Castle Hohenwald: A Romance

by Adolf Streckfuss

"Arno is no misanthrope, but the warmest-hearted fellow and the truest and most loyal of friends. I grant that it is not easy to win his confidence, and that to the superficial observer he may seem to shun intercourse with others; he has no small change of conversation for that society where you, my dear Assessor, are in your element. In the army he had but few intimates, And took no part in our card-parties and the like entertainments. Nevertheless he was a good comrade whom every one liked, for all knew that when there was need of a friend's assistance it was sure to be found at the hands of Arno von Hohenwald, and we forgave his burying himself among his books while we pursued our pleasures. I alone of all his comrades could boast of any real intimacy with him, and I am proud to think that he considered me worthy of his friendship--his confidence."

"Oh, then he has certainly told you the story of his notorious love-affair with the rope-maker's pretty daughter, which ended in his being the furious woman-hater that he is! You must ask the Count to tell you that story, madame. I assure you it made quite a noise at the time at the Court of Saxony, where the Hohenwalds stood very high."

"I am not curious," Frau von Sorr observed.

"But I am!" Adèle interposed. "I confess, Karl, that I take great interest in your friend. I have heard much of him. Madame von Kleist is a cousin of the late Frau von Hohenwald, and the other day, at an afternoon party, she had such wonderful things to tell of the eccentricities of the old Baron and his son Arno, that the entire conversation finally turned upon the Hohenwalds, their lives and their peculiarities. Several of the ladies present were distantly connected with them, and they not only confirmed all that Madame von Kleist said, but contributed various anecdotes to show that the old Baron was no better than an ogre, and that the son Arno was following worthily in his father's footsteps. The old Baron, they said, lives in perfect solitude in Castle Hohenwald, never seeing a visitor, nor indeed any one beside his two sons and his daughter, except, perhaps, the village priest, who is the young girl's tutor. All sorts of tales are told of the way in which the old man has repelled his relatives' advances, as well as of his quarrel with his son Arno, whom he threatened to disinherit because he had betrothed himself to a pretty girl of the bourgeoisie. When the engagement was broken off Arno was reconciled to his father, having become a more terrible misanthrope and woman-hater than the old man himself. So you may readily imagine, Cousin Karl, how I should like, after all these stories, to hear as much of your friend as you can tell us without indiscretion."

Count Styrum looked annoyed. The gossiping Assessor had given a turn to the conversation that necessitated explanations which he would gladly have avoided. Since this turn had been given, however, he felt it due to his friend to disprove the false reports current with regard to the Hohenwalds. "There can be no indiscretion," he said, "in relating facts known to many, although I certainly would rather avoid doing so since I know my friend Arno's dislike of any discussion of his private affairs. However, the truth had better be told about them, that it may counteract these silly rumours with regard to the family, rumours which some of their connections, indeed, are not ashamed to circulate."

The Assessor turned red, feeling that the Count's words might well apply to himself, but he judged it wisest to take no notice of the reproof conveyed in them.

"The Hohenwalds," Karl began, "have furnished food for gossip to the Saxon aristocracy for many years. They are a singular race; their peculiarities have been inherited for generations, but the haughty Barons troubled themselves little as to what the world might say of them, and lived out their convictions with unshaken fidelity. It was a Hohenwald who, in Augustus the Strong's time, stood forth at the Saxon Court as the champion of good old German morality in social life, scourging with bitter words the wanton frivolity of the lovely court dames, and denouncing the extravagant luxury that ruined poor Saxony. All that saved him from persecution and perhaps imprisonment in Königstein was Augustus the Strong's own declaration that the Hohenwalds had always been fools--it was best to let them wag their tongues and pay them no heed. So Werner von Hohenwald was not sent to Königstein, but to his own castle, which he never left for many years, leading much the same hermit-life there as is led by his great-grandson to-day. Another Hohenwald, the father of the present Baron, distinguished himself in the early part of this century as a warm friend of Prussia and a bitter opponent of the Franco-Saxon alliance and of the first Napoleon, who would have had him shot but for the interposition of the king, who declared, as Augustus the Strong had done, that the Hohenwalds were fools, not to be too severely dealt with. He, too, was sent to live in undisturbed retirement in his own castle. The present lord, Baron Werner, resembles his forbears; like them he is unyielding, keen in word and in action, a steadfast, severe man, living according to his own convictions, and holding himself aloof from a world that does not share them. I do not know him personally, but I have heard so much of him from my friend Arno and from my own father, who was intimate with him many years ago, that I have a very vivid idea of him, I can see him in my mind's eye,--a tall, stout old man, his stern face framed in beard and hair of silver, from which the black eyes can flash terribly when he is angry, although they beam mildly enough when their gaze rests upon his darling, his daughter. It is said that in his youth, departing from the traditions of his family, he was a gay and genial man of fashion. As a wealthy landed proprietor, he passed his summers at Hohenwald, his winters in Dresden. At that time my father knew him well, and their friendship lasted for a number of years after the Baron married a Countess Harrangow. He seemed to live very happily with his beautiful wife, keeping open house, as well in Dresden in the winter as in summer upon his estate of Hohenwald, which is not far from the Prussian boundary. His wife's relatives visited him frequently, and often spent weeks beneath his roof, where they were upon the best of terms with the lord of the castle, although they were Prussians, and he a bitter enemy of Prussia and a great friend of Austria, never hesitating to declare his anti-Prussian sentiments in the presence of his Prussian guests.

