The Mistress of the Sonnenplatte.
Again a year had gone by, a hard year for Wally; for when her lonely
summer in the wilds was ended and Stromminger had sent to fetch the
flocks home, she had gone down into the Schnalser valley on the other
side of the Ferner where she was quite a stranger, and there had sought
service. To the Rofeners she would not return, as she must again have
rejected their suit. But it was just as hard to find employment with
the vulture here as it had been in the Oetz valley, and at last she
gave up all thought of remuneration, only to be taken in with Hansl.
Naturally her lot was a forlorn one--for on account of this folly, as
they called it, she was often turned away or scornfully treated by the
women; and often she had to defend herself stoutly against the rude
importunities of the men, who, here as everywhere, admired the
beautiful girl. Nevertheless she bore it all steadfastly, for she was
too proud to lament and complain of a burden she had laid on herself of
her own free will. But she grew hard under it, hard and ever harder,
just as the good pastor had forewarned her. The ghosts of all the
murdered joys of her young life haunted her and cried out for revenge;
in the short spring time of life three lost years count for much. Other
young girls weep and lament over a lost dance. Wally did not weep for
all the lost dances, for all the thousand pleasures of her youth, she
grieved only for her wasted love; and her spirit, on which no ray of
happiness had shone, waxed sour and hard like a fruit that has matured
in the shade.
Again the spring time came, and again Wally ascended the Ferner. It was
a bitter spring and a stormy summer; rain, snow, and hail succeeded
each other in turns, so that her clothes often did not dry the whole
day through, and for weeks together she breathed the damp atmosphere of
an impenetrable chaos of drizzling clouds, through which, as before the
first day of Creation, no ray of light would dawn. And, in her soul,
the vast outer chaos reproduced itself in little, gloom reflected
gloom. The whole world as yet was but a dark and troubled dream like
the cloud drifts around her--and God came not, who alone could say,
"Let there be Light."
One day, however, after endless weeks of darkness, He spoke again the
mighty word of creation, and a gleam of sunshine shot through the
clouds and parted them, and gradually there emerged from the chaos a
fair and well-ordered world, with mountains and valleys, pastures and
lakes and forests; it was spread out suddenly complete before her eyes,
and she felt as if she also were now first suddenly roused to life--as
was once the mother of mankind--that she might rejoice in this world
that God had made so beautiful, not for Himself alone, but for those
beings whom He had created to take delight in it with Him.
Was it possible there should be no happiness in so fair a world? And
wherefore had God set her, this hapless Eve, up here in the desert,
where he for whom she had been born could never find her? "Oh! yonder,
down yonder--enough of these lonely heights!" a voice cried suddenly
within her, and all at once the wild yearning for life, for love, for
happiness broke forth, so that she longingly stretched out her arms
towards the smiling, sunny world that lay below at her feet.
"Wally, thou must come down at once. Thy father's dead." The shepherd
boy stood before her.
Wally stared at him as if dreaming. Was it a vision called up by her
own heart, that even now had cried out so rebelliously for happiness?
She grasped the lad by the shoulder as though to assure herself that he
was indeed there, and it was no trick of the imagination. He repeated
the message. "The place in his foot got worse and worse, then it
mortified, and he died this morning. Now thou's mistress at the farm,
and Klettenmaier sends thee greeting."
Then it was true, really true! the messenger of release, of peace, of
liberty stood before her in the flesh. For this it was that God had
shown her the earth so fair, as though He would say to her beforehand,
"See, this is now thine own, come down and take that which I have given
thee."
She went silently into the hut and closed the door. Then she knelt down
and thanked God, and prayed--prayed again, for the first time in many
weeks, ardently, from the depth of her soul; and hot tears for the
father who was now for ever gone--whom living she could not and dared
not love as a child--welled up from her released and reconciled heart.
Then she went down to the home, that now at last was again a home to
her, where her foot once more trod her own soil, her own hearth. Old
Klettenmaier stood at the gate and joyfully waved his cap when she
arrived; the servant-girl who, two years before, had been so rude to
her, came weeping and submissive to give her the keys, and at the
sitting-room door she was received by Vincenz.
