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Florian Hausbaum was a Styrian of the woods from Mahrenberg, that same superb, defiantly German Mahrenberg below which the Drau plunges over titanic boulders, and over which two churches stand face to face, tower against tower, like locomotives desirous of ramming each other; the old Slovene Church, and the new German-Evangelical Church.
Only a long, mocking whistle came to them from the distance, from the wooded moors beyond the Drau, wafted to them by wide-ranging breezes. From that day on it was the railroad that carried wine and love, wood and happiness, wares and hope. But on the heights above Florian Hausbaum was making his last trip. His employer had given him notice.
Love and acclamation died away, and his calling with all its joys was crushed with him. And that was because, far below in the plain across the Drau, the railroad was built. For another year Florie Hausbaum proudly and loftily carted his wine into the Carinthian land. Far below him, beyond the stream, they were working on the long iron serpent; but he did not even look at it.
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.
Venerable and mighty was the hatred of Florian Hausbaum in all the land, and the eyes of the old carter again began to sparkle, his cheeks to look red, and his heart swelled, making the old man look magnificent. He had something to live for!
Then he drove away, down into the deep valley and up the hill beyond and away; but Florian Hausbaum stood like Siegfried after the battle with the dragon. The gendarme said to him with some reproach, "Right you were, Florie. But if the gentleman goes to law, I'll have to testify against you. Then it'll go hard with you; do be sensible in your old age!" And he went.
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!"
The first vintage had turned out sweet and heavy, and now Florian Hausbaum was carting the seasoned beverage up to Völkermarkt in two casks, one of them tremendous, the other of very respectable size. But while he was dreaming thus, his horses had already turned down the hill.
As the physician was working over him, Florian Hausbaum awoke once more in this life. He looked about him, and drew breaths of pain and affliction. But the wonderful spring air of that day penetrated even his crushed lungs like a mild wine in a parched throat.
Of all histories and human destinies those are the most conducive to meditation which are closely knitted together with a bit of universal fate, and so let me narrate here for the woeful diversion of men the story of Florian Hausbaum, who was once the youth and the song of this road.
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