A Day's Ride Part 45

"Who is ever completely happy?" says the sage; and with too good reason is the doubt expressed. Here, one might suppose, was a situation abounding with the most pleasurable incidents. To have escaped a duel, and come out with honor and credit from the issue; to have re-found not only my missing money, but to have my suspicions relieved as to those whose honest name was dear to me, and whose discredit would have darkened many a bright hope of life,--these were no small successes; and yet--I shame to own it--my delight in them was dashed by an incident so small and insignificant that I have scarce courage to recall it. Here it is, however: While I was taking a kindly farewell of my military friends, hand-shaking and protesting interminable friends.h.i.+ps, I saw, or thought I saw, the Prince, with even a more affectionate warmth, making his adieus to Tintefleck! If he had not his arm actually round her waist, there was certainly a white leather cavalry glove curiously attached to her side, and one of her cheeks was deeper colored than the other, and her bearing and manner seemed confused so that she answered, when spoken to, at cross-purposes.

"How did you come by this brooch, Tintefleck? I never saw it before."

"Oh, is it not pretty? It is a violet; and these leaves, though green, are all gold."

"Answer me, girl! who gave it thee?" said I, in the voice of Oth.e.l.lo.

"Must I tell?" murmured she, sorrowfully.

"On the spot,--confess it!"

"It was one who bade me keep it till he should bring me a prettier one."

"I do not care for what he said, or what you promised. I want his name.'*

"And that I was never to forget him till then,--never."

"Do you say this to irritate and offend me, or do you prevaricate out of shame?" said, I angrily.

"Shame!" repeated she, haughtily.

"Ay, shame or fear."

"Or fear! Fear of what, or of whom?"

"You are very daring to ask me. And now, for the last time, Tintefleck,--for the last time, I say, who gave you this?"

As I said these words we had just reached the borders of a little rivulet, over which we were to cross by stepping-stones. Vaterchen was, as usual, some distance behind, and now calling to us to wait for him.

She turned at his cry, and answered him, but made no reply to me.

This continued defiance of me overcame my temper altogether, sorely pushed as it was by a stupid jealousy, and, seizing her wrist with a strong grasp, I said, in a slow, measured tone, "I insist upon your answer to my question, or--"

"Or what?"

"That we part here, and forever."

"With all my heart. Only remember one thing," said she, in a low, whispering voice: "you left me once before,--you quitted me, in a moment of temper, just as you threaten it now. Go, if you will, or if you must; but let this be our last meeting and last parting."

"It is as such I mean it,--good-bye!" I sprang on the stepping-stone as I spoke, and at the same instant a glittering object splashed into the stream close to me. I saw it, just as one might see the l.u.s.tre of a trout's back as it rose to a fly. I don't know what demon sat where my heart ought to have been, but I pressed my hat over my eyes, and went on without turning my head.

CHAPTER x.x.xIX. ON THE EDGE OF A TORRENT

Very conflicting and very mixed were my feelings, as I set forth alone.

I had come well, very well, out of a trying emergency. I was neither driven to pretend I was something other than myself, with grand surroundings, and ill.u.s.trious belongings, nor had I masqueraded under a feigned name and a false history; but as Potts, son of Potts the apothecary, I had carried my head high and borne myself creditably.

_Magna est Veritas_, indeed! I am not so sure of the _praevalebit semper_, but, a.s.suredly, where it does succeed, the success is wonderful.

Heaven knows into what tortuous entanglements might my pa.s.sion for the "imaginative"--I liked this name for it--have led me, had I given way to one of my usual temptations. In more than one of my flights have I found myself carried up into a region, and have had to sustain an atmosphere very unsuited to my respiration, and now, with the mere prudence of walking on the _terra firma_, and treading the common highway of life, I found I had reached my goal safely and speedily. Flowers do not a.s.sume to be shrubs, nor shrubs affect to be forest trees; the limestone and granite never pretend that they are porphyry and onyx. Nature is real, and why should man alone be untruthful and unreal? If I liked these reflections, and tried to lose myself in them, it was in the hope of shutting out others less gratifying; but, do what I would, there, before me, arose the image of Catinka, as she stood at the edge of the rivulet, that stream which seemed to cut me off from one portion of my life, and make the past irrevocably gone forever.

