The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano Part 7

He took the young man's hand. "Bring me the mayor this evening, and the priest and bailiff as witnesses. You are now my son, and this is the spirit I shall now make my will in. I feel it is high time; for it would be horrible if Helbach were to fling all my fortune to the dogs.

O if I could but totally forget this shot and Eleazar! if such wild thoughts did not keep rus.h.i.+ng about in my brain! Now you and Rose will stay with me."

Edward withdrew. He went to look for Rose in her room. She burst out a-crying, jumpt up from her chair, and threw herself into the young man's arms with an expression of the fondest affection. "Alas Edward!"

she cried sobbing, and hid her face on his breast: "only look now at what I have to go through in my youth. This was never sung over me in my cradle, that I should lose my husband in so shocking a manner, and even before our wedding. And the last thing I should have thought of was that you were to shoot him dead, you, the dearest and kindest of all men.--Alas! poor, poor Eleazar! when he came from nature's hands, such an odious misshapen abortion of a man! And now into the bargain to steal, to lie, and to cheat! to rob my good father, who meant to give him everything! What will become of his poor soul now? Oh yes, he has perisht still more cruelly, he is much more unhappy than my cat with her kittens, that he shot so barbarously on the orange tree. Alas Edward! are you then in real truth such a good creature, as I have always believed you? or are you perchance very wicked too? You did not mean it, did you? that Eleazar should die so?"

Edward took pains to explain the nature of the whole affair to her.

"Be composed," he continued; "the course of our lives here has suddenly undergone a violent change; we must all overcome this shock, to get back again into the path of our ordinary duty. A few days since you were sorry that I was going away; if it can give you any comfort, let me a.s.sure you that for the present at least I shall and must stay here. Do you still wish that I should?"

She gazed at him affectionately and seemed comforted. "So then that is settled now!" she exclaimed: "ah yes, I always thought you would stay; for I can't live without you; and my father can't live without you; and all our poor workmen and spinners, our good miners, for whom you are always saying and doing something, and who, when they come for their wages or for relief, look with their whole souls into your kind eyes, these above all can never live without you."

"This calamity," said Edward, "may hereafter make you, your father, me, and all of us happy. The discovery was inevitable; and perhaps, if it had not taken place now, it would have come at a time when it would have plunged us all in misery."

"If my father now," said Rose, "were to have no objection, I might perhaps in time accustom myself to look upon you as my future husband.

If I could but feel a little more respect and awe for you! If you would behave very roughly to me now and then, not always so kindly, but angrily and savagely at times, I might by and by grow reconciled to it."

Edward went to his business. The uprore had ceast, and the whole house was now quiet and silent: it seemed as if people were afraid of even breathing: all walkt about softly and on tiptoe. News came that Eleazar was dead.

Toward evening Edward went with the mayor and witnesses into old Balthasar's room. He was surprised to find him in bed. On being spoken to by his visitors he lifted himself up, stared fixedly at them, and seemed to know no one. "Aha! reverend Sir," he cried out after a while, "you are come to fetch away a second poor sinner today. It is a busy time in your vocation. Is master Eleazar come with you?"

He beckoned to Edward. "Thou yellow blockhead!" he whispered to him; "what am I to do with thy gold bars that thou hast left me? don't thrust thy stupid cheat into men's eyes so ... it is far too glaring.

But beware of Edward, he is wise and good. If he should ever suspect thee, thou art lost."

He talkt to the others, but still quite at random, and was taken up with the phantoms of his own brain. The mayor and witnesses retired, and Edward went after the physician. The business of drawing up the will was put off, until the sick man should have recovered and be restored to his perfect consciousness.

The physician found the patient's state very alarming. Edward was called up in the night; but when he entered the room Herr Balthasar had already breathed his last.

The dismay, the sorrow was universal. The mayor sent to have everything sealed up. In the midst of this confusion, it seemed a matter of very little moment that the Hungarian had found means to escape from his prison.

In the town where the extravagant counsellor Helbach lived, there was a great feast at which all the epicures famous for their love of good eating and their knowledge of good dishes were a.s.sembled. The counsellor himself was the soul of such parties: his word was law in them; and he it was that had managed the present banquet.

