The two men looked steadily at each other: the Baron with that hatred
which is never to be appeased--the Counsellor with bitter indignation.
On the evening of that very day, the Emperor received his faithful old
friend, the incorruptible Counsellor, coldly. On the morrow, Werter was
not summoned to the palace--nor the day after. Disgrace had fallen on
him. He had nourished a serpent in his bosom. He left court, and
retired far away, to a small estate which he, too, chanced to possess in
the neighborhood of Haerlem.
III.
As to John Durer, he rose to higher and higher dignities. The Emperor,
after having made him minister, married him to a noble heiress. About
that self-same time, the old shepherd and his wife died. Their village
neighbors accompanied them in silence to the humble churchyard. A little
man, whose hair was now white as snow, followed the dead with his head
uncovered. When the priest had cast on their coffins that handful of
dust which sounds so drearily, the old man murmured--
"There are bad sons, who, when they become fortunate, forget the aged
parents who cherished them when they were children.
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