“Ah, monsieur, I have been looking for you. The Comtesse de Julliart has desired me to present you to her; and when I tell you that she is the most beautiful woman in Paris, I need not say how much you must prize the honour among all the distinctions your talents have earned. Come this way.”
I followed mechanically—my heart took no interest in the scene—and I only longed to be once more alone and unobserved. As I walked after the Duke, he gave me a short account of the beautiful Countess, whom he mentioned as the last descendant of an old and honoured family, supposed to have been long since extinct, when she, a few months before, appeared in Paris, and laid claim to the title. As she possessed unbounded wealth, and had no great favours to ask any where, the Court were charmed with her beauty, and readily admitted her claims, which some were ill-natured enough to say were, perhaps, merely assumed without foundation.
I took little interest in the story. My thoughts were far away, as they ever were for many years, from every thing of the present; and ‘twas only as I heard the Duke announce my name, among a group who stood near a sofa, that I remembered why I was there.
The Countess sat with her back to us, but rose immediately on hearing my name. I bowed deeply as she stood up; and recovering myself from my obeisance, looked up. Oh, merciful Heaven, with what horror I looked!—It was no other than La Mercia! With one loud cry of “Tis she! ‘tis she!” I fell fainting to the floor.
Weeks of wild raving and delirium followed. I left Paris!—I returned to Dresden. There, all reminded me of the past. I fled from my home; and now, after years of wandering in solitary and distant lands, I feel deep in my heart the heavy curse that has followed upon my broken oath, and which has made me an outcast and a broken-hearted wanderer in the world for ever.
THE PASS OF THE ARLBERG.
Before leaving the Vorarlberg, and while now on its very frontier, I would wish to keep some record of two very different but yet very characteristic actions, of which this place was the scene. As you begin the ascent of the Arlberg from the westward the road makes two very abrupt zigzags, being carried along the edge of a deep precipice. On looking down over the low battlements that guard the side of the way, you discover, immediately under you, the spire and roofs of a small village several hundred feet below. The churchyard, the little gardens, the narrow streets, and the open “Platz,” where stands a fountain, are all mapped out distinctly. This is the village of Steuben. A strange spot you would deem it for any to have chosen as a dwelling-place, hemmed in between lofty mountains, on whose bleak sides the snow is seen in the very midsummer; surrounded by wild crags and yawning clefts, without even pasturage for any thing save a goat: but your surprise will increase on learning that twice within the last century has this village been swept away by falling avalanches. The first time, the snow meeting in its descent from the mountains on either side actually formed a bridge over a portion of the village; and the houses thus saved were long regarded as under the special favour of the Virgin, with whose image they were most bounteously decorated. The next calamity, however, destroyed the prestige, for they were mingled in the common destruction.
It would be difficult for “Gentlemen of England, who live at home in ease,” to fancy any reason for this unaccountable selection of a residence which adds the highest amount of peril to all the woes of poverty. But every traveller has seen many such instances. In every mountain land they are to be met with, and in each of the Alpine passes little groups of houses—they can scarcely be called villages—can be detected in spots where access is most difficult, where no feature around indicates any means of supporting life, and where the precautions—simple and ineffectual enough—against avalanches, shew that danger to be among their calculations. How explain this? By what associations have these dreary spots become hallowed into homes? Possibly the isolated lives of these little families of men give them the same distaste to mixing with their brethren of the great world, that is felt by a solitary recluse to entering into society. Mayhap, too, the sense of peril itself has its share in the attraction. There is no saying how far this feeling may go, so strange and wayward are the caprices of human nature.
If you enter any of these villages, the narratives of snow storms, of falling precipices, and “Lavines,” as avalanches are called, meet you at every step. They are the great topics of these communities, as the movements of Politics or the vacillations of the Bourse are elsewhere. Scarcely one who has reached the middle term of life has not been, at least once, in the most imminent peril; and these things are talked of as the common accidents of existence, the natural risks of humanity! Very strange does it sound to us who discuss so eagerly the perils of a wooden pavement in our thoroughfares!