CHRISTIAN had abundance of leisure to travel. In spite of all the
precautions taken by his friends, and notwithstanding M. Goefle’s
incessant exertions, the recognition of his rights was so vehemently
opposed by the caps, the party to which the Baron de Lindenwald
belonged, that a moment came when the active and courageous lawyer
regarded the cause of his client as lost. The Russian ambassador, who
at first had been favorable, turned against them, no one knew why, and
Countess Elveda formed other projects of marriage for her niece. M.
Goefle appealed in person to the young king; but Gustavus III., who
even then was planning, with incredible prudence, the grand revolution
of August, 1772, advised patience, without giving any intimation of
the hopes which he himself had conceived. In fact the king, as yet,
could do nothing.
After travelling with the danneman until the end of February, Christian
received news from M. Goefle which decided him to continue alone his
explorations in the regions of the north. M. Goefle, finding that
Christian’s enemies were very powerful, feared, with reason, that they
would seek opportunities of quarrelling with him, if he should appear
in Stockholm. He knew how excitable Christian was, and he said to
himself that, even if he should kill one or two of his opponents, he
would stand a good chance of being killed by the third. There were too
many persons whose interest it was to irritate him, and draw him into
duels. M. Goefle took good care not to explain to Christian the real
grounds of his opinion, but he urged him not to count upon a speedy
success, and advised him to remain away.
At the same time he sent him an additional sum, which Christian
resolved not to add to the amount of the debt which he had already
incurred. In his uncertain position he joined a crew of fishermen, who
were about sailing for the Luffoden Islands; and, in the beginning of
April, he wrote to M. Goefle as follows:
“Here I am in a small, straggling village of Nordland, where it seems
to me that I have entered the land of Canaan, although the chalet of
Danneman Bœtsoi is a Louvre in comparison with my present lodging, and
his kakebroe delicious cake by the side of the bread of pure wood in
which I am now luxuriating. You will guess from this that I have been
through a great deal of suffering, without referring to our fatigue
and dangers. But, on the other hand, I have seen the most terrible
spectacles of the universe, the most austere and sublime scenes of
nature: sub-marine gulfs, into which ships and whales are drawn like
autumn leaves in a current of wind; rivers which never freeze, in
the midst of ice that never melts; waterfalls whose roaring can be
heard leagues away; precipices upon whose verge the reindeer and the
elk grow dizzy; snows harder than the marble of Paros; men as ugly
as monkeys--angelic souls in unclean bodies, a hospitable people
dwelling in unheard-of misery--a patient, gentle and pious people
living in eternal conflict with nature, who appears to them under her
most formidable and violent aspect. I have had no disappointments.
Everything that I have seen has been more sublime, or more astonishing,
than all that I had imagined.
“So, then, I am a fortunate traveller. Add that my health has withstood
all hardships, and that my purse is so well filled that I am in
condition to pay off my debt to you, and still have money of my own;
lastly, that I have succeeded in studying the geological formation of
a long chain of mountains, from which I bring back treasures--in the
way of rare and precious specimens--that will make the illustrious
Professor Stangstadius pine away with envy, and useful observations
that ought to make me--if I take it into my head to aspire to the
honor, and exert a little diplomacy to obtain it--Knight of the Polar
Star.
“You will ask me how I have grown rich so fast. By enduring a great
deal of fatigue; by running the risk, a thousand times, of being
drowned or of breaking my neck; by skating along the verge of fearful
chasms, on great skates which I have learned to use; by catching a
great many fish in the Norwegian archipelago; by selling my cargo on
the spot, and very cheap, to those who have a genius for trade; and,
lastly, by exposing myself to the danger of being beaten to death by my
comrades for my pains. However, they gave up this fancy when they found
out that my arm was ready and my hand heavy.
“Now I am going to Bergen, where I must arrive before the thaw, unless
I want to be shut up here for six weeks by whirlwinds and avalanches,
which man is not strong enough to conquer.
“Do not be distressed, O best of men and of friends! if I lose my suit.
I shall make out to be something, and since Margaret is poor (as long
as I am _well-born_), I may win her yet. And then, am I not secure
of your friendship? I only ask of Heaven to enable me to take care of
my dear Stenson in his feeble old age, if he should lose his annuity,
and be driven from his asylum at Stollborg.”
