A wondrously beautiful autumn, with mild golden days, and clear starry
nights, brooded over the country. Everywhere summer roses bloomed in
the gardens beside the asters, and the forests were very slow in
decking themselves in brilliant hues. The air was so still that the
floating threads of gossamer scarcely stirred, and when a leaf fell it
remained just where it touched the ground. The birds of passage had
paused in their migration, and chirped and--twittered among the fields
and hedges with their merry little voices, while in the evening the
wild swans, which usually, long ere this time, had soared away on their
strong white wings, called to each other along the shore.
It was a wondrously beautiful autumn, which seemed marvellously like
summer; "but it is only an illusion," said Cecilia, "the summer is
over, winter is close at hand, and I must prepare for it."
She had been six weeks in Dollan, which she had never expected to
enter, never hoped to see again. But the physicians had urgently
desired that, to secure perfect recovery from her severe illness, if a
winter's residence in the South was impracticable, Gretchen should at
least spend the beautiful days of autumn on the sea-shore, in a sunny
spot, sheltered from the cold winds; and what place could have
fulfilled these requirements better than quiet, sunny Dollan? And, even
if it were a sacrifice for her to return here, she made it
unhesitatingly for the sake of her child and her old father.
He had so longed for Dollan when, contrary to the doctor's expectation,
he recovered his consciousness after a fainting fit which, a few days
after the accident on the race-course, suddenly attacked him as he sat
surrounded by his friends. "Gratify the old man's wish," said the
physician, "and do so quickly; he will not have many more. His days are
numbered, and it is our duty to procure for him, during the few that
remain, all the sunshine he misses so keenly here in the narrow crowded
streets."
And with deep thankfulness the old man greeted the sunlight on his
native fields. Not that he expressed his gratitude in words. He usually
talked very little; but on his pale, quiet face rested an expression of
the deepest peace, his mild eyes often sparkled as if with joyful
memories, and a happy smile played around his lips, as he walked slowly
through the sunny fields by Cecilia's side, leaning on her arm. Often
too--especially in the early morning--he went out alone, and Cecilia
had been anxious about him, and at last ventured to beg him to take her
with him, no hour was too early for her. But the old man stroked her
cheeks, and said, "Let me alone; you don't know yet."
Cecilia pondered over these strange words, and understood them for the
first time when, one morning at early dawn, she looked out of her
window, and saw the old man stand a long time in the garden beside one
of the oldest trees--a linden, under whose shade, so the story ran,
Charles the Twelfth of Sweden had sat--and then bend his white head and
wave his hand, as people do when they take leave of any one. Yes, the
old man was taking his leave, when he wandered alone through garden and
field, forest and meadow--leave of the friends and acquaintances of his
youth: here a tree, under whose branches he had dreamed of the woman he
loved; yonder a rock, against whose hard breast he had once pressed his
tortured young heart; the meadow where he had broken the wild steed
with which he had hoped to win the beautiful Ulrica von Dahlitz; the
forest whose echoes he had so often waked by the report of his good
rifle. He never carried it now: the trusty gun that had formerly
accompanied him in all his walks, rested quietly in the corner; he had
taken leave of his faithful companion forever.
Neither did he ever turn his steps in the direction of the beach-house,
and once when he had wandered through the forest by Cecilia's side, and
they unexpectedly emerged from the trees upon the cliffs, he seemed
almost terrified, and then shook his venerable head and muttered: "That
has cost me many years, many, many years!" So saying, he made a gesture
as if to imply that those years were effaced from the tablet of his
memory.
Perhaps they were; he never said a word about the weary time he had
lived in the beach-house, but often began to relate stories of his
young days--ancient tales, which no living person knew except himself,
and over which he could laugh merrily, while at other times the tears
ran down his pale, withered cheeks.
Ancient tales, of which he knew every detail, every name, and Christian
name, the day and hour, and even whether the weather was pleasant or
rainy; but he remembered nothing of what had lately happened, or made
the strangest mistakes. Thus he repeatedly called Cecilia by the name
of his early love, Ulrica, and it had been a bitter grief to his
great-granddaughter, that he sometimes spoke of her husband, Gretchen's
father, as a man he loved and eagerly longed to see again, although he
had been there very recently, until she understood that he meant
Gotthold.
