To suppose that Hilda, at eighteen years of age, was like the majority
of young girls as old as she, would be to imagine that human character
is not influenced by its surroundings. She was neither a village
Gretchen, such as Faust loved and ruined, nor was she the omniscient
damsel of modern society. During the greater part of her existence she
had lived without any companions but her mother and the faithful Berbel.
But she had grown up in a wild forest country, in a huge dismantled
stronghold, of which the windows looked out over the tumbling torrent,
and across endless thousands of giant trees, whose dark tops rose like
sombre points of shadow out of the deeper shade below. Even the sky was
not blue. Half a kingdom of firs and pines and hemlocks drank the colour
from the air and left but a sober neutral tint behind. The sun does
not give half the light in the Black Forest that he gives elsewhere. As
Hilda had never, within her recollection, seen an open plain, much less
a city, her idea of the world beyond those leagues of trees in which
she lived was not a very accurate one. She could hardly guess what the
streets of a great town were like, or what effect a crowd of civilised
people would produce upon her sight. And yet she was far from ignorant.
There were books enough left at Sigmundskron for her education, and the
baroness had done what was in her power to impart such instruction as
she could command. Hilda had probably read as many books as most girls
of her age, and had read them more carefully, but she was very far from
loving study for its own sake. Her time, too, was occupied in other
ways, for she and her mother did most things for themselves, as was to
be expected in a household where want reigned supreme over the hours of
every day, from sunrise to sunset.
The necessity for maintaining appearances was small indeed, but such as
it was, neither mother nor daughter could avoid it. No one could predict
what day the Greifensteins would choose for one of their occasional
visits, and in the time of the vacations no one could foresee when Greif
might make his appearance, striding over the wooded hills with his gun
and his dog to spend a quiet afternoon with Hilda in their favourite
sunny corner at the foot of the dismantled tower. When poverty is to be
concealed, his shadow must not be caught lurking at the door by
chance visitors. Nor was it only out of fear of being surprised by her
relations that the quiet baroness insisted that Hilda and even Berbel
should always be presentable. Her pride was inseparably united with
that rigid self-respect which, in the poor, alone saves pride from being
ridiculous. It was indeed marvellous that she should succeed as she did
in hiding the extremity of her need from the Greifensteins, but it must
be remembered that she had never been rich, and had learned in early
youth many a lesson, many a shift of economy which now stood her in good
stead. The Germans have a right to be proud of having elevated thrift
to a fine art. From the Emperor to the schoolmaster, from the
administration of the greatest military force the world has ever seen
to the housekeeping of the meanest peasant, a sober appreciation of the
value of money is the prime rule by which everything is regulated. Frau
von Sigmundskron had made a plan, had drawn up a tiny budget in exact
proportion with the pension which was her only means of subsistence,
and thanks to her unfailing health had never departed from it. The
expenditure had indeed been so closely regulated from the first, that
she had found it necessary to limit herself to what would barely support
life, in order not to stint her child’s allowance. Being by temperament
a very religious woman, she attributed to Providence that success
in rearing Hilda for which she might well have thanked her own iron
determination and untiring efforts. If ever a woman deserved the help of
Heaven in consideration of having bravely helped herself, the baroness
had earned that assistance. So far as the ordinary observer could judge,
however, she had obtained nothing from the world save a reputation for
avarice. Hilda was too much accustomed to the state of things in which
she had grown up, to appreciate her mother’s sacrifices, or to feel
towards her anything like warm gratitude. She herself did all she could,
and that was not little, in the struggle for existence. It is even
possible that she was more grateful to Berbel, than to the baroness
herself. For Berbel voluntarily shared privations, to which the
two ladies were obliged to submit. Berbel was faithful, devoted,
uncomplaining, cheerful; and she was all this, not for the sake of a
servant’s pay, since her wages were infinitesimally small, but out of
pure affection for her mistress.
Berbel had been the wife of Lieutenant von Sigmundskron’s servant, who
had fallen beside his master, rifle in hand, his face to the enemy.
Mistress and maid were left alike widows on the same day, alike young
and portionless, the only difference being that Frau von Sigmundskron
had Hilda, while poor Berbel was childless. Then Berbel refused to go
away, once and for ever, and the officer’s widow accepted the lifelong
devotion offered her, and the three cast in their lot together, to keep
themselves alive as best they could beneath the only roof that was left
to them.