The dinner was nearly over; some of the guests, who had business to call them away, were gone: the company had grown quieter; and it was only at the upper end of the table, where the counsellor and some of the scientific eaters were sitting, that the conversation was carried on with any spirit.

"Believe me, my friends," said the counsellor with great earnestness, "the art of eating, the skill men may attain in it, has its epochs, its cla.s.sical ages, and its decline, corruption, and dark ages, just as much as every other art; and it seems to me that we are now again verging to a kind of barbarism in it. Luxury, profusion, rarities, new dishes, overpeppering, overspicing, all these, my good sirs, are the artifices now commonly made use of to obtain admiration for a dinner; and yet these are the very things from which a thinking eater will turn away with contemptuous slight. In the whole of this department indeed much still remains to be done; and the stories we read of the old gormandizer, Heliogabalus, and others who lived during the decrepitude of the Roman empire, stories at which many men stare with stupid astonishment, ought only to excite our pity."

"It must always be difficult no doubt," said one of the guests, "to frame any distinct conception of the dishes and the delicacies of a former age. If we dress them by such receits as remain, the result will always have something absurd in it, like the dinner which Smollett describes so humourously in his _Peregrine Pickle_."

"That tact on which after all everything depends," answered the counsellor, "is sure to be wanting, that nice knowledge of the exact limit between too much and too little which nothing but instinct can bestow; and even this instinct must be cultivated by studying the properties of fire, the culinary powers of which can never be described, and which a cook can only make himself master of by long experience, judgement, and observation, nor even then unless he was born a cook. The main point however is, that our tongue and palate have been trained and fas.h.i.+oned from our childhood to particular tastes, likings, and antipathies; so that often the very best, most judicious, and admirable thing, if it come across us on a sudden as a novelty, as something we have never set tooth on, and thus give a shock to all our prepossessions, will be disregarded and abused; until at length in course of time on our becoming familiar with the stranger's merits, he is naturalized: and then the new knowledge we have acquired will often exercise the most salutary influence and throw much light on other dishes, both old and lately invented ones, so that our palate is as it were strung with a new chord, which sends forth a variety of delicious notes. Moreover the ages that are gone and the ideas that prevailed among our forefathers are still acting upon this _tastature_ of mankind, as a race made to relish, to discern, and to enjoy; and as in philosophy and science, in politics and government, so here too there is an unbroken chain; the acc.u.mulated experience of centuries moulded us to be just such as we are; and this state of our taste can and must only be modified by degrees; nor could anything be more ruinous than a sudden revolution which should throw everything topsy turvy. In every field of human action history is man's best master."

"You yourself," said the guest, "should write a history of the articles of food, the art of eating, and the progress of the human mind in it."

"When one is oneself a practical artist," answered the counsellor, "and so devoted a one as I am, so diligent in working at my art, and so ready to try every new experiment in it, one must leave such matters to people of an idler and more contemplative turn. If you aim at doing everything, you will never do anything well and thoroughly."

"Why," resumed the other, "do we hear this perpetual abuse of sensuality? why will men so seldom confess, and even then but reluctantly, the pleasure they take in eating and drinking?"

"Because," said counsellor Helbach, "they never know what they are really at. It has always struck me as very remarkable and singular that, in the little round box in which all our finer senses are ranged and stored up, and in the top of which moreover our thinking powers, and all the n.o.blest intellectual products of our soul are deposited, we should find that red-lined drawer close beneath, with the delicate little bosses set like jewels over the tremulous vocal tongue and palate, garnisht in front with teeth that toil and cut, and closed by the graceful mouth. Eating is only another mode of thinking. Thus this box is a coppel in which the essences of all created things, the finest and the grossest, vapours and juices, the soft soothing oils, the bitternesses and tartnesses which at first seem grating, the flavour which evaporates in a momentary enjoyment, are put to the test. First the teeth begin chopping and grinding; the tongue, at other times so talkative, silently and busily rolls about and makes much of the morsels it receives, presses them affectionately and benevolently against the palate, to double its pleasure by sharing it; and when this tender dalliance has been sufficiently indulged in, at length pushes them back almost unwillingly to its friend that swallows them down, and that indeed has the real enjoyment of them, the highest of all, though but for a moment, and then with heroic self-sacrifice makes them over to another power. Straightway the same game is repeated a second, a third, a thousandth time. I never yet heard it said that any self-tormenting anch.o.r.et had courage enough altogether to forgo the pleasure of eating, even though he stinted himself to bread. Indeed kind Nature has taken such good care of her children, that it is next to impossible."

