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[Transcriber's note: [oe] = oe-ligature]
VOLUME XIX
* * * * * *
HELENE BÖHLAU
CLARA VIEBIG
EDUARD VON KEYSERLING
THOMAS MANN
LUDWIG THOMA
RUDOLF HANS BARTSCH
EMIL STRAUSS
HERMANN HESSE
ERNST ZAHN
JAKOB SCHAFFNER
[Illustration: AUTUMN]
THE
GERMAN CLASSICS
OF
The Nineteenth and
Twentieth Centuries
Masterpieces of German Literature
TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH
Editor-in-Chief
KUNO FRANCKE, Ph.D., LL.D., Litt.D.
Professor of the History of German Culture and
Curator of the Germanic Museum,
Harvard University
Assistant Editor-in-Chief
WILLIAM GUILD HOWARD, A.M.
Assistant Professor of German, Harvard University
In Twenty Volumes Illustrated
THE GERMAN PUBLICATION SOCIETY
NEW YORK
Copyright 1914.
by
THE GERMAN PUBLICATION SOCIETY
CONTRIBUTORS AND TRANSLATORS
VOLUME XIX
* * * * * *
Special Writers
JULIUS PETERSEN, Ph.D., Professor of German Literature, University
of Basel:
The Contemporary Short Story.
Translators
BAYARD QUINCY MORGAN, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of German, University
of Wisconsin:
Gay Hearts; Tonio Kröger; Matt the Holy; The Styrian
Wine-Carter.
WILLIAM GUILD HOWARD, A.M., Assistant Professor of German, Harvard
University:
Burning Love; Mara.
KATHARINE ROYCE:
Stephen the Smith.
A. I. DU P. COLEMAN, A.M., Professor of English Literature, College
of the City of New York:
The Ball of Crystal; In the Old "Sun."
MRS. AMELIA VON ENDE:
The Iron Idol.
CONTENTS OF VOLUME XIX
PAGE
The Contemporary Short Story. By Julius Petersen xi
HELENE BÖHLAU
The Ball of Crystal. Translated by A. I. du P. Coleman 1
CLARA VIEBIG
Burning Love. Translated by William Guild Howard 77
EDUARD VON KEYSERLING
Gay Hearts. Translated by Bayard Quincy Morgan 101
THOMAS MANN
Tonio Kröger. Translated by Bayard Quincy Morgan 184
LUDWIG THOMA
Matt the Holy. Translated by Bayard Quincy Morgan 251
RUDOLF HANS BARTSCH
The Styrian Wine-Carter. Translated by Bayard Quincy Morgan 268
EMIL STRAUSS
Mara. Translated by William Guild Howard 285
HERMANN HESSE
In the Old "Sun." Translated by A. I. du P. Coleman 325
ERNST ZAHN
Stephen the Smith. Translated by Katharine Royce 373
JAKOB SCHAFFNER
The Iron Idol. Translated by Mrs. Amelia von Ende 456
ILLUSTRATIONS--VOLUME XIX
PAGE
Autumn. By Karl Haider _Frontispiece_
Helene Böhlau 2
Wife of a Clamdigger. By Hans von Bartels 32
Folksong. By K. Reutlingen 52
Clara Viebig 78
A Portrait. By Adolf Münzer 102
The Gossips. By Friedrich Wahle 142
Little Curiosity. By Julius Exter 172
Thomas Mann 186
Arco. By Benno Becker 226
Ludwig Thoma 252
Rudolf Hans Bartsch 270
Back from the Fair. By Franz Wilhelm Voigt 286
Hermann Hesse 326
A Human Load. By Franz Wilhelm Voigt 336
Flower Market at Leyden. By Hans Herrmann 356
Ernst Zahn 374
Evening. By Ludwig Dill 400
Moonrise in the Moor. By Otto Modersohn 420
Forest Meadows. By Oscar Frenzel 450
Moorland. By Otto Modersohn 480
THE CONTEMPORARY SHORT STORY
By Julius Petersen, Ph.D.
Professor of German Literature, University of Basel
TRANSLATED BY WILLIAM GUILD HOWARD
The last two volumes of this comprehensive publication are devoted
to the living, the writers of the present who sow the seed from which
shall grow the future of German letters. But who can speak of prophecy
or prevision, at a moment when all who call themselves German are
compelled to fight for their existence, and the future of German
nationality as well as of German culture is hidden by the smoke of
battle? To the four quarters of the globe the wild alarm _Germania est
delenda_ is trumpeted as a so-called duty of human civilization;
isolated Germany can respond only with her resolute _Victory or Death_.
What shall be the end? Shall this war of the nations, unparalleled in
history, mean for Germany the destruction of all her material and
spiritual possessions, as they were destroyed during the thirty years
of horror in the seventeenth century? Or has Germany, thrown upon her
own resources, attained to full consciousness of her strength, and now
at last repaired the damage of that national calamity, which devastated
her territory, subjected her to foreign domination, and continued to
retard her progress for two full centuries?
Who can foretell whether the heroism of a mighty time, whose dawn we
see, is to give new inspiration to patriotic poetry for centuries to
come, and beget a new generation of bards worthy to sing of arms and
men? The spirit of self-sacrificing devotion which waged the Seven
Years' War and the Wars of Liberation has returned to animate the
Germany of today. Who knows, however, but that many a precious life
will be sacrificed from which we hoped for great things even in our
literature, and which now sheds its blood in a struggle for the
warrior's laurel wreath? For German poets have also heard the call to
arms; and those who have not, like Ganghofer, despite his sixty years,
and Dehmel with his fifty-one, joined the ranks of the volunteers, tune
their lyres to Tyrtæan measures and enlist their pens in the service of
their native land. Thus Gerhart Hauptmann, who only a year ago
concluded his dramatic celebration of the centennial of German
liberation with an apotheosis of peace, now comes forward with stirring
war songs.
Is this still the people to which Goethe belonged? At a time when a
common cause with Austria conjures up again the shade of the dear old
Holy Roman Empire no other verse in _Faust_ seems so inept as that
concerning the ugly political song. Today we should rather say "An
unpolitical song, an ugly song;" for to the people that but a few weeks
ago was mindful of naught but works of peace everything has become a
matter of indifference except the burning question of the hour. Even
though the longed-for peace should soon return, the year 1914 must
leave a deep mark in the development of German literature. As yet we
can only look back, not forward, from this milestone; and even in so
doing we cannot escape from the present.
One thing the very first days of the war have made manifest: the
physical and moral strength and the healthy marrow of the German
people. Our literature, as the most faithful mirror of national life,
has reflected in the past ten years this incorruptible healthfulness,
and if we look somewhat farther back, we even see something resembling
a process of convalescence. It was possible in 1903 for a novel _Jena
or Sedan_ by Franz Adam Beyerlein to create a sensation. Written in the
manner of Zola, the book, which, because of an alleged dry rot in the
German army, prophesied mischance in the future, produced its effect
not so much through an apparently objective but gloomy depiction of
life in the garrisons, as through the nourishment that it gave to the
torturing doubts which during the last decades of the nineteenth
century grew rank as a fatalistic pessimism. The very principle of
naturalism as a form of art, with its one-sided preference for disease,
crime, and weakness, flourished on the offal of a materialistic
philosophy of life, which viewed the vanity of existence with weary
resignation. But this disease of the times was as little a specifically
German malady as the naturalism imported from France and Russia was a
genuine form of German art. Liberation from paralyzing lethargy was
possible only through a realization of the fact that the real sources
of national power were to be sought elsewhere. The soul of the German
people, which in former centuries gave birth to mysticism and
romanticism, is filled with a yearning for the infinite that cannot
in the long run be contented with a materialistic philosophy; and the
home of the German people, broad and fertile Germany, presents other
pictures than a view of coal mines and swarming streets seen through
the narrow space between factory chimneys. As a reaction against
naturalism there arose therefore a neo-romanticism, and as its national
modification, an art of the native heath (_Heimatkunst_).
There is no contradiction between romanticism and _Heimatkunst_; for it
was romanticism that in its time aroused the Germans to a real sense of
what their native heath meant for them; neither is _Heimatkunst_
opposed to naturalism. In both _Heimatkunst_ and naturalism nature is
the watchword, but with the difference that what for the one is the
principle is for the other the subject of poetic representation.
