“Christian,” she said, “I do not well know what love is, or what distinction there can be between that sentiment and the feeling with which I regard you. But one thing I do know, and that is, that I respect and esteem you, and that if I am ever free, and you are the same, I will share your fortune, whatever it may be. I have worked very hard since we parted, and I shall be able now to give lessons or keep accounts, like so many other poor young girls who support themselves, and who have too much good sense to blush upon that account;—like Mademoiselle Potin herself, whose family is noble, and who has not lost in the opinion of any one, but, on the other hand, who has been elevated in the eyes of all persons of real feeling, by having the courage to make use of her talents. To prove it,” she added, glancing tenderly and archly at her governess, “I need only tell you that she is betrothed secretly to the excellent Major Larrson, and is only waiting until my affairs are a little more settled, to celebrate her marriage.”
It was impossible for Mademoiselle Potin to contradict Margaret, but she was none the less angry with Christian for speaking to her of love at the very moment when his suit was lost, and she felt still more indignant on the following morning, when he joined their little party to cross the mountains, and return to Sweden by the Idre, and the mountains of Blaakdal. On the next day, the twelfth of June, 1772, Christian saw the friend to whom M. Goefle had referred, coming to meet him on the mountain-road over which they were travelling; it was no other than M. Goefle himself, escorted by Major Larrson. They embraced each other, and after briefly exchanging joyful and affectionate greetings, hastened forward, and arrived by dinner-time at the danneman’s chalet, which they found gayly adorned with wild flowers. Karine was at the door, only partly comprehending what was passing, and finding it difficult to recognize the child of the lake in the features of the handsome young iarl.
The dinner was served in the open air, under a bower of foliage, in sight of the magnificent prospect of mountains, with whose wild and melancholy beauty Christian had been so deeply impressed on a day in December. The summer is short in these elevated regions, but it is magnificent. The verdure is as dazzling as the snows; the vegetation grows with such rapidity, and is so luxuriant, that Christian imagined he was beholding a different locality and a different country.
They remained upon the mountain until six o’clock. But no one thought now of hunting bears; instead, they plucked flowers sentimentally from beside running streams, and listened to their sweet murmuring or impetuous rolling—so eager, as all of them seemed, with their various voices, to sing and to live to the utmost, before the return of the frost, when they must all be changed into crystal again by the elfs of the gloomy autumn.
Christian was very happy, and yet he was longing to see Stenson once more; but M. Stenson would not consent to leave the chalet, on account of the heat. The sun, at this season, does not set until ten o’clock, and it rises three hours afterwards, in a starry twilight that softly veils the sky; for, during the summer, the darkness of a genuine night is unknown. In fact, the good lawyer had prepared a surprise for Christian. As soon as the cool evening breeze began to be felt, old Stenson drove up in a carriage, triumphant and rejuvenated. Thanks to the heat of the season, and perhaps also to his returning joy and confidence, his deafness was almost entirely cured. He brought the decree of the committee of the Diet, recognizing Christian’s rights, and a letter from Countess Elveda to M. Goefle, authorizing him privately to dispose of the hand of her niece in favor of the new Baron of Waldemora.
Christian returned to the chateau with his uncle Goefle, while the rest of the party followed in their various carriages over the winding and picturesque road; but, in the midst of the young man’s joy, as he anticipated the reunion of all his beloved friends, he was seized with a sudden fit of melancholy.
“I am too happy,” he said to the lawyer; “I should like to die to-day. It seems to me that the life into which I am about to enter will be in constant conflict with the simple and pure happiness I have dreamed about.”
“It is quite possible, my friend,” replied M. Goefle; “for it is only novels that end with the eternal formula: ‘They died in old age, after a long and happy life.’ You cannot come into contact with the world as a public man without suffering; for society is terribly convulsed in these days, and above all in the aristocratic circles where you will take your place. I do not know what strange events are preparing; and yet I had a sort of revelation of the future in the last interview which the king granted me. On that day, he seemed to me both grand and terrible. I believe he is meditating a movement which will send a good many people back where they belong; but can he keep them there, and will he? Can revolutions establish a permanent condition of things, when they come in advance of the slow labor of time and ideas?”
“Not always,” said Christian, “but they form landmarks in history; even when an effort at reformation is premature, something is always gained.”
“Then you will really support the king against the senate?”