The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano. Ludwig Tieck

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СКАЧАТЬ are, so mistrustful and wary. My cat had kittens, which were just nine days old, and opening their little blue eyes. What fun and pleasure it is for children, to see the mother with her young ones, and the droll sports of the kittens, and their skipping and tumbling and jumping about, nobody who is grown up can understand. On the very same day master Eleazar had just got a new airgun, which he wanted to try. Complaints had for some time been made to my father, that my cat used to hunt the singing birds and eat them. It was taking the air behind the house, in the garden, and amusing itself by running up and down the big orange-tree. On the sudden Eleazar shot at it and it fell dead; and now the kittens too were to be drowned. Never before had I thought him so brown and nasty, so unlike a human being. In the night I prayed that God would let him too die; but the very next morning, though I was still such a mere child, it struck me to the heart, how very, very unhappy he must be, that there was no creature he could love, and neither man nor beast could love him; and so I think still. Such an odious creature as he is, he will never find a heart on earth, if I were to blot him out of mine."

      "Dear little Rose," said Edward, somewhat calmer, "you must not be too hasty, and assuredly you will change your mind on this point by and by."

      "My fate," she again began, while the tears mounted into her bright eyes, "has in fact been just like that of the poor little kittens; only that God Almighty did not let me be drowned in the same wretched manner. But I too never knew my mother; she had never the happiness of bringing me up; she died shortly after my birth. My foster-father here is very kind to me; still it must be quite a different feeling to have a real father; but he too is in his grave. Now, reckoning up all this, methinks we have here made out quite unhappiness enough for so young a thing."

      "Dearest Rose," said Edward after a pause, "would it give you any pain, if you knew that I too was very unhappy? or if I too were gone?"

      "Alas! my dear good friend," she exclaimed, "don't make me cry. I tell you, I never liked anybody so well as you. But happy and gay as you are, with all the world so fond of you, you can do very well without my love. But I cannot do without yours."

      A servant now came and called Edward away to the old man. The conversation must have been of deep interest; for Balthasar as well as the stranger seemed dissolved in tears, though both were trying hard to collect themselves.

      "My dear friend," said the old man with a broken voice, "my good gentle Edward, will you conduct the stranger lady to the inn; but at the same time take along with you four thousand dollars in gold and bills out of my strong-box. No human being however, I trust and charge you, must know of this affair, least of all Eleazar. Only conceive, the savage has left three letters of the highest importance from this poor woman to me without an answer. His not shewing them to me I can forgive, since on that point he has full powers from me."

      His wishes were executed, and the stranger set off again in the afternoon in better spirits, without paying her old friend another visit.

      The next day Balthasar sent Edward a summons to his room. When he had lockt the door he began: "You are the only person entrusted with a circumstance and a connexion, which agitated me so deeply yesterday that I was unable to tell you anything about it. As however I look upon you quite in the light of my son, I feel myself bound to disclose something more of myself and my story to you, than any mortal man has ever yet heard."

      They sat down: the old man gave his young friend his hand, which the latter prest cordially, and then said: "You cannot doubt my affection and friendship; and what you confide to me will in my hands be as secret as in the silent grave."

      "I have watcht you this long time," said the old man, "and know you well. Hitherto we have had but little talk together; I am now forced to change and break through my usage with regard to you, and I am anxious besides that there should be a being who knows and understands me."

      Edward's curiosity was roused; and the old man went on with a tremulous voice: "I am still so much moved, my whole frame is still so much disordered by yesterday's shock, that you must have patience with my weakness. That my life is a cheerless one, that I have long renounced all those recreations and enjoyments, which are in fact the only things most men live for, you must long ago have remarkt. From my youth up I have got out of the way of pleasure, with a feeling which I might almost call dread. Educated by a rigid father, who lived in the greatest penury, my childhood and youth were merely suffering and sorrow. When I grew bigger, my ripening understanding only enabled me more distinctly to perceive the misery of my parents and the wretchedness of the whole earth. Often for many nights together no sleep visited my eyes, which were flowing with tears. Thus my imagination accustomed itself to view the whole world as nothing but a place of punishment, where sorrow and need were the lot of all, and such as were raised above the sordid wants of life were but in a yet sadder state of silly delusion, in which they neither recognized their own calling nor the destiny of mankind, but giving themselves up to vapid pleasures and pitiful comforts reeled along toward the grave. One single star shed its light through this dark gloom—but it was as far beyond my reach as if it had stood in the heavens—my relation Elizabeth, whom you saw: she was rich, highborn, and bred to a life of splendour and luxury. A cousin of mine, Helbach, who was still richer and haughtier, was designed for her husband: our family scarcely ever saw these proud relations of theirs; and my stern father had a special hatred for them, and never spake but with rancour of their extravagance. This hatred he also transferred to me, when he discovered my secret and strong affection. He gave me his curse, if I ever dared to think of that lovely and beloved being. Nor was it long before she was married to her overbearing kinsman; one stream of wealth flowed into the other, and produced such a splendid way of living that the whole town felt envy at it. My mother's brother, who gave his son this large fortune, was so much ashamed of our poverty, that he did not even invite my parents to the wedding; which so greatly increast the vexation and annoyance of my father, already a prey to bitter mortification, that the after-throes of this insult brought him to the grave. My poor mother soon followed him. Of myself I will say nothing. If life had hitherto worn a dark aspect in my eyes, it now changed into a spectre, whose ghastly, distorted features and looks at first struck me with horrour, and afterward, when use made me cold and indifferent, taught me to despise everything, above all myself. Elizabeth had known of my passion. Rarely as we saw each other, she had taken no pains to conceal the affection with which she answered mine. Though she was not like me utterly dead to all joy, yet a shade was cast over her whole existence, and heavy clouds covered it. She has suffered enough since. Her husband was a profligate spendthrift; he squandered thousands from vanity, and for paltry, contemptible purposes. It would look as if a number of ill-starred men bore a kind of malice and hatred against money, so that they have recourse to the strangest devices to drive it away from them on every side, while the miser hugs and cherishes it with a blind devotion, and lets himself be crusht by his idol. Elizabeth was weak enough to give up her property to him unconditionally, and, when his credit had already fallen, to declare herself bound by his debts; and thus the very house into which all the gods of Olympus had seemed to enter, bringing eternal joy as their gift, became a scene of misery, confusion, hatred, and strife. The wretched husband, counsellor Helbach, has sold his last shilling for an annuity, without a thought about his wife and son. This son of his is as it were possest by the furies, unruly, headstrong, and without feeling: he ran into debt, then took to swindling, and finally, two years ago, when his weeping mother was trying to admonish him, abused and even struck her in his brutal rage. After this grand feat he set off into the wide world. His father meanwhile revels and laughs, devouring his income, which must still be large, at well-stored tables. This made her come to me, subduing her pride and her feelings, in order that I might relieve her from a debt, which would have brought her to shame and to a prison. These twenty years past she has been longing to die, but still lives, an object of horrour to herself, and of pleasure to nobody.—Send her a thousand dollars every quarter: she has promist me that her abandoned husband shall know nothing of this assistance either now or hereafter."

      Edward saw the old man's deep anguish, and was long silent: at last he began: "But how could Eleazar be so cruel as not to tell you of those letters?"

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