LAST CHAPTER.
[TO THE EAST!]
Since the occurrences which we have just related, two years had passed away.
The political storm had burst which the weather tokens on the horizon had long since foretold, the regeneration of the German people was proclaimed amid mighty convulsions.
It was a premature spring whose blossoms shed their leaves before they attained maturity.
The uproar raged through the large towns. Blood flowed over the streets. War between brothers was unfettered. Often those fought together, who desired the same object; with cannon balls, the people greeted the desired concessions of Government; wild tumult had taken possession of hearts and minds. The equinoctial gale of the spring of liberty swept through Europe, and general shipwreck ensued.
Only upon one tiny spot of earth, where it was necessary to defend German soil against foreign encroachments, and to prepare the place for the German Empire of the future, a struggle had been commenced, which did not bear the fearful impress of a war between brothers, which was ennobled by glorious enthusiasm for the fatherland. The dependence upon the will of foreign rulers who trod old rights under foot, had become insupportable to a brave race of people which flew to arms to preserve the right, to repel the interference of a newly-crowned king, and to maintain its connection with Germany at the point of the sword.
It was on a day in April, 1848, that the thunder of cannon echoed across the narrow bay of Flensburg; the red columns of the Danish army had extended themselves around the village of Bau and threatened to cut off the advance guard of the Schleswig-Holstein army that was stationed at Bau and Krusau. Soon the battle began! The flower of the country's youth, the students of Kiel, with the riflemen of that town, had to withstand the first onslaught of the enemy.
Over the hedges, out of the ditches, the advanced out-posts fired upon the red sharpshooters, upon the rushing enemy.
"Forward!" resounded the cry of the officers; "forward!" rang Blanden's voice. He led the disciples of alma mater to the battle; he had hastened to them, and entered their ranks amongst the first German volunteers, who placed their swords at the disposal of the good cause of Schleswig-Holstein.
"Forward!" replied the students' cry, with tempestuous enthusiasm, many of whom had a musket in their hands for the first time, who had poured in from the lecture-rooms to prove by active deeds their devotion to their fatherland. And forward moved the volunteer band; with levelled bayonets they charged the Danish vanguard, drove it back, and held their position beneath a heavy fire; courage and energy compensated for lack of numbers.
The Danes gave the courageously attacking force credit for strong supports; for a fresh effort they summoned fresh powers to their assistance.
Regardless of the balls which whistled round him from every side, Blanden, too, stood under fire; it almost seemed as if death would be welcome to him, and yet he was filled with burning love of battle as he looked into the radiant faces of those youths who went so full of the courage of sacrifice to meet their death.
Yes, and it was no common food for powder that filled the ditches, they were the best sons of the land. It was the vanguard of the German spirit, and wherever it had conquered it was always the united word of the sword, and the sword of the word which had gained the victory. These bayonets were not merely a flashing protest of the northern nations; the hands in which they rested were equally powerful to wield the pen--and knew how to prove this right.
Meanwhile the shots thundered from Bau, the crashing salvoes, however, drew towards the south-east of Flensburg. Soon scattered troops announced that the sixteenth battalion at Bau had been beaten by the Danes. Now the brave men stood helplessly, no order from head-quarters came to them; one orderly after another was despatched, none returned. The retreat to Flensburg was endangered.
Thus they left the corpse-strewn battle field in order to force a retreat for themselves. Bau and Krusau were the Schleswig-Holstein Thermopylæ!
Singing battle songs, the troops of lads approached the town, but they were hymns to the dead, for now only did death reap its abundant harvest.
The road ran along the shore, the bay suddenly became alive, the white and red flags approached, and the sky-blue lion prepared to spring. Was not the sea, the kingdom of the old Vikings, subject to the island people; how long did the Sound stand beneath the dominion of Danish cannon?
And it was a submissive bay of the conquered East Sea, which here made its entry into the Schleswig-Holstein country of beeches and hedges.
Suddenly the waves became alive, from the narrow tongue of land, from Holsens, where the Leviathans, the armed men of war, lay, it came ever nearer like a dark cloud upon the billows, a dense evil-boding throng.
They were the Danish gun-boats; then flashed the shots, then blazed the touch-holes. Astonished, the waves caught the strange smoke of powder which spread itself over them like a veil, and the cartridges rattled on the strand.
