THE HUNTER AND HIS PREY
While the ceremony was thus monopolizing the entire Oberhof, there were,
wholly without ceremony, two young people together upstairs in the room
which the Hunter had formerly occupied. The young girl was sitting at a
little table by the window and hemming a beautiful kerchief which the
Hunter had bought for her in the city and given to her for a wedding-day
adornment. She pricked her finger more often today than on the evening
when she was helping the bride with her linen. For when the eyes do not
watch the needle, it is apt to take its own malicious course.
The young man was standing before her and working at something; he was,
namely, cutting out a pen for her. For at last the girl had said she
would of course have to send news as to where she was, and request
permission to remain a few days longer at the Oberhof. He stood on the
opposite side of the little table, and in a glass between him and the
girl a white lily and a rose, freshly cut, were emitting a sweet
perfume. He did not hurry unduly with his work; before he applied the
knife he asked the girl several times whether she preferred to write
with a soft or a hard point, fine or blunt, and whether he should make
the quill short or leave it long. He plied her with numerous other
questions of this kind, as thoroughly as if he were a writing-master
producing a calligraphic work of art. To these detailed questions the
girl, in a low voice, made many indefinite replies; now she wanted the
pen cut so, now so, and every once in a while she looked at him, sighing
each time she did it. The youth sighed even more often, I do not know
whether it was on account of the indefiniteness of her answers, or for
some other reason. Once he handed the pen to her, so that she might
indicate how long she wanted the slit to be. She did so, and when she
handed the pen back to him, he seized something more than the
pen--namely, her hand. His own hand grasped it in such a way that the
pen fell to the floor and for a moment was lost to their memories, all
consciousness on both their parts being directed to their hands.
I will betray a great secret to you. The youth and the girl were the
Hunter and the beautiful, blond Lisbeth.
The wounded girl had been carried to her room on that night, and the
Justice, very much perturbed--something he seldom was--had come out of
his room and sent immediately for the nearest surgeon. The latter,
however, lived an hour and a half's ride from the Oberhof; he was,
moreover, a sound sleeper, and reluctant to go out at night. Thus, the
morning had already dawned when he finally arrived with his meagre
outfit of instruments. He removed the cloth from her shoulders, examined
the wound, and made a very grave face. Luckily, the young Suabian's
charge had merely grazed Lisbeth; only two shot had penetrated her
flesh, and these not very deeply. The surgeon extracted them, bandaged
the wound, recommended rest and cold water, and went home with the proud
feeling that if he had not been summoned so promptly and had not so
cheerfully done his duty, even in the night, gangrene would inevitably
have resulted from the wound.
Lisbeth, while they were waiting for the doctor, had been very calm; she
had scarcely uttered a complaint, although her face, which was deathly
pale, betrayed the fact that she was suffering pain. Even the operation,
which the surgeon's clumsy hand caused to be more painful than was
necessary, she had undergone bravely. She asked for the shot and
presented them jokingly to the Hunter. They were "sure shot," she said
to him--he should keep them, and they would bring him luck.
The Hunter accepted the "sure shot," wrapped them in a piece of paper,
and gently withdrew his beautiful victim's head from his encircling arms
to let her sleep. In these arms Lisbeth had rested with her pain, as up
on the "Open Tribunal," ever since entering the room in the Oberhof.
With sorrowful eyes he had gazed fixedly into her face, and had now and
then met a friendly return-glance, which she directed up to him as if to
comfort him.
He went out into the open. It was impossible for him to leave the
Oberhof now; he had, he said, to await the recovery of the poor wounded
girl, for human nature, he added, demanded that much. In the orchard he
found the Justice, who, having found out that there was no danger, had
gone on about his business as if nothing had happened. He asked the old
man to furnish him with quarters for a longer stay. The Justice
bethought himself, but knew of no room to accommodate the Hunter. "And
even if it is only a corner in the corn-loft!" cried the Hunter, who was
awaiting the decision of his old host as if his fate depended on it.