"Wally," he began, "thou'st used me very badly, but--"
Wally interrupted him quietly but severely. "Vincenz, if I've done thee
any wrong, may God punish me as it shall please Him. I cannot regret it
nor make it good to thee, nor do I ask thee for forgiveness. Now thou
know'st my mind, and all I pray thee is, leave me to myself."
And without vouchsafing him another glance, she went in to where the
body of her father lay, and locked the door. She stood by it, tearless.
She had been able to weep for the transfigured father, freed from the
"tenement of clay;" but standing by that form of clay itself, which
with a heavy fist had marred her and her life, which had struck her
down and trodden on her--she could shed no tears, she was as if made of
stone.
Quietly she said a Pater Noster, but she did not kneel to say it. As
she had stood motionless, self-possessed before her living father, so
now she stood before him dead; only without resentment, reconciled by
death.
Then she went into the kitchen to prepare a supper by the time the
neighbours should come for the night to pray and to watch the dead. It
kept all hands busy, and by midnight the room was so full of watchers
that she could hardly provide enough to eat and to drink. For the
richer a peasant is, the more neighbours come to the watching and
praying by the corpse.
Wally looked on with silent aversion. Here lay a dead man--and so they
ate and drank like so many flies! The dull hum and bustle were so
strange to her after the sublime stillness of her mountain home, and
struck her as so small and pitiful, that involuntarily she wished
herself back again on the silent heights. Speechless and indifferent
she passed to and fro between the noisy eating and drinking groups, and
people said how much she resembled her dead father. On the third day
was the funeral. From far and near people of the neighbouring hamlets
came to it, partly to pay the last respect to the important and
dreaded chief-peasant, partly to "make all straight" with the wicked
Vulture-maiden, who now was mistress of all the great possessions of
the Strommingers. Hitherto, indeed, she had been only an "incendiary"
and a "ne'er do weel;" but now she was the wealthiest owner in all the
mountain range, and that made all the difference.
Wally felt the change keenly, and she knew too whence it came. When she
saw now after the funeral the same people stand before her with bent
backs and obsequious grins, who, but one year before, had turned her
from their doors with scorn and flouting when, starving with cold and
hunger, she had asked them for work--then she turned away with
loathing--then, and from that hour she despised mankind.
The cure of Heiligkreuz came too, and the Kloetze from Rofen. Now was
the moment for making at least an outward return for all their goodness
to her when she had been poor and abandoned, and she distinguished them
from all the others and kept with them only. When the funeral feast was
over and the guests had at last dispersed, the priest of Heiligkreuz
remained with her yet a little while, and spoke many good words to her.
"Now you are mistress over many servants," he said, "but remember that
he who does not know how to govern himself will not know how to govern
others. It is an old saying, that 'he who cannot obey, cannot command';
learn to obey, my child, that you may be able to command."
"But, your reverence, whom am I to obey? There's no one here now that
has any orders to give me."
"God."
Wally was silent.
"See here," said the cure, taking something from the pocket of his
wide-skirted coat. "I have long meant this for you, ever since the time
you were with me, but you could not have taken it with you in your
wanderings." He took out of a box a small neatly-carved image of a
saint with a little pedestal of wood.
"See, this is your patron saint, the holy Wallburga. Do you remember
what I said to you about hard and soft wood, and about the good God who
can carve a saint out of a knotty stick?"
"Yes, yes," said Wally.
"Well, you see, in order that you may not forget it, I have had a
little image brought for me from Soelden. Hang it up over your bed, and
pray before it diligently--that will do you good."
"I thank your reverence very much," said Wally, evidently delighted, as
she took the fragile object carefully in her hard hands. "I will be
sure always to remember when I look at it, how well you explained the
meaning of it all to me. And this is how the holy Wallburga looked! Oh,
she must indeed have been a sweet and lovely woman; but who could be so
good and so pious as that?"