It had moved her strangely at first, and then when the old man recurred
to it again as quietly as if it never had been and never could be
otherwise, and brought her name into such close connection with that of
her lover, she had accepted it like a dream, which comes between waking
and sleeping, until she started in terror at the danger that lay in the
vision. It must not, could not be. Why trifle with a reality which was
impossible, a future that could never come to pass!
She said it with passionate vehemence, and a flood of tears, more to
herself than the old man, when he again spoke of Gotthold, who stayed
away too long, who left her who longed to see him, and the child who
was so fond of playing with him, too much and too long alone. She told
him that she dared not think of such a thing; too much, too much had
happened, which separated them forever, and that though she would give
her blood for him drop by drop, if it did not belong to her child and
her father, she could never, never be his wife.
They were in the garden on one of the beautiful summer-like evenings of
this month of October, and as she spoke the old man gazed earnestly
towards the saffron-hued eastern sky, that gleamed through the
brilliant foliage of the trees, which was unstirred even by the
faintest breath of wind. "Yes, yes," he said, "you have suffered
keenly, keenly: but"--he added after a short pause--"that is so long,
so very long ago. Time heals much, much!"
He seemed to be absorbed in dreams of the days, which to him alone were
no nonentity, which to him alone emerged from the river Lethe; but as
his glance fell upon the tear-stained face at his side, he passed his
hand over his brow and eyes, and said hastily, as if he feared he might
forget it again:
"Not everything, or slowly, very slowly; sixty, seventy, I know not how
many years passed by; and it is never quite right till we take courage
and tell some human being; I told him the evening I saved him from the
sea, and so many good things followed it, so many good things; my heart
has been so light ever since. You must tell some one, too, but not me;
I forget so much, and might forget that too. You must tell him."
And when the next evening they again walked up and down the same
garden-path, and the dim light again shimmered through the trees, he
suddenly stopped and asked: "Have you told him?" and on the third and
fourth day he repeated the question, always shaking his white head
anxiously, when she answered with burning cheeks: "No, father, I have
not told him yet," and mentally added: "And shall not tell him if he
comes to-morrow, shall never tell him."
Gotthold came, but not alone. Prince Prora, at whose castle he had
again spent several days to show him the sketches for the armory, and
decide upon the order of the Italian landscapes for the dining-hall,
wished to accompany him on his way back to Prora, and when he heard
that Gotthold must stop at Dollan to take leave of the family before
setting out on his journey to Italy, begged permission to accompany him
there also.
"For we are neighbors, madame," said the young man, "whether I live at
Prora or the castle, and I ought to have waited upon you long ago; but
I will confess that a special interest brings me here to-day. Our
friend has told me about the giant's grave you have in your forest,
and that it is perhaps in the best preservation of any on the whole
island. Now we need a landscape with one of these mounds for my armory,
and when I reminded him of the one at Dollan, the obstinate fellow
declares it won't do. I naturally insist it is the very one, since
Dollan--before it came into the possession of your--I mean the Wenhof
family--which, to be sure, if we include the Swedish branch, as is only
just, was two hundred years ago--belonged to Prora, like all the rest
of the island; nay, in Pagan times, a Castle Prora, surrounded with a
lofty wall and deep moat, stood on the cliffs overlooking the sea. Its
ruins are still mentioned in old histories, so it is very possible and
even probable that the grave covers the bones of my ancestors. And am I
to lose such a reminiscence for the sake of an artist's obstinacy?
Never! We have an hour to spare, and I hear I can walk there and back
in half an hour--pray don't trouble yourself, my dear friend! You are
the very last person I will take with me, to spoil my temper by your
objections."
"I will accompany you with pleasure," said old Boslaf. "I have often
been up there deer-hunting with your Highness' great-grandfather. I
have not walked that way for a long, long time, and should like to go
once more."
The Prince looked at the old man in astonishment; he had greeted him
with marked respect, in consequence of the many things Gotthold had
told him about him; but it seemed like a fairy tale that any one now in
existence could have gone hunting with Malte von Prora, who had lived
in the times of Frederick the Great, and been sent to Berlin on a
diplomatic mission by the Swedish government before the Seven Years'
War.
"It is impossible for me to give you so much trouble," said he, "quite
impossible."
But the old man did not seem to notice the polite refusal; he had
already taken his staff, and with long regular strides led the way out
of the garden, where this conversation had taken place. The Prince,
with a smile, hurried after him.
"At least your Highness will allow us to follow you," said Gotthold.