Frau von Sigmundskron had been very much surprised when, on a sunny June
morning, three years before the time of which I write, Greifenstein had
appeared alone, arrayed in the most correct manner, instead of being
clad in the shooting coat he usually wore. She had been still more
astonished when he formally proposed to her an engagement by which
Greif should marry Hilda so soon as he had finished his studies at the
University. He told her frankly why he desired the alliance. She knew
of Rieseneck’s disgrace, and she would understand that the story was an
injury to Greif. On the other hand he, Greif’s father, had never done
anything to be ashamed of, and the lad himself was growing up to be
a very fine fellow and would be rich--Greifenstein did not state the
amount of his fortune. He apprehended that his cousin would consider
Greif a good match from a worldly point of view. Furthermore, though
barely twenty, the young man was deeply attached to Hilda, who was just
fifteen, The attachment was evidently likely to turn into love when
both should be three or four years older. If Frau von Sigmundskron would
consent, a preliminary, verbal agreement might be made, subject to
the will of the two children when the right time should come, it being
essentially necessary, as Greifenstein remarked in his stiffest manner,
that two young people should love each other sincerely if they meant to
marry.
The baroness opened her clear blue eyes very wide, as though she had
seen a coach and four laden with sacks of gold driving through the old
gates of the castle. But she was far too well bred to burst into
tears, or to exhibit any embarrassment, or even an improper amount of
satisfaction. She replied that she was much obliged; that she was poor,
and that Hilda would inherit nothing whatsoever except Sigmundskron, a
fact which her cousin must please to understand from the first; that,
if the absence of any dower were not an obstacle, it was not for her to
create difficulties; and, finally, that she believed Hilda to be quite
as much attached to Greif, as Greif to her. Thereupon Berbel was sent
to fetch a bottle of wine--there had been half a dozen bottles in
the cellar thirteen years ago, and this was the first that had been
opened--and Greifenstein refreshed himself therewith and departed, as
stiffly, courteously and kindly as he had come.
Greif had come over as often as he pleased during his vacations, and had
written whenever he liked during his terms. Never having seen any one at
home or abroad whom he considered comparable with Hilda, he had grown up
to love her as naturally as he loved the pine-scented air of his home,
the warm soft sun, or the still beauty of the forest. Hilda was an
essential part of his life and being, without which he could imagine no
future. Year by year it grew harder to say good-bye, and the happiness
of meeting grew deeper and more real. There was a pride in the knowledge
that she was for him only, which played upon the unconscious selfishness
of his young nature and gave him the most profound and exquisite
delight. At three and twenty he was old enough to understand the world
about him, he had accomplished his year of obligatory service in the
army, and had come into contact with all sorts of men, things and
ideas. He was himself a man, and had outgrown most boyish fallacies and
illusions, but he had not outgrown Hilda. She was there, in the heart
of the forest, in the towers of Sigmundskron, away from the world he had
seen, and maidenly ignorant of all it contained, waiting for him, the
incarnation of all that was lovely, and young, and fair, and spotless.
He pitied his fellow-students, who loved vulgarly whatever came into
their way. He could not imagine what life would be without Hilda. It
was a strange sort of love, too, for there had been no wooing; they
had grown up for each other as naturally as the song-bird for its mate.
There had been no hindrances, no jealousies, no alternate hopes and
fears, none of those vicissitudes to which love is heir. Nothing but
the calamity of death could interfere with the fulfilment of their
happiness, and perhaps no two beings ever loved each other from whom
death seemed so far.
Hilda was happy, too, in her own way, for what she knew of the outer
world was what she saw through Greif’s eyes. To him the greatest of
all blessings would be to come back to the forest and never to leave it
again, and Hilda argued that the world could not be worth seeing, if the
woods were so vastly preferable as he seemed to think. She felt herself
to be what she was in his imagination, a part of the nature in which
she had grown up, as much as the oldest and tallest fir tree on the
hillside. People who spend all their lives in unfrequented regions, feel
a sense of property in the air, the earth and the water, which city-bred
folks cannot readily understand. They have such an intimate, unconscious
knowledge of the seasons, the weather, the growth of plants and the
habits of animals, that it seems to them as though their own hearts beat
in every corner of the world around them, and as though all the changes
they see from day to day were only manifestations of their own vitality.