Like an ocean monster of the old legend rolling devouringly upon the land, death leaped from the waves and laid its victims low. The road became filled with corpses, of what use were the single bullets, which struck the boats; of what avail the temporary shelter behind the trunks of trees along the path!
"Forward to the foundry!" rang the cry of death. It was a kind of trench granting protection. There they could fall fighting; here the band resembled game driven by the keepers, upon which the sportsmen can shoot from a safe position.
And with winged steps all thronged to the fort of death, determined, at least, to sell their lives dearly.
Cartridge upon cartridge blazed across; wounded and dying leaned against the tall stems of the beeches, and the down crashing branches decked these pale brows as if with a homely wreath of honour, upon which trickled the cold drops of death.
Already Blanden saw the smoking furnaces of the foundry before him; there a flash quivers through the cloud of vapour; in conical flight the birds of death swept through, on right and left, fell into the trees, here and there penetrated the earth, struck the companions by his side, and stretched Blanden himself on the ground. He gazed into the night, as it descended upon his eyes--the night of death--but uttered not a word of lament. His last thought before his senses forsook him was the futility of his life, which was honourably terminated by death upon the battle-field.
When he opened his eyes again amidst violent pain, he fancied he was still under the spell of a dream: had he awoke in India amongst the peris? His bewildered fancy led the favourite images of his waking dreams before his mind.
A tear-bedimmed eye rested upon him, a slight form, wrapped in a cloak, bent over him.
They were the eyes, it was the figure of Giulia; with a loud cry of joy she welcomed his awaking.
But it was yet the day, the same day of the battle. Vollies rattled round the iron fort; where at other times the wheels of machinery revolved, now revolved the wheel of death.
A gun-boat still lay upon the strand, the otters had moved nearer to Flensburg, but that one did not cease from its work of devastation. A cartridge rattled and fell into the beech and struck down a branch, which fell upon Giulia and cut her brow. She had bent over Blanden to shelter him.
"Where am I? You here?" said he, half unconsciously.
"Do not ask how."
"Who brings you here?"
"Charity and longing for death, but now there is not a moment to lose."
She beckoned to two peasants, who stood close by with a little cart, and lifted Blanden into it, beside a wounded man who already lay there. Giulia seated herself upon the hard straw sack. They went along back streets to the inn of a neighbouring village, where several surgeons were in full employment.
It was a long time before Blanden recovered from his wounds, which left him slightly lame for life. Giulia was once more his faithful nurse, she also followed him to the Danish captivity, into which he, with the other wounded men, had fallen.
The feeling of belonging wholly to one another became quickened in both. From every side Blanden heard with what heroic valour Giulia had hastened into the battle field, how amidst shot and shells she had brought consolation, succour and relief to the wounded, an angel of mercy, whose memory would live for all ages in the hearts of the Schleswig-Holstein youth. For long both avoided speaking of their separation, its causes, of their later experiences. There would have been the risk of great agitation for Blanden, for both the danger of parting again, and yet both felt how painful an effect this would have upon their lives.
At last Blanden had sufficiently recovered to be allowed to go out into the fresh air, and he, with others, had been already exchanged for Danish prisoners.
They sat under a lofty avenue of beeches by the sea, lying so quietly and blue before them. Islands rose out of the waves and ships passed on the horizon.
"Where have you been, Giulia, since you left me?"
"Upon a little island near that of Sylt, in a lonely fisherman's cottage, there I deemed myself most effectually concealed. So quickly could the law not raise its accusation, not follow my track and find me yonder in my solitude, where, with Beate, I helped to mend fishing nets, and obtained a little money by teaching children. For hours I sat upon the 'dunes,' I saw the tide rush in which for centuries has been washing away these islands, ready to swallow them up, and which already has buried so much work of men's hands within its depths. Like a sea mew's flight over the foaming, dashing billows, my thoughts swept over the heights and abysses of my life, and my bruised heart did bitter penance, and as the roaring hurricane came and stirred the waves and tore them upwards until towering on high they dashed upon the shore, so was I now overwhelmed with the fire and wild passion which had animated me, and with the recollection of all the tempests of my life.
"I could have retired to a convent in my own country, but my soul longed for the free breath of heaven, and an irrevocable bond would have crushed it to the ground.
