Category: Historical Novels
Towards Christmas time, in the year 1780, as I lay soundly sleeping in my room at the Swan Tavern, in Tuebingen, old Gideon Sperver burst suddenly into my room, crying, "Gaston, my boy, I have come to take you back with me to the Castle! You know Nideck, twenty miles from here...
Towards Christmas time, in the year 1780, as I lay soundly sleeping in my room at the Swan Tavern, in Tuebingen, old Gideon Sperver burst suddenly into my room, crying, "Gaston,...
2. CHAPTER II.Following Sperver, who climbed the staircase at a rapid pace, I was able to convince myself that the Castle of Nideck merited its reputation. It was a true stronghold, cut out o...
3. CHAPTER III.We ate with the ravenous appetite which a ten hours' ride through the snows of the Black Forest would be likely to impart. Sperver attacked, in turn, the kid, the pheasants, and...
4. CHAPTER IV.The dawn was beginning to turn gray the only window of the donjon-tower, when I was awakened in my granite bed by the distant notes of a hunting-horn. I know of no sound more sa...
5. CHAPTER V."Nevertheless," I said to myself, "the resemblance is there! Is it chance? Nonsense! What is chance, anyway, save that for which we fail to grasp the reason? No; there must be s...
6. CHAPTER VI.I entered the Count's chamber. What was my surprise to perceive in the half-light of the alcove, the master of Nideck raised upon his elbow and studying me with profound attenti...
7. CHAPTER VII.When I again saw Odile her expression was one of complete wretchedness; her swollen eyes told me that she had been weeping long, and her extreme pallor and weariness cut me to t...
8. CHAPTER VIII.Sperver's face wore a look of supreme indignation; Sebalt's one of bitter irony. The master of the hounds, whose melancholy appearance had struck me during my first days at Nide...
9. CHAPTER IX.The Count of Nideck was in a dying condition. All that art might accomplish I had tried without avail, and at that moment, when life and death were struggling for the mastery, I...
10. CHAPTER X.I wandered around the Castle, unable to find the opening through which I had come out on to the plain. So much anxiety and emotion began to tell upon my mind; I moved aimlessly...
11. CHAPTER XI."No, she is quite recovered, but something unusual is going on. This morning at about one o'clock, thinking that the Count was about to breathe his last, I went to wake the Coun...
12. CHAPTER XII.An hour after my conversation with Odile, Sperver and I were galloping hard over the plain from Nideck. The huntsman, bending over his horse's neck, set spurs to her from time t...
13. CHAPTER XIII.Sperver set out, carrying the body of Lieverle in his cloak. I had refused to follow him, for I felt that duty compelled me to remain near this unhappy woman, and I could not ha...
14. CHAPTER XIV."You must be ready to start with the Count in an hour," exclaimed Sperver, as he stood on my threshold before the sun had yet risen. "Sebalt and Becker came in late last night,...
15. CHAPTER XV.The body of the boar was strapped across the backs of the two horses which the beaters, Wilhelm Moelz and Yeri Scharf, relinquished for the purpose, themselves returning on foot...