the trees are bare and there's nothing more left in them. 'One gets nothing to eat, till there are no teeth to bite it with,' as my sister used to say."

He always uses the words: "As my sister used to say," when he is on the point of making a statement which he does not wish contradicted, and I imagine he really thinks his sister did say it. He inherited her closet and, before opening it, he always knocks at the door.

-

My little pitchman is a good bee-master. He knows how to take care of bees and he calls them the poor man's pasture cattle.

"Since my sister's death," said he to me to-day, "I've had nothing but bad luck with my bees. They won't have anything more to do with me."

-

I have written nothing for months. For whom are these pages? Why do I torment my mind by recording every trifling incident or passing emotion? These questions unsettled and perplexed me, but now I am calm again. For months I have done nothing but work.

It seems to me that I must soon die, and yet I feel that I am in the fulness of my strength. I am often rendered uneasy by the thought that people trifle with my supposed madness.

-

At last I feel that my rest here was never complete, and that it might have been disturbed at any moment. But now, let what will come, I shall remain.

-

A storm! To us who note the sun, the moon, and every change of weather, a storm is quite a different affair from what it is to those who only look to see what weather it is when they are idle, or have a pleasure party in prospect.

One feels as if transported back to the time of creation, as if all were chaos once more; for the voice of the Infinite is heard in the thunder, and His glory blazes forth in the lightning.

At a public gaming-table, while the thunder was pealing and the lightning flashing, and the frivolous throng had withdrawn from the game, I once saw a lady of noble birth who insisted upon going on with the game after all the others had been frightened away. The croupiers were obliged to keep at their work. This lady gives elegant entertainments, and a servant who stole a silver spoon from her, was sent to gaol. How low, to steal a spoon-! But what of her mistress?

There is, of course, one circumstance that I must not omit to mention. Every morning, before repairing to the gaming-table, she attends mass.

-

To be killed by lightning, must surely be the most beautiful death of all. On a lovely summer's day, to be suddenly struck down by the great marksman!

-

I have seen a man who moves in the polite world. He is a musician; young, good-looking, lively, and with delicate, well-cared-for hands. The storm had overtaken him, and he passed the night in our farmhouse. While here, he told us:

"I am already blind in this eye, and my physician tells me that I shall lose the other in less than a year, and so I have determined to see the great, vast, beautiful world. He who has not seen the Alps, does not know how beautiful our earth is. And so I take it up within me once more. I fix the sun, the mountains, the forests, the meads, the streams, the lakes and, above all, the human face, in my memory. Yes, child," said he to me, "I shall preserve my memory of your face, for you are the loveliest peasant girl I have ever seen. I shall learn your face by heart, just as I have learnt poems, so that I may repeat them to myself and call them back to me when darkness and solitude close in around me."

I felt quite constrained, but he was exceedingly cheerful. Now and then, he cast a curious glance at the bandage over my brow. What may he have thought of it?

I should like to have told him that I had once, at Gunther's house, sung a song of his, but he did not mention Gunther's name.

I cannot find words to describe the impression that this handsome young man made upon me. He seemed so full of power, and without the least trace of weakly sensibility. He comes from the north, and possesses somewhat of the austere beauty of the northern races. He has breathed the salt sea air, and that is what makes him so sturdy, as they call it there. Such natures impress and arouse me; one cannot remain languid, brooding or self-complacent, while in his society.

Oh, what cannot a strong will do! How the human mind wrestles with the powers of nature and conquers them!

-

To-day, I have wept for the first time since the grandmother's death. I now feel light and free again.

The young musician has left, and I could hear him sing while on his way down the valley.

If I could still be aught to another human being-I could feel doubly as kind toward one who could neither see my brow, nor praise my beauty.

It is over-

What strange shadows does the game of life project, even unto us up here!

-

This visit has satisfied me that there is a large share of vanity still remaining in Walpurga. She could not help gradually directing the conversation to the subject, and, at last, told the stranger that she had been the crown prince's nurse, and had lived at the palace nearly a year. There is something in her that reminds me of the man who has many orders of merit, and who, like a general in citizen's dress, goes about without his medals and decorations. He modestly deprecates being addressed as "your excellency," but nevertheless enjoys it. The one year spent in the atmosphere of the court, has not been without its effect upon Walpurga.

Hansei, who felt kindly toward the stranger, and evinced great pity for him, was evidently annoyed by his wife's ostentation; but, with his usual great self-command, refrained from expressing his annoyance. But to-day, when they were going to church, Hansei asked:

"Wouldn't you like to have a ribbon around your neck and wear a picture of yourself and the crown prince, so that no one may ever forget what you once were?"

I do not think that Walpurga will ever again allude to her brilliant past.

