“I did love you, Josepha,” he said, “and could love you again, were it possible. But you must remember, my girl, that circumstances have changed; I am a man of fortune—you are the daughter of a poor farmer with but three cows, and those to be divided among ten children. And the price of cheese is sadly going down, and must still go down, owing to the competition of the factory system in America, where they can imitate even our most penetrating Limburger, and sell it cheaper here than we can produce it. It is no use to talk of buying our own product, all people buy where they can buy the cheapest. That is political economy.
“Had you an uncle, a cook in Paris, and liable to die, with sixty-eight dollars and fifty cents, the aspect of things would be changed. But you have no such uncle, and really, Josepha, you cannot expect me, in my altered condition, to so throw myself away. No indeed. But I wish you well. Forget me, if you can, and marry some one in your own sphere, and be happy. You would not want to wed me, and see me miserable! Life would then be a burden to both. Be ye not unequally yoked.”
Josepha, weeping, turned away, for despite her love, she realized the truth of what he said. And Rudolph, whistling an air, gaily went into the café, and sought to drown his feelings in wine.
He knew he had done a very mean thing, but he felt it to be impossible for a youth of his prospects to marry a penniless girl.
Reveling in his wealth he pursued his mad career and came to grief, as such men always do. He quit work, he dressed extravagantly, and finally he made an unlucky investment in stocks, which swept off every sou he had. His sixty-eight dollars and fifty cents were irrevocably gone, and Rudolph the Gay found himself without money, with an expensive appetite for wine and an extreme disposition to do no work of any kind.
One morning he heard a wild rumor that a brother of Josepha in America had made a strike in oil and had sent Josepha five hundred dollars. Then his feelings toward that young lady changed. He went to her and remarked that he forgave her for her treatment of him; that the cloud that had come between them and obscured their happiness had passed away, and that there was no reason now why they should not realize the dreams of their youth and wed.
It was now Josepha’s turn. She remarked that sentiment was all well enough, but that there was something in viewing matters from a mere worldly standpoint. Love was sweet, but fortunately the stock of the article in the world was not limited. It was not to be expected in her altered condition that she should unite her fortunes with those of a penniless man. She quite agreed with what he (Rudolph) had said to her on a former occasion, “Be ye not unequally yoked.” She (Josepha) had now five hundred dollars. He (Rudolph) had not a sou. Had he (Rudolph) five hundred dollars, and had he the good habits of his youth when he was an humble worker in wood, she would wed him gladly, but as he (Rudolph) was, in the language of the world, short of that amount, and as she (Josepha) had any quantity of coin, she rather thought she wouldn’t. She should always regard him in the light of a friend, and should weep with great regularity when she thought of their severed loves, but there was a young farmer up the mountain who had twelve cows, and with her capital could double the stock, and she believed that her best show was with him.
And so Rudolph, penniless, loveless, and with an appetite which, like jealousy, makes the meat it feeds on, is a mere cumberer on the earth about Brienz, the wreck we saw.
And Josepha, she married the young grazier, and has two children and one of the largest goitres in the neighborhood, and the two have prospered to the point of seriously contemplating the starting of a small inn, near a convenient waterfall, that they may fleece strangers, which is a more lucrative business in Switzerland than cheese-making or wood-carving.
In the evening we were rowed across the Lake of Brienz to the Giessbach, the regular sight of the locality. The lake is twenty feet higher than Lake Thun, from which it is separated by a narrow strip of low land only two miles wide. It is thought that at one time the two lakes were joined. Lake Brienz is from five hundred to nine hundred feet deep, its water being of a very dark blue.