Part 1 (1/2)
The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano.
by Ludwig Tieck.
THE OLD MAN OF THE MOUNTAIN.
The name of Herr Balthasar was well known throughout the whole hill-country: not a child but had heard of his vast riches, and had some story to tell of him. Everybody too loved and honoured him; for his bounty was as great as his wealth: but at the same time he was viewed with fear; for he harast both himself and others by a number of strange whims which no one could understand; and his moodiness, his silent reserve, were especially irksome to those who were nearest about him. No person had seen him smile for many years; he scarcely ever came out of his large house on the hill above the little mountain-town, nearly the whole of which belonged to him: its inhabitants too were almost all his dependents, whom he had drawn thither to work in his manufactories, his mines, and his alum pits.
Thus through his means this small spot was very thickly peopled, and enlivened by the greatest activity. Waggons and horses were continually moving to and fro; and the clatter of the working machinery was mixt up with the roar of waters, and with the various noises from the pounding and smelting-houses. The smoke of the coals however, the steam from the pits, and the black heaps of dross and slag piled up on high all around, gave the gloomy sequestered valley a still more dismal appearance; so that no one who travelled for the sake of seeking out and enjoying the beauties of nature, would have any mind to linger there.
Among the mult.i.tude of persons who in consequence of his large undertakings and the variety of his concerns were employed by old Herr Balthasar, none seemed to enjoy his confidence in so high a degree as Edward, the head overseer of his mines and manufactories, and the manager of his accounts. He was about thirty years old, tall and of a fine figure, had always something sprightly and good-humoured on his lips, and thus formed a striking contrast to his morose monosyllabic master, who had grown old before his time, and whose withered, wrinkled features, with the faint sad look from his hollow eyes, were no less repulsive to all, than Edward's cheerful frankness was attractive of confidence and affection.
It was still very early on a summer morning when Edward was looking thoughtfully down into the smoking valley: the sun lay behind a thick ma.s.s of clouds; and the mists that were travelling along the bottom, and mingled with the black vapours from the steaming pits, checkt his view, and wrapt the landscape in a kind of grey veil. He mused over his youth, over the plans he had once formed, and then thought how, contrary to them all, he had become fixt in this melancholy solitude, which, as he was already verging on the maturity of manhood, he probably would never quit again. While he was thus losing himself in his meditations, young William hurried by him, fully equipt as it seemed for a journey, without even bidding him goodbye. The young man started as in pa.s.sing he observed Edward standing there, and he looked very loth to meet his questions.
”How now?” said Edward; ”are you already leaving us again, young man, after all the entreaties and persuasions it cost us both but three weeks ago to prevail on our master to take you into his house, and after he has just forgiven you your sudden departure the other day?”
”I must begone!” cried the young man: ”do not stop me! I must submit to appear ungrateful; but I cannot help it.”
”Without speaking to our master?” replied Edward; ”without leave of absence? What are we to think of you? Besides Herr Balthasar will want you; for there is no one here just now to take your post of secretary.”
”My dearest sir,” exclaimed the young man uneasily, ”if you knew my situation, you would not blame or think ill of me.”
”Has our master offended you? have you any ground of complaint?”
”No, no! quite the contrary!” cried the young man impetuously; ”the old gentleman is kindness itself; I appear to be base and good-for-nothing; but I have no other choice. Make the best excuse for me that your good nature and your conscience will let you.”
”Be a man!” said Edward, giving him his hand and holding him fast: ”you may earn a maintenance here, and may lay the foundations of your fortune hereafter: do not a second time thus wantonly trifle away your master's confidence and mine. We took you in, when you came to us without a character, without any recommendation, almost without a name: Herr Balthasar departed for your sake from all his rules, which till then had always been inviolable; I have in a manner pledged myself for you: are you resolved to reward our confidence in this way, and to run thus rashly into suspicion? And can you hope that a month hence or later you will be received among us again?”
The young man was much distrest, but tore himself forcibly away, and cried: ”I know it too well, that I am closing this home, in which everything has gone so well with me, in which I have felt so happy, for ever against me. Misery and want await me, and the bitterest punishments for the thoughtlessness of my youth. But who can avoid his destiny? When a chariot is rus.h.i.+ng headlong down a precipice, no human strength can arrest it.”
”But if you have any sense of honour,” answered Edward, ”if you would not leave us all at a loss what to make of you, you ought to stay now at all events; for I am quite unable to conceive what power can be driving you away from us thus suddenly. You know, the most expensive and valuable cloths in our magazine have been purloined day after day; and though this has been going on so long we have not been able to get any trace of the offender.”
”I must put up even this suspicion,” said William with a quick blush.
”There is no saving me now, and I have nothing more to lose: nor do I deserve the good opinion of any honest man, be he even the meanest of my brethren.”
After these mysterious words the young man hurried away, without even looking round again. Edward followed him with his eyes, and observed how he bent his steps hastily toward the little town, ran almost at full speed through the streets, and turned into a footpath on the other side, to climb up a steep rock. He there lost sight of him in the mountain solitude.
The mist meanwhile had somewhat broken, and the little dells with their trees and bushes were seen rising out of it, like green ilands, illumined by the morning sun, with ever and anon a house or hut half hidden by leaves leaning against the side of the hill.
An old miner, who worked a good way off in the pits belonging to the prince, came up now very much out of humour to Edward. ”Another run over here to no purpose!” he cried peevishly: ”I wanted to speak to the young shatter-brained jackanapes; and now I hear from the smelting-lads down in the town, that he has just been scampering through it, and not a soul can tell where he is gone.”
”What business have you with him, friend Conrad?” asked Edward.
”What business should one have with young chaps such as he!” replied the cross old man. ”There have I had to buy him a wonderful book about mines over yonder, of the white-headed master miner who is as old as the hills, and who has been blind these three years: the marvellous grey-beard copied the book ages ago, when he was young and had a younker's itching for knowing more than his neighbours, from the ma.n.u.script of a travelling Tyrolese, and took the trouble of scratching likenesses of all the foolish pictures in it. Now however that he is blind, he can't see to read it; so I have bought it for young master Lorenz, our William here; and lo! the c.o.xcomb is clean over the mountains.”
”What does the little book contain?” said Edward.
”Only look into it yourself,” continued the other: ”all sorts of stories about ghosts and spectres; clews for finding out the places over there in the high mountains, where one meets with gold and diamonds at the bottom of caves and sand pits in spots which mortal man has seldom set foot in. There are a number of marks, they say, which in ages of yore were carved on the hard rocks or written on the banks of the brooks: certain knowing Italians notcht and scored the places some two or three hundred years ago, and stuck in pieces of tin and pebbles which they laid after a fas.h.i.+on of their own: now however, the old man tells me, they are hard to find; for the mountain-spirits and goblins, who hate being disturbed, have shoved away many of the stones that might have served for signposts, and have utterly deranged their order.”
Edward laught as he turned over the leaves of the strange book.
”None of your scoffing, young gentleman!” cried the old man: ”so you too are one of their super-clever new-fangled wiseacres. But if you were once to see what I have seen, when all alone far down underground, cut off from the heavens and the whole world, with no light but my lamp, and no sound but my own hammer within hearing, and the terrible tall spirit of the mountain came to me; I'd wager you would twist your face into some other look, and would not laugh as you do here where the merry morning sun is s.h.i.+ning on you. Everybody can grin; but seeing is the lot of few; and still fewer can behave like men, when their eyes are thrown open.”