And as Klettenmaier came towards her across the courtyard, she held the
figure out to him and cried, "See, Klettenmaier, what I have had given
me; it is the holy Wallburga, my patron saint. We will send his
reverence the first fine lamb that is dropped, as a present."
The good priest put in a sincere protest against this kind of return,
but Wally, in her pleasure, paid no heed.
When the cure was gone, she went into her room and nailed the carved
figure with the sacred images over her bed, and all round, like a
wreath, she placed the pack of cards that had been old Luckard's. Then
she went to see what there was to do in the farm or in the house.
"Hansl," she cried as she passed the vulture who was perched on the
wood-shed, "_we_ are the masters now!" And the sense of mastery after
her long servitude pervaded her whole being, as intoxicating wine drunk
in deep draughts fills the veins of an exhausted man.
In the courtyard the servants hired by Vincenz were all assembled, and
Vincenz himself was amongst them. He had grown haggard, his face was of
a yellow paleness, and on the back of his head in the midst of his
thick black hair he had a bald place like a tonsure; his glaring eyes
lay deep in their sockets, like the eyes of a wolf lurking in a crevice
for his prey.
"What is it?" asked Wally, standing still. The upper servant, erewhile
so rude, approached with timid subserviency.
"We only wished to ask thee if thou's meaning to send us away because
we treated thee so badly while the master was alive? Thou knows we
could only do what he would have done."
"You did only your duty," said Wally quietly. "I send none away unless
I find him dishonest or a bad servant. And if you left off bowing and
bending before me, you'd please me better. Go to your work that I may
see what you can do, that's better worth than fooleries."
The people separated; Vincenz remained, his eyes fixed glowingly on
Wally; she turned and stretched out her hand against him. "One only I
banish from my hearth and home--thee, Vincenz," she said.
"Wally!" cried Vincenz, "this--this in return for all I did for thy
father."
"What thou did for my father as his steward, so long as he was lame,
that thou shall get a return for. I give thee the meadows that adjoin
thy farm and round off thy land; that I think will repay thee thy
time and trouble, and if not, say so--I'll be beholden to thee for
nothing--ask what thou will but get thee from before my eyes."
"I want nought--I'll have nought but thee, Wally. All is one to me
without thee. Thou'st well nigh murdered me, thou'st ill used me every
time I've ever seen thee--and--the devil's in it--I cannot give thee
up. Look here--I did it all for thee. For thee I'd commit a murder--for
thee I'd sell my soul's salvation--and thou thinks to put me off with a
few meadows? Thou thinks to be free of me so? Thou may offer me all
thou hast--all thy land and the Oetzthal into the bargain--I'd fling it
back to thee if thou didn't give me thyself. Look at me--my very marrow
is wasting away--I don't know how it is, but for one single kiss from
thee, I'd give thee all my lands and goods and starve for the rest of
my days. Now send a clerk to reckon once again with how many pounds and
acres thou'll be rid of me!" And with a glance of the wildest and
bitterest defiance at the astonished Wally he left the farmyard.
She was awed by him--she had never before seen him thus; she had had a
glimpse into the depths of an unfathomable passion, and she wavered
between horror and pity.
"What is there in me," she thought, "that the lads are all such fools
about me?"
Ah, and only one came not; the only one that she would have
had--despised her. And if--if meantime he were already married? The
thought took away her breath. She thought again of the stranger that he
had brought with him across the Hochjoch--but no--she was only a
servant maid!
And yet something must happen soon! She was rich and important now, she
might venture to take a step towards him! But all her maidenly pride
stood in arms at the thought, and "Wait--wait," was still all that was
left to her.
She felt driven restlessly through house and fields; soon it was
apparent that she was spoilt for the village life; week followed week,
and she could not accustom herself to it. She was and she remained the
child of Murzoll--the wild Wally. She scorned pitilessly all that
seemed to her petty or foolish, she could bind herself to no
regularity, no customs, no habits. She feared no one--she had forgotten
what fear was, up there on the Ferner, and she met the smaller life
below with the same iron front that had defied the terrors of the
elements. Mighty and strong of body and soul she stood among the
villagers like a being of another world. She had become a stranger in
the boorish herd who stared at her with distrust and dislike--as boors
always stare at that which is unfamiliar--but who nevertheless dared
not approach too near to the great proprietress. But the girl was
sensible of their hostility, as of the mean cowardice which, while it
spoke her fair to her face, betrayed its hatred behind her back.
