CONCLUSION.
It was not yet night, when the three joyous people reached Villeneuveand took their dinner. The miller seated himself in an arm-chair withhis pipe and took a little nap. The betrothed went out of the town armin arm, out on the carriage way, under the bush-grown rocks, to thedeep bluish-green lake. Sombre Chillon, with its grey walls and heavytowers, mirrored itself in the clear water; but still nearer lay thelittle island, with its three acacias, and it looked like a bouquet onthe lake.
"How charming it must be there!" said Babette; she felt again thegreatest desire to visit it, and this wish could be immediatelyfulfilled; for a boat lay on the shore and the rope which fastened it,was easy to untie. As no one was visible, from whom they could askpermission, they took the boat without hesitation, for Rudy could rowwell. The oars skimmed like the fins of a fish, over the pliant water,which is so yielding and still so strong; which is all back to carry,but all mouth to engulph; which smiles--yes, is gentleness itself, andstill awakens terror--and is so powerful in destroying. The rapidcurrent soon brought the boat to the island; they stepped on land.There was just room enough for the two to dance.
Rudy swung Babette three times around, and then they seated themselveson the little bench, under the acacias, looked into each other's eyes,held each other by the hand, and everything around them shone in thesplendour of the setting sun. The forests of fir-trees on themountains became of a pinkish lilac aspect, the colour of bloomingheath, and where the bare rocks were apparent, they glowed as if theywere transparent. The clouds in the sky were radiant with a red glow;the whole lake was like a fresh flaming rose leaf. As the shadowsarose to the snow-covered mountains of Savoy, they became dark blue,but the uppermost peak seemed like red lava and pointed out for amoment, the whole range of mountains, whose masses arose glowing fromthe bosom of the earth.
It seemed to Rudy and Babette, that they had never seen such an alpineglow. The snow-covered Dent-du-Midi, had a lustre like the full moon,when it rises to the horizon.
"So much beauty, so much happiness!" they both said.
"Earth can give me no more," said Rudy, "an evening hour like this isa whole life! How often have I felt as now, and thought that ifeverything should end suddenly, how happily have I lived! How blessedis this world! The day ended, a new one dawned and I felt that it wasstill more beautiful! How bountiful is our Lord, Babette!"
"I am so happy!" said she.
"Earth can give me no more!" exclaimed Rudy.
The evening bells resounded from the Savoy and Swiss mountains; thebluish-black Jura arose in golden splendour towards the west.
"God give you that which is most excellent and best, Rudy!" saidBabette.
"He will do that," answered Rudy, "to-morrow I shall have it!To-morrow you will be entirely mine! Mine own, little, lovely wife!"
"The boat!" cried Babette at the same moment.
The boat, which was to convey them back, had broken loose and wassailing from the island.
"I will go for it!" said Rudy. He threw off his coat, drew off hisboots, sprang in the lake and swam towards the boat.
The clear, bluish-grey water of the ice mountains, was cold and deep.Rudy gave but a single glance and it seemed as though he saw a goldring, rolling, shining and sporting--he thought on his lost engagementring--and the ring grew larger, widened into a sparkling circle andwithin it shone the clear glacier; all about yawned endless deepchasms; the water dropped and sounded like a chime of bells, and shonewith bluish-white flames. He saw in a second, what we must say in manylong words. Young hunters and young girls, men and women, who hadonce perished in the glacier, stood there living, with open eyes andsmiling mouth; deep below them chimed from buried towns the peal ofchurch bells; under the arches of the churches knelt the congregation;pieces of ice formed the organ pipes, and the mountain stream playedthe organ. On the clear transparent ground sat the Ice-Maiden; sheraised herself towards Rudy, kissed his feet, and the coldness ofdeath ran through his limbs and gave him an electric shock--ice andfire. He could not perceive the difference.
"Mine, mine!" sounded around him and within him.
"I kissed you, when you were young, kissed you on your mouth! Now Ikiss your feet, you are entirely mine!"
He vanished in the clear blue water.