M. Goefle received several other letters of the same sort during the
following summer and winter. The lawsuit made no progress; in fact
there was no suit, in any proper sense of the word. The presumptive
heirs carried on the war in the most fatal and insidious way, by
interposing constant obstacles, preventing or delaying the decision of
the committee.
Christian, in the meanwhile, was beginning to be satiated with
danger, fatigue, and hard work. He did not acknowledge it to his
friend, but the exuberance of his curiosity was satisfied. His heart,
which had been awakened to a new life by hopes that would perhaps
prove deceitful, often claimed the happiness of which he had caught
a glimpse. His heroic resolutions, and the cheerful energy of his
character, were fully equal to the requirements of his terrible life,
as he called it, but in silence, in the secrecy of his soul, he was
often unhappy. The time had come when the bird, according to Major
Larrson’s expression, fatigued with flying through the vastness of
space, was longing to find a milder sky, and a sure place to build his
nest.
In spite of his intelligence and his activity, Christian was several
times overtaken by poverty. The life of the traveller is a series
of Godsends and losses, of unexpected successes, and desperate
disasters. He earned enough to live upon from day to day, by selling
game and fish, and by exchanging commodities transported over great
distances with incredible courage and resolution. And yet the young
baron, careless, confident, and generous as he was, had not been born
a merchant, and his troubles and anxieties could not transform the
aristocratic liberality of his character.
Unavoidable accidents, moreover, often defeated his wisest
calculations; and one day, he found that his own life must be governed
by the ideal of heroic desperation with which he had entertained Major
Larrson on the mountain of Blaakdal. Like Gustavus Wasa, he became a
workman in the mines, and, as with that hero of a romantic epopée, he
was soon recognized as an extraordinary workman, not so much on account
of the embroidered collar of his shirt, but rather from the authority
of his language and his haughty expression.
Christian, at this time, was in the mines of Roraas, in the highest
mountains of Norway, at about ten leagues from the Swedish frontier.
He had been working like a common day-laborer for eight days, but with
a skill and vigor that had procured him the respect of his companions,
when he received a letter from M. Goefle to the following purport:
“All is lost. I have seen the king, and he is a charming man--but
nothing more! I made known to him who you are: I laid all my proofs
before him; I told him how you felt, and how useful you could be to a
philosophical and courageous prince who wished to establish equality
of rights in the nation. After listening to me with an attention and
comprehending with a lucidity that I have never encountered in any
judge, he replied:
“‘Unfortunately, Monsieur Advocate, it is a great task to do justice
to the oppressed, and one beyond my strength. I should be crushed in
attempting it, like my poor father, whom the nobility doomed to perish
of weariness and grief.’
“Gustavus is feeble and good; he does not wish to die! We flattered
ourselves in vain that he would smite the senate with heavy blows.
Sweden is lost, and our suit also!
“Come back to me, Christian. I love and respect you. I have a little
fortune, and no children. Say the word, and I will make you my partner.
You speak Swedish captivatingly; you are eloquent. You shall study law,
and be my successor. I await you.”
“No!” cried Christian, kissing the letter of his generous friend; “I
understand better than he thinks how limited the resources of this
country are, and what great sacrifices such an association would
condemn this noble man to make. And then it would take years to study
law, and, during all that time, I should have to be supported--young
and strong as I am--by one who, after a laborious and anxious life,
deserves now to enjoy comfort and repose! No no! I have my hands, and
I shall use them, until destiny shows me some better way than this of
making my talents available.”
While thus reflecting, he returned to the gallery where it was his duty
to excavate one of the veins of copper distributed through the rocks,
by the light of a little lamp, and amid the sulphureous emanations
rising from the mine.
But after a few days Christian’s position was materially improved.
The superintendent of the mines noticed him, and put him at the head
of certain works, which he was fitted by education and capacity to
direct, as he had shown, without any pretence or affectation, when an
opportunity occurred. Learned, modest, and industrious, he spent his
leisure hours in instructing the miners. In the evenings he delivered
a course of gratuitous lectures on elementary mineralogy, and was
listened to by these rude men, who respected him as an industrious
comrade, and looked up to him as an original and cultivated thinker.