Naturalism aimed to give the impression of inexorable fidelity to
nature in the reproduction of the unhealthful and of that which
strictly speaking was contrary to nature; _Heimatkunst_, on the other
hand, had recourse to free and open nature as the unfailing fountain of
health. When naturalism came to the fore it was customary to designate
the opposing tendencies as idealism and realism; the contrast is better
expressed by the terms optimism and pessimism. In the last ten years
clear prevision of the tasks of the future and a sense of the duty of
national training for these tasks, such as we admire in the Americans,
has developed in Germany. A hopeful outlook fosters the joy of living;
as this joy increases, a new love of nature and a new comprehension of
her revelations develop; the old German passion for roving revives; and
delight in song and sport, in fresh air and sunshine, rejuvenates the
whole people. Literature follows this national bent and its rallying
cry becomes "Out of the atmosphere of the hospital and oppressive
wretchedness, back to the life-giving sod which yields sustenance to
every worker, out into the country, where there is a sufficiency for
simple wants, where there is no strife between capital and labor, where
the harshness of social distinctions vanishes and the feeling prevails
of a common bond between man and his native heath as well as between
man and man."
The optimistic faith in the future of the German people furnishes the
foundation also for the consciousness of a great unity to which all
branches of the German stock have now awakened, and which is the second
important element in the* present state of things. German history
testifies to more than a thousand years of inner and outer disunion.
The present war is almost the first in which Germans have not to array
themselves against Germans; this time there is left only the common
pain and the common bitterness that a people of kindred blood takes the
field against Germany. But all the German tribes and nations feel
themselves to be one people--indeed, the sense of membership proclaims
itself in the form of sympathy beyond political boundaries "as far as
the German tongue is heard." However little political influence may be
attached to this fact, its cultural significance is not to be
underestimated; for a common language forms today a stronger bond than
the sense of racial consanguinity, and this bond is most of all
strengthened by the common possession of a literature.
It has been hardly more than a hundred years that the Germans could
be said to possess a national literature. Even the literature of the
eighteenth century was ill-starred by the partisan strife between the
Saxons and the Swiss, a strife which had its origin more particularly
in irreconcilable differences of language. Permanent peace was
concluded at Weimar without any feeling that the supremacy of this
spiritual centre was tyranny. Even in his old age Goethe showed the
keenest interest in all local and dialectical literature, and
romanticism reinforced the sense for every ancient trait of national
individuality. United Germany has no need of an academy to fix the
canons of usage; on the contrary, it recognizes in the variety of local
and dialectical peculiarities a source of wealth which would be
impaired by any normalization, and the drying up of which would
threaten literature with sterility. Cultivated Germany is not an
anarchy, but a federation of many small states, with a much more
democratic constitution than such a unified state as France, of which
state Paris is the monarch. The influence of Prussia, mostly
misunderstood abroad, is confined to military and civil administration;
in questions of art and culture, but above all in literature, every
attempt to enforce uniformity meets with the most stubborn resistance.
The turn of the century witnessed, it is true, an ominous assumption of
authority on the part of the imperial capital in the domain of
literature, and especially the drama; but it was not so much Berlin as
the great city as such. The diseases of superculture, impotent
estheticism, the restless spirit of commercialism, and social conflicts
are of the same kind in Berlin and Vienna as in Paris, London, and New
York. Naturalism, which seized upon these themes, was international, as
was socialism, which hailed this movement as its own. With the
opposition against naturalism and with the new gospel of _Heimatkunst_
the revolt against the international, against the literature of city
life in general, and particularly against the snobbish literary clique
in Berlin was complete. As early as 1901 the gospel of "Away from
Berlin!" was thus fervently preached by a champion of _Heimatkunst_,
the Alsatian Fritz Lienhard:
You writers are all of you entirely out of touch with the German
family, with the spirit of the German people throughout the length and
breadth of the empire. You no longer survey with comprehensive vision
and open-mindedness the manifold regions of our country and the
multifarious callings of our people; you no longer feel yourselves to
be addressing the millions of good people whose mother tongue you
speak, indeed, the best people of your day and generation; you do not
dream of disciplining yourselves to be men and heroes, or of striving
to be at one with the widely ramified nation and the still more
widespread spirit of humanity. Aimlessly yielding to your artistic
whims, crotchets, and triflings, you make "interesting works of art"
out of your own immaturity, you are satisfied with an audience composed
of an infinitesimal fraction of our people, a fraction, moreover,
which, things being as they are, consists chiefly of the _parvenus_
residing in Berlin W. This is the public which--more is the
pity--dominates the picture galleries, the concert halls, and the
theatres of Berlin, and from Berlin affects to set the standard of
taste for the empire so far, it must be added, as the empire at large
concerns itself at all with this meticulous literature. Religion is a
private matter, declares Social Democracy. We might plaintively add
that literature is a parlor matter, the special affair of Berlin....
Our literature does not throb with the heart-beats of the national
soul. And he who seriously, patriotically, out of the abundance of his
heart and the richness of his mind, and out of a lively sense of
community with the myriads of German-speaking men and women seeks
entrance into the world of letters, he faces in painful amazement the
dilemma: People or literature? Human being or artist? Personality or
artifice?
These utterances might be taken as a reckless abandonment of artistry
in favor of the national, but commonplace; and in fact, _Heimatkunst_,
when assimilated to folklore, as it was in this gospel, did run the
risk of an uninspired monotony. Such writers as Sohnrey and Frenssen
have not altogether escaped the danger. Only the synthesis of form and
content, only creation conscious of racial peculiarity but obedient to
severe esthetic discipline, can keep in the path of fruitful progress.
The intimate connection of man with his native soil presents a modern
artistic problem which can be solved neither by the experimental
method, according to which naturalism investigated the _milieu_ as a
causal factor, nor by the amateurishly descriptive processes of idyllic
poetasters and local favorites, but must be intuitively grasped by the
penetrating eye of a real seer.
Not merely the subject, but also the seer is native to the spot. The
true poet will always be found to know most intimately the land of his
birth and the men of his race. If he confined himself to these, he
would be a narrow specialist. If, on the other hand, he represents
other characters in less familiar setting, he will still envisage them
in the manner to which he is born, and in language, style, and all the
forms of apperception he will reveal the temperament and the nature of
his stock. As the specifically German novel, taken by and large, is
distinguished by national traits from the Russian, French, or American,
even when it has been modified by influences from many sides, so the
novel of each separate German tribe and nation has kept its peculiarity
within the range of the general membership, one with another. The whole
constitutes an orchestra of manifold instruments, each with its own
_timbre_, and yet all in tune and harmony, and no one superfluous. The
detection of the individual instruments is possible, if we attentively
analyze. The present centrifugal tendency of German literature has
strongly developed such a sense for the detection of differences.
Recently the attempt has been made to group the entire history of
German literature from the most ancient times according to racial
stocks and regions, an experiment that would scarcely have been made if
the literary circumstances of the present had not especially invited
it.
Literature in Low German has had from time immemorial its sharply
defined character, which harmonizes with the North German landscape.
Broad expanses of dead-level heath, great gray-brown moorlands, meadows
intersected by glittering canals, a boundless horizon which gives
the eye a sense of freedom and independence, the blue atmosphere
of the sea which contributes something metaphysical to the humdrum of
existence--on this soil a grave race flourishes, of quick conscience
and serious life. The old saying _Frisia non cantat_ marks the lack of
exuberance and of the spirit of revelry. But shy reticence finds
compensation in good-natured humor. Unenthusiastic but substantial
realism, speculative meditation, and a certain didactic tone make the
Low German country the home of the fable and the great epic. That such
a great dramatist as Hebbel was also a scion of this stock seems almost
exceptional. The stubborn peasant family-stocks, the urban culture of
the Hanseatic cities, and the scattered seats of the nobility, even as
far east as the Russian Baltic provinces, bear witness to the
development of a uniform temperament in spite of all the differences of
social environment. We can, then, on the basis of common Low German
characteristics form a great group of writers: writers from the Baltic
provinces, the upper-class life of which has been treated by Eduard
von Keyserling, while need and struggle have been described by
Frances Külpe and Karl Worms; the West Prussians, represented by
Max Halbe; the Pomeranians (Georg Engel), the Mecklenburgers (Max
Dreyer), the Hanseatics (Gustav Falke, Thomas Mann, Otto Ernst), the
Schleswig-Holsteiners (Timm Kröger, Charlotte Niese, Gustav Frenssen,
Othmar Enking, Helene Voigt-Diederichs), the Hanoverians (Diedrich
Speckmann, Heinrich Sohnrey, Karl Söhle), the Westphalians (Hermann
Wette, Walther Schulte vom Brühl).
