CHAPTER XXIII

IN the western range of the Carpathian mountains, which separate Bohemia from Bavaria, and which receives in these countries the name of the Boehmer Wald, there was still standing, about a century ago, an old country seat of immense extent, called, in consequence of some forgotten tradition, the Castle of the Giants. Though presenting at a distance somewhat the appearance of an ancient fortress, it was no more than a private residence, furnished in the taste, then somewhat antiquated but always rich and sumptuous, of Louis XIV. The feudal style of architecture had also undergone various tasteful modifications in the parts of the edifice occupied by the Lords of Rudolstadt, masters of this rich domain.

The family was of Bohemian origin, but had become naturalized in Germany on its members changing their name, and abjuring the principles of the Reformation, at the most trying period of the Thirty Years' War. A noble and valiant ancestor, of inflexible Protestant principles, had been murdered on the mountain in the neighborhood of his castle, by the fanatic soldiery. His widow, who was of a Saxon family, saved the fortune and the life of her young children by declaring herself a Catholic, and entrusting to the Jesuits the education of the heirs of Rudolstadt. After two generations had passed away, Bohemia being silent and oppressed, the Austrian power permanently established, and the glory and misfortunes of the Reformation at last apparently forgotten, the Lords of Rudolstadt peacefully practiced the Christian virtues, professed the Romish faith, and dwelt on their estates in unostentatious state, like good aristocrats and faithful servants of Maria Theresa. They had formerly displayed their bravery, in the service of their emperor Charles VI; but it was strange that young Albert, the last of this illustrious and powerful race, and the only son of Count Christian Rudolstadt, had never borne arms in the War of Succession, which had just terminated; and that he had reached his thirtieth year without having sought any other distinction than what he inherited from his birth and fortune. This unusual course had inspired his sovereign with suspicion of collusion with her enemies; but Count Christian, having had the honor to receive the empress in his castle, had given such reasons for the conduct of his son as seemed to satisfy her. Nothing, however, had transpired of the conversation between Maria Theresa and Count Rudolstadt. A strange mystery reigned in the bosom of this devout and beneficent family, which for ten years a neighbor had seldom visited; which no business, no pleasure, no political agitation, induced to leave their domains; which paid largely and without a murmur all the subsidies required for the war, displaying no uneasiness in the midst of public danger and misfortune; which in fine seemed not to live after the same fashion as the other nobles, who viewed them with distrust, although knowing nothing of them but their praiseworthy deeds and noble conduct. At a loss to what to attribute this unsocial and retired mode of life, they accused the Rudolstadts sometimes of avarice, sometimes of misanthropy; but as their actions uniformly contradicted these imputations, their maligners were at length obliged to confine their reproaches to their apathy and indifference. They asserted that Count Christian did not wish to expose the life of his son—the last of his race—in these disastrous wars, and that the empress had, in exchange for his services, accepted a sum of money sufficient to equip a regiment of hussars. The ladies of rank who had marriageable daughters admitted that Count Christian had done well; but when they learned the determination that he seemed to entertain of providing a wife for his son in his own family, in the daughter of the Baron Frederick, his brother—when they understood that the young Baroness Amelia had just quitted the convent at Prague where she had been educated, to reside henceforth with her cousin in the Castle of the Giants—these noble dames unanimously pronounced the family of Rudolstadt to be a den of wolves, each of whom was more unsocial and savage than the others. A few devoted servants and faithful friends alone knew the secret of the family, and kept it strictly.

This noble family was assembled one evening round a table profusely loaded with game, and those substantial dishes with which our ancestors in Slavonic states still continued to regale themselves at this period, notwithstanding the refinements which the court of Louis XV had introduced into the aristocratic customs of a great part of Europe. An immense hearth on which burned huge billets of oak, diffused heat throughout the large and gloomy hall. Count Christian in a loud voice had just said grace, to which the other members of the family listened standing. Numerous aged and grave domestics, in the costume of the country—viz. large mameluke trousers, and long mustachios—moved slowly to and fro in attendance on their honored masters. The chaplain of the castle was seated on the right of the count, the young Baroness Amelia on his left—"next his heart," as he was wont to say with austere and paternal gallantry. The Baron Frederick, his junior brother, whom he always called his "young brother," from his not being more than sixty years old, was seated opposite. The Canoness Wenceslawa of Rudolstadt, his eldest sister, a venerable lady of seventy, afflicted with an enormous hump and a frightful leanness, took her place at the upper end of the table; while Count Albert, the son of Count Christian, the betrothed of Amelia, and the last of the Rudolstadts, came forward, pale and melancholy, to seat himself on the other end, opposite his noble aunt.