They may not see, or know that they see, beauties which amaze the
wanderer who visits their wilderness, but they feel them as he never
can, and feed on them as he cannot feed. Their senses, not dulled by
daily close contact with thousands of indifferent and similar objects,
nor by the ceaseless chatter of their fellow-beings, see sights and hear
sounds altogether beyond the perceptions of gregarious man. The infinite
variety of nature, as compared with the pitiful monotony of the works of
humanity, produces in their minds an activity of an especial kind. They
do not know what mental weariness means, nor the desire for nervous
excitement. The succession of morning and evening does not bore them,
for it is a part of themselves, like hunger and the satisfaction of
appetite, thirst and the refreshing draught from the spring. They are
good, though their virtues be negative, and they are happy, for they
have never heard of unhappiness. Their existence is the very opposite
of ours, full where ours is empty, empty where ours is crowded to
overflowing. They are never alone, for the world is their companion,
they are never hurried, for they move with time itself, whereas our
existence is but one long effort to outrun the revolution of the hours.
They do not dream of fame, for they feel the eternity of perpetually
renewed life in all that surrounds them; they have never heard of
competition, for their only rival is God Himself.
Hilda’s earliest recollections did not go back beyond the time when she
had been brought to the Black Forest, and the singular simplicity of
her life made the past years seem strangely short. Children whose first
remembrances are full of new impressions, grow old quickly, while those
to whose perceptions little is offered grow up more slowly, and more
naturally. Other conditions being the same, these latter will be calmer,
healthier and more reasonable. The best horse is not the one which is
made to do the most work as a colt, though performing dogs must learn
their tricks as puppies if they are to learn them at all. Much in life
depends upon the truth of our first impressions, and as this, in its
turn, depends directly upon our ability to judge what we see and hear,
it is clear that children may be injured permanently if too many things
be brought within the sphere of their observation before they have
learned the uses of hearing and sight.
The grand solitudes of the forest, the imposing calm of nature when at
rest, the indescribable magnificence of the winter storms, had furnished
Hilda with her first deep impressions. That death, of which her mother
sometimes spoke, was the disappearance of all that lived beneath the
soft, silent snow. That mysterious resurrection of the dead was nature’s
irresistible glad leap to meet the sun, as the noonday shadows shortened
day by day; that happy life to come was the far-off summer, when the
wind would sigh and whisper again among the branches he had so rudely
handled in his wrath, when all the air would smell of the warm pines,
when the mayflower would follow the hawthorn, and the purple gentian
take the mayflower’s place, when the wild pea-blossom would elbow the
forest violet, and the clover and wild thyme and mint would spring up
thick and crisp and sweet for the dainty roebuck and his doe. Hilda used
to think that the souls of the blessed would at last take their bodies
again, just as the wildflowers in the wood sprang up with their own
shape and beauty, each according to the little seed that had lain dead
and forgotten since autumn had sighed its dirge above their myriad tiny
graves, burying the summer as sadly as men bury those they dearly love.
And yet Hilda never put any of those thoughts into words, though in
her books she loved best those words that expressed her half-formulated
feelings. Had she been removed to the noise and the whirl of city life,
she would very probably have known how to define what she had lost, she
might even have made others feel what she herself had so keenly
felt. But in the silent towers of her home, or amidst that noiseless,
ever-growing life that belongs to undisturbed nature, all she could have
wished to express was expressed for her, in a grander language than
that of man. She had no need of spending long hours in reverie and
contemplation, as people do who are not used to their surroundings,
or who compare their present with their past. Constant occupation had
become a part of her being, and unceasing small activity in household
matters the condition of her life. Heaven knows, there was enough to do
between making and mending everything she wore, keeping in order
even the small part of the gigantic building which she and her mother
inhabited, cultivating as best she could the plot of ground in the
castle yard which was all the land left to her, the last of her name,
and, in the midst of all this manual labour, in maintaining that
prescribed amount of appearance, from which she had never been allowed
to deviate since she had been a little child. A spotless perfection of
neatness was indeed the only luxury left within reach of the two ladies,
and for that one available satisfaction there was no trouble they would
not cheerfully undergo. But these manifold household labours did not
vulgarise Hilda’s character. If she enjoyed the luxury of Greifenstein
during her half-yearly visits, it was not because she disliked or
despised her own home life. She was too thoroughly conscious of the
inevitable to groan over her lot, she was too strong in mind and body
to desire luxurious idleness, and she never imagined that a woman could
find occupation except in household duties. Her whole existence had made
her so simple that she could never have comprehended that complicated
state of mind which is so delightful to society.
Something of nature’s own freshness, too, had been infused into the
young girl’s veins, refreshing and renewing the life in that old blood
of which she was the last descendant. Blue eyes are rarely very bright.