Along the banks of the Rhine, on the other hand, there dwells in the
same latitude a more vivacious people, whose mischievous cheerfulness
and easy-going philosophy of life are manifestations of their Frankish
blood. It is striking that hardly one of the most prominent Rhenish
writers of the present (Clara Viebig, Joseph Lauff, Rudolf Herzog,
Wilhelm Schäfer, Wilhelm Schmidtbonn, Herbert Eulenberg) has failed
to try his hand at the drama. In Middle Germany emotions are more
deep-seated and more responsive; people are more sentimental, more
soft-hearted, more talkative, more visionary, have a finer sense
of form, but a more conventional manner of speech. In this charming
region of forests and mountains, to which the population is warmly
attached and in which it finds protection, there is abundant occupation
for a tender heart and a lively imagination. Middle Germany is the home
of mysticism and romanticism, and this fact is apparent in the authors
of the present day: the Silesians (Karl and Gerhart Hauptmann, Hermann
Stehr, Paul Keller), the Misnians (Max Geissler, Kurt Martens), the
Thuringians (Helene Böhlau, Marthe Renate Fischer, Wilhelm Arminius),
the Hessians (Wilhelm Speck), the Franconians (Wilhelm Weigand,
Bernhard Kellerman), and the inhabitants of the Palatinate (Anna
Croissant-Rust).
Fondness for music is especially prominent in the stocks in which there
has been an infusion of Slavic elements. In Upper Germany, accordingly,
a sharp line is to be drawn between the Bavaro-Austrian and the
Alemannic group. In Austria the capacity for sensuous enjoyment and a
certain indolence are combined with a tendency toward sanguine but
short-lived enthusiasms. A soft, southern air blows about the heights
of Styria as well as over Vienna and its environs, and in the works of
the writers of these regions (Wilhelm Fischer-Graz, Rudolf Hans
Bartsch) everything is resolved into a lyrical mood and a melody of
words. Similarly in the case of writers of southern Tirol (Hans von
Hoffensthal, Richard Huldschiner), whereas on the northern slope of the
Alps a race of men made of sterner stuff is reared (Rudolf Greinz, Karl
Schönherr). In Bavaria, finally, people are even more rough and ready
and lyrical sentimentality yields to a pugnacious propensity to
ridicule, which gives satirical seasoning to the works of the genuinely
Bavarian writers Ludwig Thoma and Joseph Ruederer.
The sluggish Alemannians, on the contrary, lack the vivacity of the
Bavaro-Austrian stock. On the monotonous heights of the Swabian plateau
are developed such brusque individualism, tenacious self-will, peculiar
humor inclined to self-depreciation, soaring fantasy, and (withal there
is no lack of comprehension for the ideas of domesticity) such a
predilection for adventures abroad as we find in the Swabian narrators
Emil Strauss, Hermann Hesse, Ludwig Finckh, and Heinrich Lilienfein.
Didacticism, present in all Alemannic prose and poetry, finds more
popular forms among the story-writers of the Black Forest of Baden
(Heinrich Hansjakob, Hermine Villinger, Emil Gött, Hermann Burte),
while in the local character of the Alsatians, the source of Hermann
Stegemann's novels, good-natured practical joking is more at home. As
the rough Alpine country demands the utmost of human industry, so in
the realm of art it has developed a sympathy with practical, efficient
life, which, disinclined to all speculation (for Spitteler stands
well-nigh alone in this matter), is rather under the sway of
pedagogical interests. In Switzerland literature is most indissolubly
bound up with the life of the whole people, and a gay art for art's
sake cannot thrive. Here are to be found true farmer-authors, such as
Alfred Huggenberger, who still guides the plow across his fields, or
poets who have risen from the ranks of handicraftsmen, such as Jakob
Schaffner, or those who prosecute their literary avocation side by side
with the business of a restaurateur, like Ernst Zahn. And no other of
the compatriots of Pestalozzi (J. C. Heer, Heinrich Federer, Meinrad
Lienert, Felix Möschlin) disdains either, to be in the truest sense a
popular poet and an educator of the people.
By virtue of the inexhaustible riches which the _Heimatkunst_ brought
to light, the defiant rejection of the literature of the great cities
has been rightly recognized as no mere theoretical programme. The novel
of urban life, such as flourished in Berlin, Vienna, and Munich at the
close of the last century, is today antiquated and has lost its savor.
And it is significant that the Berlin novel of the last few years, for
example Georg Hermann's _Jettchen Gebert_ (1906) or the two most recent
works of Clara Viebig, prefers for its scene of action the Berlin of
the seventies, which, as yet free from the modern German "South Sea
Bubble," preserved for the inordinately growing city its old
established local character.
An account of German narrative writing of the present time is
a kind of ethnography of the German stocks and regions. The names
above-mentioned, selected without prejudice and also without
arbitrariness, ought to be represented here each with a specimen. In
part, these authors have been represented in the preceding volumes. The
necessary limits of this volume permit consideration of only a dozen.
The varieties of language and style which distinguish them one from
another cannot fail to be somewhat obscured in a translation;
nevertheless, the six pairs which we have arrayed according to racial
affiliation and age are well adapted to give an impression of the
manifoldness of German narrative prose at the beginning of the
twentieth century.
In the first place we mention two women, Helene Böhlau and
Clara Viebig. Both have passed through the naturalistic
school--for the former, indeed, naturalism marked only a period of
transition; for the latter it meant conversion to a creed to which she
has remained faithful.
The cradle of Helene Böhlau stood on classic ground. Exactly one
hundred years after Schiller, in November, 1859, she was born in
Weimar, the daughter of a publisher whose name has become known chiefly
in connection with the great Weimar edition of Goethe's complete works.
Her grandmother, "Grammie" as the children called the old lady, took to
her heart the shy and timid girl and revealed to her from the
recollections of her own youth the glory that once was and that still
gleamed as a memory within the dim and narrow confines of the
Thuringian capital city. Out of the anecdotes that the grandmother
told, the book grew which first made the name of the authoress famous,
_Tales of the Councillor's Girls_ (_Ratsmädelgeschichten_, 1888). "In
the midst of the great German Empire," the book begins, "lies a little
city famed far and wide, Weimar in Thuringia. When my grandmother was a
child there ruled over this country a very wise and good prince who
because of his goodness and wisdom had prevailed upon great poets then
living to come and dwell in his city. And because he was so exceedingly
wise and was so beloved and honored by all, poets and scholars came
from all sides, lived in the prince's city, and wrote there such
splendid works that the whole world marveled. Even today what these men
thought and wrote is the most beautiful thing that we know, and it will
remain so for a long, long time to come. About these men everything
conceivable has been often told and accurately described, and people
will talk of them centuries hence. But by their side there dwelt in the
city in those days many men of whom nowadays no more mention is made.
They too experienced joys and sorrows; they too had their day, felt
deeply, were glad and sad, and had hearts like the others."
Among these mute, inglorious personages of the great time belong the
daughters of Councillor Kirst in Wünsch Street, Rose and Mary, two
wide-awake, mischievous lassies who are the heroines of the book. Young
Ernst von Schiller, the second son of the prematurely deceased poet, is
their playmate; they make fun of August von Goethe as he goes a-wooing;
they quarrel with the sour-visaged boor, Arthur Schopenhauer, as they
go in and out of his mother's house, the novelist's; old Madam
Kummerfeld, a former actress who in her youth had as Juliet inspired
the Leipsic student Goethe, is their teacher in the art of sewing as
well as making a courtly bow--which latter accomplishment they have
occasion to practise when one day in the park they almost knock down
the corpulent Grand Duke by running against him, and are then treated
by him to good things to eat. With his knowledge they slip into the
theatre without tickets, and when they have witnessed a performance of
_Tasso_ at which Goethe is present, they are so impressed that they
follow the poet as, wrapped in his cloak, he strides home in the
darkness, and for a while they continue to stare up admiringly at
his lighted windows. Nevertheless, at the next moment they scramble
over the wall of the neighboring house and help themselves to the
beautiful lilies which bloom in old Wieland's garden. In these stories
the historical personages, which with artistic discretion are kept in
the background, constitute after all only a decorative element; in the
foreground happy youthfulness disports itself in its irresponsibility.
