But on the heights above Florian Hausbaum was making his last trip. His employer had given him notice. He let his quivering horses rest, and where in other days an outburst of happiness had made him send a halloo from the fairest spot far out across the conquered depths toward the Alps, there he now wept for a whole silly stretch.
Henceforth the road was desolate, at one blow--and no one even drove a cart over it any more. The manure which the farmers had conveyed to their fields was almost the only one of this world's goods which it still carried.
As for Florian Hausbaum, he became a driver for the Ox Inn at Völkermarkt; that was a little consolation, at least; to settle down here on the scene of former triumphs, and ever and again to be able to drive at least a little load of grain or wood over the beloved road. To be sure, he could no longer reach all his girls with these present trips. Nor did they need it, for now there was other supply. From over yonder, from across the Drau, from Prävali, Bleiburg, and Kühnsdorf, and also from Rückersdorf and Grafenstein, and not to mention the provincial capital, from there came the new foes, who wore such handsome red caps when on duty, as resplendent as officers with their black velvet lapels and the gold rosettes and winged wheels. They were the young railroad officials, pupils and assistants, and each one was the Casanova of his district! In those small places there were no other uniforms, and what was the bouquet on Florian's hat worth, compared with those caps with gold braid and rosette! They took away his Lisi, Marianne at St. Martin, and the passionate beauty Resele in the little hamlet of Eis. At Klagenfurt and Völkermarkt they danced all the girls away before his very nose, and it was just the winter, toward which he had looked forward with joyful anticipation, which became the way of the cross for him, where each stopping-place meant the end of a love and loyalty. Florie's best quality, his rarity, was of course gone; from now on he was always on hand, after all, and more than that, he was no longer the bringer of joy, the messenger of the thawing breeze, as of yore.
He defended his position with the girls; but as full-bred Styrian he began quarrels and brawls with his rivals on the railroad, instead of becoming a railroad man himself. So he was locked up in Klagenfurt for a couple of weeks, and for the first time this man, hitherto so open-hearted, so totally without reserve, developed a secret emotional life: hate of the railroad, and love for his deserted highway.
In reality it was love for his fleeting youth, the unquenchable thirst of yearning desire for the past, memory! But because the road had been the scene of his eternally faded greatness, therefore he attached all this love to it.
The years dropped out of sight in gnawing conflicts with his steadily thickening blood, and youth was where the violets of Marburg were, and the songs, and the new wine: with new generations.
For three or four years, indeed, Florie still lived on the echoes of his victorious days, and was still widely and warmly welcomed. But more and more strange faces came into the village, and new generations grew up that had not understood him in his glory of old. Girls of eighteen and twenty began to develop out of the children of that day, and these looked upon carter Hausbaum as a relic "of the time before the railroad came," as a venerable ancestor.
Rarer and rarer grew those admirers who would pound on the tavern table, saying, "Ah, old Florie, that was a devil of a lad for you!" So he himself began to play the narrator, and fiercely defended his own legend. But the more he had to tell, the older he appeared to the petticoated sex.
At first he was willingly listened to; then he was regarded as played out. Now he no longer talked with the old sorrowful ease, but with passionate bawling and irritation. He boastfully forced his stories upon people, and lost respect all the more.
Only the road, the old road remained his last sweetheart and remained quiet and faithful; both had become despised and useless, but they had clung to each other. Only, when he now drove over it--alas, how that too had changed. Formerly he brought along the new wine with the new spring.