If Heaven itself had opened before Wally, and Hell before Vincenz, it would have been much the same thing.
Then it was not true about Afra! He had come to Wally--he had come after five years of sorrow and suffering--at last, at last! The word was spoken--the winds bore it triumphantly onwards, the breezes echoed it back again, the white glaciers smiled at it in the evening sunshine; Joseph the Bear-hunter bade the Vulture-maiden to the dance! The labourers in the field shouted, the waggons swayed beneath their loads, the vulture on the roof flapped his wings for joy--the two who belonged to one another were come together at last!
Joy to all mankind: the race of giants would live again in this one pair. And smiling graciously, like a Queen beneath the myrtle crown, Wally bowed her beautiful head and told the messenger, half-bashfully, that she should expect Joseph.
Vincenz leaned against a tree, distorted, faded, mute--a ghost of the past.
Wally threw him a compassionate glance--he was no longer to be dreaded: she bore a charmed life, none could hurt or harm her more. She hastened into the house, and the servants looked at her wonderingly, such rapture lay in her expression. But she could not stay indoors; she took money, and went through the village like a bliss-bestowing fairy. She entered all the poorest huts, and gave with liberal hand out of that which she could rightfully and lawfully call her own,[[2]] for she had decided irrevocably that the farm should belong to Vincenz. She was still rich enough to give to Joseph, and to all around her--even her rightful share of Stromminger's estate was a fortune. She must do good to all; she could not bear alone her newly-learnt, immeasurable happiness.
The two days before St. Peter's festival were like a fairy tale to all the villagers. Who could now recognize the morose and bitter Vulture-maiden in the beatified girl who moved about as though borne on invisible wings? It had needed but this one ray of sunshine, and the hail-stricken, frost-bitten blossom had sprung up again. An inexhaustible power made itself felt in her bosom, a power for love as for hatred, for joy as for pain, for self-sacrifice as for defiance. All around her breathed more freely; it was as though a spell had been taken off them since Wally's dark repining spirit, that had weighed like a storm-cloud upon everything, had melted away.
"When one is as happy as I am, every one else should rejoice too," she said; and soon it was known everywhere that it was because Joseph had asked her to the dance--which was almost the same as asking her in marriage--that Wally was so changed. Why should she conceal it, when in so few days it would be known? why should she deny that she loved him with all her heart, above everything? he deserved it all, and he loved her in return, or he would not be coming to fetch her to the dance. It was well for her that she dared to show all that she felt. If she met a child she took it in her arms, and told it how, on St. Peter's Day, Joseph the bear-hunter was coming--Joseph, who had slain the great bear, and saved the innkeeper's little Lieserl from the mad bull, and how they would all open their eyes, he was so tall, and so beautiful to look at--they had never seen such a man, for there was not such another in all the wide world. The children were quite excited, and played all day at Bear and Joseph the bear-hunter. Then she joked with Hansl, threatening him playfully. "Thou'rt to behave thyself when Joseph comes, else something will happen--that I can tell thee!" and Klettenmaier and all the best of the servants had new holiday-clothes--they knew well enough the reason why; but Wally let them chatter as they would about it, and was not angry.
Then again she would sit for hours quietly in her room, doing nothing, wondering only how it had happened that Joseph had so suddenly changed his mind; but however much she thought and thought she could not understand why the unhoped-for happiness, so sudden, so full, so complete, had come upon her; and she looked up at her holy images, no longer with enmity, but with friendly eyes, and thanked them for all the good that they had brought to her. But when she looked at the cards that were nailed up above her bed, she laughed aloud. "Well, what do you now say? Own that you knew nothing of what was coming!" and like enchanted spirits that no liberating spell can call forth again into the light, the secrets of the future stared unintelligibly at her from these mute tokens. If only old Luckard had been there, she could have told what it was the cards replied to Wally--but to her they were dumb, like a cipher of which the key is lost. If Luckard had been alive, how rejoiced she would have been! Wally would have liked to lie down and sleep till the day of the festival, so that the time might not appear so long. But there was no question of sleep; she could not even close an eye by day or by night for impatience. She was always counting, "Now so many hours more--now so many--"
At last the day was come. After breakfast Wally went to her room, and washed herself, and combed her hair without end. Once more she was a woman--a girl! Once more she stood before the glass, and adorned herself, and looked to see if she were fair, if she might hope to find favour in Joseph's eyes; and once more she had procured a new necklace, even more beautiful than the first, and filigree pins for her hair as well. The box was on the table before her, she took out the ornament, and tied it above her bodice; the bright silver was as white as the snowy pleated sleeves of her chemise and tinkled like clear marriage-bells, and through the rose-coloured chintz curtains a dim rosy light shed a tender mist of bridal-glow over the girl's noble figure. When she was ready, she took from its case a meerschaum pipe heavy with silver, such as no peasant of the country had far and wide--a really splendid pipe--and yet she held it long in her hand, doubting whether it were good enough for Joseph. And still there was something else, that she took out slowly, almost timidly, looking at the door to see if it were securely fastened; it was a small round box, and in it there lay--a ring. She trembled as she took it out, and a tear of unutterable joy and thankfulness glistened in her eye. She held the ring in her folded hands, and for the first time for many days she knelt down, and she prayed over it that the beloved one might be linked to her for ever. And she no longer heard the rustle of her silks, and the tinkle of her silver ornaments; she was lost in the passionate fervour of her prayers; she pressed forward as it were to the presence of God with the vehemence of a thankful child whose father has granted its warmest desire.
"The mistress will never have done with dressing herself to-day," said the maids outside, as Wally did not appear.