"O you poor young folks of today," exclaims the young Weimar authoress,
"if you had any idea what riches, what abundance of life the young
folks had at their command at the beginning of our century, you would
bitterly complain, you would seem to yourselves deceived and defrauded,
old from the cradle, forced into the straight-jackets of duty!"
A certain disgust with the colorless life of the philistine borough
into which Weimar more and more degenerated after Goethe's death may be
read between the lines of this apostrophe. Repelled by the gloomy
humdrum and filled with dreams of past greatness as well as with
longing for a more abundant life in the future, the young writer felt
the close confinement of her home town. In this state of mind she met
the man who proved to be her fate. Since his first, unhappy marriage
had been annulled according to Turkish, but not according to German
law, she followed him to Constantinople, and Helene Böhlau became
Madame Al Raschid Bey. The Orient furnished the German authoress with
strikingly few motifs; but Munich, whither she later returned with her
husband, became her second home. On the bank of the Isar lies the scene
of her best novel, _The Switching Station_ (1895). In this book she is
a disciple of naturalism, not merely in respect to the fidelity with
which life in the art centre and the restless haste and nervous
disorderliness in an artist's family are depicted, but also in the use
of symbolism after the manner of Zola: for the switching station, with
its purposeless turmoil, its disquietude, its pulling and hauling, is a
symbol for the noisy life in general, and in particular for the
comfortless, hapless marriage in which a delicately organized artistic
soul is worried to death. The fate of the woman who becomes the victim
of a man is the theme of the succeeding novels, _A Mother's Rights_
(1897) and _Half Beast_ (1899), in which Helene Böhlau enters the lists
side by side with Gabriele Reuter and Marie Janitschek and other women
as a passionate champion of the rights of her ever oppressed sex. From
the point of view of literary art the immoderate formlessness of these
partisan novels was an aberration; but meanwhile the writer has once
more emancipated herself from such servitude to the cause. The finest
understanding for feminine characters, all of which are children of her
heart, cannot indeed compensate for imperfect comprehension of the
masculine way of thinking. Strictly speaking, Helene Böhlau knows of
only two sorts of feeling for men: hatred of the brutal beast and
admiration for an ideal, which is born of longing to embrace a lofty,
victorious personality. In real life she has found the fulfilment of
her longing in her husband, the strange prophet who as half a Turk
gathered about himself in Munich a queer circle of auditors for his
mystical Oriental philosophy. To his memory she erected a dutiful
monument in her last work _Isebies_ (1911), an apology for her own
life, her longing, her seeking, and her salvation. But even in this
work the finest and the clearest portion is the narrative of her
childhood in Weimar. To the unique charm of her native town, which like
Bethlehem in Judaea was small and also great, Helene Böhlau returned in
other stories of Old Weimar written before her latest work appeared. To
this series belongs _The Ball of Crystal_ (1903) with which our
selections begin. Style and narrative art have matured; we have to do
no longer with mere anecdote, as in the _Tales of the Councillor's
Girls_, but with a more concentrated plot; the character of the
heroine, which is symbolized by the title, is subjected to a more
profound psychological diagnosis; but we are still taken with the same
purity of heart as in the earlier narratives, and the quintessence of
this book, as indeed of the entire literary personality of the
authoress, may be found in the final words of the _Tales of the
Councillor's Girls_: "The kind, the imperturbable, who with gentle
readiness take good or evil as it comes--they are the real heroes, not
those who face life bristling like a porcupine. The only thing which
can give our hearts peace and happiness on earth is good will toward
men."
Clara Viebig is a less gentle nature. She is a poetess not so much of
the heart and soul as of the impulsive temperament and the strong will.
She has not passed through any vacillating development, nor has
naturalism been for her as for Helene Böhlau a mere preparatory school
or transition stage; on the contrary, in all her work she has
consistently remained a disciple of Zola and has not shrunk from any of
the brutalities of his method. There is not much to tell about the
personal life of this authoress. Born at Treves on the Moselle in 1860
as the daughter of an official in the civil service, she was taken when
quite young to Düsseldorf on the Rhine, but passed a part of her youth
in eastern Germany, in Posen, the birthplace of her parents. After her
father's death she came to Berlin to study music; here she became a
writer, and now she is living as the wife of her publisher in the
suburb of Zehlendorf. Her spiritual experiences are perhaps most
clearly set forth in the novel _Long Live Art_ (1899). The passionate
struggles of a young authoress for literary success lead after many
disappointed hopes and many disillusionments to the attainment of
genuine good fortune in art and in domestic life as well. On her native
heath the despairing woman is cured of her despair--this typifies all
the work of Clara Viebig, which reveals itself as pure _Heimatkunst_ in
advance of the time when this label gained currency. To be sure, it is
a triple home that Clara Viebig can call her own, the Rhine country,
eastern Germany, and Berlin. As might be expected, the memories of
childhood left the most lasting effect upon her. The Eifel, that bleak
plateau between the Moselle and the Rhine, with its broad melancholy
heaths and bald craters of extinct volcanoes, with its dark lakes and
lonely forests, is the district with which she is most familiar. The
hard-headed, moody, quick-tempered peasants, whose stubbornness befits
the volcanic origin of their mountains, appear in her first collection
of short stories, _Children of the Eifel_ (1897). In the Eifel is
situated the _Women's Village_ (1900), all the men of which seek their
livelihood overseas, so that all the women swarm about the only man
left at home, a cripple. The novel _John Miller_ (1903) treats the
tragedy of a rich man of the Eifel who goes to ruin in pride and blind
presumption; _The Cross in the Venn_ (1908) deals with the religious
life of this district. The scene of the novel _The Watch on the Rhine_
(1902) is Düsseldorf, where the difficult process of amalgamation
between Prussians and Rhinelanders, first accomplished in 1870, is
illustrated in the wedded life of a Prussian sergeant and the daughter
of a Düsseldorf innkeeper. The struggle of racial incompatibilities
which is here depicted with the most matter-of-fact objectivity, and
which in a series of merry _genre_ pictures is brought to a happy
conclusion, is carried in another work to a frightfully serious tragic
ending. _The Sleeping Host_ (1904) takes us to the Prussian province of
Posen and shows the effect of strife between German and Slavic
elements, in the fate of Rhenish immigrants whose efforts to found a
new home for themselves are brought to naught. A second novel of the
eastern frontier, _Absolvo Te_ (1907), is inferior to the first, not in
power of characterization, but in range of subject. Still a third work
treats the problem of a difference between blood and rearing, _A
Mother's Son_ (1906). The novel traces the development of the son of a
peasant woman of the Eifel who has been adopted by a Berlin family and
in whom, in spite of careful education, the evil disposition of his
father comes to the surface. In this artificial treatment of the theory
of heredity Clara Viebig's art does not appear to the best advantage;
her forte is rather unbiased objectivity and penetrating observation of
every-day life. The other novels having their scene in Berlin are
distinguished for a keen sense for realities, as, for example, _The
Daily Bread_ (1900), a treatment of the servant question which in the
technique of Zola gives a panorama of the metropolis and of life in the
lower strata. A rise above the level of naturalism may be noted in the
fact that the last two novels of this author do not deal with the
present but, like _The Watch on the Rhine_, revert to themes in the
history of social development. _Those without the Gates_ (1910) depicts
the fate of the suburbanites who are submerged in the gigantic organism
of the growing city; the latest novel, _Iron in the Fire_ (1913), has
for its subject the time from 1848 to 1866, the time of expectation; an
old-fashioned Berlin smithy is the scene, the fire in the forge and the
power behind the hammer are symbols of the growth of the nation. Only
in the dim background does the figure of Bismarck appear, the smith who
welded the parts of the empire into one; it is characteristic of Clara
Viebig's art that she allows great historical events to be mirrored
only in the little world of the actors in her little drama, whereas
Helene Böhlau grants to the historical figures of Old Weimar
participation at least in episodes. Clara Viebig can compass no great
characters or persons of superior intelligence; even men she hardly
shows otherwise than in their sensual brutality. She succeeds best with
simple, vegetative natures of elemental instincts and eruptive
passions, like the women of the Eifel, whose life of hardship,
unhappiness in love, and maternal sorrows she knows how to represent
with telling power. From the collection entitled _Forces of Nature_
(1905) we have taken the story of a mother who for blind love of her
son becomes an incendiary--a story which reveals in high degree the
peculiar quality of this authoress. The scenes of Clara Viebig's life
and work are on a line running from west to east; the corresponding
line for the following writers runs from north to south. Count Eduard
Keyserling and Thomas Mann are both of North German extraction and have
both settled in Munich; both are moreover very similar in their high
esthetic culture and in a certain languid aristocracy of feeling and
ironical reticence; and their literary models (Dickens, Thackeray,
Balzac, Fontane) were the same.
