On the Heights. Auerbach Berthold

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СКАЧАТЬ in their neighborhood. She consoled herself with the thought that all would yet be well. Bad men can grow better, or else all talk of repentance would be mere lies and deceit.

      In the mean while, Zenza, holding the pardon on high, had hurried out of the palace.

      "Is my reckoning settled?" asked Thomas, spitting as far as he could.

      "Yes, thank God! See what a mother can do."

      "I don't owe you much thanks for that, what did you bring me into the world for? But the best of it all is it's a slap in the face for the great snarling country justice. Now, mother, I'm as thirsty as three bailiff's clerks. Waiting has almost used me up. Have you anything more about you?"

      "Of course I have; just look."

      She showed him the gold piece, which he most dexterously removed from her hand and into his pocket.

      "What else have you got?" said he, when he noticed the little gold heart that she had taken from her pocket at the same time.

      "The beautiful princess gave me that and this silk kerchief for Walpurga's child."

      "Hansei's child will have enough with the kerchief," said Thomas, appropriating the gold heart, while he good-naturedly allowed his mother to retain the black cord which had been attached to it.

      "There, mother; that'll do very well, and now let's take a drink for having waited so long. While I was waiting out here, I saw a splendid rifle at the gunsmith's. You can take it apart and put it in your pocket, and we'll see if the greencoats catch me again."

      The first thing young Thomas did was to take the chamois beard and the black cock plume out of his pocket and stick them in his hat again. Then he put on his hat in a defiant manner, and his whole bearing seemed to say: I'd like to see who'd dare touch them.

      Just as they were going away, Baum came in from the street. He seemed anxious to avoid them, but Zenza went up to him and thanked him again for the handsome present he had given her when Walpurga had been sent for. She looked at him strangely and Baum, with a side glance, noticed that Thomas's eyes were fixed upon him. He felt a shudder passing like a flash of lightning, from his heart to his head. It actually made his hair stand on end, and obliged him to raise his hat and adjust it differently; but he took a nail-file from his pocket and began trimming his nails, and then said: "You've thanked me already; once is enough."

      "Mother! if Jangerl wasn't in America, I'd have sworn that was he."

      "You're crazy," replied Zenza.

      They went into the town together. Thomas always walking briskly in front. It seemed as if it would not worry him much, were he to lose his mother.

      They repaired to an inn, where, without taking time to sit down, he drank off a schoppen of wine. Then, telling his mother to wait, he went off to purchase the rifle.

      Meanwhile, Walpurga was sitting by the window and imagining how the folks at home would be talking of her great power, and how, at the Chamois, they would have so much to say about her, and that the innkeeper's wife, who had always looked down upon her, would almost burst with envy.

      Walpurga laughed and was pleased to think that the envious and proud would be angry at her good fortune. This, indeed, seemed her greatest delight, and at all events, was the thought on which she dwelt longest. Another reason may have been that the joy of the virtuous is more quickly exhausted than the angry and evil speeches of the wicked, which keep fermenting and sending bubbles to the surface long after they have been uttered. Walpurga remained sitting by the window, her lips silently moving, as if she were repeating to herself the words of those who envied and were angry at her, until, at last, Countess Irma addressed her:

      "I can see how happy you are. Yes, Walpurga, if we could only do good to some fellow-creature every moment, we would be the happiest beings under the sun. Don't you see, Walpurga, the real divine grace of a prince lies in his being able to do good at any moment?"

      "I understand that quite well," answered Walpurga. "A king is like the sun which shines down on all, and refreshes the trees near by, as well as the flowers in the distant, hidden valley; it does good to men and beast and everything. Such a king is a messenger from God; but he must be careful to remain one, for being lord over all pride and lust may overpower him. He's just given life to Thomas, and all the prison doors open as they do in the fable when they say: 'Open sesame,' Oh, you good king! don't let them spoil you, and always have such kindhearted people about you as my Countess Irma."

      "Thanks," said Irma. "I now know you perfectly. Believe me, all the books in the world contain nothing better and nothing more than does your heart; and, although you cannot write, it has been so much the more plainly written there.--But let us be quiet and sensible. Come, you must take your writing lesson."

      They sat down together, and Irma taught Walpurga how to use the pen. Walpurga said that she did not care to write single letters, and that she would prefer having a word to copy.

      Irma wrote the word "pardon" for her. Walpurga filled a whole sheet with that word, and when Irma left the room, she took the writing with her, saying:

      "I shall preserve this as a memento of this hour."

CHAPTER III.

       Table of Contents

      "What can be the matter with the queen?--"

      --"Her majesty," added Mademoiselle Kramer.

      --"What can it be?" said Walpurga; "for some days, the prince--"

      "His royal highness," said Mademoiselle Kramer.

      --"Has hardly been noticed by her. Before that, whenever she saw the child and held it to her heart, she always seemed lifted up to the skies, and once said to me: 'Walpurga, didn't it make you feel as if you'd become a girl again, free and independent of everything? To me, the world is nothing but myself and my child'--and now she hardly looks at it, just as if her having had a child were a dream. There must be great trouble in a mother's heart--"

      "Royal mother," said Mademoiselle Kramer.

      --"When she doesn't care to look at her child."

      The queen's heart was, in truth, torn by a mighty struggle.

      Her feelings had, for months past, been of a most distressing and excited nature. There was one point on which she dared not even think aloud, and which she would have thought profaned by speaking of it to others. It was her wish to determine for herself, and she had done so. Ever since she had become a mother, she had felt as if separated from the rest of the world. When she thought of her child and, above all, when she clasped it to her heart, she felt as if nothing more remained to be done. She and the child were her world; all else was as nothing. And yet she loved the king with all her heart, and ardently desired that their union should be so complete that they be one in feeling, in belief, and in affection.

      The thought that they ought to be united in all things, constantly grew upon her. Father, mother and child should be as one, praying to the same God, with the same thoughts, and in the same words.

      The isolation of the sick chamber only helped to strengthen these thoughts, and, now that she was about to return to the СКАЧАТЬ