His lecture-room was one of the great metallic caverns to which miners
love to give high-sounding names. His chair was a block of naked copper.
Christian tried to make himself happy by working hard, and doing
good to others; for happiness is what man always seeks, even when he
sacrifices himself. He took care of the sick and wounded in the mine.
When accidents occurred, he, with heroic courage, was always the first
to hasten to the spot, and he taught the workmen, moreover, to guard
against these terrible dangers by exerting ordinary common sense and
prudence. He tried to refine their manners, and to cure them of their
fatal passion for brandy, the too fruitful source of quarrels and
fights that often terminated in the terrific duel with knives in vogue
in this part of the country. They both loved and esteemed him; but,
since he devoted all his wages to helping cripples, orphans and widows,
he remained poor.
“Decidedly,” he often said to himself, as he stepped into the bucket
to descend to the bottom of the immeasurable shaft, “I was born a
seigneur--that is to say, as I understand it, the protector of the
feeble--and for that reason I am not permitted to live in the light of
the sun.”
“Christian,” cried the inspector, one day, through the speaking-tube at
the frightful mouth of the mine, “stop working for a while, and go to
the bottom of the inclines, to receive some visitors, who want to see
the large halls. Show them round in my place--I have no time to come
down.”
As usual, Christian lighted the great resinous torches which are
kept ready in all parts of the excavations, and went to meet the
visitors. But when he recognized Minister Akerstrom and his family, and
Lieutenant Osburn with his young bride Martina leaning upon his arm,
Christian handed his torch to an old miner whom he knew, and, saying
that he had been seized with cramp, begged him to conduct the visitors
in his stead. Pulling down his tarred cap over his eyes, he stepped
back, rejoicing in his inmost heart to see his friends happy, but
unwilling to be recognized, lest they should be distressed about him,
and should make known his situation to Margaret.
He was about to withdraw, after having listened for a moment to their
cheerful and animated conversation, when Madame Osburn turned, saying:
“Why does not Margaret come? The little coward will never dare cross
that plank bridge!”
“Oh, you were very much afraid yourself, my dear Martina!” replied the
lieutenant. “But you need not be anxious; M. Stangstadius is with her.”
Christian, forgetting all about his cramp, ran swiftly along the
steep, vaulted passage that led to the plank-bridge, which was really
very dangerous, and which Margaret was to cross in company with M.
Stangstadius, the man of all the world who knew best himself how to
fall to advantage, but not, perhaps, the most capable person in the
world of protecting others.
Margaret was really there, hesitating and dizzy, together with
Mademoiselle Potin, who, hoping to encourage her young friend, had
already crossed the planks quite bravely, with the assistance of M.
Stangstadius. The lieutenant returned to assist them, and to quiet his
wife; but, before he could reach the spot, Christian stepped up, took
Margaret in his arms, and crossed the subterranean torrent in silence.
Certainly Margaret did not recognize him, for she shut her eyes tightly
to avoid beholding the chasm beneath. He put her down near her friends,
intending to make his escape as quickly as possible, but Margaret,
who was still frightened, tottered, and he was obliged to take her
hand, and to draw her away from the precipice. His fingers, blackened
by his work, left a mark upon the young girl’s delicate green gloves,
and he saw her, a moment afterwards, wipe it off carefully with her
handkerchief, while saying to her governess:
“Give some money quickly to that poor man who carried me.”
The poor man had run away with his heart a little swollen; he was not
angry with the young countess for liking clean gloves, but he said to
himself that it was quite impossible for him, for his part, to have
white hands.
He returned to the forge, where he was having some tools made after
an improved pattern, suggested by himself and approved of by the
inspectors; but after an hour’s labor, for he often lent a hand himself
to help on his men, he heard the visitors returning, and could not
resist his desire of again seeing the young countess. She had seemed to
him a little taller, and greatly improved; beautiful enough, indeed, to
madden the blindest and sulkiest of the cyclops.
