Dietegen rose to be a man of great and generally acknowledged reputation as a warrior and military leader in those troubled days. He was not much better than others of his ilk in those times, but rather subject to similar failings. He became a doughty captain in the field, taking service with or against various countries and belligerents, according to what seemed to him good and where his own advantage lay. He hired mercenaries, earned gold and rich booty, and so he drifted from one war to another, conducted one campaign after the other, always fighting and seeing the horrors of warfare closely. And in so doing he did precisely what the first men of his country did in those warlike days, and he grew steadily in power and influence, and his word and his mailed fist were held in awe in all those parts.
But with his wife he lived in uninterrupted concord and affection, and the honor of his hearth was never questioned. And she bore him a number of strong and militant children, all endowed with the vigorous spirit alive in father and mother. And of their descendants there are flourishing even at this day a number in sundry countries, rich in substance and potency, in countries whither the warlike gifts of their forbears had blown them.
Violande on her part soon after Dietegen's and Kuengolt's union, which latter had been in such large part brought about by herself, retired to a veritable convent, and became a nun for good and all. To the children of the couple she sent quite often all sorts of goodies and tidbits. She also rather retained her habit of being interested in the great events of the day, and in influencing them by dint of feminine intrigues more or less. She liked to sit along with other guests of distinction, respected as a woman of shrewd and subtle mind and with a huge golden cross on her bosom, on banquet days at Dietegen's house, and she would demurely advise Dietegen, now adorned not only with a long and majestic beard, but also with the heavy golden chain denoting knighthood, in matters of state. Her counsel would still flow as mellifluously as ever, and her politeness remained proverbial.
How Kuengolt looked at the beginning of the sixteenth century, after many years of happy married life, may still be studied from the painting of a great artist which hangs among others in a well-known collection and which is expressly designated as her portrait. One sees there a slim elegant patrician woman, the beautiful lineaments of the face bespeaking plainly deep seriousness and uncommon understanding, but tempered by a gentle and somewhat roguish humor.
She also died before old age had claimed her, like her mother in consequence of a chill. That was when her husband, in one of the campaigns for the possession of Milan, had perished and was buried in the cemetery next a small chapel in Lombardy. Kuengolt hastened there, intending to have a monument in his honor erected; but indeed she spent two long nights at his tomb, with a ceaseless rainstorm raging, thus contracting a fever that carried her off within a couple of days, and she thus lies next to her husband in Italian soil.
ROMEO AND JULIET OF THE VILLAGE
[ROMEO AND JULIET OF THE VILLAGE]
Near the fine river which flows along half an hour's distance from Seldwyla, rises in a long stretch a headland which finally, itself carefully cultivated, is lost in the fertile plain. Some distance away at the foot of this rise there lies a village, to which belong many large farms, and across the hillock itself there were, years ago, three splendid holdings, like unto as many giant ribbons, side by side.
One sunny September morning two peasants were plowing on two of these vast fields, the two which stretched along the middle one. The middle one itself seemed to have lain fallow and waste for a long, long time, for it was thickly covered with stones, bowlders and tall weeds, and a multitude of winged insects were humming around and over it. The two peasants who on both sides of this huge wilderness were following their plows, were big, bony men of near forty, and at the first glance one could tell them as men of substance and well-regulated circumstances. They wore short breeches made of strong canvas, and every fold in these garments seemed to be carved out of rock. When they hit against some obstacle with their plow their coarse shirt sleeves would tremble slightly, while the closely shaved faces continued to look steadfastly into the sunlight ahead. Tranquilly they would go on accurately measuring the width of the furrow, and now and then looking around them if some unusual noise reached their ears. They would then peer attentively in the direction indicated, while all about them the country spread out measureless and peaceful. Sedately and with a certain unconscious grace they would set one foot before the other, slowly advancing, and neither of them ever spoke a word unless it was to briefly instruct the hired man who was leading the horses. Thus they resembled each other strongly from a distance; for they fitly represented the peculiar type of people of the district, and at first sight one might have distinguished them from each other only by this one fact that he on the one side wore the peaked fold of his white cap in front and the other had it hanging down his neck. But even this kept changing, since they were plowing in opposite directions; for when they arrived at the end of the new furrow up on high, and thus passed each other, the one who now strode against the strong east wind had his cap tip turned over until it sat in the back of the bull neck, while the second one, who had now the wind behind him, got the tip of his cap reversed. There was also a middling moment, so to speak, when both caps of shining white seemed to flare skywards like shimmering flames. Thus they plowed and plowed in restful diligence, and it was a fine sight in this still golden September weather to see them every short while passing each other on the summit of the hill, then easily and slowly drifting farther and farther apart, until both disappeared like sinking stars beyond the curve of the rise, only to reappear a bit later in precisely the same fashion.
When they found a stone in their furrows they threw it on the fallow field between them, doing so leisurely and accurately, like men who have learnt by habit to gauge the correct distance. But this occurred rarely, for this waste field was apparently already loaded with about all the pebbles, bowlders and rocks to be discovered in the neighborhood.