After much deliberation it finally occurred to the Justice that there
was a corner in the corn-loft, where he stored grain when the harvest
turned out too abundant for the usual storing-places. At that time it
was empty, and to it the old man now conducted his young guest, adding,
however, that he would probably not like it up there. The Hunter went
up, and although the bare and depressing room received its small amount
of light only through a hole in the roof, and there was nothing but a
board and a chest to sit on, nevertheless he was well satisfied. "For,"
he said, "it is all the same to me, if I can only remain here until I
feel certain that I haven't done any lasting damage with my accursed
shooting. The weather is fine, and I shan't need to be up here much of
the time."
And, as a matter of fact, he was not up there in his nook much of the
time, but down with Lisbeth. He begged her forgiveness for his act so
often that she grew impatient, and told him, with a frown of annoyance
which became her very well, to just stop it. After five days the wound
had completely healed, the bandage could be removed, and light reddish
spots on her white shoulder were all that remained to show the place of
the injury.
She remained at the Oberhof, for the Justice had previously invited her
to the wedding. This event was postponed a few days because the dowry
would not be ready at the time appointed. The Hunter remained too,
although the Justice did not invite him. He invited himself to the
wedding, however, by saying to the old man one day that the customs of
the country seemed to him so remarkable that he wished to learn what
they were on the occasion of a wedding.
Soon there were just two times in the day for the Hunter, an unhappy and
a happy one. The unhappy time was when Lisbeth was helping the bride
with her linen--and this she did every day. The Hunter then was
absolutely at a loss what to do with his time. The happy time, on the
other hand, began when Lisbeth rested from her work and took the fresh
air. It was then certain that the two would come together, the Hunter
and she. And were he ever so far away behind the bushes, it would always
seem as if somebody were saying to him, "Lisbeth is now outdoors." Then
he would fly to the place where he suspected she was, and behold! his
suspicions had not deceived him, for even from a distance he would catch
sight of her slender form and pretty face. Then she would always bend
over sideways after a flower, as if she were not aware of his approach.
But beforehand, to be sure, she had looked in the direction from which
he was coming.
And now they would walk together through field and meadow, for he would
beg her so earnestly to do it that it seemed almost sinful to her to
refuse him so small a request. The further away from the Oberhof they
wandered in the waving fields and green meadows, the more free and happy
would their spirits grow. When the red, setting sun lighted up
everything about them, including their own youthful forms, it seemed to
them as if anxiety and pain could never enter into their lives again.
On these walks the Hunter would do everything possible to please Lisbeth
that he could guess from her eyes she wanted him to do. If she happened
accidentally to look toward a cluster of wild field-flowers that were
blooming on a high hedge at some distance from the road, before the wish
to have them had even had time to enter her mind, he had swung himself
up on the hedge. And in places where the road dropped off somewhat
abruptly, or where a stone lay in their way, or where it was necessary
for them to cross an insignificant bit of water, he would stretch out
his arm to lead and support her, while she would laugh over this
unnecessary readiness to help. Nevertheless she would accept his arm,
and permit her own to rest in it for a while, even after the road had
become level again. On these quiet, pleasant walks the young souls had
a great deal to impart to each other. He told her all about the Suabian
mountains, the great Neckar, the Alps, the Murg Valley, and the
Hohenstaufen Mountain on which the illustrious imperial family, whose
deeds he related to her, originated. Then he would speak of the great
city where he had studied, and of the many clever people whose
acquaintance he had made there. Finally, he told her about his mother,
how tenderly he had loved her, and how it was perhaps for that reason
that he afterwards came to cherish and revere all women more, because
each one of them made him think of his own deceased mother.
Lisbeth, on the other hand, had only the story of her own simple life to
tell him. In it there were no big cities, no clever people, and, alas,
no mother! And yet he thought he had never heard anything more
beautiful. For every menial service which she had performed, she had
rendered noble by love. Of the young lady and the Baron she had a
thousand touching things to tell, in all the little haunts in and behind
the castle garden she had had adventures to relate, and she had read in
the books which she had secretly brought down from the garret all sorts
of astounding things about strange peoples and countries and remarkable
occurrences on land and water--and all this she had retained in her
memory.
Thus their days at the Oberhof passed, one after the other. The Justice,
to be sure, looked upon it all with different eyes, but was, of course,
obliged to let things which he could not prevent go on. But he often
shook his head when he saw his young guests walking and talking with
each other so much, and would say to himself: "It isn't right for a
young nobleman like that!"