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I think there is some mistake in my name; I have for the last minute been Princess Rodolphini." It was said with the artless grace which revived, in this avowal hidden beneath a jest, the happy days at Gersau.
"Get quickly back to Gersau," she said to the boatmen, "I will not let my poor Emilio pine ten minutes longer than he need." "What has happened?" asked Rodolphe, as he saw Francesca finish reading the last letter. "La liberta!" she exclaimed, with an artist's enthusiasm. "E denaro!" added Gina, like an echo, for she had found her tongue. "Yes," said Francesca, "no more poverty!
In a gayer and more populous place I should have suspected them to have been suggested by factitious sentiment derived from books; but the good people of Gersau knew little of books; there was not a novel nor a love-poem in the village, and I question whether any peasant of the place dreamt, while he was twining a fresh chaplet for the grave of his mistress, that he was fulfilling one of the most fanciful rites of poetical devotion, and that he was practically a poet.
And he was more and more fascinated by this tenderness apart from wit, always and in all things the same, an affection that was jealous of mere nothings already! "You care very much for luxury?" said he one evening to Francesca, who was expressing her wish to get away from Gersau, where she missed many things. "I!" cried she.
What was Rodolphe's amazement on recognizing the deaf-mute as one of them; she was talking to Miss Lovelace in Italian. It was now eleven o'clock at night. The stillness was so perfect on the lake and around the dwelling, that the two women must have thought themselves safe; in all Gersau there could be no eyes open but theirs.
But I must reach Gersau to-day. Whatever grievances your rulers' pride And grasping avarice may yet inflict, Bear them in patience soon a change may come. Another emperor may mount the throne. But Austria's once, and you are hers forever. Gertrude, his wife, enters, and finds him in this posture. She places herself near him, and looks at him for some time in silence. GERTRUDE. So sad, my love!
I will barely add an instance of sepulchral decoration that I once met with among the mountains of Switzerland. It was at the village of Gersau, which stands on the borders of the Lake of Lucerne, at the foot of Mount Rigi. It was once the capital of a miniature republic shut up between the Alps and the lake, and accessible on the land side only by footpaths.
As they passed the pretty hamlet of Gersau, one of the friends looked for a long time at a wooden house which seemed to have been recently built, enclosed by a paling, and standing on a promontory, almost bathed by the waters. As the boat rowed past, a woman's head was raised against the background of the room on the upper story of this house, to admire the effect of the boat on the lake.
"Fear nothing," said he in French to the Italian girl, "I am not a spy. You are refugees, I have guessed that. I am a Frenchman whom one look from you has fixed at Gersau." Rodolphe, startled by the acute pain caused by some steel instrument piercing his side, fell like a log. "Nel lago con pietra!" said the terrible dumb girl. "Oh, Gina!" exclaimed the Italian.
The whole force of the republic did not exceed six hundred fighting men, and a few miles of circumference, scooped out as it were from the bosom of the mountains, comprised its territory. The village of Gersau seemed separated from the rest of the world, and retained the golden simplicity of a purer age. It had a small church, with a burying-ground adjoining.
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