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Epilogue

ALIDE

DR. JULIUS STECK

"If it were not that I must play true to my clerical gown, Max, I could for very delight in the glory of this October afternoon caper one of my lately-learned waltzes on the roadside. Gods! what a gift life is on such a day as this! Do, you not feel this mountain air tingling like wine through your veins? My blood is all aglow within me--my heart is as light as flame." It was a rich, vibrant, sonorous voice, and yet it had a boyish ring of merriment that seemed in no wise to belong to the soberly-clad student who walked demurely by his companion's side through the quiet, shining meadows.

"Julius Steck!" exclaimed his comrade, who spoke with a lazy, good-humored drawl, "for the love of sport remember who and what you are. A learned young bachelor of divinity to begin by invoking the heathen gods,--to yearn after a waltz in the open fields, and a heart like flame, forsooth! a pretty thing to carry into a country parsonage to kindle a conflagration among the lasses!"

"Nay, Max," returned the other, "I will be grave enough when occasion requires. How could I so soon forget my last and dearest sweetheart behind us in the city,--the Minster of Strasburg? Is not this the first bright afternoon since early June that we two have not mounted at sunset to that spacious platform high above the dusky streets, and quaffed our Rhenish to the dying day? And you fancy that I will throw away a heart devoted to the loyal service of my Lady of the Cathedral on the first pair of apple-colored cheeks and china-blue eyes that we meet on the wayside? Besides," he added, with a sudden mock gravity, "do I look like a fellow to captivate a pretty damsel?" And he doffed his broad-brimmed clerical hat and looked full and squarely at Max.

Was the lad a consummate actor who could, assume at will whatever countenance he desired, or was this expression of sheepish pedantry natural to the possessor of that resonant voice? It must have been clever pantomime, for as Max saw it he burst into uncontrollable laughter, that resounded with jolly echoes through the responsive air. The outline of the face from brow to throat was delicate and strong as that of a young Greek god, and yet a ludicrous and almost homely effect was given by the sleek brown locks combed smoothly back from the temples and turned behind the ears, by the thickly-framed gold spectacles which obstructed any gleam from the dark eyes behind them, and, above all, by this prim look of mingled shrewdness and timidity. He was taller than his companion, but the proportions of his figure were concealed by the long black gown, which formed the principal part of his costume as a theological student.

"Capital, capital, Dr. Steck!" exclaimed Max, clapping his hand on the young bachelor's shoulder. "But make haste and cover your head, for in a few moments we shall be in sight of the parsonage. And yet I can hardly say whether you are best with or without that hideous plate of a hat. At any rate, I am not responsible for whatever happens while you are in my charge. I warn you beforehand that the girls are pretty and engaging, and as for them, if they can listen to--yes, or look with patience on--such an infernal Jesuitical milksop, I will wash my hands of them all."

They walked on for a few minutes in silence, Max with his hand still resting affectionately on Steck's shoulder, and Steck with his head upraised, eagerly inhaling the honeyed air of the harvest-fields, and, with the eyes of an artist rather than of a boy just turned twenty, gazing at the green and purple masses and sun-bathed outlines of the peaks that stood out against the pale gold sky. There was just enough breeze to make a continuous rustle and murmur in the glistening leaves overhead, and to send long-rolling ripples and waves of motion over the grass of the wide-lying meadows. A clear bird-carol now and then, the incessant all-pervading drone of the crickets, at intervals the merry laughter of voices in a far-away meadow, prolonged by the myriad echoes of the neighborhood,--these sweet out-door sounds were all that broke upon the ears of the two young men; and the gentleness, the peace, the unspeakable beauty of the October landscape seemed to gain upon them, and to overpower with quieting suggestions even the exuberant buoyancy of spirits natural to their age.