Count Keyserling (born in 1858 at Pelsz-Paddernin in Curland) had the
same experience as Fontane, in that he was late in developing his
particular style in narrative composition. When in the eighties he made
his first appearance in literary circles in Munich, he essayed very
naturalistic novels; his first, _Rosa Herz_ (1885) deals with the fate
of a poor victim of seduction. Thereupon followed a series of dramas
(_Spring Sacrifice_, 1899, _Stupid Jack_, 1901, _Peter Hawel_, 1903)
which in their delicate atmosphere, their finished technique, and the
interest of their dialogue deserved more attention than they received.
Not until after the dawn of the new century did the author find his
true vocation in the telling of tales of his home country. _Beata and
Mamie_ (1903) and _Dumala_ (1908) are the great novels; _Muggy Days_
(1906) and _Gay Hearts_ (1909) are collections of short stories. All
revolve in the sphere of the East German country gentry, in their white
castles reflected in lakes, in their garden pavilions, and on the broad
tracts of their hunting preserves. It is always the same people with
whom we have to do: imperious counts who wish to be admired and to
enjoy themselves, and whose life consists of hunting, gaming, adultery,
duelling, and ultimate return to impeccable correctness in their
peaceful homes. In this world, "hung with fine white curtains," there
are women with the fine pallor of the old families, they also full of
longing for freshly pulsating life. When, however, the yearned-for
great experience finally knocks at their door, they draw back
disappointed. Thus it was with young Countess Billy when she eloped
with her Polish cousin.
It is not this writer's business to preach new, revolutionary ideas and
views. He narrates typical cases with the dignified reserve of the
skeptical man of the world, who knows how to weave in everywhere
the comments of a shrewd philosophy of life, who bridles passion with
strict self-control, and in the representation of the most tempestuous
crises maintains sure mastery over expression and form. The writer
himself may share with his creations their longing for fresh elemental
power; but he is endowed with far too much of the traditional culture
of his caste ever to allow himself any obstreperous accents. The words
of one of his dramatic figures characterize his own art: "We no longer
know how to underscore. Underscoring is in bad taste. Those people out
there live on underscoring."
Longing for abundant pulsating life, and autumnal renunciation on the
part of a decaying family, are also among the principal motifs in the
work of Thomas Mann. "Life, revealing itself in eternal contrariness to
the spirit and to art--not as a vision of bloody greatness and untamed
beauty, not as something uncommon does it present itself to us uncommon
people. On the contrary, the normal, proper, and lovely is the realm of
our longing, is life in its seductive banality! He is far from being an
artist, whose last and deepest yearning is for the superrefined, the
eccentric and satanical, who knows no longing for the innocent, the
simple and living, for a little friendship, devotion, confidential
familiarity, and human happiness--the furtive and consuming longing for
the raptures of the common place!"
These sentiments of Mann's Tonio Kröger might animate one of
Keyserling's characters, but Keyserling would never express them in
such impulsive fashion. Mann is much more subjective than Keyserling.
In all the experiences of his characters he is mirrored himself, and
all of his writings make and repeat one and the same confession as the
foundation of his art, the solitude of the artist.
The cleft which separates two worlds is recognizable in his very
parentage. Thomas Mann was born in Lübeck in 1875, the son of a
merchant and senator of the ancient Hanseatic city; his mother is a
Creole from South America. In his elder brother Heinrich Mann, perhaps
a more ingenious, but a less finished writer, of the nervous, ardently
passionate, impressionistic sort, the exotic heritage has tended to
predominate; in Thomas Mann the correctness of the austere Hanseatic
city and her old traditions seems to be the strongest element. Because
he cannot escape the exasperating incompatibility between citizen and
artist, between the instinct for conformity and the will to be
different, he fights this battle again and again, and bitter meditation
upon it has given him the themes of his principal works.
Mann's chief work, indubitably one of the best German novels of the
last decades, is entitled _The Buddenbrooks_, _the Degeneration of a
Family_ (1901). The book would perhaps never have been written without
the example of Zola in _Les Rougon-Macquart_, but it is far from being
a mere copy; for a much more personal conception of the subject and a
tone of narration in which the finest irony is mingled raise it far
above the arid level of the _roman expérimental_. In four generations,
whose representatives are placed before us with uncommon plasticity and
lifelikeness, the decaying family slowly passes across the stage. From
generation to generation the robust, sober business sense is poisoned
with a greater and greater infection of morbid feelings and
hypersensitive nerves, until finally the vitality of the family goes
out like a burnt-up candle.
The great novel was followed by a collection of short stories,
_Tristan_ (1903), from which we have selected _Tonio Kröger_. A tragedy
of the Renaissance, _Fiorenza_ (1905), develops the dualism between
real life and artistic existence, between the proud joy of living and
ascetic hostility to life, in two brothers of the house of Medici,
Lorenzo and Girolamo, who are suitors for the hand of one and the same
woman. The following novel, _His Royal Highness_ (1909), shows how a
prince, educated in aloofness from life, is saved from a living death
through love for an American heiress. Finally, there appeared only last
year a masterpiece in the most exquisite style, the narrative _Death in
Venice_ (1913). It is a heart-felt confession, taking as its theme
the chilling apprehension of approaching old age and death. In the
late-awakening impulse of love for a young boy there is here a
generally misunderstood symbol of longing for life. The figure of the
hero, Gustav Aschenbach, evidently furnishes a key to unlock many mysteries
in the artistic work of the author:
He never knew the leisure, never the careless unconcern of youth. When
in his thirty-fifth year he fell ill in Vienna, a keen observer once
remarked about him in company, "You see, Aschenbach has always lived
like this"--and he clenched his left fist--"never this way"--and he let
his open hand dangle from the arm of his chair. That was indeed the
case; and the moral valor about Aschenbach was that his constitution
was in no sense robust, and that though called to unremitting exertion,
he was not really born to it.... With a strong will and tenacity
comparable to that which had subdued his native province, he worked for
years under the stress of one and the same task, and devoted to its
proper accomplishment all of his strongest and best hours. He almost
loved the enervating, daily-renewed combat between his tenacious,
proud, and often tried willpower, and this ever-growing fatigue, which
was his secret and which the product should in no wise betray by signs
of exhaustion or indifference.
Thomas Mann resembles his hero in being comparatively unproductive; but
it should be added at once that no one of his works fails to exhibit
the utmost of artistic finish. Unrelaxing attention and indefatigable
effort to attain artistic form are the heritage of his North German
descent, of which he perhaps became fully conscious in South Germany,
in the city of more easy-going habits of life. In _Buddenbrooks_ itself
the difference between North and South plays an important part; Tonie,
the youngest daughter of the house of Buddenbrook, is twice married,
first to an unscrupulous speculator in Lübeck, the second time to a
Munich dealer in hops, Aloysius Permaneder, who rescues her from the
disgraceful position of a divorced woman. This deliriously portrayed
beer-reeking philistine, whose informality and whose wild oaths horrify
the prim Lübeckers no less than his good-hearted _naiveté_ amuses them,
marries Tonie Buddenbrook, retires from business on the strength of her
dowry, and as an owner of real estate and a gentleman of leisure passes
the rest of his life in drinking beer morning and night, cutting
coupons, and annually raising the rent of his tenants. Such a
successful caricature splendidly embodies the stagnating spirit of the
blissfully idyllic town which the metropolis of Bavaria has remained in
spite of all its growth.