-

The grandmother's death and funeral afforded me an opportunity to become better acquainted with the village schoolmaster. He has a tolerably fair education, but delights in making a display of it, and is fond of using big words, in order to impress the listener and to imply: "You don't quite understand me, after all." But the hearty feeling with which he entered into our grief, has raised him in my esteem, and I have frankly let him know as much. And so one day he said to me: "Your skill in wood carving is as good as a marriage portion. You can earn much money by it." I had no idea what he meant by the remark.

Last Sunday, however, I was enlightened.

He came here, dressed in a black coat and white cotton gloves, and made me a formal offer of marriage.

He could not be induced to believe that I would never marry, and he urgently repeated his offer, saying that he would only desist if I really loved another.

Walpurga fortunately came to the rescue. The good man seemed as if utterly crushed by his rejection, and went away. Why must I fill yet another heart with pain? Of my own, I do not care to speak.

-

I have not yet done with the schoolmaster's suit.

Walpurga asked me why I wished to remain so lonely. As long as I did not care to return to the great world, I might as well make this good man happy, and would be able to do much good to the children and the poor of the village. I have thus come to know myself anew. I am not made for beneficence. I am not a sister of mercy. I cannot visit the sick, unless I know and love them. I could nurse the grandmother, but no one else. I dislike peasant rooms, and the dull, heavy atmosphere of these abodes of simplicity. I am not a beneficent fairy. My senses are too easily offended. I do not care to make myself better than I am; that is, I should like to make myself better, but all one can do is to improve the good traits that already exist, and that one good trait I do not possess. I must be honest about the matter. I could find it easier to live in a convent. This confession does not make me unhappy, but melancholy. The desire to enjoy life, and to commune with myself is so strong.

-

Franz, Gundel's betrothed, had been summoned to join his regiment.

My little pitchman has just returned from the town, and brings me news that "there'll be war with the French." He tells me, too, that our business will become poor, that the people do not care to buy, and that our employer offers only half the usual price; and so I will be working for stock. – I, too, must help to bear the world's burden.

How strange it seems that I no longer know anything about my country and the age in which we live. One consolation is left me. In such warlike times, they will not seek the lost one.

-

We are all, unconsciously, on heights from which the graves of our beloved dead are invisible. Were they ever present, there would be neither work nor song in this world.

Self-oblivion or self-knowledge-about this, everything revolves.

-

Even in hottest summer, I can always see the snowcapped mountains before me. I do not know how to express it, but they always inspire me with strange and confused emotions. I pay no regard to the date or the seasons, for I have them all at once.

In my heart there is also a spot on which rest eternal snows.

-

I have now been here between two and three years. I have formed a resolve which it will be difficult to carry out. I shall go out into the world once more. I must again behold the scenes of my past life. I have tested myself severely.

May it not be a love of adventure, that genteel yet vulgar desire to undertake what is unusual or fraught with peril. Or is it a morbid desire to wander through the world after having died, as it were?

No; far from it. What can it be? An intense longing to roam again, if it be only for a few days. I must kill the desire, lest it kill me.

Whence arises this sudden longing?

Every tool that I use while at work, burns my hand.

I must go.

I shall obey the impulse, without worrying myself with speculations as to its cause. I am subject to the rules of no order. My will is my only law. I harm no one by obeying it. I feel myself free; the world has no power over me.

I dreaded informing Walpurga of my intention. When I did so, her tone, her words, her whole manner, and the fact that she, for the first time, called me "child," made it seem as if her mother were still speaking to me.

"Child," said she, "you're right! Go! It'll do you good. I believe that you'll come back and will stay with us, but if you don't, and another life opens up to you-your expiation has been a bitter one, far heavier than your sin."

Uncle Peter was quite happy when he learned that we were to be gone from one Sunday to the Sunday following. When I asked him whether he was curious as to where we were going, he replied:

"It's all one to me. I'd travel over the whole world with you, wherever you'd care to go; and if you were to drive me away, I'd follow you like a dog and find you again."

I shall take my journal with me, and will note down every day.

-

(By the lake.) – I find it difficult to write a word. The threshold I am obliged to cross, in order to go out into the world, is my own gravestone.

I am equal to it.

How pleasant it was to descend toward the valley. Uncle Peter sang, and melodies suggested themselves to me, but I did not sing. Suddenly he interrupted himself and said:

"In the inns, you'll be my niece, won't you?"

"Yes."

"But you must call me 'uncle' when we're there?"

"Of course, dear uncle."

He kept nodding to himself, for the rest of the way, and was quite happy.

We reached the inn at the landing. He drank, and I drank, too, from the same glass.

"Where are you going?" asked the hostess.