"A few months after the birth of his youngest child--a daughter--there was a sudden and complete transformation in the Baron's manner of life, the cause of which was entirely unknown. He separated from his wife, who returned to her paternal home, where she received from the Baron a large yearly income, but whither she was not permitted to take her children, two sons and the baby daughter, who remained in Hohenwald. No one knows the reason for this separation; the Baron has never by so much as a word alluded to it, and all the reports concerning it circulated in Dresden society, where the affair of course made a great deal of noise, are utterly without foundation. Even the Baroness, who died within a year after the separation, without seeing either husband or children again, never assigned to her parents any reason for her expulsion--for that is the only term to be applied to it--from Hohenwald. The relatives of the Baroness, who had hitherto always found a welcome at the castle, did all they could to effect a reconciliation between husband and wife, but they were repulsed by the Baron with such harshness and severity that they never renewed their efforts. My father, too, fared no better. Relying upon the claims of long friendship, he complied with the wishes of the king, who regretted that the Baron should have so treated his wife's relatives, and expressed a wish that my father would use his influence with his friend, so that if no thorough reconciliation could be brought about, at least the public scandal of a separation without a divorce might be avoided. With some reluctance my father undertook the task thus assigned him. He could hardly refuse to do so, although he had but small hope of any good result. He went to Castle Hohenwald, where the manner of his reception showed him the hopelessness of his mission.

"The Baron met him with a dark frown. 'What is your business with me, Count?' he asked, without offering his hand. My father, embarrassed by a reception in such marked contrast to the terms of friendship upon which he had felt himself with the Baron, could not, of course, immediately explain the real cause of his appearance at Hohenwald, and spoke courteously of his desire to see a friend from whom he had been separated for some time; but the Baron interrupted him with, 'Pray take no unnecessary pains, Count. I am not fond of idle phrases, and declare to you once for all that I will suffer no one to meddle in my affairs. If you have been sent hither, repeat this to whoever sent you; if you are here of your own free will, take my words to heart. If in consideration of our former friendship you are inclined to do me a kindness, pray shield me from any further attempt to influence me. Say in Dresden that the gates of Castle Hohenwald are in future closed to all visitors; that I have irrevocably and forever broken with all my former acquaintances and friends!'

"It may easily be imagined that my father after this made no attempt to speak with the Baron, but left Castle Hohenwald immediately, never to return to it. From that day the gates of the castle have been closed to every one. One or two attempts were made by near relatives to see the Baron, but they were entirely unsuccessful,--the servants denied him to every one. So completely did he isolate himself from his former world that he answered no letters addressed to him except those relating solely to business. From that time he has led the life of a hermit in his castle, never leaving his estate, seeing no one except the pastor and the doctor. In spite of all this, his servants and the labourers employed upon the estate, as well as the poor of the neighbouring villages, will stoutly deny that he is a misanthrope; they represent him as the kindest of masters, the best of landlords. Therefore I would advise you, Herr von Hahn, to lay stress upon this fact in your future narratives with regard to the life of the Baron von Hohenwald."