As the voices again became more distant, he entered, without any
precaution, a gallery through which the party would be obliged to
pass, when suddenly, in a brightly-lighted hall, he met Margaret face
to face. Now that she had become a little accustomed to the terrific
noises and gloomily sublime aspect of this subterranean world, she had
recovered her courage, and was coming forward alone, in advance of the
others. She trembled on seeing him; she thought that she recognized
him. He pulled his cap quickly over his forehead, and she knew him
then, beyond a doubt, by the care he took to hide his face.
“Christian!” she cried; “it is you, I am sure of it!” And she held out
her hand.
“Do not touch me!” said Christian. “I am all black with powder and
smoke.”
“Ah! what do I care for that,” she replied, “since it is you? I know
all now. The miners who have been showing us about have been talking
all the while of a certain Christian, a very learned man and a famous
workman, who would not tell his family name, but who has the strength
of a peasant and the dignity of an iarl, who is courageous for all
and devoted to all. Our friends did not suppose for a moment that it
could be you, there are so many Christians in this Scandinavian land!
But, for my part, I said to myself: ‘There is only one answering to
that description; it is he!’ Come, then, shake hands! Are we not still
brother and sister, as at Stollborg?”
How could Christian help forgetting the little offence of the wiped
glove? Margaret held out her hand to him ungloved.
“You do not blush, then, to see me here?” he said; “you know that I
have not been driven to come here by bad conduct, and that if I am
working to-day, it is not to make up for days of idleness and folly?”
“I do not know anything about you,” replied Margaret, “except that you
have kept your word given formerly to Major Larrson, to be a miner, or
a hunter of bears, rather than continue an occupation of which I did
not approve.”
“And I, Margaret, do not know anything about you either,” he replied,
“except that your aunt intends to have you marry the Baron de
Lindenwald, my suit against whom it appears is lost.”
“It is true,” said Margaret, laughing. “My aunt hopes, in that way, to
console me for the death of Baron Olaus. But since you guess so well
what is going on, you ought to know, also, that I do not intend to
marry at all.”
Christian understood this resolution, which left him free to hope, and
he vowed in his heart that he would make a fortune, even if he should
have to become an egotist. In spite of all he could say, Margaret would
not consent to hide the fact of his being there from the lieutenant and
the minister’s family, who drew near in the midst of their tête-à-tête.
“It is he!” she cried, running to meet them; “it is our Stollborg
friend--you know who I mean! This Christian, this friend of the poor,
the hero of the mine, is the baron without a barony, but not without
honor and heart, and if you are not as happy as I am to see him again--”
“We are, we are!” cried the minister, shaking hands with Christian. “He
is setting a grand example of true nobility and religious faith.”
Christian, overwhelmed with caresses, praise, and questions, was
obliged to promise to go and take supper in the village with his
friends, who intended to pass the night there before returning to
Waldemora, where Margaret was spending a fortnight at the parsonage.
They wanted to carry him away with them immediately; but, on the
one hand, Christian could not dispose of his time so freely as they
supposed, and, on the other, he was more anxious, than was quite
appropriate for such a reasonable man, to dress himself in clothes,
which, however coarse, should at least be irreproachably clean. They
made an appointment to meet in the evening, and Christian, aroused and
happy, returned to his work.
There, however, he was agitated by tumultuous and conflicting thoughts.
Ought he to persist in cherishing the chimerical hope that he was
loved? Margaret expressed her affection for him with too much warmth,
too much frankness; it might be that she regarded him merely with a
peaceful friendship, bringing no trouble to her soul, no blush to her
forehead! Could love be so spontaneous, so courageous, so expansive?
He accused himself of presumption and folly; and then, a moment
afterwards, he accused himself of ingratitude; an inner voice told
him that, whatever his fate might be, he would always find Margaret
resolved to share it.
He left his work at last, when the hour came for quitting the mine,
and as he greatly preferred being pulled up in the bucket, in which
he never felt dizzy, to making the long ascent over the ladders and
inclines, he got ready to mount, in a moment, to the entrance of the
gloomy shaft, through which he could catch a glimpse of a scrap of blue
sky framed with branches of the mountain-ash and lilacs. Just then a
miner came up, whom he had already met on the previous evening within
his limits, although he did not belong to the brigade that he had
joined at first, and which he was now directing.
None of the miners with whom Christian was associated knew this man.