"I ask leave of no one," was her haughty motto, and so she did whatever
her wild spirit prompted. When she was in the humour, she would work
all day like a labourer to incite the lazy servants, and if one of them
was not up to the mark in his work, she would impatiently snatch it
from his hand and do it herself. At other times she would spend the
whole day in melancholy dreaming, or she would wander about the
mountains so that people began to think her mind was unsettled. The men
and maids meanwhile did as they pleased, and the neighbours maliciously
whispered to each other that in this fashion she would let everything
go to ruin.
While she thus set herself against all rule and order, she was on the
other hand stern even to hardness in matters which the other peasants
passed over much less strictly. If she detected a servant in dishonesty
or false dealing she at once gave information to the justices. If any
one ill-used a beast, she would seize him by the collar and shake him,
beside herself with rage. If one of her people came home drunk in the
evening, she would have him ignominiously locked out to pass the night
out-of-doors, whether in rain or snow. If she discovered any
immorality, the culprit that same hour was turned out of the house. For
her spirit was chaste and pure as the glaciers with whom she had so
long dwelt in solitude, and all the lovemaking and whispering, the
meetings and serenadings that went on around her, filled her with
horror.
All this gained her a reputation for unsparing hardness, and made her
to be feared as her father had been before her.
Nevertheless she seemed to have bewitched all the young men. Not only
her possessions;--no, she--she herself with all her strangeness was
what the lads desired to win. When she stood before them, tall, as
though standing on higher ground, slim and yet so strongly and
proudly built that her close-laced bodice could hardly contain her
nobly-moulded form, when she raised her arm, strong and nervous as a
youth's, against them threateningly, whilst a lightning flash of scorn
flamed like a challenge from her large black eyes--then a wild fire of
love and strife seized the lads, and they would wrestle with her as if
for life or death only to win a single kiss. But then woe to them, for
they had not the strength to conquer this woman, and must go their way
with scorn and derision. He was yet to come who alone could cope with
her--would he ever come? Enough, she awaited him.
"He that can say of me I ever gave him a kiss, him will I marry, but he
that's not strong enough to win that kiss by force--Wallburga
Stromminger was not born for him!" she said haughtily one day, and soon
the saying was reported in all the surrounding neighbourhood, and the
young men came from far and near to try their luck and take her at her
word. It became indeed a point of honour to be a suitor of the wild
Wallburga, as any rash adventure is thought honourable by a man of
strength and courage.
Soon there was not a man of marriageable age in all the three valleys
who had not striven to conquer Wally and to wrest the kiss from her,
but not one had succeeded. And she triumphed in the wild game and in
her mighty strength, for she knew that she was talked of far and near,
and that Joseph would often hear of her; and she thought that now he
must at last think it worth the trouble to come and carry off the
prize, if it were only to prove his strength--as that day when he had
gone to slay the bear. If only he were here, she thought, why should he
not fall in love with her like all the others,--above all, if she
showed to him how sweet and friendly she could be?
But he never came. Instead, there came one day to the "Stag" which
adjoined Wally's kitchen-garden, the messenger from Vent. Wally, who
was at that moment weeding, heard Joseph's name spoken and listened
behind the hedge to the messenger's narration.