"A very just and profound remark!" exclaimed his neighbour.

"We see too," continued the dissertator, "what high importance nature has attacht to these processes of devouring, eating, chewing, and swallowing, and how in every sphere of existence they have been her main end and aim. What would become of all the animals upon the earth, of all the birds that roam through the air, and all the swarms of greater and lesser creatures that people the waters and the sea, unless every one of them had received a bill, payable at sight, upon his neighbour. What would they live on, if they did not live on one another? or where forsooth would they find room to live? Is not the world perpetually oscillating between the two great works of producing and of devouring? The king of the creation, man, stands at the summit, as the crown and the final object of all these multiform guests. Those his subalterns, who have an a.s.signment either one upon the other, or upon the vegetable world, look up to him with reverential awe: for it is not merely one thing or another, not merely beasts or vegetables, not merely fishes or birds, no, almost everything without exception he turns into food, making all cla.s.ses of his subjects the sources of his happiness. It is only from his own kind, and from a few which serve him as his immediate va.s.sals, or the flesh of which, whether from prejudice or in reality, does not taste agreeably, that he abstains. By means of fire, that performs his bidding, out of strong essences, b.u.t.ter, oil, and spices, vegetables and flesh, all artfully mingled and chemically prepared, he concocts the most extraordinary combinations to please his palate. While the eye is weeping at top, and the brain above it is brooding over touching thoughts, or kindling itself and the heart with inspiring ones, while the nose inhaling hyacinthine odours awakens visions of sweet desire in the imagination, the mouth below is already l.u.s.ting and licking its lips after the venison or the liver pasty that is carried by. The sentimental young lady feeds her pigeons with pathetical grace; and the very mouth which lisps the prettiest verses and most moving idyls to them, will swallow the same innocent creatures by and by with exquisite relish. Could animals make observations as we do, and were a poet some day to rise up amongst them, in what strange colours would he represent man!"

"Truly," said his friend, "such a jest, thus retorted upon mankind, would be extremely amusing."

"We are fond of boasting of our universality," counsellor Helbach went on, "and yet in the very art in which Nature herself has so manifestly intended us to be universal, I mean in that of eating, many people scorn to become so, and fancy it is more dignified to treat this whole branch of knowledge with contempt. And yet the flocks of birds of pa.s.sage, the shoals of wandering fishes, come from distant regions, flying and swimming into our nets, for the mere pleasure of our palates; and the fruits of every climate, of every soil, of every quarter of the globe, blend into enjoyment within us. Who does not perceive in an oyster, if at least he is gifted with a true sense for it, the might and the freshness of the sea! O asparagus, he that has not the wit to enjoy thee, can know nothing of the mysteries which the dreaming world of plants reveals to us! Can one understand anything of the history of the world or of poetry, if one is a stranger to all these natural elementary feelings, and incapable of doing justice to the worth of a snipe, or even of a turbot?"

The other guests had already retired; the dinner was quite over; and only counsellor Helbach and his two nearest and most intimate friends were still sitting engaged in this and the like conversation.

"I am quite surprised," one of them began, "at the buoyant youthful spirit which you still retain, at your jovial animation, your lively poetical playfulness. All the rest of us have grown so old, and the weight of years presses so heavily upon us, while you are still jesting, and pleasure has lost none of its freshness or charms with you."

"We are all alone now," said the counsellor, "and I may therefore speak more from my heart to such old friends. It is true, this sensual enjoyment gives me pleasure, and will console me at times for the want of much: but I am not the frivolous person you take me for, perhaps never was so. Almost everybody has a mask; and this is mine. I move about in it lightly and with ease, and so most people take it for my real character. My youth was a very sad one: my parents displayed all their weaknesses, their extravagance and ostentation, so glaringly to me and to all the world, that I could not look upon them with esteem; and this to a young man is of all feelings the most terrible. Poverty and distress, privations of every kind may be borne much more easily: but a calamity like mine crushes the heart before it is yet grown up.