Excessively begrimed with smoke and dirt, either through negligence
or design, and wearing a rag of a hat that flapped about his ears, it
was not easy to form any idea of his face. Christian had not tried
to see him. He might be one of those who were called humble workmen;
as we sometimes say the humble poor, in speaking of persons whose
apparent humility is perhaps a mere mask concealing their silent
pride. Christian respected the evident desire of the unknown to avoid
observation; and after having given the customary whistle to warn those
who worked the pulley, he contented himself with pointing to a seat by
his side in the bucket; for he supposed that he also wished to ascend.
The unknown hesitated. Laying his hands upon the edge of the bucket, he
seemed about to jump in, but paused, and looked around, apparently to
seek for something.
“You have lost a tool, perhaps?” said Christian, who noticed that he
was quite stout and heavy, and had nothing of the freedom and ease
which is usual with miners accustomed to the use of the bucket.
Scarcely had he spoken, when the unknown, who seemed to have been
waiting to hear his voice before coming to some decision, took the seat
by his side with more resolution than agility, and waited in silence
for the second whistle.
Christian supposed that he did not understand Norwegian, and being
familiar by this time with almost all the dialects of the north, he
tried to enter into conversation with him; but all his efforts were
useless. The man remained perfectly silent, as if fright at seeing
himself suspended directly over the abyss had paralyzed his faculties.
The bucket, as it is called, employed in mines, is made, as the reader
knows, of stout staves, bound with iron, and requires to be steered
in its passage up and down the tremendous shaft. Christian, who was
already accustomed to this mode of transportation, worked it very
skilfully. Standing on the edge, with one arm thrown around a rope,
he lightly struck the sides of the shaft with his foot, to prevent
the rocking bucket from being broken against them, and, having given
up getting anything out of his companion, he began quietly to sing a
Venetian barcarolle, when his foot--the only one that happened to be on
the edge of the conveyance at the moment--was treacherously pushed with
sufficient force to make him lose his balance, and send him swinging
off into the void.
Fortunately, Christian, who was habitually no less prudent than bold,
had grasped the rope firmly with his left arm, and he slipped down
somewhat as a basket would have done by the handle, without loosening
his hold. The unknown lifted his sharp-edged hammer with the intention
of striking off his right hand, with which Christian had saved himself
by seizing the edge of the bucket. He would inevitably have lost one
of his hands, and probably his life as well, had it not been for the
swinging and sudden dip of the bucket, jerked down by the weight of
his body. At the same time his feet, as they hung in the air, struck a
second bucket, which had been let down from above, and he was able to
give the first one such a push that the assassin was obliged to take to
the ropes himself, in order to keep from being thrown out.
This moment was sufficient to enable Christian to cling to the second
rope, and jump into the second bucket, which ascended rapidly, while
the one in which the assassin remained alone, disappeared from sight
with even greater rapidity. Just as Christian reached the top of the
shaft, and jumped out on the platform around it, a dull crash ascended
from its depths, while, at that very moment, Stangstadius, with his
fantastic face all radiant with smiles, came up to him.
“Come, my dear baron,” he cried, “make haste! They will not have
supper over yonder in the village until you arrive, and I am dying of
inanition.”
“What has happened?” cried Christian to the miners who were working the
pulley, without answering Stangstadius; “where is the other bucket?
Where is the man?--”
“The rope broke,” replied one of them, with a tremendous oath, and
pretending to deplore the accident, while the other whispered in
Christian’s ear:
“Not a word! We let him fall!”
“What! you have precipitated this unfortunate--this madman--?”
“This unfortunate was not a madman,” replied the workman. “He has been
looking out for an opportunity to be alone with you for three days. We
watched him, and saw what he wanted to do. We let down another bucket
at a venture; and as for the one he is in, it is a bucket spoiled, that
is all about it!”
Christian knew that these rough miners were in the habit of taking the
law into their own hands, and that they dealt out to criminals summary
and terrible justice.
He felt the more regret and anxiety about what had happened, because he
knew, also, that people who enter this subterranean world when rather
advanced in years, are sometimes seized with fits of involuntary and
ungovernable fury. He descended into the mine again with Stangstadius,
who claimed, with good reason, to have a professional knowledge of such
accidents. Two of the miners went down with them, to investigate, they
said, but in reality to remove the corpse, so as to avoid being obliged
to give any explanation to the inspectors of the mine.