Max Waldstein was a genial, open-hearted fellow of two or three and twenty. A square, somewhat receding brow, wide blue eyes, a highly-colored complexion, a round, fair, curly head, set off with coarse and prominent ears, a large mouth, adorned with healthy white teeth, a thick, well-shaped nose, and a projecting jaw, overgrown with a reddish-yellow beard,--all these formed an excellent index to the mind and character of the young law-student, who had attached himself almost as to a girl to the magnetic, myriad-sided nature of his fellow-lodger, the boy-artist. New and unaccountable to plain Max were the mercurial moods, the exaltations and despondencies, the irrepressible, child-like delight occasioned by such simple things as a burst of sunlight on a cloudy day, the sudden, unexpected song of a bird, a glimpse of a fair woman-face, a rhyme of some old poet, a shade of color on some faded canvas, or, above all, the outlines and structure of Strasburg Cathedral. But Waldstein made no attempt to follow or fathom the caprices of his imaginative friend. Like many others in that grave old minster-shadowed city, he was led out of himself into an enthusiasm of admiration and affection for the brilliant, beautiful young favorite of the gods, who, bringing all the gifts, had burst upon Strasburg and taken up his abode there early in the preceding spring. Numberless were the holiday excursions planned by these two youthful heads and enjoyed with a wide circle of boon companions, the spice of such amusements being not unfrequently heightened by an escapade somewhat wilder than usual, an adventure of more than ordinary daring, on the part of the younger of the two. Max's only gift, a shrewd, practical sense, enabled him readily to discern the qualities of those around him, and a loyal, generous nature, unspoiled by affectation or envy, brought him into sympathy with men of far higher capacities than his own. With whimsical self-depreciation, he was forever wishing to display the endless talents and attractions of his comrade, who must be brought forth into the light at all costs, forgiven any mad prank, and allowed to follow his pleasure as he chose, in consideration of the halo about his head and the tenderness of his heart. "Let us make the most of the lad while he is with us," Waldstein would say; "such a youth is not for our little Strasburg circle of good fellows. What can he not do? What does he not adorn in touching? It rests but with himself to be the painter, the poet, the tragedian, the statesman--what do I know?--the genius of the age. Come, comrades, let us up to his room now, and drag him from his jurisprudence, and make a day of it on the river."

We all know that in later years neither the sweetest allurements nor the sharpest trials could swerve this royal nature from its chosen path of serenity and wisdom. But at this early period, with the fulness of so rich a life seething in his veins, in the first fresh wonder and delight, with every wreath of honor awaiting apparently but the reach of his outstretched hand to claim and bind it about his brow, who shall say that the intoxication did not mount to his exalted brain, engendering a boyish vanity and self-consciousness, sending through his frame an occasional thrill of not ignoble pride in the very wealth of his own personality?

For many weeks Waldstein had been trying to prevail upon his friend to accompany him to the parsonage, some six leagues beyond Strasburg, where he was wont to spend much of his leisure time, invariably descanting after his visit upon the hospitality of Pastor Duroc and his wife and the beauty of the country surrounding their home, and occasionally letting slip a significant allusion to the charms of the elder daughter, Rahel. But the boy had always an excuse for declining: he must go study the Cathedral, and work out the unexecuted conception of the architect's brain in leaving incomplete that bold and aerial spire; he must prepare himself for the approaching examination, and devote himself more assiduously to his ponderous volumes of jurisprudence, for which he had originally come to Strasburg; or now was the moment to saunter down to the river-side and add a few strokes to his sketch of the city at sunset. Finally, when Max had ceased to press the point, the capricious lad one morning proposed the visit himself. His delicate fancy had been aroused the previous evening by an exquisite prose idyl which he had read before he slept. It was a translation recently made of a story of English clerical life. The homely pathos, the quaint simplicity, the pleasing variety of natural incidents that enlivened the sprightly flow of the narrative, the healthy atmosphere that breathed of trim, inland, hawthorn-hedged meadows, all these wrought upon his lightly-moved spirit and gave him the desire to transport himself to kindred scenes. Early in the morning he burst into Waldstein's room with the "Vicar of Wakefield" in his hand.

"Read it at once!" he exclaimed; "there is art, there is nature! How many of our dreary German treatises cannot this little book outweigh with its searching insight, its na?f truthfulness! Here is a page of life that I have never studied,--never known. While I have been musing in the grim shadow of the Minster, and trying to animate the iron-handed heroes of a mediaeval age, what have I overlooked! The smiling fields, the endless minutiae of a thousand happy homes, the passions, the joys, the troubles, that surround me on every side. Max, dear Max, may I go with you to the Durocs'?"

Waldstein could scarcely refrain from smiling at the wistful tone in which the question was asked. It was like the lad to crave that as a grace which it was but a pleasure to confer. He had as many coaxing, affectionate tricks of voice and manner as a woman. Max assented with delight, and named that very day for the excursion. And now his comrade, full of odd freaks, begged to be allowed to go, not as the wild boy-artist of Strasburg, but as a serious student of these pious, pastoral lives. Thus was the harmless incognito contrived, and thus it was that Max was escorting his friend, disguised as a theological scholar and bearing the name of Dr. Julius Steck, to the home of the Durocs.

Steck was the first to interrupt the sweet quietness which was not silence. "How beautifully clear is this little mountain-brook alongside of us!" he said. "See, it has followed us all the way from the Drusenheim inn."

"I should rather say," answered Waldstein, "that we have followed it; and in truth it is the surest guide for us: as we keep along this path, bearing its channel always in sight, the first bend in its course will bring us in view of our goal."

A few paces more led them to the curve, and then only a single narrow field lay between them and the parsonage.

