vented its escape.

That was a Styrian wine-carter!

Hausbaum was told the whole story while everything was still reeling
about him and head and ribs ached. He had already begun to weep like a
child; but when he learned of his heroic deed, his lips drew down only
four or five times more; then his mouth changed from a horseshoe into a
broad line, and at the end Florie laughed all over his face and so
overpoweringly that all joined in.

Now he was carried in triumph to Voelkermarkt, found his horses sound
and contented, and was extolled for the hero he was. For he had
preserved a sacred treasure for Voelkermarkt.

This tale ran over half the Carinthian land, and that was the climax
and the highest prosperity of Florian Hausbaum's bright life.

Then, however, his fortunes, his renown, and his importance declined
all at once. 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.

In the second year he only carted his wine until the early days of
summer. But even on his spring trip his heart grew anxious and heavy.
The girls were no longer starved with love-pangs as formerly, not at
all, for the handsome young engineers, and then the foremen and bosses,
were turning things upside down. There had been dances, dances at
Carnival time, even in the smallest villages.

And then came the day on which the first locomotive, decked out with
flags, branches, ribbons, and flowers, pulled a whole trainful of
jubilation from Marburg to Klagenfurt. Thirty young girls from the
Styrian wine-centre were on the train in their festal finery, going to
dance with the lads of Klagenfurt. All sang and shouted for joy because
the new time had come, the time of youth.

But high up on the lonely road the fair-haired carter, who had
meanwhile reached the shady side of thirty, held his hat with its
fading bouquet before his face. The horses pulled till they trembled,
but below them the iron serpent crawled along, overtook them without
effort, and was lost to sight far ahead. 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