"I beg you to do so," replied the Prince, "for the sake of the old man,
who might not be satisfied with my company for any length of time," and
then drawing Gotthold a few steps aside, he continued: "We have an
hour, don't let it be passed unused. Since I have seen this lady, I
understand all you have not told me, you most silent of men. May God
take these mute lovers under His gracious protection!"
Gotthold walked slowly back to the spot where he had left Cecilia, and
saw her still sitting in the same thoughtful attitude. Would she speak
to-day, or would she keep silence as she had done hitherto--let him go
in silence?
He went up and took the hand that hung by her side. "Cecilia?"
She slowly raised her dark lashes, and looked at him with an expression
of touching entreaty.
"I am not to bid you speak, I am to leave you in silence, Cecilia! And
yet it must be uttered; so let me say it for you. You could tell the
secret only to a woman, and to a woman you would not need to do so; she
would understand you without words. Was it not so? Should love be less
clear-sighted than the eyes of a sympathizing friend? I do not know, I
can only tell you what I read in your heart. And it is this, Cecilia:
you love me, but dare not yield to your feelings; nay, you shrink from
the thought of becoming my wife, as if it were a sin--against whom? It
sounds cruel, Cecilia, and yet I must say it: against your pride. That
is what you fear--yourself, not me. You know as well as that the sun is
setting yonder to rise again to-morrow, that no day, no hour will come
when I shall reproach you by word or look for having been--so unhappy,
so unspeakably wretched; you know that I--as I think--have nothing to
forgive you. But you, Cecilia, think you can never forgive yourself;
you think, because when you were an inexperienced girl of sixteen you
made a mistake, repentance and shame must follow you all your future
life; repentance and shame would frighten you from my arms if you ever
obeyed the impulse of your heart and threw yourself into them."
"And should I not do right to think, to feel so?" cried Cecilia, while
the tears streamed down her burning cheeks; "could I ever forgive
myself for having become the wife of this man? An inexperienced
girl of sixteen, do you say? I was not so very inexperienced; I was
worldly--wise enough to understand that life in the beautiful castle
and shady park of Dahlitz would be more brilliant than in a gloomy
country parsonage. And so I trod the poor student's heart under foot,
although a voice which, since that hour, has never been silenced,
whispered, he is the better man. Should I forgive myself for that, and
for letting him go away with an almost broken heart, without a word of
sympathy, of consolation, glad that his honest eyes no longer rested
upon me, no longer read my vain soul? And now, when my arrogant dream
has produced its natural result, now that I am as utterly wretched as I
deserve to be, and he returns and stands before me, a pure, noble man,
who can look with just pride upon his honest, industrious past, and
with joyful composure towards his future, which must develop still more
gloriously--is he now to stay his victorious step to raise one so
deeply fallen;--nay, what am I saying? Is she to chain him to herself
for all the future, bind the strong industrious hands, constrain the
proud mind, which ought always to be occupied with the highest things,
to perpetual consideration, daily, hourly sympathy for a wretched,
self-marred fate? Did you say pride prevented my doing that? Be it so!
But it was pride for you, in you! Ah! Gotthold, I do not feel this
pride to-day for the first time. I was proud of you when, with
sparkling eyes, you could talk so brilliantly of gods and heroes, and
say the heroic man might boldly compare himself with the gods
themselves; and when I heard, years after, you had forced your way
through obstacles, by which others would have been crushed a thousand
times, and, with a speed that seemed wonderful to those who did not
know your strength and talent, raised yourself to the highest rank in
your art, and the name of the young painter was mentioned only among
the best artists--yes, Gotthold, I was proud then, so proud and
thankful--for I thought, now I can bear everything easier, since my
crime was not visited on you, since I alone had to atone for the sin I
alone had committed."
They had left the fields, over which scattered threads of gossamer
floated in the red light of the setting sun, and entered the dark,
silent forest. No sound was heard except the rustling of the withered
leaves at their feet, and, as Cecilia paused, the mournful song of a
solitary bird.
But Gotthold heard no interruption; it seemed to him as if the piteous
notes of the bird only prolonged the wail of the human voice.
