She never allowed any of the camp letters that her tender-hearted lover wrote her to be seen by any one else. They were love-letters, she said, and not newspapers, and belonged to her alone. Once only did she prevail upon her heart to part with one, in order to give her friend in Florence a pleasant Christmas surprise, for Julie knew that she could give away nothing in the world that was dearer to her than such a token of life and love from the hand of her betrothed. She accounted to Julie for the fact that this epistle, a comic rhymed affair in Rosenbusch's old light-hearted manner, sounded less tender than the others, by explaining that it was accompanied by an extra sheet in prose, which dealt with the intimate affairs of the heart. True to the profound saying of Elfinger--"The stronger the love, the weaker the verses"--our lover had taken good care not to compose his actual love-letters in rhyme, for which Angelica felt grateful to him in her soul.
CHAPTER VI.
The hard war winter was over; the spring had brought peace and the birth of a new German Empire; and midsummer saw the victorious host returning to its home.
It is just two years since that day when our story began. Once more it is hot and still in the Theresienwiese, so still that a flute concerto from the window of the studio building could be heard for a long distance around. But the flute is silent. Moreover, although it is a weekday, a Sunday calm hangs over the country round about. No roll of carriages is heard, and no people are seen hurrying busily through the streets of the suburb. Yet the great bronze maiden before the Ruhmeshalle does not seem surprised at this loneliness and quiet. It is true, without raising herself on tiptoe, she can look away over the houses of the city, to the gate on which stands a smaller likeness of herself in a chariot of victory, drawn by four stately lions with majestic heads and manes. And so she knows the reason why everything in her neighborhood appears as if it were dead. Just as the blood from the whole body streams swiftly to the centre of life, when some sudden stroke of fear or surprise reaches the heart, leaving the extremities paralyzed and lifeless, so the whole population had collected around that spot where their heart was to-day--the arch of triumph through which the conquerors were to enter. The great bronze woman sees the flash of arms and the waving of flags on the high-road before any one else, and something like a smile flits across her tightly-shut lips. Any one who had been watching her closely at this moment would have seen that she raised her arm higher than usual, and slightly moved the wreath in her hand, as if in token of greeting to the triumphal procession. This occurred just as the bells rang out from all the church towers in the city, and a shout of joy from a hundred thousand throats announced the arrival of the advance guard.
Among the entering host are two faces well-known to us.
At the head of his regiment, which has left nearly half its number on the cold ground at Bazeilles and Orleans, and for that reason has to accept a double tribute of flowers from the windows on the right and left, rides Captain von Schnetz, his lank figure seated bolt upright in the saddle, his breast blazing with orders, and his whole person covered from head to foot with the bouquets which, aimed at the rider, have fallen off and been handed up to him by the boys that run along at his side. He has decorated his sword with them, and his helmet, and his pistols, and his horse's trappings, although usually he is no great admirer of flowers. Nor does he do this now for his own glorification or pleasure. But he knows that, at a window in the first story of that stately house over yonder, there sits a woman, thin and prematurely old, but whose cheeks, usually so pale, wear a joyous flush to-day, and whose eyes, grown faded through long suffering, beam once more with something of the brightness and hopefulness of youth. It is to this woman that he wants to show himself in his covering of flowers. Heretofore, she has worn a crown of thorns; now he wants to show her the promising future he has won for himself and her. But she sees him from a distance only. When the good, honesty yellow-leather-colored face, with its black imperial, rides by, close to the house, her eyes are so bedimmed by tears that she only sees, as if through a veil, how he lowers his sword to her in salute, and bows slightly with his garlanded helmet. The wreath which she has held ready for him falls from her trembling hand over the railing upon the heads of the densely packed crowd below. But they seem to know for whom it is intended. In a second twenty hands have helped to pass it along to him, and now it is handed up to the rider, who lets all the others slide off his sword so that this one alone shall be wound about it.
Not far behind this brave soldier rides another, upon whom, likewise, the eyes of the women and girls in the windows gaze with pleasure, though he is a stranger to them all, and, for his part, very rarely lets his dark eyes rest on any of these blooming faces. For who is there here whom he cares to seek? And whose face would he be glad to see unexpectedly? It was only with great reluctance and in order not to offend Schnetz, who asked it of him as a particular proof of friendship, that he finally consented to take part in the entrance of the troops, and to visit once more the city which had so many bitter associations for him. These last two years--what a different man they had made of him! And yet--although he was firmly convinced that the source of every joy was dried up in his innermost heart, and that henceforth nothing was left to him but a barren satisfaction at duties conscientiously fulfilled--even he could not altogether escape the festal mood of this marvelous hour. His handsome face, made bolder and keener by the hardships of war, lost the sad, hard expression which had never been absent from it during the whole year; a bright determination, a quiet earnestness, beamed from his eyes. As he rode through the triumphal avenue strewn with flowers, amid the chime of bells and the wildest shouts of joy, he lost the consciousness of his own hopeless lot, and became merged, as it were, in the great, pervading spirit of a unique and sublime festival, which would never come again; and to take part in which, with the Iron Cross on his breast, and honorable, scarcely healed wounds underneath, was a privilege which might well be thought to compensate for all the lost bliss of a young life.
After the entrance ceremonies were over, he wended his way toward the garden on the Dultplatz, where he thought there would be the least danger, to-day, of meeting any one of his acquaintances. Here, surrounded on all sides by the country-folk who had streamed into the city in great crowds, he sat in the shade of the ash-trees and, like a dream, the events of the last two years passed in review before him; from that first Sunday afternoon when he dined here with Jansen and his new friends, down to the present moment, when he sat in the crowd solitary and alone, sought by no friendly eye, and merely stared at as one of that great host which had done honor to its fatherland.
The crowd in the garden had already begun to thin out a little when Schnetz touched the dreamer on the shoulder. He did not speak a word about the meeting he had just had with his wife; but such an unwonted joyousness could be detected in his voice and bearing that for the first time Felix began to feel a quiet envy of this happy man, who had been expected and welcomed by some one whom he loved. He, for his part, would have greatly preferred to leave the town again before night; for after the first glow of enthusiasm was over, his spirits had once more become so gloomy that he would have given a great deal to escape from the festivities of the evening. But he had promised Schnetz a whole day, and he had too often been under obligations to his friend, in the hard days of trial that winter, not to grant him this small favor.
"Of course I will let you off from all ceremonial visits," said his friend, as they left the garden arm-in-arm. "But we really must go and pay our respects to the invalids, and afterward shake hands with Fat Rossel. He would never forgive you if you didn't think it worth while to congratulate him in his new state; and, besides, it is all up with your incognito. At the window from which our friend Rossel viewed the spectacle sat another individual, who once upon a time took a great fancy to your worthy self, and who, notwithstanding the fact that her grandpapa and husband stood behind her, gave vent to her patriotic enthusiasm in the most unrestrained manner possible, throwing all the flowers in her basket at you at one go. But, of course you, like Hans the Dreamer, rode past your happiness all unconscious of it."