"To the capital," said he, although I had not said a word to him about it. Then, in a whisper, he said to me:

"If you intend to go elsewhere, the people needn't know everything."

I let him have his own way.

I looked for the place where I had wandered at that time. There-there was the rock-and on it a cross, bearing, in golden characters, the inscription:

Here perishedIrma, Countess von Wildenort,In the twenty-first yearof her lifeTraveler, pray for her and honor her memory-

I know not how long I lay there. When I revived there were several people busying themselves about me, and, among them, my little pitchman, who was quite violent in expressing his grief.

I was able to walk to the inn. My little pitchman said to the people:

"My niece isn't used to walking so far. She sits in her room all the year round. She's a wood-carver, and a mighty clever one, too."

The people were all kind to me. Guests were constantly coming and going. Some of them told the little pitchman that the beautiful monument out yonder was a great advantage to the inn; that, during the summer, it was visited by hundreds of persons; and that, every year, a nun from the convent came there, attended by another nun, and prayed at the cross.

"And who put up the monument?" asked the little pitchman.

"The brother of the unfortunate one."

"No, it was the king," said others.

The conversation often dropped off, but always began again anew.

Some said that the place must be haunted, for a beautiful creature known as Black Esther had drowned herself at the same time. She was a daughter of Zenza, who was now crazed and lived on the other side of the lake; and who could tell whether the beautiful lady-for she was very beautiful-hadn't drowned herself, too. To this the hostess angrily answered that the countess had had many gold chains and diamonds about her, and a diamond star on her forehead; that the horse which had thrown her had been seen; that her brother had wanted to shoot the horse, but it had been bewitched and, from that day, would eat nothing and at last dropped down dead. Others said that the Countess's father had commanded her to drown herself, and that she had been an obedient child and had done so.

Thus I had a glimpse of a legend in process of formation.

"And why was the father supposed to have commanded that?" inquired the little pitchman.

"Because she loved a married man. It won't do to talk of that."

"Why won't it?" whispered a sailor. "She and the king were fond of each other, and, to save herself from doing wrong, she took her life."

How can I describe my emotions, while listening to their conversation?

Years hence, perhaps, some solitary child of man may cross the lake and sing the song of the beautiful countess with the diamond star on her brow.

I do not remember how night came on, and how I at last fell asleep. I awoke and still heard the song of the drowned countess. Its sad, deep strain had filled my dream. All that I had experienced seemed but as a vision. I looked out of my window-I looked across the lake and beheld the golden characters in the rosy dawn.

What was I to do? Should I turn back?

My little pitchman was quite happy when he saw me so fresh again. The hostess offered me a picture of the monument, saying that every visitor bought one. My uncle bargained with her, got it for half the price she had asked, and then presented it to me. I carry the picture of my gravestone with me.

I felt irresistibly drawn toward another grave-my father's. While my hand rested on the mound, an inner voice said to me: "You will be reconciled." – I expiate and atone for my sin.

How the memories awakened by these different spots agitated me. I cannot write about it-my heart is breaking! Besides this, it is filled with fear. I shall be brief. I am unable to continue my recital. I shall never again look at these pages.

We went to the Frauensee and crossed over to the convent. Among the nuns, I saw my beloved Emma, who makes a yearly pilgrimage to my gravestone. For the first time in many years, I prayed with her. What difference does it make whether one still lives or is dead, as long as the thought-

My hand trembles while I write, but I will…

I had left the convent and was returning across the lake, when the thought flashed upon me: "I expiate in freedom! That is my only pride. My will holds me as fast as the bolts of the convent gate would do, and I-I-work-"

Everything was carried out just as I had determined. I saw the whole world once more and bade it adieu.

We journeyed to the capital. The city noises and the rapid driving alarmed me.

When I again heard the rustling of a silk gown, for the first time, the sound quite affected me. I felt as if impelled to accost the first lady I met in a fashionable bonnet and veil. These people seemed to belong to me. I felt as if returning from the lower regions into sunlight.

I stopped to read the placards that were posted up at the corners of the streets. Am I still living in the same world?

There is music, singing, etc. One amuses the other. No one finds life's joys within himself.

All things in this world are related to each other. Thou hast lost the connecting link.

I was sitting in a small inn, while I looked on at the bustling life of the city.

I saw the houses here and there-and it seemed as if I beheld the ghost of a part of my life. If the people knew- There are streets here with which I am not acquainted. Men pass without a thought for each other. City folk all look ill-humored; I have not met one sunny, happy face.