And yet, in no other German city is there so high a degree of artistic
culture, and the odor of Munich beer seems to furnish a more favorable
atmosphere for the creative artist than the _prestissimo_ of life in
Berlin, which steels the nerves of the energetic, rushing man of
business. There are two sides to everything: the motto of the indolent
man of Munich, "Let me alone" (_Mei Rua will i ham_) gives to art that
which it needs above all else, time, contemplativeness, freedom.
Nowhere can one so unrestrainedly cultivate one's own style of life as
there. And withal, artistic freedom of life accommodates itself
remarkably well with the political narrowness of the country under
Clerical rule. The Bavarian phlegmatic temperament craves constant
stimulation; the political strife, in which there is no embittered
fanaticism, but which in all good nature sways backward and forward, is
an indispensable condition of the national life. Combativeness and the
lust of vituperation are in the blood of the Bavarian people; it is all
one, whether we look for them in a riotous kirmess or in blunt
ridicule, in the poetic improvisations of which the quick-witted
peasants, being especially gifted in mimicry, are unsurpassed.
Bavaria is accordingly the particular home of German satire. The best
German comic papers are published in Munich, and the most effective
satirist of the present day is a Bavarian of the Bavarians, Ludwig
Thoma. He is the son of a Head Forester and was born in 1867 at that
Oberammergau where all the inhabitants every ten years dismiss the
barber and let their long locks curl about their necks, in order to
perform before the assembled multitude their Passion Play, which is
pleasing in the sight of God and profitable to them. Thoma not only
grew up among peasants; later, as a lawyer in Dachau, he had abundant
opportunity to become acquainted with their fondness for litigation,
their avarice, and their cunning. Now he is merely an author. In winter
he may be seen at Munich in company garb at first performances in the
theatres; in summer, at Tegernsee he appears in the midst of his
beloved peasants dressed in their costume, homespun jacket and leather
breeches. In the same way his writings have two aspects, satire on
society and tales of rustic life. In the comic paper _Simplicissimus_
he has often published political verses over the pseudonym Peter
Schlemihl; some of his dramas also (_The Medal_, 1901, _The Branch
Road_, 1902, _The First-class Compartment_, 1910, _The Baby Farm_,
1913) assail with never-failing pungency the present governmental
system in Bavaria; others (_Morality_, 1909, _Lottie's Birthday_, 1911)
are directed with more general and less delicate ridicule against all
sorts of common place morality and the excrescences of moral reform.
Delicious are his stories of the little town, especially about the
pranks that give expression to boyish impulses to incommode teachers,
stern neighbors, and maiden aunts. These are told in the naïvely
impudent language of the school-boy in _Tales of Bad Boys_ (1904) and
the continuation of this book, _Aunt Frieda_ (1906). The philistine
population of the little town, Bavarian administration of justice,
scenes in the Munich street cars, and many another subject of that
kind, Thoma humorously treats in _Judge Charlie_ (1900) and _Tales of
the Little Town_ (1908), in the broad anecdotal style which he has made
his own.
His other subject is peasant life. In this too he begins as a satirist,
with his collection _Agricola_ (1897); and the manner in which he at
first indulges in grotesque exaggeration of popular traits appears best
perhaps in the introduction to the book, "adapted from Tacitus":
The German plain from the river Danube to the Alps is inhabited by the
Baiovarii. I regard them as the original inhabitants of this land,
self-raised, as they call themselves in their own tongue. It is
difficult for immigrants to mingle with them. It is certain that
foreigners could never be confounded with the autochthonous folk.
Since this Germanic stock has remained free from contamination through
intermarriage with alien nations, it constitutes a separate, uniform
race. Hence the same figure in all the representatives of this numerous
nation, the same uncommonly developed hands and feet, the same hard,
impenetrable formation of the head. Like their ancestors, they are fit
for violent assault, and fond of it. They show great capacity for the
endurance of fatigue and tribulation; the only thing they cannot endure
is thirst.
This people is equipped with manifold weapons; but even in these they
have more regard for usefulness than for beauty. Widespread is the
short dagger which every mature man carries in the fold of his garment;
but the use of it is not permitted--on the contrary, the powers that be
seek to get possession of all such; whereupon the common man replaces
the lost weapon by another. As missiles they have earthen mugs, with
handles which make them likewise adaptable for delivering blows. At
their gathering places every man, when strife arises, seeks to possess
himself of as many of these as possible, and hurls them then uncommonly
far. Most of the Baiovarii carry a sort of spear, or in their language,
"chaser", made of the hazel of their forests, with blunt end, supple,
and very handy. In the lack of these weapons, each man assumes any that
chance may offer. Indeed, for this purpose even articles of household
furniture, such as tables and chairs, are robbed of their supports. In
high favor are also the constituent parts of garden inclosures. Before
the beginning of the conflict the battle song resounds. It is not as
though human throats, but rather as though the spirit of war were
singing. They essay chiefly the formation of wild sounds, and close
their eyes as though thereby to reinforce their utterance. They fight
without a preconsidered plan of battle, each at the place that he
occupies. Of shields they make no employment. The head is deemed a
natural protection, which meets the shock of the attacking enemy and
guards the rest of the body. Many even use the head for the purposes of
attack, when other weapons fail.
In this ridicule of savage pugnacity one cannot fail to see the secret
love of the writer for the uncouth power of his sound-hearted and
sound-limbed compatriots. This same love explains the contempt in which
Thoma holds the sentimental depiction of parlor peasants which is so
often met with in family magazines. He knows no glossing-over, and what
is boorish in his peasants, he leaves boorish. But more and more he has
developed from a satirist to a serious moralist of his native land. In
his stories _Wedding_ (1901) and _Matt the Holy_ (1904) the satirical
purpose predominates. But then, in his great novels, Thoma proceeds to
more serious matters. One, _Andreas Vöst_ (1905), which develops to a
magnificent climax the uncompromising rebellion of a stubborn peasant
against the superior resources of a malicious priest, with the
consequent destruction of the poor victim of his own sense of justice,
might be compared with Kleist's masterly narrative _Michael Kohlhaas_,
if in the treatment of the antagonist Kleist's incorruptible
objectivity were not lacking and the whole did not, therefore,
ultimately turn into pleading for a cause. But when satire fails to
amuse for bitterness, and humor fails to conciliate, the pictures
become almost too gloomy and the moral purpose too obtrusive. Thus it
is in the novel _The Widower_ (1911). The folly of a lustful old
peasant who in the toils of a scheming hussy supinely looks on while
his property goes to wrack and ruin and his son becomes a murderer, is
here treated with too harsh a naturalism. The same may be said of the
drama _Magdalena_ (1912), in which a rustic Virginius makes of himself
the judge of his daughter who has fallen into a life of public shame.