“Faith,” said Stangstadius, when they had examined the miserable body
by the light of their torches, “he is done for! He was not so lucky as
I! By heavens! I declare I must draw up a report on the use of ropes in
descending buckets in mines. These accidents are too frequent--when I
think that even I myself--”
“Monsieur Stangstadius!” cried Christian, “look at this man. Do you not
know him?”
“By heavens, it is a fact!” replied Stangstadius; “it is Master Johan,
the ex-major-domo of Waldemora. Oh then, there is no great harm done!
He confessed in prison; it was this very fellow who assassinated poor
Baron Adelstan, in former years--_à propos!_ yes, your father,
my dear Christian. This Johan was once a miner in Falun, and he was
a great scoundrel. It appears that he made his escape from his last
prison, but it was written in his destiny that he was to perish by the
rope.”
Delighted with this bon-mot, M. Stangstadius returned with Christian to
the upper world, while the workmen, after having thrown the corpse into
a deserted pit, well known to them, in the deepest part of the works,
set quietly to work to mend the bucket. Christian, who had a room in a
little house in the village, ran thither to change his dress. He found
a letter awaiting him that had just been brought by a courier; it was
from M. Goefle.
“All is saved!” he wrote; “the king is good, as I told you, but not
weak, as I thought. He is a gallant fellow, who--but you will have
time enough to hear about that. Make all speed! Be at Waldemora on the
twelfth; you will find one of your friends there, and hear some good
news.
“Until a speedy meeting, I am, my dear baron,” etc.
Christian did not say a word about this letter to his friends, with
whom he took supper at the parsonage of the minister of Roraas, where
the minister of Waldemora and his party had been entertained with
cordial hospitality. After supper, he found an opportunity of being
alone with Margaret and her governess. He was bolder than he had ever
been. He dared to speak of love. Mademoiselle Potin wanted to interrupt
him, but Margaret, in her turn, interrupted her friend.
“Christian,” she said, “I do not well know what love is, or what
distinction there can be between that sentiment and the feeling with
which I regard you. But one thing I do know, and that is, that I
respect and esteem you, and that if I am ever free, and you are the
same, I will share your fortune, whatever it may be. I have worked
very hard since we parted, and I shall be able now to give lessons
or keep accounts, like so many other poor young girls who support
themselves, and who have too much good sense to blush upon that
account;--like Mademoiselle Potin herself, whose family is noble, and
who has not lost in the opinion of any one, but, on the other hand,
who has been elevated in the eyes of all persons of real feeling, by
having the courage to make use of her talents. To prove it,” she added,
glancing tenderly and archly at her governess, “I need only tell you
that she is betrothed secretly to the excellent Major Larrson, and is
only waiting until my affairs are a little more settled, to celebrate
her marriage.”
It was impossible for Mademoiselle Potin to contradict Margaret, but
she was none the less angry with Christian for speaking to her of
love at the very moment when his suit was lost, and she felt still
more indignant on the following morning, when he joined their little
party to cross the mountains, and return to Sweden by the Idre, and
the mountains of Blaakdal. On the next day, the twelfth of June, 1772,
Christian saw the friend to whom M. Goefle had referred, coming to meet
him on the mountain-road over which they were travelling; it was no
other than M. Goefle himself, escorted by Major Larrson. They embraced
each other, and after briefly exchanging joyful and affectionate
greetings, hastened forward, and arrived by dinner-time at the
danneman’s chalet, which they found gayly adorned with wild flowers.
Karine was at the door, only partly comprehending what was passing, and
finding it difficult to recognize the child of the lake in the features
of the handsome young iarl.
The dinner was served in the open air, under a bower of foliage, in
sight of the magnificent prospect of mountains, with whose wild and
melancholy beauty Christian had been so deeply impressed on a day in
December. The summer is short in these elevated regions, but it is
magnificent. The verdure is as dazzling as the snows; the vegetation
grows with such rapidity, and is so luxuriant, that Christian imagined
he was beholding a different locality and a different country.
