Three years afterward, Durer entered the office of the Emperor's secretary. Later, he became, himself, private secretary. Later still, he received a barony and a handsome estate.--So much for the prophecies, so much for the secret influence of the Counsellor Werter!
Durer was on the highway paved with gold;--but he forgot his father, and he forgot his mother, too.
One day, when Counsellor Werter was going to court, he met Durer on the staircase of the palace. He said to him,--
"Baron Durer, I sent yesterday, in your name, twelve thousand crowns to a certain old shepherd in a village not far from Haerlem."
The Counsellor said this in rather a scornful voice; and he saw that Baron Durer turned as red as the boy had done in the Valley of the Bushes, on the evening when he was asked what his father's trade was. 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.
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. May they be requited! for of such is not the kingdom of heaven."--Then he knelt down by the side of the grave and prayed.
This old man was Counsellor Werter. Wearied of the world, he had retired into obscurity, after having divided the larger part of his splendid fortune among the poor. He was gay, nimble--in the enjoyment of robust health; and many a time would he thank heaven that no children had been born to him, when he thought of the hard-heartedness of John Durer.