Où sont les neiges d'antan?
The line of the old romaunt ran through his brain, and when towards dawn he did at length fall asleep it was not of Hohenszalras that he dreamed, but of wide white steppes, of a great ice-fed rolling river, of monotonous pine woods, with the gilded domes of a half eastern city rising beyond them in the pale blue air of a northern twilight.
With the early morning he awoke, resolute to get away be the weather what it would. As it chanced, the skies were heavy still, but no rain fell; the sun was faintly struggling through the great black masses of cloud; the roads might be dangerous, but they were not impassable; the bridge over the Bürgenbach might be broken, but at least Matrey could be reached, if it were not possible to go on farther to Taxenbach or S. Johann im Wald. High north, where far away stretched the wild marshes and stony swamps of the Pinzgau (the Pinzgau so beautiful, where in its hilly district the grand Salzach rolls on its impetuous way beneath deep shade of fir-clad hills, tracks desolate as a desert of sand or stone), the sky was overcast, and of an angry tawny colour that brooded ill for the fall of night. But the skies were momentarily clear, and he desired to rid of his presence the hospitable roof beneath which he was but an alien and unbidden.
He proposed to leave on foot, but of this neither Greswold nor the major-domo would hear: they declared that such an indignity would dishonour the Hohenszalrasburg for evermore. Guests there were masters. 'Bidden guests, perhaps,' said Sabran, reluctantly yielding to be sped on his way by a pair of the strong Hungarian horses that he had seen and admired in their stalls. He did not venture to disturb the ladies of the castle by a request for a farewell audience at the early hour at which it was necessary he should depart if he wished to try to reach a railway the same evening, but he left two notes for them, couched in that graceful compliment of which his Parisian culture made him an admirable master, and took a warm adieu of the good physician, with a promise not to forget the orchid of the Spiritù Santo. Then he breakfasted hastily, and left the tapestried chamber in which he had dreamed of the Nibelungen Queen.
At the door he drew a ring of great value from his finger and passed it to Hubert, but the old man, thanking him, protested he dared not take it.
'Old as I am in her service,' he said, 'the Countess would dismiss me in an hour if I accepted any gifts from a guest.'
'Your lady is very severe,' said Sabran. 'It is happy for her she has servitors who subscribe to feudalism. If she were in Paris——'
'We are bound to obey,' said the old man, simply. 'The Countess deals with us most generously and justly. We are bound, in return, to render her obedience.'
'All the antique virtues have indeed found refuge here!' said Sabran; but he left the ring behind him lying on a table in the Rittersäal.
Four instead of two vigorous and half-broke horses from the Magyar plains bore him away in a light travelling carriage towards the Virgenthal; the household, with Herr Joachim at their head, watching with regret the travelling carriage wind up amongst the woods and disappear on the farther side of the lake. He himself looked back with a pang of envy and regret at the stately pile towering towards the clouds, with its deep red banner streaming out on the wind that blew from the northern plains.