I had to play the part of a rich man, to squander money, to give myself airs. When one puts on the semblance of anything for a time, it will soon become a portion of our nature. Imitate a stutterer for a while, and you will have to keep diligent watch over yourself not to stammer in earnest. I fell in love, and was on the point of changing into a totally different person; for my pa.s.sion was sincere and ardent. But new distress. The n.o.ble being who soon became my wife, could never give me her heart. The strongest pa.s.sion must die away when it finds no return; and in such a case a man has done enough, if this finest feeling of his nature do not turn into hatred and malice.

For myself I was thrown back by this into my apparent frivolity: and not to make a show of my unhappiness, like my wife, who, though otherwise admirable, gave way too much to this weakness, I abandoned myself to riotous conviviality, turbulent pleasures, and unprofitable society. There is often a spirit of defiance in us, having something of n.o.bleness in it, and not utterly condemnable, which withholds strong characters from reforming and improving, notwithstanding all the admonitions of conscience. The more unhappy I felt myself, the more I acted happiness. After my son was born, my wife began to shun me altogether, and would often wilfully misunderstand me. She devoted all her affection and care to her child, lived only for him, and brought him up to be so capricious and headstrong, that she herself was the greatest sufferer by his faults, and yet had not strength of mind enough to eradicate the fatal perverseness, which she herself had first fostered in him. My advice was not listened to: it had been taken for granted that I could no more love the child, than appreciate and esteem the mother. My heart bled; and yet I could not interfere authoritatively, unless I would consent to be regarded by her and by the whole world as a monster, being already called a tyrant, unfeeling, and frivolous, and having been so long wont to give up the point that I often lookt on myself as such. Thus my son was bred up as a stranger to me, with all his feelings purposely and studiously alienated from me: but his over-weak, too pa.s.sionately fond mother was no gainer thereby; for she likewise lost his depraved heart, over which, when the boy was grown up, she had not the slightest influence.

How reckless and unmanageable he has been, you well know; how wretched his mother has become, is notorious; but my life too, my friends, is a lost one."

A servant came hastily in, and told the counsellor he must go home immediately: for something of great importance had happened.

The wife of counsellor Helbach was sitting in her bedroom, which only let in a faint dim light from the court. Her tear-worn eyes were stedfastly fixt on an open gospel; she read devoutly, and prayed.

Suddenly she heard a noise; her servant was pusht forcibly back by some one whom he was trying to keep away; the door was thrust open, and a young man threw himself impetuously at her feet, seized her hand in her fright and covered it with kisses, while a hot flood of tears gusht from his eyes. It was not till after a while that the mother recognized the son whom she had deemed lost. Her strong emotions overcame her: she askt: "Whence comest thou?... stand up ... my unhappy child come to my arms...." More she could not say.

"You do not cast me off, you do not abhor me?" cried the youth in a trance of grief: "Oh G.o.d! have I deserved that a single spark of love for me should yet linger in this n.o.ble heart! Am I worthy of a single look from her!"

They continued long closely embraced, and quite unable to speak. "But mother," the young man said at length, "can you hold the monster in your arms, to your heart, who, when he last saw you--"

"No, my son, my beloved son, do not call back that horrible moment, which we must forget;" so the mother stammered out. "I too know now that I did you injustice then; the girl you loved is worthy of your love, as has been proved since. I myself had not taught you sufficiently to controul your pa.s.sions. Let that hour vanish for ever like a painful dream from our lives. But whence comest thou? where hast thou been living all this time?"