I am certain I was quite right in parting with that girl. Any respectable man, a father of a family, would have applauded me for severing this dangerous connection. What could come of such a.s.sociation except unhappiness? "Potts," would the biographer say,--"Potts saw, with the unerring instinct of his quick perception, that this young creature would one day or other have laid at his feet the burnt-offering of her heart, and then, what could he have done? If Potts had been less endowed with genius, or less armed in honesty, he had not antic.i.p.ated this peril, or, foreseeing, bad undervalued it. But he both saw and feared it. How very differently had a libertine reasoned out this situation!"

And then I thought how wicked I might have been,--a monster of crime and atrocity. Every one knows the sensation of lying snugly a-bed on a stormy night, and, as the rain plashes and the wind howls, drawing more closely around him the coverlet, and the selfish satisfaction of his own comfort, heightened by all the possible hards.h.i.+ps of others outside. In the same benevolent spirit, but not by any means so reprehensible, is it pleasant to imagine oneself a great criminal, standing in the dock, to be stared at by a horror-struck public, photographed, shaved, prison costumed, exhorted, sentenced, and tien, just as the last hammer has driven the last nail into the scaffold, and the great bell has tolled out, to find that you are sitting by your wood fire, with your curtain drawn, your uncut volume beside you, and your peculiar weakness, be it tea, or sherry-cobbler, at your elbow. I constantly take a "rise" out of myself in this fas.h.i.+on, and rarely a week goes over that I have not either poisoned a sister or had a shot at the Queen. It is a sort of intellectual Russian bath, in which the luxury consists in the exaggerated alternative between being scalded first and rolled in the snow afterwards. It was in this figurative snow I was now disporting myself, pleasantly and refres.h.i.+ngly, and yet remorse, like a st.u.r.dy dun, stood at my gate, and refused to go away.

Had I, indeed, treated her harshly,--had I rejected the offer of her young and innocent heart? Very puzzling and embarra.s.sing question this, and especially to a man who had nothing of the c.o.xcomb in his nature, none of that prompting of self-love that would suggest a vain reply.

I felt that it was very natural _she_ should have been struck by the attractive features of my character, but I felt this without a particle of conceit. I even experienced a sense of sorrow as I thought over it, just as a conscientious siren might have regretted that nature had endowed her with such a charming voice; and this duty--for it was a duty--discharged, I bethought me of my own future. I had a mission, which was to see Kate Herbert and give her Miss Crofton's letter. In doing so, I must needs throw off all disguises and mockeries, and be Potts, the very creature she sneered at, the man whose mere name was enough to suggest a vulgar life and a sn.o.b's nature! No matter what misery it may give, I will do it manfully. _She_ may never appreciate--the world at large may never appreciate--what n.o.ble motives were hidden beneath these a.s.sumed natures, mere costumes as they were, to impart more vigor and persuasiveness to sentiments which, uttered in the undress of Potts, would have carried no convictions with them. Play Macbeth in a paletot, perform Oth.e.l.lo in "pegtops," and see what effect you will produce! Well, my pretended station and rank were the mere gauds and properties that gave force to my opinions. And now to relinquish these, and be the actor, in the garish light of the noonday, and a shabby-genteel coat and hat! "I will do it," muttered I,--"I will do it, but the suffering will be intense!" When the prisoner sentenced to a long captivity is no more addressed by his name, but simply called No. 18, or 43, it is said that the shock seems to kill the sense of ident.i.ty with him, and that nothing more tends to that stolid air of indifference, that hopeless inactivity of feature, so characteristic of a prison life; in the very same way am I affected when limited to my Potts nature, and condemned to confine myself within the narrow bounds of that one small ident.i.ty. From what Prince Max has said at the _table d'hote_ at Bregenz, it was clear that Mrs. Keats had already learned I was not the young prince of the House of Orleans; but, in being disabused of one error, she seemed to have fallen into another; and it behoved me to explain that I was not a rope-dancer or a mountebank.