Hilda’s seemed to have a special vitality of their own, which gave the
impression that they must shine in the dark as some crystals do for a
few seconds when they have been long exposed to the sun. They were of
that rare type which appear to sparkle even when not seen directly, not
merely reflecting the light as a placid pool reflects it, but making
it dance and change as sunshine does in falling water. Hilda’s hair
was yellow, and yellow hair is often lustreless as the pine dust in
the woods; but hers glowed, as it were by its own colour, without
reflection, out of the very abundance of vitality. Her features were
delicate and aquiline, but were saved from any look of deficient
strength by that perfection of evenly-distributed colour which comes
only from matchless health and untainted blood, combined with a rare
strength in the action of the heart. Hilda possessed one of those
highly-favoured organisations which nature occasionally produces as
normal types of what humanity should be. Such people bring with them a
radiance that nothing can extinguish, not even extreme old age.
Their beauty may not be of the highest type, but their vitality is
irresistibly attractive, and spreads to their surroundings, undiminished
by any effort they make.
When Hilda was told that if she and Greif loved each other they should
marry, she was far less surprised than her mother had been when old
Greifenstein had made his proposal. It seemed strange to the baroness
that her daughter should not even blush a little on learning the news.
But Hilda saw no reason for blushing and did not feel in the least
disconcerted. To her it all seemed perfectly natural. She had always
loved Greif, ever since she could remember anything. Why should he not
love her? And if they loved each other, they would of course be married
in due time. It was but the fulfilment of her life, after all. There
was surely nothing in the idea to cause her any emotion. Did not Heaven
dispose everything in the best possible way, and was not this the best
possible thing that could happen? Did the hawk mate with the wren, or
the wild boar with the doe? But the baroness did not understand. She
asked Hilda if she should be very unhappy if Greif died, or if he
married some one else.
‘God will not be so unkind,’ answered the young girl simply.
Frau von Sigmundskron was silent. It was clear that Hilda, in her
innocence, had never expected anything else, but her mother trembled
to think of what might happen if that simple faith were rudely
disappointed. It was characteristic of the devoted mother that she
thought of her child’s heart, and not of the worldly difference to Hilda
between single life at Sigmundskron and wedded life at Greifenstein,
between starvation and plenty, extreme poverty and the state of enjoying
all that money could give. It was long before she could comprehend what
had passed in Hilda’s mind, or the process of reasoning by which the
young girl had reached such a calm certainty of anticipation. When she
at last saw that it was an extremely simple matter, she realised how
completely her daughter had been shut off from the world since her
birth. At first she had doubted the reality of the girl’s quiet manner
in the circumstances, but she soon discovered that Hilda behaved during
Greif’s visits exactly as she had always done, meeting him gladly,
parting from him regretfully, speaking with him as though there were
no difference in their relations in the present, nor were to be in the
future, excepting that Greif would always be present, instead of only
coming from time to time. She knew that Greif himself was far from
looking at the matter with such supreme calm. She saw the colour come
and go in his fair face in a way that showed a constant emotion, and
she feared lest such a very susceptible young man as he appeared to be
should be entrapped, when away from home, by the designing mother, of
whom every other mother sees the type in the background of her thoughts.
But Greif did not fall a victim to any such schemes. If Hilda had at all
resembled most girls of her age, he could have compared her with them,
and the comparison would not have been to her advantage. She could not
have possessed their cheap accomplishments, their knowledge of waltzing,
or their intimate acquaintance with their neighbours’ affairs. She could
not have put on their sentimentality with men, nor their cynicism with
each other. She could not imitate their glances and she did not imitate
their dress. She was a creature apart from them all. Deeply imbued as he
was with all the prejudices of an exclusive caste, Greif could not have
looked upon Hilda as he did, if she had been a peasant’s child, even
though she had been herself in all other respects. There was that in her
position which appealed to the romanticism of his nature. The noble but
unfortunate maiden, the last of an ancient race, dwelling in dignified
retirement in her half-ruined ancestral home, was vastly more
interesting than any equally well-born girl could have been, who chanced
to be rich enough to be marched into society as a matrimonial investment
for young men of her station. But it was precisely because Hilda
possessed that one point in common with all such eligible young ladies
that Greif regarded her with a romantic devotion he could never have
felt for a village Gretchen. His pride in her nobility was indeed far
less than his love for herself, but it made for that love a rampart
against love’s deadliest enemy, which is ridicule. He certainly did not
tell himself so. He would have thought it an insult to Hilda to worship
her for anything but her own self; but he was none the less aware that
the pedestal upon which his idol stood was strong enough to withstand
any assault. This being certain, it was the very impossibility of any
further comparison that attracted him most. She was unlike any one whom
he met, or was ever likely to meet, and his imagination invested
her with many exceptional attributes, most of which she undoubtedly
possessed in one degree or another.