THE PARSONAGE

It looked more like an ancient farm-house than the home of the parish priest, and was separated by a considerable distance from the village church, whose humble spire and glittering vane peered above the clustered trees beyond. It seemed a very antique and weather-stained homestead, but wore rather the quaint picturesqueness that just precedes decay, than the actual dilapidation of ruin itself. It would have been hard to tell with what color it had originally been decorated, for it was now sunburned and rain-washed into a streaky, sombre gray, to which this gorgeous October light gave a certain mellow warmth of its own; and the walls were so covered with the glossy leaves of the ivy, the porch was so overgrown with the interlocked stems of the honeysuckle, that comparatively little of the dwelling itself was left bare. In front was a small, carefully-tended garden, where the autumn roses were glowing; but nearly all the adjacent grounds were devoted to what would have seemed the interests of a goodly farm; the gray old orchard rich with red and yellow globes twinkling among the branches or lying half buried in the soft turf below; the vine-trellises beyond, with their large, dusky leaves, bearing their splendid blue and golden-green fruitage freely in the open air; and on the other side of the house, the thriving kitchen-garden with its stripes of varied verdure,--all prosperously basking in the radiant sunshine of harvest-tide. Some of the windows were thrown open for the air and light to play through the dwelling; from one of them a white curtain, detached from its fastenings, was blowing. A perky little hen, with her brood close after her, was strutting along the garden-lane and pecking near the walls of the manse, but no other living creature seemed to be stirring about the premises.

"A queer, quiet old place it is," said Steck, taking in all the details at a glance.

"Yes," said Waldstein, dryly; "it is younger inside."

The gate was open, and they walked noiselessly through, frightening the hen and her young ones into a brisk trot towards the barnyard. They had almost reached the doorway before they saw, half reclining on a long wooden bench in the porch, the portly figure of the pastor, his face concealed by a large volume held up before his eyes.

"Good-evening, Father Duroc," cried Max.

Their host started, let fall his book from before him, and disclosed a jovial, weak, handsome face, but little marked by age, whose thick dark eyebrows and rosy coloring contrasted strikingly with the pure white of his unpowdered hair.

"I have taken you by surprise this time," said Waldstein, "and have brought my friend, Dr. Julius Steck, of Frankfort. He is a serious fellow, young as he looks; one after your own heart, an indefatigable student, who wishes thoroughly to examine our parochial customs before he enters upon his active duties."

"Welcome! welcome both!" said the pastor, heartily, giving each a hand. "Any friend of yours, Waldstein, has, you know, a double welcome, and Dr. Steck could not have found a better place to complete his studies than the oldest parsonage in Alsace, though the vicar says it himself."

"Tut! tut!" interrupted the pleased pastor. "I have but looked into such scant volumes as strayed across my path. But an apt and ardent scholar is my delight, and such a one is a rarity in these superficial days. Ah, Waldstein, your eyes are wandering after the lasses, I'll be bound. They have strolled off with the M?tterchen toward the brook-side to enjoy this bright afternoon. But we can have a good hour's chat in the library before they return."

"I see your drift," exclaimed the pastor. "Well, be off to the meadows, young gallant, and bring them safely home; they will all be glad to see thee. Meantime, this serious youth and I will discuss our graver matters."

Max, with a roguish glance at Steck, ran off like a dismissed schoolboy down the slope behind the house, and was almost immediately out of sight in the dip of the valley below. Steck, however, with his head full of the "Vicar of Wakefield," and possessing in the highest degree the artist's capacity to invest with interest the most commonplace of characters, was delighted at the prospect of a conversation with the Dr. Primrose of Sesenheim.

"I do not wonder, sir," he began, "that you have brought your literature to so attractive a seat. I, too, often make my studies in the open air; not that my eyes will wander from my beloved manuscript, but I fancy that the mind has there a larger scope, a clearer perception, a stronger energy of retention."

"Surely, surely," assented the pastor. "I am fully of your opinion, Dr. Steck. So, since it pleases you, we will take our seats here in the porch. At this genial season, the hospitality of my home extends far beyond the shelter of my roof-tree, over all these shining acres." And he waved his hand with a natural pride towards the smiling landscape.

"You are perhaps surprised," he went on, garrulously, "to find me so miserably quartered in a wealthy village and with a lucrative benefice. Long since, it has been promised me by the parish, and even by those in higher places, that the house shall be rebuilt; many plans have been already drawn, examined, and altered,--none of them altogether rejected, and none carried into execution. This has lasted so long that I scarcely know how to control my impatience."

"Perhaps," suggested Steck, "if you were to display a little impatience, you might sooner succeed in forcing them to pursue the affair more vigorously."

