Their mother, Ludmilla, however, went about in quiet joyousness, gave her son her blessing on his departure, and wondered constantly how, through the little good she had done in her life—good that she had always wished had been more than it could be—how in her old age she had thus deserved to be so rewarded by God, so greatly, greatly rewarded.
When he was gone, the quiet and simple life in the valley and the house resumed the course it had always followed till then. The old woman went innocently about the business of the house, attending to everything in the best possible way, doing good wherever she was able, and, in view of an approaching event, seeing to the provision and preparation of a wealth of domestic effects and conveniences. Hanna was a devoted daughter, happy at all times to do her mother’s will, while waiting excitedly and with a full heart to see what the future would bring.
When four years had passed and the letters from foreign parts all written in the same dear and familiar hand had grown into a very considerable pile, the author himself came and the letters ceased. Victor returned so altered that even his foster-mother was taken aback and surprised, for in this short time, from the almost childish youth, a man had grown. But otherwise only his understanding and mind had developed: the good heart she had laid up in him had remained indestructible, for it was just as childlike and undamaged as it was when she had first given it to him when he was a tender child and then further cultivated, for she had the power to give him her heart, but not what a strong man requires and what the harshness of life demands of him. Hanna saw no change in Victor, for from childhood she had thought him more skilful and capable than herself; the fact that she had a good, simple and great soul disposed to do good as consistently as water flows downhill, this she didn’t know, assuming this to be a virtue common to all.
Not very long after his return, Victor stood at the altar with Hanna plighting eternal troth—two creatures whose faces were copies of two others who might also once have been glad to stand before the same altar but who through misfortune and their own fault were torn from each other and then rued it for the rest of their lives.
All the friends who had taken part in that walk to celebrate Ferdinand’s birthday were present at this celebration of Victor’s and Hanna’s. Victor’s guardian was also there with his wife, and Rosina, now herself a young wife, and Rosina’s and Hanna’s childhood friends, and others, too.
When all the celebrations were over, Victor led Hanna in triumph to his estate. Their mother didn’t go with them; she said she would see soon enough how everything would turn out.
Victor’s uncle had not come to the wedding despite several requests to do so on his nephew’s part, who himself had stayed with him. Quite alone he sat on his island, for, as he himself had once said, everything, everything was too late, and something once missed could not be made up for.
If one wished to apply the parable of the barren fig tree to this man, then might one say: the good, gentle Gardener does not cast it into the fire but every spring looks at the barren foliage and, every spring, lets it grow green until even the leaves become fewer and fewer and finally only the dried-up branches stretch upwards. Then the tree will be taken out of the garden and its place otherwise used. The remaining plants continue, however, to blossom and flourish, but none of these can say that they have sprung from its seed and will bear the sweet fruit that this tree bore. Then the sun continues to shine down, the blue sky smiles from one millennium to the next, the earth clothes itself in its ancient green and the generations descend in a long chain down to the youngest child—but he is obliterated from all this because his life has left no copy of itself, and no offspring of his are numbered are among those carried down the stream of time. Even if, however, he has left other traces of having lived, these too are extinguished—as are all earthly things—and when finally in the ocean of time everything, everything perishes, even the greatest and those things that give most joy, he will perish before this moment, because everything in him is already in the throes of swift decline while he still draws breath and while he still lives.
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Copyright
English translation © David Bryer 2008
First published in German in this version in 1850
as Der Hagestolz
The translation of this book was supported by the Austrian
Federal Ministry of Education, Arts and Culture.
This ebook edition first published in 2012 by
Pushkin Press
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ISBN 9781908968302
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Cover: The King Lake with the Watzmann Adalbert Stifter 1837
Oil on canvas 36 x 45 cm
Courtesy of Belvedere Vienna
Frontispiece: Adalbert Stifter
Courtesy of Österreichische Nationalbibliothek Vienna
Set in 10 on 12 Baskerville
by Alma Books Ltd
The Bachelors Page 13