"She, too, shall know me in my Potts nature," said I; "she also shall recognize me in the 'majesty of myself.'" I was not very sure of what that was, but found it in Hegel.

And when I have completed this task, I will throw myself like a waif upon the waters of life. I will be that which the moment or the event shall make me,--neither trammelled by the past nor awed by the future.

I will take the world as the drama of a day. Were men to do this, what breadth and generosity would it impart to them! It is in self-seeking and advancement that we narrow our faculties and imprison our natures.

A man fancies he owns a palace and a demesne, but it is the palace that owns _him_, obliges him to maintain a certain state, live in a certain style, surrounded with certain observances, not one of which may be, perhaps, native to him. It is the poor man, who comes to visit and gaze on his splendors, who really enjoys them; _he_ sees them without one detracting influence,--not to say that in _his_ heart are no corroding jealousies of some other rich man, who has a finer Claude, or a grander Rubens. Instead, besides, of owning one palace and one garden, it is the universe he owns: the vast savannah is his race-ground; Niagara his own private cascade. My heart bounded with these buoyant fancies, and I stepped out briskly on my road. Now that I had made this vow of poverty to myself, I felt very light-hearted and gay. So long as a man is struggling for place and pre-eminence in life, how can he be generous, how even gracious? "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's ox," says the commandment, but surely it must have been your neighbor's before it was yours, and if you have striven for it, it is likely that you have coveted it. Now, I will covet nothing,--positively nothing,--and I will see if in this n.o.ble spirit there will not be a reward proportionately ample and splendid.

My road led through that wild and somewhat dreary valley by which the Upper Rhine descends, fed by many an Alpine stream and torrent, to reach the fertile plains of Germany. It was a desolate expanse of s.h.i.+ngle, with here and there little patches of oak scrub, or, at rare intervals, small enclosures of tillage, though how tilled, or for whom, it was hard to say, since not a trace of inhabitant could be seen, far or wide. Deep fissures, the course of many a mountain stream, cut the road at places, and through these the foot traveller had to pa.s.s on stepping-stones; while wheel carriages, descending into the chaos of rocks and stones, fared even worse, and incurred serious peril to spring and axle in the pa.s.sage. On the mountain-sides, indeed, some chalets were to be seen, very high up, and scarcely accessible, but ever surrounded with little tracts of greener verdure and more varied foliage. From these heights, too, I could hear the melodious ring of the bells worn by the cattle,--sure signs of peasant comfort. "Might not a man find a life of simple cares and few sorrows, up yonder?" asked I, as I gazed upward.

While I continued to look, the great floating clouds that soared on the mountain-top began to ma.s.s and to mingle together, thickening and darkening at every moment, and then, as though overweighted, slowly to descend, shutting out chalet and shady copse and crag, as they fell, on their way to the plain beneath. It was a grievous change from the bright picture a few moments back, and not the less disheartening, that the heavily charged mist now melted into rain, that soon fell in torrents.

With not a rock nor a shrub to shelter under, I had nothing for it but to trudge onward to the nearest village, wherever that might be. How speedily the slightest touch of the real will chase away the fict.i.tious and imaginary! No more dreams nor fancies now, as wet and soaked I plodded on, my knapsack seeming double its true weight, and my stick appearing to take root each time it struck the ground. The fog, too, was so dense that I was forced to feel my way as I went. The dull roar of the Rhine was the only sound for a long time; but this, at length, became broken by the cras.h.i.+ng noise of timber carried down by the torrents, and the louder din of the torrents themselves as they came tumbling down the mountain. I would have retraced my steps to Bregenz, but that I knew the places I had pa.s.sed dryshod in the morning would by this time have become impa.s.sable rivers. My situation was a dreary one, and not without peril, since there was no saying when or where a mountain cataract might not burst its way down the cliffs and sweep clean across the road towards the Rhine.