Of all these silent personages, Albert was certainly the one least disposed and least accustomed to impart animation to the others. The chaplain was so devoted to his masters, and so reverential toward the head of the family in particular, that he never opened his mouth to speak unless encouraged to do so by a look from Count Christian; and the latter was of so calm and reserved a disposition, that he seldom required to seek from others a relief from his own thoughts.

Baron Frederick was of a less thoughtful character and more active temperament, but he was by no means remarkable for animation. Although mild and benevolent as his eldest brother, he had less intelligence and less enthusiasm. His devotion was a matter of custom and politeness. His only passion was a love for the chase, in which he spent almost all his time, going out each morning and returning each evening, ruddy with exercise, out of breath, and hungry. He ate for ten, drank for thirty, and even showed some sparks of animation when relating how his dog Sapphire had started the hare, how Panther had unkenneled the wolf, or how his falcon Attila had taken flight; and when the company had listened to all this with inexhaustible patience, he dozed over quietly near the fire in a great black leathern arm-chair, and enjoyed his nap until his daughter came to warn him that the hour for retiring was about to strike.

The canoness was the most conversable of the party. She might even be called chatty, for she discussed with the chaplain, two or three times a week, for an hour at a stretch, sundry knotty points touching the genealogy of Bohemian, Hungarian, and Saxon families, the names and biographies of whom, from kings down to simple gentlemen, she had on her finger ends.

As for Count Albert, there was something repelling and solemn in his exterior, as if each of his gestures had been prophetic, each of his sentences oracular to the rest of the family. By a singular peculiarity inexplicable to any one not acquainted with the secret of the mansion, as soon as he opened his lips, which did not happen once in twenty-four hours, the eyes of his friends and domestics were turned upon him; and there was apparent on every face a deep anxiety, a painful and affectionate solicitude; always excepting that of the young Amelia, who listened to him with a sort of ironical impatience, and who alone ventured to reply, with the gay or sarcastic familiarity which her fancy prompted.

This young girl, exquisitely fair, of a blooming complexion, lively, and well formed, was a little pearl of beauty; and when her waiting-maid told her so, in order to console her for her cheerless mode of life, "Alas!" the young girl would reply, "I am a pearl shut up in an oyster of which this frightful Castle of the Giants is the shell." This will serve to show the reader what sort of petulant bird was shut up in so gloomy a cage.

On this evening the solemn silence which weighed down the family, particularly during the first course (for the two old gentlemen, the canoness, and the chaplain, were possessed of a solidity and regularity of appetite which never failed) was interrupted by Count Albert.

"What frightful weather!" said he, with a profound sigh.

Every one looked at him with surprise; for if the weather had become gloomy and threatening during the hour they had been shut up in the interior of the castle, nobody could have perceived it, since the thick shutters were closed. Every thing was calm without and within, and nothing announced an approaching tempest.

Nobody, however, ventured to contradict Albert; and Amelia contented herself with shrugging her shoulders, while the clatter of knives and forks, and the removal of the dishes by the servants, proceeded, after a moment's interruption, as before.

"Do not you hear the wind roaring amid the pines of the Boehmer Wald, and the voice of the torrent sounding in your ears?" continued Albert in a louder voice, and with a fixed gaze at his father.

Count Christian was silent. The baron, in his quiet way, replied, without removing his eyes from his venison which he hewed with athletic hand as if it had been a lump of granite: "Yes, we had wind and rain together at sunset, and I should not be surprised were the weather to change tomorrow."

Albert smiled in his strange manner, and every thing again became still; but five minutes had hardly elapsed when a furious blast shook the lofty casements, howled wildly around the old walls, lashing the waters of the moat as with a whip, and died away on the mountain tops with a sound so plaintive, that every face, with the exception of Count Albert's, who again smiled with the same indefinable expression, grew pale.

"At this very instant," said he, "the storm drives a stranger toward our castle. You would do well, Sir Chaplain, to pray for those who travel beneath the tempest amid these rude mountains."

"I hourly pray from my very soul," replied the trembling chaplain, "for those who are cast on the rude paths of life amid the tempest of human passions."

"Do not reply, Mr. Chaplain," said Amelia, without regarding the looks or signs which warned her on every side not to continue the conversation. "You know very well that my cousin likes to torment people with his enigmas. For my part I never think of finding them out."

Count Albert paid no more attention to the railleries of his cousin than she appeared to pay to his discourse. He leaned an elbow on his plate, which almost always remained empty and unused before him, and fixed his eyes on the damask table-cloth, as if making a calculation of the ornaments on the pattern, though all the while absorbed in a reverie.