"Alone, alone," he said, "always alone, and so you wish to remain, poor
love! Can a human being be alone? And are you quite alone? Granted that
I am--which I am not--the strong hero who can by constant labor
struggle along his solitary path to the golden table of the father, is
there not your child, from whom you must shut out the bright, sunny
world? You, who turn away from life with veiled head in mute despair!
what virtues will you teach it when you are yourself so wholly
destitute of the cheerfulness, in which alone the virtues thrive; nay,
when you no longer believe in that which is the best and highest of
all, which makes us what we are, makes us human beings--love? Who
pities yonder little bird, which, concealed amid the autumnal foliage,
perhaps wounded and maimed, is left behind to perish miserably? None of
its brothers and sisters, its husband or its children; they have all
flown away, unheeding, and left it behind--alone, alone! They obey the
immutable law that governs their coming and going, their life and
death, and so they do not, cannot sin; but we can and do, if we do
not obey the law that governs us, if we do not obey love. It is the
all-powerful tie that has bound and will bind together all races of
men, from the beginning to the end; the all-powerful sun beneath whose
pure light spring must return to the darkest, saddest hearts: and so
with my love I will hold you, dearest, however you may struggle; will
open your heart, however you may try to close it against me: for I am
more powerful than you, can lend you my strength, and yet have enough
for myself, and you, and your child--our child, Cecilia!"
She had paused, trembling in every limb; pale as death, and with her
dark eyes dim with tears, she extended her hands imploringly.
"Have mercy, Gotthold, have mercy! I can bear no more; I can bear no
more."
A hasty step came down the narrow path that led to the giant's grave.
"Thank God! I was coming to meet you, dear madam--I think--I know you
are not like other ladies--"
"He is dead!" cried Cecilia.
"I fear we shall not find him alive, though he had strength enough to
send me back. I did not like to leave him, but he was so very, very
anxious to see you, to see you both."
They ran up the path through the underbrush, over the hill, to the
giant's grave, whose huge mass stood forth in dark relief against the
bright western sky.
The old man was sitting on a moss-covered stone, with his back resting
against one of the larger blocks, his hands lying in his lap, and an
expression of the most profound peace on his pale, venerable face,
gazing silently towards the west, from whence brilliant sunset hues
streamed over fields, forest, moorland, and sea. Cecilia sank upon the
broom at his feet, pressing her lips to his cold hand.
At the touch, a slight shiver ran through the limbs of the dying man.
His glance turned slowly away from the distant sky, and rested upon the
beautiful, pale, tear-wet face before him. A happy smile gleamed over
his features. "Ulrica," he whispered. The name fell from the white lips
softly, almost inaudibly, and then lips and eyelids closed.
Cecilia's head sank upon Gotthold's breast; the Prince, who during the
whole scene had discreetly remained at a distance, turned away, and
gazed steadily at the golden sunset.
And the golden hues of sunset glowed upon fields and woods, and the
churchyard of Rammin, in which the old man had just been laid to rest
with his children and children's children. Only a small, very small
company had stood around the grave when the coffin was lowered, and
they had needed no priest to consecrate the place which would
henceforth be sacred to them. Then Frau Wollnow embraced Cecilia,
and whispered: "Don't allow yourself to be disconcerted by any
narrow-minded creature you may meet," and Cecilia answered: "Have no
fear, I know what I am doing." Then Ottilie kissed Gretchen; the Prince
and Herr Wollnow took leave of Cecilia with a few cordial words, and
the Prince's light carriage rolled towards his castle, and the
Wollnow's heavy equipage along the road to Prora.
At the other end of the village, where the road leads to Neuenfaehr and
Sundin, stood a travelling carriage, and they now walked silently
through the little hamlet, arm-in-arm; while the child ran before them,
and snatched at the swallows when they came too near.
Otherwise the swallows had a free course. Up and down they darted in
their arrowy flight, now grazing the earth, now rising in graceful
curves, anon flying in a straight line and then zigzag, chirping,
twittering, and fluttering their long wings unweariedly.
For them, too, it was probably the last evening, and to-morrow they
would fly towards the South, and not return till spring.
Gotthold thought of this, and then of the evening when he had walked
through the deserted village-street, and the swallows' song brought
tears of sorrow to his eyes, and how empty his home and the whole
beautiful world had been to him, and how the whole beautiful world now
seemed to him like home; and as he gazed into the dark eyes of his
beloved wife, and pressed the little warm hand of the child, now his,
he knew "what the swallow sang."
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: Dumpling.]
[Footnote 2: The second person singular is used throughout this
conversation, but I have thought it better to adopt the English mode of
address.--Tr.]
THE END.
End of Project Gutenberg's What the Swallow Sang, by Friedrich Spielhagen