Since his mother's death Joseph Hagenbach goes oftener to the "Lamb" at
Zwieselstein--was the man's story--and a love affair is talked about
between him and the pretty Afra, the barmaid at the "Lamb." Only
yesterday he was up there, and dined alone with Afra at the guest's
table while the hostess stayed in the kitchen. Suddenly the bull broke
loose, and ran through the village like a whirlwind; a hornet had stung
him in the ear. All fled to their houses and shut to the doors, and the
innkeeper of the "Lamb" is about to do the same, when he sees his
youngest child, a girl of five, lying in the road. She couldn't get up,
for the children had been playing coaches, and the little one was
harnessed to a heavy wheel-barrow when the cry was raised that the bull
was loose; the other children ran off, but little Liese with the heavy
barrow could not so quickly get away; she fell and entangled herself in
the rope, and there she lies right in the middle of the road, and the
brute is snorting quite close to her with his horns lowered. There is
no time to untie the child or to carry it off, barrow and all; the bull
is there; the father and Afra scream so that they can be heard all
through the village,--but all at once Joseph is on the spot, and
thrusts a hay-fork into the side of the beast. The bull bellows
and turns upon Joseph, and out of the windows, every one cries for
help--but no one comes to help him. He seizes the bull by the horns,
and with the strength of a giant forces him back a step or two whilst
the bull struggles with him. Meanwhile the father has had time to fetch
the child, and now the question is what will become of Joseph, whom all
have left in the lurch? Afra wrings her hands and screams for help, the
bull has forced Joseph with his horns to the ground and is about to
trample on him, when from below Joseph strikes him in the neck with his
knife, so that the blood spurts out all over him. The bull now begins
to kick, lifting Joseph who holds tight on to his horns, then rushes
furiously forward a little way, dragging Joseph with him, half in the
air, and half on the ground: Joseph meanwhile, who wants to bring him
to a stand-still again, never losing his hold. By this time the bull is
bleeding from five wounds, and gradually getting weaker; once or twice
Joseph finds his feet again, but each time the brute regains the
mastery, and with desperate leaps hurries him on. The peasants have
recovered themselves now and come out, the host of the "Lamb" at their
head, to help Joseph with hay-forks and knives. But the bull hears the
uproar behind him, and once more lowering his horns flings himself,
with Joseph, against a closed barn door, so that every one thought
Joseph must be crushed; but the door gives way under the blow and
flies open, the bull rushes into the shed, and there wallows in his
death-struggle among ladders, carts, and ploughs, so that all fall in
confusion one over another. Joseph however swings himself up to a beam
and throws the door to, so that the raging animal shall not get out
again; the people outside hear him barricade the door; he is shut up in
that narrow space alone with the brute, and those outside can do
nothing. They hear the stamping and storming, the bellowing and uproar
within, and shudder at the sound. At last all is still. After an
anxious interval, the door is opened, and Joseph comes staggering
forward bathed in blood and sweat. They suppose the bull is dead, but
Joseph says it were a pity to kill so fine a beast, that his wounds
could be healed and were none of them in a vital part.
In the barn all is in confusion, everything upset, trampled, and
crushed, but the bull lies with all four legs tied and fastened to the
floor; he lies motionless on his side, snorting and gasping, like a
calf in a butcher's cart. Joseph has subdued the bull and bound him,
alive--all by himself. There is no one like him.
When they came back with Joseph to the "Lamb," Afra fell on his neck
before all the people, crying and sobbing, and the hostess brought
Liese to him in her arms, and would have treated him to the best in the
house--but Joseph was in no mood for any more merry-making. He drank
one draught in his raging thirst, and then went home. The whole village
was full of him, and that evening there was a great drinking-bout in
his honour, that lasted far into the night.
This was the news the messenger brought from Vent, and again there was
much talking about Joseph Hagenbach, and all the folks wondered that he
should never come up here after Wally. The mistress of the Sonnenplatte
had so many suitors--only Joseph seemed to wish to have nothing to do
with her.
Wally left her place by the hedge: the words brought a hot blush of
shame to her brow. Thus it was then that people spoke of her,--that
Joseph would have nothing to say to her? And it was Afra that he was
following? That was the same girl that he had brought with him over the
Ferner the year before, and had been so careful of even then.