They remained upon the mountain until six o’clock. But no one thought
now of hunting bears; instead, they plucked flowers sentimentally
from beside running streams, and listened to their sweet murmuring or
impetuous rolling--so eager, as all of them seemed, with their various
voices, to sing and to live to the utmost, before the return of the
frost, when they must all be changed into crystal again by the elfs of
the gloomy autumn.
Christian was very happy, and yet he was longing to see Stenson once
more; but M. Stenson would not consent to leave the chalet, on account
of the heat. The sun, at this season, does not set until ten o’clock,
and it rises three hours afterwards, in a starry twilight that softly
veils the sky; for, during the summer, the darkness of a genuine night
is unknown. In fact, the good lawyer had prepared a surprise for
Christian. As soon as the cool evening breeze began to be felt, old
Stenson drove up in a carriage, triumphant and rejuvenated. Thanks
to the heat of the season, and perhaps also to his returning joy and
confidence, his deafness was almost entirely cured. He brought the
decree of the committee of the Diet, recognizing Christian’s rights,
and a letter from Countess Elveda to M. Goefle, authorizing him
privately to dispose of the hand of her niece in favor of the new Baron
of Waldemora.
Christian returned to the chateau with _his uncle_ Goefle, while
the rest of the party followed in their various carriages over the
winding and picturesque road; but, in the midst of the young man’s joy,
as he anticipated the reunion of all his beloved friends, he was seized
with a sudden fit of melancholy.
“I am too happy,” he said to the lawyer; “I should like to die to-day.
It seems to me that the life into which I am about to enter will be in
constant conflict with the simple and pure happiness I have dreamed
about.”
“It is quite possible, my friend,” replied M. Goefle; “for it is only
novels that end with the eternal formula: ‘They died in old age, after
a long and happy life.’ You cannot come into contact with the world
as a public man without suffering; for society is terribly convulsed
in these days, and above all in the aristocratic circles where you
will take your place. I do not know what strange events are preparing;
and yet I had a sort of revelation of the future in the last interview
which the king granted me. On that day, he seemed to me both grand and
terrible. I believe he is meditating a movement which will send a good
many people back where they belong; but can he keep them there, and
will he? Can revolutions establish a permanent condition of things,
when they come in advance of the slow labor of time and ideas?”
“Not always,” said Christian, “but they form landmarks in history; even
when an effort at reformation is premature, something is always gained.”
“Then you will really support the king against the senate?”
“Yes, most certainly!”
“You see, then, that you do not intend to flee the tempest, but to seek
it. Well, that is always the way with the young, at least when they are
intelligent; instinct and fate drives them on. For my part, I will say
amen to whatever frees us from Russia and England. But how the devil
do you propose to sit in the senate, if you refuse to acknowledge the
religion of the country? But no matter, do not answer now; you will see
hereafter what your conscience dictates, and what course you will have
to pursue, in order to fulfil your duties as a father and a citizen.”
“My duties as a father!” cried Christian. “Ah! M. Goefle, it will be
in fulfilling them that I shall find happiness; I feel it! _Mon
Dieu!_ When I am united at last to that brave and loyal woman, how
I shall love our children--to whom she will transmit disinterestedness
and nobility of character, as well as grace and beauty!”
“Yes, yes, Christian, you will be happy in your family. That is due to
you for your devotion to poor Sophia Goffredi! You will live in the
Swedish fashion, on your estates, in the enjoyment of every comfort,
and in the presence of the grand and rude nature of the north. You
will cultivate science and the fine arts. You will make the poor around
you happy, as your predecessor has made them miserable. You will bring
up your children yourself. Those little rascals will be surrounded,
as soon as they are born, with love and devotion; and they will grow
up with the children of Osmund and of Osburn. For my part, I shall
keep at my profession as long as possible, for I shall become too much
of a babbler, and too nervous, when I stop pleading cases; but every
year I will come and pass the summer months with you. We will vie
with each other in spoiling old Sten, and poor Karine; we will build
political castles in Spain; we will dream of a cloudless alliance with
France, and a Scandinavian union that will enable us to resist the
ambitious designs of Russia. And, in the evenings, we will bring out
the _burattini_, and give exhibitions to all the dear little folks
assembled at the chateau; and then, you may be sure, I shall become the
equal of the famous Christian Waldo, of joyous and gentle memory.”