They sat down; they both tried to regain their self-possession and calmness in this sudden change from sorrow to joy. The young man related--while from time to time he again embraced his beloved mother, or kist her hands--how after that fearful moment he had roamed about in despair without any plan or view; how, when he was dest.i.tute of all means of subsistence, finding himself near the mountains, he had made up his mind to apply to Herr Balthasar, in the chance of obtaining support from him. Hearing however of his singular peculiarities, and how difficult it was to gain admittance to him, he had altered his plan, formed an acquaintance with his overseer, Edward, under the a.s.sumed name of William Lorenz, and been taken into the house as secretary. To see his beloved, who was travelling in the neighbourhood, he had left his post, returned, and again gone away on being alarmed by hearing that his mother was coming to visit her kinsman.

"This very day," he concluded, "I met a traveller, a Hungarian, who was come in haste from the mountains, and who told me a very important piece of news. I was on my way hither to throw myself at your feet, whether you would forgive me or no, when I met him in the next town.

Do not be too much shockt ... Herr Balthasar is no more ... he died suddenly in a fit, without having made a will, as the stranger said he knew for certain. The house, the little town, the whole neighbourhood are in the utmost confusion. O my mother, we may all be happy, we may all live affectionately together, if you will believe in my repentance and reformation, if we can persuade my father to a.s.sent to the plan I have to propose to him. I know you will now no longer refuse your consent to my marriage with Caroline: the objection that we were both of us so poor, is now done away: we are become too rich, far too much so, to trust ourselves with all this wealth."

When their spirits were grown calm, and every thing had been explained, a servant was sent after the counsellor, who came home in a more serious and susceptible mood than was his wont. How great was his astonishment at having to embrace his lost son, reformed and become a reasonable being! He was quite unprepared for so joyful a shock. His wife too received him with more confidence and affection: the death of the beloved of her youth had affected her deeply.

Thus for the first time this family was united and happy, and amid their sorrow felt a pure joy in the prospect of a comfortable and prosperous future. The old man, who resolved to amend after the example of his son, and to pa.s.s the remainder of his life more decorously, agreed, even without any persuasion, to make over the uncontrouled management of the property legally to his son, who was now of age. It was settled that the mother and son should go first to their new estate, to arrange every thing, and that Caroline should follow soon after, and become his bride: the counsellor himself preferred living still in his native town, and merely visiting his family occasionally in the summer.

"Thus," he concluded, "we may still restore a household that was almost lost, and raise it above what it ever was by mutual affection and unity. My annuity is more than enough to support me; and should it fall short, as I think can hardly happen, my son will a.s.sist me with a small contribution."

Up in the mountains everything was now quiet. Balthasar, as well as his treacherous old friend, was in his grave. William, as he had formerly been called, arrived there with his mother to take possession of the estate. The mayor and Edward gave everything up to him; and when the surrender was completed, and Edward was left alone with the mother and son, William thus interrupted their silent meditations: "Now we are all among friends, my dear Edward, and I may talk with perfect frankness to you, and shew my grat.i.tude, if you choose so to call it, for your former kindness. One night, when I was here, and had been copying papers till very late, I was lockt into the anteroom; the door had been fastened on the outside, and I did not like to make a noise and call up the servants, more especially as Herr Balthasar used to be much annoyed and worried by any disturbance. During the night, while I kept perfectly still, I heard the unhappy old man walking to and fro in his room, sometimes sighing heavily, sometimes moaning and wailing as he talkt to himself. They were not merely broken sounds and exclamations; but it seemed to be his custom to talk over sundry events of his life, as if he was speaking to some invisible person.

Thus I heard the story of his youth, of his intolerable woes, but at the same time of his love for Edward, and what part of his fortune he meant to leave him. The chief thing however, and what toucht me most, was to learn that Rose was not his adopted, but his real daughter. His self-reproaches, his lamentations over her deceast mother, his bursts of pity for Rose, were heart-rending. Now then, my beloved mother and my dear Edward, what remains for us to do? Our conscience, if we consult it honestly, declares that Rose is his true rightful heir, and ought to have the largest part of his fortune."

After this declaration his mother treated the lovely girl as a beloved daughter; and on the same day on which William celebrated his wedding, Edward had also the happiness of receiving Rose as his bride. The fortune was divided; Edward continued to manage all the most important affairs; and a happy joyful family inhabited and enlivened the old house, which lost its gloomy character, and often resounded with music, songs, and dancing, to the delight of all the inhabitants of the little town.