She sat down on a stone and covered her face with both hands. A storm
raged within her, a storm of love, admiration, jealousy. Her heart was
as though torn in pieces. She loved him--loved him as she had never
done before, as though the panting breath with which she had followed
the narration of his deed had fanned the glimmering spark into a
glowing flame. Again, then--again he had done what no other could
accomplish, but she had no part in it--for Afra's master it had been
done, for love of Afra! Was it possible? must she give way to a
maid-servant--she, the daughter of the Strommingers? Was not she the
richest, and as all the young men told her, the most beautiful maid in
all the land? Far and wide, was there one that could compare with her
for strength and power? Was not she, and she alone, his equal, and
should they two not come together? There was but the one Joseph in the
world, and should he not belong to her? Should he throw himself away on
Afra, on a miserable beggar girl? No, it could not be, it was
impossible. Why, after all, should he not go to the Lamb, without its
being for Afra's sake? He wandered about so much in the course of
hunting, and the Lamb was at Zwieselstein, exactly where all the cross
roads met. "O Joseph, Joseph, come to me," she moaned aloud, and threw
herself with her face upon the ground, as if to cool its burning heat
in the little dewy leaves. Then all at once she remembered how the
messenger had said that Afra had thrown herself on Joseph's neck when
he came back to the inn. She shuddered at the thought. And suddenly she
pictured to herself how it would be if she were Joseph's wife, and if,
when after such a struggle he came home weary, wounded, and bleeding,
she had the right to receive him in her arms, to refresh him, to
comfort him. How she would wash his hot brow and bind his wounds and
lay him to rest on her heart till he fell asleep under her caresses!
She had never thought of such things before, but now, as they crowded
on her, she was thrilled by a hitherto unknown sense--as an opening
flower trembles when it bursts the encasing bud.
In this moment she ripened into a woman, but, wild and ungovernable as
all her feelings were, that which made her womanly stirred up all the
hidden and sleeping powers of evil in her soul, and a fearful tempest
raged within her.
The evening breeze swept coldly over her, she felt it not; night came
on, and the ever-peaceful stars looked down with wondering eyes on the
writhing form, as she lay on the earth in the night dews and tore her
hair.
"The mistress wasn't in again all last night," said the housekeeper
next morning to the underservants. "What is it, think you, that she
does all night?" And they laid their heads together and whispered to
each other.
But they all scattered like spray before the wind when Wally came
towards them across the courtyard from the kitchen-garden; she was
pale, and looked prouder and more imperious than ever. And so she
continued; from that day forth she was changed, unjust, capricious,
irritable, so that no one dared speak to her but old Klettenmaier, who
always had more influence with her than any one else. And withal she
carried her haughtiness in everything to the farthest point; her
last word was always "the mistress"--for "the mistress" nothing was
good enough--"the mistress" would not be pleased with this or with
that--"the mistress" might permit herself things which no one else
could venture on, and many another such provocation.
Every day she dressed herself as if it were Sunday, and had new clothes
made, and even a silver necklace brought from Vent with all sorts of
pendants in filigree-work, so heavy and costly that the like had never
before been seen in the valley. At the feast of Corpus Christi she left
off her mourning for her father and appeared in the procession so
resplendent with silver and velvet and silk that the people could
hardly say their prayers for gazing at her. It was the first time that
she had joined in a procession, and indeed no one knew exactly what
kind of a Christian she might be; but it was clear that she only went
now to show her new clothes and her necklace, because most of the
people of the canton from as far up as Vent, and as far down as
Zwieselstein, were assembled there.
When she knelt down there was a rustling and jingling of stiff silks
and plaitings and tinkling silver, and it seemed to say, "See, no one
can have all this but the mistress of the Sonnenplatte!"
It happened that as the last Gospel was being read a slight confusion
arose in the procession, and some people who had been behind were now
walking before her. They were the hostess of the Lamb at Zwieselstein
and the pretty slim Afra; she found herself close to Wally, and nodded
to her, then looked back at Joseph, who was walking behind with the
men--so at least it seemed to Wally. Afra looked so lovely at this
instant, that for sheer jealousy Wally forgot to return her salute.