-

I went to the picture-gallery. What delights the eye there feeds upon! And besides these, there is the intoxicating wealth of color and the solemn stillness of the place itself. I saw my old teacher and heard him saying to a stranger: "A work of art does not derive its great historical character from the importance of the subject, or the size of the picture. What is required of the artist is that he should be filled with, and, at the same time, transport the beholder to, the scene that he attempts to depict. The same subject can be conceived in various ways, and may be executed either as a light, genre piece, or in the grand and more enduring historical style."

While I passed through the rooms, I felt like one intoxicated. All my old friends greeted me. They are clothed in undying colors, and have remained faithful and unchanged. The power of nature and of art lie in their truthfulness. But they do not speak; they merely exist. No-nature alone is mute; art lends its voice. It is not by the lips alone that the human mind expresses itself. I felt as if the Maria Ægyptica must suddenly turn toward me and ask: "Do you know me now?"

I grew dizzy and fearful.

While in the Raphael gallery, environed by the highest beauty earth has ever known, conceived as only the clearest eye could conceive it, I felt as if in another world.

A happy thought occurred to me: Art is the first liberator of humanity, evoking a second, joy-creating life, and-what is even a greater boon-revealing the highest realm, where every one who is called may enter. The poor son of the people says: "I and my spirit shall dwell in this lofty, this blessed abode." He reigns there eternally, surrounded by his ancestors in art. There dwells immortality; or, better still, death never enters there. The paternal mansion of free, creative art contains infinite space, and is an eternal home. Let him who has lived happily, enter there.

-

I stood before the palace. The windows of the room that I once occupied were open. My parrot was still there in its golden cage, and called out: "God keep you! God keep you!" But it does not add my name, for it has forgotten it.

-

On the table before me there lay a newspaper, the first that I had seen for years. It was long before I could summon resolution to read it, but I did so at last and read as follows:

"His majesty the king has departed for the sea baths, where he will remain for six weeks. Prime minister Von Bronnen," (Von Bronnen minister!) "Count Wildenort, master of the horse," (my brother!) "and privy councilor Sixtus, the king's physician, are of his suite."

How much these few lines conveyed to me! There was no need of my reading any further. Yet there was another paragraph, saying:

"Her majesty the queen, accompanied by his royal highness the crown prince, has removed to the summer palace."

-

I walked about the city and looked into the shop windows and at the many objects which I no longer require. In one of the windows, I found some of my carvings on exhibition. "That's our work!" exclaimed the little pitchman, who boldly went into the shop and inquired as to the price, and also asked by whom they had been done. The price named was a high one, and the merchant added: "These works of art" – yes, he spoke of them as works of art-"are made by a half-crazy peasant girl, who lives in the Highlands."

I looked at my little pitchman. He was terribly afraid. His glance seemed to implore me not to lose my senses while away from home. His fear was not without good grounds, for, in spite of my self-control, my faithful guide must have found much that was strange in my behavior.

I bought several small plaster casts of gems of Greek art; and now I have types of undying beauty ever with me. It required clever management to effect such unusual purchases, and I only ventured to attempt it during the twilight hour.

I saw many familiar faces, but always quickly averted mine. I would so gladly have spoken to Mademoiselle Kramer. She has become quite aged. She was carrying a book with the yellow label of the circulating library. How many thousands of books the dear old woman must have read! She reads book after book, just as men smoke cigars.

I went to Gunther's house. The courtyard gate was open. There is now a factory there, and the lovely trees have all been felled.

On the head of the figure of Victory at the arsenal, there sat a pigeon with glossy plumage-Although without eye-glasses, I could see the figure quite distinctly.

-

The evening afforded me pure delight-the purest I ever knew, or, as I firmly believe, ever will know.

Mozart's "Magic Flute" was performed at the theater.

I went there with my little pitchman. We sat in the uppermost tier. I saw no one, although the crowded house must have contained many whom I knew. All my senses were held captive by music's magic spell.

It is past midnight. My little pitchman and I are stopping at a teamster's inn. I cannot rest until I put my feelings into words.

Mozart's "Magic Flute" is one of those immortal creations that dwell in purest ether, in a region beyond the passions and struggles of mankind. I have often heard the text objected to as puerile, but, at that height, all action, all understanding, all personages, all surroundings, must needs be allegorical. All that is hard and narrow is cast aside, and man becomes a bird, his life pure and natural, full of love and wisdom. The childlike or childish character of the text is singularly true to nature. It is only the blasé who can find it dull and insipid.

It is Mozart's last dramatic work, and in it he appears at his best, in all the fullness of his genius, as if already transfigured. His various figures pass before him in review, created anew, as it were; less fixed and individualized, but all the more pure and ethereal. Using the word in its best sense, there is something supernatural in the way in which he has here gathered and combined the chords that else were scattered, into one harmonious whole.