The life of the closely related peasant stock of Austria has found
hardly at any other hands than those of the Tirolese Karl Schönherr an
equally unadorned depiction. Rosegger's Styrian peasants are, in spite
of the pessimistic _Sylvan Schoolmaster_, drawn after all with much
more extenuating gentleness. More recent literary products of Styrian
writers are, however, no whit inferior in local patriotism to the works
of the still living first master. The warmest praise of his home land
has been sung by Rudolf Hans Bartsch who, born in 1873 at Graz, lived
for many years as an officer in Vienna, until in 1911 he returned
as a retired captain to his native city. After an historical novel
_When Austria Disintegrated_ (1905), which dealt with the epoch of
Forty-eight, and was reissued under the title _The Last Student_,
Bartsch celebrated his greatest triumph with the novel _Twelve Men of
Styria_ (1908), a book of inexhaustible, exuberant youthfulness and
contagious optimism. The careers of the twelve youths who meet on the
common ground of love for the beautiful Frau von Karminell, and who set
out together on the stormy path of life, are only loosely connected;
and yet the book achieves a unified effect, thanks to the wonderful
musical atmosphere which is its element, and to the pivotal position in
it of province and city: "Graz, city lost in the expanse of nature, so
still, so receptive and yet fulfilled as no other is with soft
impressiveness; the green-dreaming, tree-rustling, gentle-singing city
of Graz, animate beyond all great cities with the soul of nature." The
next novel, _The Sons of Haindl_ (1908), a collection of similar types
of character in Viennese surroundings, is too much of a repetition not
to have proved a disappointment; as was also _The German Sorrow_
(1911). In the later Viennese novels _Elisabeth Kött_ (1909) and _The
Story of Hannah and her Four Lovers_ (1914) Bartsch lost much of his
original vivacity and purity of style, and the novel _Schwammerl_
(1912), which revolves about the figure of the composer Schubert, falls
in with the vogue of that novel of the artistic life which has of late
been cultivated in somewhat routine fashion and to which--to mention
only a few names--Goethe, Schiller, Grillparzer, Lenau, Wagner, and
Heine in his last years, succumbed. Bartsch was indeed led to this
theme by an elective affinity; for he is inspired in equal measure by
love of music and love for Old Vienna, and he is capable of entering
with entire sympathy into the spirit of former times. To this capacity
his short stories entitled _The Last Days of Rococo_ (1909) bear
eloquent testimony, conjuring up as they do with charming winsomeness
the spirit of the epoch that preceded the French Revolution. The second
collection of narratives, _Bitter-Sweet Love Stories_ (1910), brings us
back to Austrian territory. To this collection belongs _The Styrian
Wine Carrier_, in which the ancient carefree joyfulness of the highway
falls a victim to the modern rush of business. Is not the fate of the
amiable, easy-going, reveling Styrian symbolical of the fate of the
whole country of Austria, which is organized on the outgrown plan of a
former generation, and is now placed in opposition to the iron
necessity of modern progress? Bartsch has deeply felt the
incompatibilities rooted in the Austrian character: there are two
souls, one desperately clinging to the Austria of the good old times,
to the long-lost lovely Vienna of the coach and post-horn, the other
the soul of turbulent young Austria, with its eye on the knotty
problems of the future. But the enervating atmosphere of literary
Vienna, which Grillparzer once characterized as a "Capua in the
world of spirits," is the natural element of Old Austria, and we
suspect that Bartsch, whose rapid productivity defies stern artistic
self-discipline, has not altogether escaped its dangers.
The Alemannic races on the Upper German territories reveal a greater
toughness of fibre and more power of resistance. They are blunt
individualists, whose love of country utters itself with less
enthusiasm and attains to perfect certainty perhaps only after a
longing for adventures abroad has been stilled.
Emil Strauss, the older of the two Swabian writers here represented (he
was born at Pforzheim in 1866), lived for a while in Brazil; from his
experiences there he derived material for some of his stories in _The
Ways of Men_ (1898), for his drama, unsuccessful from the point of view
of technique, _Don Pedro_ (1899), and for his first novel _Mine Host of
the Angel_ (1900), the tragi-comical history of a man who learns by
experience, who deserts his wife and after a long series of
disappointments returns humbled to his home. The later narrative
_Mara_, in the collection entitled _Hans and Grete_ (1909), is also the
fruit of exotic experiences. This account of a love in imagination
has the same motif as one of the most original narratives of the
Swiss Spitteler, _Imago_, with the only difference that in _Mara_
over-excitation of the brain is motivated by tropical heat. Strauss
is in all of his narratives an extremely acute psychologist, who
everywhere concentrates his attention upon the development of
character, and whose work, as appears in _Mine Host of the Angel_, is
inclined toward a mild didacticism. This is especially noticeable in
the work that first made his name famous, the novel _Death the
Comforter_ (_Freund Hein_, 1902), the story of a boy of musical
disposition who is worried to death in school. Compared with English
and American literature, German literature has been said to be poor in
stories of childhood. This criticism hardly applies to the new century,
which has been called the century of the child. The fate of little
Henry Lindner who is to be transformed by hook or by crook from a
dreamy musician into a circumspect efficient man, and who suffers
shipwreck on the reefs of mathematics, reminds us in many ways of the
tragedy of the last Buddenbrook, Hanno, whose delicate sensibility is
crushed out by the discipline of the school. A few years later there,
appeared in Hermann Hesse's _On the Rack_ (1906) another story of
schoolboy martyrdom, and between these two pessimistic works lay two
sunshiny novels of childhood, _Asmus Semper's Childhood Land_ (1904),
by Otto Ernst, and _Gottfried Kämpfer_ (1904), by Hermann Anders
Krüger. These were the most successful novels of those years; Strauss'
_Death the Comforter_ is, next to the conclusion of _Buddenbrooks_, the
poetically most significant of these stories of childhood. The writer,
rich in comprehension of the vitality of the problems and in the
delicacy of his treatment of them, has not had to repeat himself: his
novel _Friction_ (1904) is a fine psychological study in the form of a
love story, in which life undertakes the education of two recalcitrant
lovers; and his latest work, _The Naked Man_ (1912), is a powerful
historical novel.
Hermann Hesse, who is often grouped with Strauss, is, in spite of his
belonging to the same stock, a different nature; he is more of a
lyricist, and his lyrical poems, though less well known, take perhaps a
higher rank than his novels. Even in these the lyrical mood outweighs
the human action; he ponders the riddles of nature more earnestly than
the riddles of humanity. Among human beings, however, his favorite is
the gentle St. Francis of Assisi, to whom he has devoted a splendid
little book.
Hesse was born in 1877 at Calw in Württemberg; it is his own youth that
he describes in the novel _On the Rack_. After fleeing from the
Theological Seminary at Moulbronn he became a machinist; then he worked
in a bookstore at Basel, where he found opportunity to study at the
University. He spent a few years at Munich, and finally made
Switzerland his home by establishing himself in the neighborhood of
Bern. In respect to literary relations he had even before this acquired
a certain right to be called a Swiss; for his work may be regarded as a
continuation of the line of development that runs from Jean Paul to
Gottfried Keller. There is a kind of resurrection of Jean Paul in the
wonderful descriptions of nature, the dreams of universal love and
natural piety, which we find in Hesse's first great novel _Peter
Camenzind_ (1904); no writer since Jean Paul has bestowed such eloquent
praise upon the clouds:
Show me in all the wide world the man who knows the clouds better and
loves them more than I do! Or show me the thing in the world that is
more splendid than the clouds! They are playthings and balm for the
eyes, they are a blessing and divine gift, they are wrath and
omnipotent death. They are frail, tender, and peaceful, like the souls
of the newly born; they are beautiful, opulent, and lavish, like good
angels; they are dark, unescapable, and pitiless, like the messengers
of death. They hover in silvery thin expanse, they sail laughingly
white with a golden rim, they stand at rest in yellow, red, and bluish
tints; they creep up slowly and darkly threatening like murderers, they
rush with a headlong roar like mad horsemen, they hang sad and pensive
at equal heights like melancholy hermits. They have the forms of
blessed isles and the forms of blessing angels; they are like
threatening hands, fluttering sails, a flight of cranes. They float
between God's heaven and the poor earth as fair symbols of all human
longings, akin to both--dreams of the earth, in which her sullied soul
flies to the embrace of the pure heaven. They are the eternal symbol of
all wandering, all seeking, desiring, all homesickness. And as they
hang timidly and yearningly and persistently between earth and heaven,
so the souls of men hang timidly and yearningly and persistently
between time and eternity.
From Gottfried Keller, on the other hand, Hesse has derived the
specific gravity of realism; and so the romantic life of the peasant
boy Peter Camenzind concludes, after protracted roving through Italy
and France, like that of Green Henry, with a weary, resigned return
home. The novel _On the Rack_, which represents a falling off after
this brilliant beginning, was followed by a new efflorescence in
Hesse's artistry with the novels _Gertrude_ (1910) and the latest work
_Rosshalde_, a story of matrimony which combines the former merits of
poetic atmosphere with the merit of a greater concentration upon
action. Between the two lie the collections of short stories _On this
Side_ (1907) and _Neighbors_ (1908). From the second is taken the story
here translated, _In the Old Sun_, which as an idyll of the Poorhouse
has something of the qualities of Gottfried Keller, while the mystic
setting is quite the property of the Swabian author.