Then she heard Afra say to her companion, "See there, that is the
Vulture-maiden, that let her vulture tear Joseph to pieces nearly! Now
she'll not even take my good-day--and yet I've said many a Pater Noster
for her."
"Thou might have spared thyself the trouble then," Wally broke in, "I
want none to pray for me--that I can do for myself."
"But as it seems to me, thou doesn't do it," retorted Afra.
"I've no need to pray as much as other folk; I've enough and to spare,
and don't need to pray to God like a poor maid-servant, who must say a
Pater Noster whenever she's in want of a new shoe-ribbon."
The angry blood mounted in Afra's face. "Oh, for that matter, a
shoe-ribbon that's been prayed for may bring more happiness than a
silver necklace that's been got in a godless way."
"Yes, yes," said the hostess, putting in her word, "Afra's in the right
there."
"If my necklace doesn't please thee, walk behind me, then thou'll not
see it; nor does it become the mistress of the Sonnenplatte to walk
behind a servant wench."
"It'd do thee no harm to tread in Afra's footsteps--that I tell thee
plainly," retorted the innkeeper's wife.
"Shame on you, hostess, to lower yourself by taking part with your own
maid," cried Wally with flashing eyes. "He who doesn't value himself,
none other will value!"
"Oh! then a maid-servant's not a human soul!" said Afra, trembling from
head to foot. "A silk gown though, makes no difference to the good God;
He sees what's beneath it, a good heart or a bad!"
"Yes, truly," cried Wally with an outbreak of hatred, "it's not every
one can have so good a heart as thine--above all towards the lads. Go
to the Devil!"
"Wally!" exclaimed Afra, and the tears rushed from her eyes. But she
had to be silent, for at this moment the procession had again reached
the church, the last benediction was pronounced, and the procession
broke up. Wally shot by Afra like a queen, so that she had to cling to
her companion; she had almost run over the girl, and every one turned
to look after her. The men said no more beautiful maid was to be found
in all the Tyrol, but the women were bursting with envy.
"She looks rather different now to what she did up on the Hochjoch,
with a dog's hole to live in and neither combed nor coiffed--like a
wild thing!" said Joseph, who was standing not far off, and looked at
her with wondering eyes; then he nodded a farewell to Afra, and quitted
the crowd; he wanted to be home by midday.
But Afra hastened after Wally. Her pretty blue eyes sparkled with
tears, like water sprinkled on a fire; she was beside herself with
anger, and so was the innkeeper's wife. They caught up Wally at the
village inn. She too was in the most terrible agitation; she had seen
the affectionate familiar farewell that Joseph had nodded to Afra, and
to her--to her, as she believed--he had not vouchsafed a single glance.
And now he was gone, and all the hopes betrayed that she had set on
this day's doings. This Afra! all her anger was centered on her, she
could have trampled her under foot. And here was Afra standing before
her, stopping her way and speaking to her with angry defiance--she, the
low servant-girl!
"Mistress" Afra brought out breathlessly, "thou's said a thing that I
cannot let pass, for it touches my character--what did thou mean by
saying I had a good heart towards the lads? I will know what lay behind
those words!"
"Dost wish to make a quarrel with Wallburga Stromminger," cried Wally,
and her flashing eyes looked straight down upon the girl. "Dost think
I'd enter into strife with such a one as thou?"
"With such a one as me," cried the girl, "what sort of one am I then?
I'm a poor maid and have had none to care for me, but I've done no one
any harm, nor set fire to any one's house. I've no need to put up with
anything from _thee_--know that."
Wally started as though stung by a snake.
"A wench art thou, a shameless servant wench that throws thyself on a
lad's neck before every one," she cried, forgetting herself and every
thing, so that the people crowded round her.
"What? who? whose neck?" stammered the girl, turning pale.
"Shall I tell thee? Shall I?"
"Yes, speak out; I have a good conscience, and the mistress of the Lamb
here, she can testify that it is not true."