Had there been one spot to offer shelter, even the poorest and meanest, I would gladly have taken it, and made up my mind to await better weather; but there was not a bank, nor even a bush to cower under, and I was forced to trudge on. It seemed to me, at last, that I must have been walking many hours; but having no watch, and being surrounded with impenetrable fog, I could make no guess of the time, when, at length, a louder and deeper sound appeared to fill the air, and make the very mist vibrate with its din. The surging sound of a great volume of water, sweeping along through rocks and fallen trees, apprised me that I was nearing a torrent; while the road itself, covered with some inches of water, showed that the stream had already risen above its embankments.

There was real danger in this; light carriages--the great lumbering diligence itself--had been known to be carried away by these suddenly swollen streams, and I began seriously to fear disaster. Wading cautiously onward, I reached what I judged to be the edge of the torrent, and felt with my stick that the water was here borne madly onward, and at considerable depth. Though through the fog I could make out the opposite bank, and see that the stream was not a wide one, I plainly perceived that the current was far too powerful for me to breast without a.s.sistance, and that no single pa.s.senger could attempt it with safety. I may have stood half an hour thus, with the muddy stream surging over my ankles, for I was stunned and stupefied by the danger, when I thought I saw through the mist two gigantic figures looming through the fog, on the opposite bank. When and how they had come there, I knew not, if they were indeed there, and if these figures were not mere spectres of my imagination. It was not till having closed my eyes, and opening them again, I beheld the same objects, that I could fully a.s.sure myself of their reality.

CHAPTER XL. I AM DRAGGED AS A PRISONER TO FELDKIRCH

The two great figures I had seen looming through the fog while standing in the stream, I at last made out to be two hors.e.m.e.n, who seemed in search of some safe and fordable part of the stream to cross over. Their apparent caution was a lesson by which I determined to profit, and I stood a patient observer of their proceedings. At times I could catch their voices, but without distinguis.h.i.+ng what they said, and suddenly I heard a plunge, and saw that one had dashed boldly into the flood, and was quickly followed by the other. If the stream did not reach to their knees, as they sat, it was yet so powerful that it tested all the strength of the horses and all the skill of the riders to stem it; and as the water splashed and surged, and as the animals plunged and struggled, I scarcely knew whether they were fated to reach the bank, or be carried down in the current. As they gained about the middle of the stream, I saw that they were mounted gendarmes, heavy men with heavy equipments, favorable enough to stem the tide, but hopelessly incapable to save themselves if overturned. "Go back,--hold in,--go back! the water is far deeper here!" I cried out at the top of my voice; but either not hearing, or not heeding my warning, on they came, and, as I spoke, one plunged forward and went headlong down under the water, but, rising immediately, his horse struck boldly out, and, after a few struggles, gained the bank. The other, more fortunate, had headed up the stream, and reached the sh.o.r.e without difficulty.

With the natural prompting of a man towards those who had just overcome a great peril, I hastened to say how glad I felt at their safety, and from what intense fear their landing had rescued me; when one, a corporal, as his cuff bespoke, muttered a coa.r.s.e exclamation of impatience, and something like a malediction on the service that exposed men to such hazards, and at the same instant the other dashed boldly up the bank, and with a bound placed his horse at my side, as though to cut off my retreat.

"Who are you?" cried the corporal to me, in a stern voice.

"A traveller," said I, trying to look majestic and indignant.

"So I see; and of what nation?"

"Of that nation which no man insults with impunity."

"Russia?"

"No; certainly not,--England."

"Whence from last?"

"From Bregenz."

"And from Constance by Lindau?" asked he quickly, as he read from a slip of paper he had Just drawn from his belt.

I a.s.sented, but not without certain misgivings, as I saw so much was known as to my movements.