"Ah!" sighed the pastor, with an air of discouragement, "you do not know with what people I have to deal. The duke is away the better part of the year, hunting, traveling, killing time as he best may. Herr Klug, the former intendant, was anxious enough to promote the welfare of the parish. Indeed, it was he who proposed the renovation of the manse; then were the plans drawn and deliberated upon; but before we could come to any decision he was removed, to make way for a French successor, M. Gu?din. 'Well, K?thchen,' said I to Mother Duroc, 'we can congratulate ourselves now,--we shall soon have a spruce new parsonage when this active young fellow takes the lead.' 'Wait to whistle till you are out of the wood, Moritz,' said the prudent mother, and she was right. It was only the last new idea that M. Gu?din could seize with any interest. When he saw the many difficulties to be overcome, and heard of the many tastes to be consulted, it was too much for the Gallic genius, and he has long betaken himself to more congenial occupations."

"But your people," interposed Steck, highly amused at the old man's na?f confidence, "why should not they co-operate to secure their pastor a more comfortable home? Though for my part, sir, the beauty of this picturesque old farmstead, the thoroughly German character of its construction, please me so much that I should be loth to hear of a change."

"Ay, lad," returned the pastor, "it is well for you, who come and take a glance at the outside, to fall into ecstasies over the woodbine on the porch, the moss on the tiles, the wee diamonds set in the heavy gables that form our windows. But it is an inconvenient picturesqueness for the pastor, where a few stout beams of oak, some moderate-sized panes of glass, and a couple of serviceable chimneys might remedy all. But come in with me, and examine for yourself how we fare."

With these words he rose and led Steck into the house. They passed through a commodious hall, furnished like a room with rugs and seats, into the library, where the late sunshine was streaming. Steck was so delighted with the quaint wooden bookcases, the high mantel-shelf with its painted tiles, and the tokens on every side of the habitual presence of youth and womankind,--the flowers in the windows, the festoons of fresh ivy between the prettily-designed landscapes, the open harpsichord, with the last song still upon it, the charming disorder of the tables, scattered with books, writing-materials, sketching-crayons, and embroidery,--that he did not care to note that the deep-ledged windows were indeed somewhat out of date, the ceilings stained and smoked, and the furniture worn and shabby.

"I cannot help it, sir," he said, turning to the pastor with a deprecating smile, "but I think it all charming. And what a glorious outlook from this westward window!"

"Yes, yes," answered the pastor, a little testily, "the outlook is good enough; it is as fair a site as any in Alsace." And all his good humor returned as he leaned with his guest over the broad sill and looked out at the rich spread of vineyard, stream, and meadow, terminated by the gorgeous boundary of the Vosges, with their aerial outlines and indescribable luxuriance of tint glowing in the last rays of the sunsetting.

"Here be our saunterers coming along the road," said he, shading his eyes with his hand. "But where could they have left Alide?"

Steck looked at the figures advancing through the fields, and recognized Waldstein foremost, in apparently earnest colloquy with his companion, a tall, slender woman attired in sober colors. In his mind he immediately named her the charming Rahel, and could scarcely repress a smile at the staid, demure character of the attractions that had captivated his friend's fancy. A few paces behind them hastened a younger figure, with bright-colored ribbons flying and white skirt gleaming between the bushes and tree-trunks as she came along. She had loitered to gather some field-flowers; and as she almost ran forward to rejoin her companions, she seemed in Steck's eyes a very Ruth, with her blue and red blossoms in her hand, and her wide straw hat dangling from her head and encircling like an aureole the dark-brown locks.

"There she is, sir," said Steck, who thought the pastor must have failed to see this young girl, lingering purposely, as he was pleased to imagine, behind the sweethearts.

"No," said Dr. Duroc, "that is Rahel." Then with a sudden burst of laughter, clapping Steck upon the shoulder, he exclaimed, "I see your mistake! It will make a gallant compliment for K?thchen when she comes in. It is not the first time the mother has been said to look as young as her daughters." Before Steck had time to reply, the couple entered the room.

"Here is a young fellow, Kitty," said the blunt pastor, "who has mistaken you for your own child. Madame Duroc, Dr. Julius Steck."

"I am glad to see you, sir," said madame, shaking his hand cordially.

In spite of her slight figure, he could see now that the beauty of her intelligent countenance was indeed somewhat faded. She scrutinized him narrowly with a woman's alert intuition, very different from the unsuspecting confidence of the pastor; but, turning to her husband, she went on, kindly, "You always have your jest, Moritz; but you will make the young gentleman blush if you expose so freely his mistakes. Has Alide come home yet?"

"No," answered the pastor, with surprise; "I thought she was with you."

"So she was, but she left us a good half-hour since with Goetz."

"In that case she has not returned," said Dr. Duroc, "for I have been sitting with Dr. Steck in the porch, and we could not have missed seeing her."

"In the porch!" cried Madame Duroc, "and Dr. Steck has had nothing to refresh himself after his long walk from the inn!"

"That is the way with her, boys," said the simple pastor, as she left them, "always thoughtful for others."

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