Everything was still; the church bells stopped ringing; the last tonesdied away with the splendour of the red clouds.
"You are mine!" sounded in the deep. "You are mine!" sounded from onhigh, from the infinite.
How happy to fly from love to love, from earth to heaven!
A string broke, a cry of grief was heard, the icy kiss of deathconquered; the prelude ended; so that the drama of life mightcommence, discord melted into harmony.--
Do you call this a sad story?
Poor Babette! For her it was a period of anguish.
The boat drifted farther and farther. No one on shore knew that thelovers were on the island. The evening darkened, the clouds loweredthemselves; night came. She stood there, solitary, despairing,moaning. A flash of lightning passed over the Jura mountains, overSwitzerland and over Savoy. From all sides flash upon flash oflightning, clap upon clap of thunder, which rolled continuously manyminutes. At times the lightning was vivid as sunshine, and you coulddistinguish the grape vines; then all became black again in the darknight. The lightning formed knots, ties, zigzags, complicated figures;it struck in the lake, so that it lit it up on all sides; whilst thenoise of the thunder was made louder by the echo. The boat was drawnon shore; all living objects sought shelter. Now the rain streameddown.
"Where can Rudy and Babette be in this frightful weather!" said themiller.
Babette sat with folded hands, with her head in her lap, mute withsorrow, with screaming and bewailing.
"In the deep water," said she to herself, "he is as far down as theglaciers!"
She remembered what Rudy had related to her of his mother's death, ofhis preservation, and how he was withdrawn death-like, from the cleftsof the glacier. "The Ice-Maiden has him again!"
There was a flash of lightning, as dazzling as the sunlight on thewhite snow. Babette started up; at this instant, the sea rose like aglittering glacier; there stood the Ice-Maiden majestic, pale, blue,shining, and at her feet lay Rudy's corpse. "Mine!" said she, and thenall around was fog and night and streaming water.
"Cruel!" moaned Babette, "why must he die, now that the day of ourhappiness approached. God! Enlighten my understanding! Enlighten myheart! I do not understand thy ways! Notwithstanding all thyomnipotence and wisdom, I still grope in the darkness."
God enlightened her heart. A thought like a ray of mercy, her lastnight's dream in all its vividness flashed through her; she rememberedthe words which she had spoken: "the wish for the best for herself andRudy."
"Woe is me! Was that the sinful seed in my heart? Did my dreamforetell my future life? Is all this misery for my salvation? Me,miserable one!"
Lamenting, sat she in the dark night. In the solemn stillness, soundedRudy's last words; the last ones he had uttered: "Earth has no morehappiness to give me!" She had heard it in the fullness of her joy,she heard it again in all the depths of her sorrow.
* * * * * * *
A couple of years have passed since then. The lake smiles, the coastsmiles; the vine branches are filled with ripe grapes; the steamboatsglide along with waving flags and the pleasure boats float over thewatery mirror, with their two expanded sails like white butterflies.The railroad to Chillon is opened; it leads into the Rhone valley;strangers alight at every station; they arrive with their red coveredguide books and read of remarkable sights which are to be seen. Theyvisit Chillon, they stand upon the little island, with its threeacacias--out on the lake--and they read in the book about thebetrothed ones, who sailed over one evening in the year 1856;--of thedeath of the bridegroom, and: "it was not till the next morning, thatthe despairing shrieks of the bride were heard on the coast!"
The book does not tell, however, of Babette's quiet life with herfather; not in the mill, where strangers now dwell, but in thebeautiful house, near the railway station. There she looks from thewindow many an evening and gazes over the chestnut trees, upon thesnow mountains, where Rudy once climbed. She sees in the evening hoursthe alpine glow--the children of the Sun encamp themselves above, andrepeat the song of the wanderer, whose mantle the whirlwind tore off,and carried away: "it took the covering but not the man."
There is a rosy hue on the snow of the mountains; there is a rosy huein every heart, where the thought dwells, that: "God always gives usthat which is best for us!" but it is not always revealed to us, as itonce happened to Babette in her dream.
THE END.
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