"Indeed--not true! is it not true that two years ago, when thou hardly
knew Joseph, he dragged thee with him over the Hochjoch, and had to
carry thee half the way because thou made as though thou could walk no
farther? Is it not true thou'st never let him be since, so that
everyone names him and thee together? Is it not true thou keeps Joseph
away from other maids that have better right and were better wives for
him than thou--a vagabond serving-girl? Is it not true that only the
other day, when he had fought the bull, thou fell on his neck before
the whole village as if thou'd been his promised wife? Is none of that
true?"
Afra covered her face with her hands, and wept aloud, "Oh, Joseph,
Joseph, that I should have to put up with this."
"Be quiet, Afra," said the good natured landlady consolingly, "she has
betrayed herself, it's only her anger because Joseph doesn't run after
her and won't burn his fingers for her like the other lads. If only
Joseph were here he would make her tell a different story."
"Yes, I can well believe that he wouldn't leave his pretty sweetheart
in the lurch," said Wally, with a laugh so terribly sharp and shrill
that the sound re-echoed from the hills like a cry of pain. "Such a
sweetheart, who hangs about his neck, is no doubt more convenient than
one who must first be won, and with whom it might come to pass that
he'd have to take himself off again with scorn and mockery. The proud
bear-hunter would no doubt sooner mate with such a one than with the
Vulture-Maiden!"
The innkeeper now stepped forward. "Hearken," he said, "I've had enough
of this; the lass is a good lass--my wife and I, we answer for her, and
we'll let no harm come to her. Do thou take back thy words; I order
it--dost understand?"
Again Wally laughed aloud, "Landlord," she said. "Did thou ever hear
tell that the Vulture lets itself be ordered by the Lamb?"
Everyone laughed at the play of words, for the host of the Lamb was
proverbially called a "Lamperl,"[1] because he was a weak good-natured
man who would put up with anything.
"Aye, thou deserves thy name, thou Vulture-Wally--that thou dost."
"Make way there," Wally now exclaimed, "I've had enough of this--this
threshing of empty straw. Let me pass!" and she would have pushed Afra
on one side under the doorway.
But the innkeeper's wife held Afra by the arm.
"Nay, thou's no call to make way--get thee in first; thou'rt no worse
than she is," she said, as she tried to press through the door with
Afra in front of Wally.
Wally seized Afra by the waist, lifted her up and flung her from the
door into the arms of the nearest bystander. "First come the
mistresses, and after them the maids," she said; then passing before
everyone into the room she seated herself at the head of the table.
Everyone chuckled and clapped their hands at the audacious jest. Afra
cried and was so abashed that she would not go in, and the innkeeper
and his wife took her home.
"Only wait, Afra," said the good woman consolingly on the way home,
"I'll send Joseph to her, and he will take her in hand." But Afra only
shook her head and said no one would do her any good; disgraced she
was, and disgraced she must remain.
"Well, but why must thou needs begin a quarrel with that bad girl of
Stromminger's," said the landlord, scolding her good-naturedly, "every
one keeps out of her way that can."
Meanwhile Wally sat within and looked out of window at Afra departing
with her companions; her heart beat so that the silver pendants to her
necklace tinkled softly.
She was called upon to eat, the vermicelli soup was getting cold; but
she found the soup bad and the mutton as tough as leather; she tossed a
gulden on the table, would take no change, and in the face of all the
astonished peasants rustled out of the house.
Just as she had done after her confirmation five years before, she tore
off her fine clothes when she got home, and flung them into the chest.
The silver necklace with its filigree work she trampled into a
shapeless mass. What good had her splendour done her? It had not helped
her to please the only one whom she desired to please. And, as once
before, she threw herself on her bed, angrily chafing against the holy
images. A piercing torment tortured her soul as if with knives. Her
eyes fell on the carved image of Wallburga above her, and then she
thought that the pain she was enduring might be the knife of God
working on her, to make out of her a Saint--as the cure had said. But
why should she be made a saint? She would so much rather be a happy
woman. And that might have been done so easily; the good God would not
have needed to carve her out for that--she would already have been
quite right just as she was!
So she murmured and rebelled against the knife of God.