"Beate left me, she had often been at Sylt during the season, and there had made the acquaintance of a well-to-do Hamburg merchant, whom her sparkling eyes and lively manner had fascinated. We parted amid tears, she was my most faithful friend, who for me had jeopardised her honour. Then the feeling of being utterly forsaken came upon me, the never ceasing return of ebb and flow, the only event of which the 'dunes' could tell, made my spirit weary and listless, all the fettered springs of life stirred within me. I could not have lived amid the ocean solitude another year, my talent for a Robinsonade was exhausted. Then the news of war, which was at that time only imminent, but of whose outbreak messengers brought premature intelligence, penetrated to our fishermen's cottages; I resolved to make atonement for my past as a nurse in the midst of the conflict, and hoped, perhaps, to meet death from a merciful bullet. When I came here I found nothing prepared, I wished to go upon the battle-field as a volunteer Samaritan, and beneath its terrible and yet elevating influences, I felt the pulses of my life beat higher once more--I forgot myself. I relieved pain, I earned thanks--the sin of my life seemed to be melting away as if tears and words of gratitude washed it out. Thus I found you. Fate led those together again, whom it had parted, but still the gulf of guilt lies between them. You have recovered, my task is completed, let me go hence once more."
"No Giulia," cried Blanden with a burst of emotion, "now we part no more."
Giulia looked enquiringly at him; she could not believe his words.
"I part from my preserver no more. I am superstitious, or believing enough to follow the signal of fate which re-united us upon the field of honour. You have nothing more to fear from justice. Baluzzi's messenger, wild Robert, did not reach his goal, he fell, lost in the swamp, the edges of which were thoroughly searched by the guards; doubtlessly he ventured too far in order to escape them. Baluzzi's accusation lies deep down in the morass where it ought to lie; he himself is dead, never did any messenger of justice trouble me. Thus there is but one human being in the world who can bring an accusation against you, and that one dare not, because you only sinned out of love for me, out of blind, but yet true ardent love, and with this kiss I absolve you."
He kissed Giulia's brow; sobbing, she sank into his arms.
"Fate has foiled my most glorious plans of life, we cannot return to the desolate Castle. Your sudden flight injured my name again, the people there will not associate with us, but the world is large! Although my life has been a failure, although I must stay far from my home, there yet remains to me the thinker's dream and the ecstasy of love."
"Not for my sake shall you fly from all," said Giulia imploringly.
"I, too, am dead to this portion of the world. I can do nothing more for my fatherland. This bullet has rendered me unfit for war, a chain of unfortunate circumstances for peace. I cannot stand before any electors, a political career is closed to me. Thus I fly for my sake also, and you, my fondly loved wife, I take with me as comforter. The registry at San Giulio still tells of your guilt, we must away, far away from here. I know a land, the cradle of the gods, perhaps the cradle of mankind, a wonder land. There beneath the giant mountain lies the Walar Lake, and the Behat winds through a paradise of rustling fruit trees and prolific plains upon which gaze down glaciers high as heaven. Beautiful beings wander there in the most blessed valley of the world, and there free from the constraint of law and the trammels of society, which here rule the world, we will build ourselves huts and I will introduce you to the profound wisdom of the land of the lotus-flowers. Follow me to Cashmere."
Giulia pressed him to her heart, "I have no will but yours."
Blanden wrote to Wegen and begged him to sell Kulmitten, Rositten, and Nehren. His friend, Olga's happy husband, doubly happy by her unexpected mastery of the art of cooking, executed Blanden's commission, and by means of a large inheritance, was enabled to buy Kulmitten, the principal estate, for himself.
To Kuhl, however, who really had invited no living creature excepting Caro, to his wedding dinner, Blanden wrote--
"I go far away, to the primeval home of mankind; I am a shipwrecked mariner, and, united to Giulia, shall build myself a hut in the desert. Withered leaves--they fell upon the flowers of my heart, and twice have covered and crushed out their life. My friend! no man can overcome his past. Unforeseen it rises again like a spectre and stretches the destroyer's hand into our lives. Poor Eva was the victim of one of those fearful chains of events which, long invisible, suddenly seize us with a ghostly grasp. That I had loved the mother, was the daughter's death! Withered leaves--vainly my Giulia amid bitterest pain sought to wrench herself loose from her past, but it held her firmly as in an iron vice. Away into the kingdom of Buddha, into the dream-world of the East! I could not live as I would, therefore now I will live as I can."
Not long after a Hamburg steamboat bore the loving pair into the land of the lotus-flowers.
FOOTNOTE:
[Footnote 1]: The evening preceding the wedding day,--Translator's note.