Each time he returned and left the noisy train and the smart modern
railway station behind him, to plunge into the silent forest, he felt
more strongly that his real sympathies all lay between Greifenstein
and Sigmundskron, and that his visits to the world were only disturbing
dreams. They must be renewed from time to time, at ever-increasing
intervals, but the real peace of his life awaited him in his home. He,
too, like Hilda, was a child of the woods, and felt that the trees, the
foaming streams and the changeless crags were all parts of himself, to
lose which would be like forfeiting a limb of his body or a sense of
his intelligence. The baroness need not have been afraid lest he should
wander about the world to forget Sigmundskron or Hilda. Nature had made
him constant, and circumstances had made him happy in his own place.
And so for years the lives of all these persons had run on, until the
time was approaching when Greif and Hilda were to be married, and great
changes were to be made at Sigmundskron. Greif had come home for the
last time but one, and his next return would be final. During months and
years the baroness and her daughter had been slowly preparing for the
great event. The most unheard-of economies had been imagined and carried
out in the attempt to give Hilda a little outfit for her wedding, just
enough to hide the desperate poverty in which they had lived. Many
a long winter’s evening had the two ladies spun the fine flax by the
smouldering fire; many a long day had Hilda and Berbel spent at the
primitive loom in the sunny room of the south tower; through many a
summer’s noon had the long breadths of fine linen lain bleaching on
the clean grey stone of the ramparts, watered by the faithful servant’s
careful hand. Endless had been the thought expended before cutting into
each piece of the precious material; endless the labour lavished upon
the fine embroideries by Hilda herself, upon the minute stitching by her
brave-hearted mother. But the work had progressed well, and the finished
garments that lay amidst bundles of sweet-smelling dried herbs in the
great old press would have done credit to the spinning and weaving and
handiwork of skilled craftsmen. It was fortunate that there had been
time for it all, else Hilda would have made but a poor figure on the
great day.
As for Berbel she believed that the forest itself had helped them, when
she saw all that had been accomplished and remembered how she had bought
the flax pound by pound at the market. Though a great share in the joint
success was due to her own patient industry, the result seemed so fine
as compared with the humble beginnings that she was much inclined to
thank the Heinzelmannchen and their ‘brownies’ for the most part of it
all. The baroness thanked Providence, and Hilda thought it was all due
to her love for Greif. Perhaps they were all three right, and possibly
each shared in some measure the views of the other two. At least so far
as the gnomes are concerned, most people who have lived long in forests
and solitary places have discovered that their work, if they like it,
is performed with a rapidity and skill which is marvellous in their own
eyes, and if you do not call the little gentleman who comes at night and
helps you by the name of Rubezahl, you may call him the Spirit of Peace.
But as long as you receive him kindly and give him his due it matters
very little how you christen him, for he is an affectionate spirit and
loves those who love him for himself, and does their work for them, or
makes them think he does, which, in fact, is just the same.
Unfortunately there are other spirits as busy as he in the world, and he
has a way of taking himself off at the slightest alarm, which is often
very distressing to those who love him; and some of those other spirits
had chosen for their abode the Castle of Greifenstein and for their
companions the persons who dwelt there. The unforeseen plays a very
great part in our lives; for if it did not, we should most of us know
exactly what to do at the right moment, and should consequently approach
perfection at an unnatural rate. While Greif and his father were slowly
ascending the hill towards their home, while Frau von Greifenstein
was looking at herself in her mirror and wondering whether she had not
thrown away her youth after all, while Berbel was weaving and Hilda
embroidering and the old baroness stitching steadily along the folded
linen--while all these people were thus quietly and peaceably engaged,
an event was brewing which was destined to produce some very remarkable
results. And lest the justification of ordinary possibility should
be required by the sceptical hereafter, I will at once state that the
greater part of what follows is a matter of history, well known to many
living persons; and that in writing it down I wish it to be understood
that I am submitting to the judgment of humanity a strange case which
actually occurred within this century, rather than constructing from my
own imagination a mere romance for the delectation of such as will take
the trouble to read it.