What the Swallow Sang: A Novel

by Friedrich Spielhagen

The judges looked at each other in perplexity, and for poor Bogislaf's sake scarcely ventured to utter what must be said. But Bogislaf went up to his cousin, who stood with downcast eyes, as if ashamed of his victory, seized his hand, and evidently wished to say something which did not escape his pale, quivering lips. But it could not have been a curse, for he fell sobbing on Adolf's neck, pressed him to his heart, then released him, and without uttering a word, strode away and disappeared.

He remained absent. Many supposed he had killed himself; others declared that he had buried himself in the northern part of Norway amid the ice and snow to hunt bears and wolves; and they were perhaps right.

At all events, he was not dead, but after an absence of several years suddenly appeared on the estate of a friend who had been one of the judges, and here his cousin Adolf and his young wife Ulrica met him--quite accidentally, for they had not heard of his return, and the young wife was so startled that she fell fainting on the floor, and was restored to consciousness with great difficulty. To be sure, she had always been one of those who believed Bogislaf dead, and had already had several discussions on the subject with her husband, who always asserted the contrary. It was said that this was by no means the only point of difference between the husband and wife, and there were in truth many things which did not increase the happiness of the young pair. True, the extravagant old Lord of Dahlitz, who had sold his property to a Herr Brandow--Carl Brandow's great-grandfather--and then lived very contentedly on his son-in-law for several years, was now dead, but the daughter had inherited her father's expensive tastes, and Adolf was anything but a good economist.

This last quality certainly did not prevent him from doing what the simplest gratitude required;--and therefore--in spite of his wife's opposition--he invited poor Bogislaf to visit him at Dollan and remain as long as possible. At first Bogislaf positively refused, and with good reason. The cause of the result of the shooting match had now transpired! It was known that the evening before the contest Ulrica had sent her cousin and most intimate friend, Emma von Dahlitz, a poor orphan who lived with her wealthy relatives, to Bogislaf with the message: she would never, never, though everybody should declare him to be the best man, accept him for her husband, but Adolf, whom she always had loved, and always should. Then Bogislaf, as he no longer had any hope of winning the girl he loved, generously resigned to his cousin a property which no longer had any charm for him.

He long refused to accept his fortunate cousin's invitation, but finally came--for only a week. But the days had become weeks, the weeks months, and the months years, so that this was now the fourth generation which had known old Bogislaf Wenhof, or, as he was commonly called, Cousin Boslaf, in the beach-house of Dollan. He had removed there at the end of the first week, after purchasing it, together with the few fields and meadows belonging to it, for a very small sum from the government, which had originally built it for a watch-house; but though the beach-house did not really belong to Dollan, but was Cousin Boslaf's own property, Cousin Boslaf clung to Dollan all the more closely, so closely that the constant intercourse had filled the heads of the people with all sorts of superstitious fancies, in which the old man sometimes figured as the good, and sometimes the evil genius of Dollan, and especially the Wenhof family. Alas! even if he were the good genius, he had been unable to prevent the ruin of the house, or withhold the son of Adolf and Ulrica, who had many of the Dahlitz traits of character, from selling Dollan to the convent of St. Jürgen at the close of the preceding century, after which he was glad to remain as a tenant where he had once been master. Cousin Boslaf had not been able to prevent that, or any of the other things which had happened from that time to the present day.

"But what does this mean?" said Gotthold to himself. "How can one let his healthy brain become so bewildered by the rustling of the forest, the murmur of the stream, and these old tales! I believe the serpent has bewitched me with its cold glittering eyes, and I am still under its spell. But its reign is over now. There is the sea gleaming through the boughs, my own beloved, beautiful sea! Its fresh breath will cool my hot brow. And he, the old man who lives yonder, and who learned so early the meaning of the harsh word sacrifice; who renounced power, wealth, and woman's favor that he might not lose his own manhood, was probably the better and wiser man."

Still following the course of the stream, which, now that it was so near its mouth, grew more noisy and impatient, falling in many a miniature cascade as it hurried plashing and murmuring down the ravine, overgrown with huge clumps of ferns and the most luxuriant grass, Gotthold, a few moments after, reached the shore. On the right hand, almost at the extreme point of the promontory, which, covered with large and small stones like the rest of the coast, ran out several hundred paces into the sea, stood Cousin Boslaf's house. The old flag, which Gotthold had remembered from his boyhood, still fluttered from the tall staff on the gable roof. It had originally been a Swedish banner, but in the course of years the wind and weather had so dimmed its colors, and made so many repairs necessary, that the authorities could not have taken umbrage at this relic of foreign rule, even if they had troubled themselves particularly about Cousin Boslaf's actions. This, however, they had never done, so the old flag fluttered and rustled and flapped merrily in the fresh breeze, which blew still stronger as Gotthold now stood before the low dwelling, built partly of unhewn stone from the shore, whose only door was on the side towards the land. The door was locked; he could not look into the little iron-barred windows on the right and left, which lighted the kitchen and store-room, for they were considerably above a man's height, close under the roof; and the strong iron shutters were put over the two larger windows in the front of the house, which faced the sea. Evidently Cousin Boslaf was not at home.

"To be sure," said Gotthold, "after an absence of ten years we can't be surprised not to find a man who was eighty years old at the time we left him."

And yet he could not believe that the old man was dead. He had just been thinking of him so eagerly, seen him so distinctly in his mind's eye--the tall, slender figure, walking with long, regular strides, as he had so often beheld him. No, no, the old man belonged to the race of giants; he had surely outlived this little space of time.

And then the house and its surroundings--the little front yard enclosed by a walk, the tiny garden bordered with shells--did not look as if they had been left for any length of time. Everything was in order and painfully neat, as the old man used to keep it; the little bridge in the creek to which he fastened his boat had even been lately mended with new pieces of wood, carefully dovetailed together. But the boat had gone; undoubtedly cousin Boslaf had rowed out to sea in her. To be sure, it was not his custom, but the old man's habits might have altered during the last few years.