From the half-Swiss author Hermann Hesse to the full-blooded Swiss
novelists is but a short step. Among these, Ernst Zahn is the most
widely read and the most fruitful. A succession of voluminous novels
(_Erni Beheim_, 1898, _God's Puppets_ [_Herrgottsfäden_], 1901, _Albin
Indergand_, 1901, _Claire Marie_, 1904, _Luke Hochstrasser's House_,
1907, _Solitude_, 1909, _The Women of Tannò_, 1911, _The Apothecary of
Little Worldville_, 1913) and an equal number of collections of short
stories (_Heart Struggles_, 1893, _Echo_, 1895, _New Tales of the
Mountains_, 1898, _Men and Women_, 1900, _The Shady Side_, 1903,
_Heroes of Every Day_, 1905, _Those Who Come and Go_, 1908, _What Life
Destroys_, 1912) have come thick and fast; and since they all deal with
the everyday fortunes of the simple Alpine villagers, it was inevitable
that in course of time a certain satiety dulled admiration of the sheer
inexhaustible store of motifs--for nobody can say that Zahn ever
exactly repeats himself. In particular, his fellow-countrymen are no
longer quite willing to regard him as the Swiss novelist _par
excellence_. And yet Zahn is himself the very incarnation of a
fundamental trait of Swiss character; namely, the peculiar blending of
practical common sense and esthetic culture. Where else than in this
veritable democracy could one and the same man day in and day out serve
soup to thousands of travelers, sit down at his desk after the day's
work was done and gather about him the children of his imagination, and
then on the morrow as president of the diet guide the deliberations of
representatives of his canton of Uri? His three professions of public
man, innkeeper, and author, Zahn upholds with undiscriminating pride.
Ernst Zahn was born at Zurich in 1867 in the Café Littéraire, of which
his father was lessee, and among whose habitués Gottfried Keller was
reckoned. He took up the paternal business, beginning at the bottom of
the ladder as a waiter in Geneva, Genoa, and Hastings, and in 1883
joined his father, who had meanwhile taken a lease of the railroad
restaurant at Göschenen. At the last stop before entrance into the
darkness of the Gotthard tunnel many a traveler to Italy has doubtless
been struck by the classic features and the proud bearing of the
restaurateur, without knowing that he saw before him the most widely
read story-writer in the German language. As to his private life Zahn
published a few years ago in the magazine _The Literary Echo_ a few
details from which we quote the following:
Little room with the writing table, the tall book-cases, the few
pictures on the wall, and the immovable, grand, curious mountain always
peering in at thy window--little room with the great hubbub all about
thee, of thee I am to speak, and of him who sits within thy coziness!
It is not difficult to speak of thee: thou art a home, peaceful and
lost to the world, although the life of the world surges around thee
like the sea around an island. Behind thou hast the rumble of carts
going hither and thither all summer long over three mountain passes,
and before, the daily rattle and roar of the great railway trains of
the Gotthard. And yet thou art peaceful and hast taught me that it is
better to dwell in thee than in the bustling world, and hast taught me
that I do not need many men to make me happy in thee.... From the
writing table there is every few minutes a call to the dining rooms
on the ground floor, where the author is metamorphosed into a
victualler. Many persons shake their heads at this transformation. To
me the profession of my father is an object of affection; I owe it an
assured livelihood. Who knows but that the author in me also owes it
much of the spontaneity and joy of working?
But a fertile source of the author's joy of working is situated in a
little dwelling of which I mean to speak last in this account of my
houses. It stands in the valley of Göschenen, at the edge of the
village, in the midst of a meadow. Round about tower the mountains; the
gleaming glacier of Damma throws its light in through the window panes.
The valley is filled with a great stillness. In the house five
children, my children, live their untroubled lives, and my wife guards
them well, with her gentle and skilful hand to lead, and her
affectionate patience to understand her husband. In this, my mountain
home, my life has found its haven. I hope to dwell there until I must
move into the last resting place of my career; I hope to work, and I
hope to attain to high and beautiful things; for I hear the bells of
poetry mightily reverberating from my mountains, marvelous, richly
harmonious voices; and perhaps I shall one day succeed in catching
these tones in their clearest purity. Perhaps! There is hope; and hope
is life!
The strenuous effort alluded to in these words, the great
all-conquering achievement, the master chime which peals from the
heights, has indeed not yet attained fulfillment. One might say of the
work of Zahn as of the bell of Gerhart Hauptmann's bell-founder, "In
the valley it vibrates, not on the heights." We find neither great
problems of humanity and civilization nor real men of the heights. On
the contrary, these "heroes of every day" are dwellers in the valley,
harsh and hard as the walls of granite which narrow their horizon; and
if the author puts into these rude vessels something of his own
delicacy of feeling, as he attributes to Stephen the Smith appreciation
of the little Roman bronze figures which the trader has brought up from
Italy, such ennobling ingredients can sometimes enter only at the
expense of consistency of characterization.
A more primitive power is manifest in the other Swiss, Jakob Schaffner,
who in still higher degree than Zahn deserves to be called a self-made
man. Schaffner, who was born in 1875 at Basel, belongs with Hans Sachs
and Jakob Böhme among the poetic shoemakers. His immature first novel,
_Wanderings_ (1905), has its best scenes in the workshop, and his later
masterpiece, _Konrad Pilater_ (1910), is another story of a fantastic
journeyman shoemaker. As the author himself worked his way up with iron
energy to culture and independence, so all of his creations are endowed
with something of a vaulting ambition, which is not depreciated by
being treated with a slight measure of irony. His _Jack Heaven-High_
(1909) is a philosophizing journeyman who from every capital of Europe
pours forth his lyrico-cosmic effusions, and the hero of his historical
novel _The Messenger of God_ (1911) is a Swiss dominic who at the
conclusion of the Thirty Years' War collects a motley rabble about him
for new works of peace and single-handed makes of himself the restorer
of a devastated community. But with all the scope of the theme there is
a lack of genuine historical color; and compared with the great
historical novel of Ricarda Huch, this anachronistic picture of the
past seems like the story of another Robinson Crusoe. Schaffner's forte
is after all the ground upon which he stood at the beginning; it is
seen in the little idylls from the life of the laboring classes which
make up the contents of his two collections, _The Lantern_ (1905) and
_The Golden Oddity_ (1912). In the first collection, the story of _The
Blacksmiths_ is a gem of narration; and so is the story here
reproduced, _The Iron Idol_, which also serves to illustrate the
pedagogical tendency of all of Schaffner's work. The huge machine is a
symbol for cooperative activity, to which the individual may not put
himself in opposition; and the restless spirit that essays opposition
is transformed against his will from a disturber of the peace into the
founder of a happy wedlock.
The final couple of our choice are two authors who have departed from
the ways of _Heimatkunst_. Jakob Wassermann, born in 1873 at Fürth,
begins at least as a delineator of the things of his home; for his
first product, _The Jews of Zirndorf_ (1897) is in its first part a
legendary picture taken from the history of the Fürth ghetto, and in
its second part there comes into the foreground the figure of Agathon
Geyer, a Jewish messiah of the present, whose deep-seated longing to
see God conquers the narrow spirit of the law, of slavery and
asceticism. A pendant to this work is Wassermann's second novel, _The
Story of Young Renate Fuchs_ (1900). The development of the new woman
is intended to be represented in this book, the woman who through all
confusion and filthiness keeps her adamantine soul unscathed, to the
moment when she attains her destiny, namely, to spend a night of love
with the dying Agathon Geyer and to bear him the first child of a
better time, Beatus, the fortunate. Sultry sensuality and outrageous
bombast characterize the work, the action of which is not clearly set
forth, but floats in a sea of nebulous somnambulistic vagueness.
Visionary representation and mythical creation are indeed the program
which Wassermann lays out for himself in a theoretical treatise, _The
Art of Narrative_. Ernst von Wolzogen, the discoverer of Wassermann,
and a critic who has perhaps contributed to an over-estimate of him,
declares that this author, who stood, especially at first, under the
influence of the most Asiatic of all the Russian novelists,
Dostojewski, is the sole Oriental among the present generation of
literary Jews. "A fancy which in its luxurious revelling in blood,
splendor, and magnificence seems to us as Oriental as his meditative
dreaminess and the subtle satisfaction with which he traces the
subterranean, labyrinthine paths of the life of the soul"--these are
the salient features which Wolzogen finds in the work of Wassermann.
One side of this characterization is confirmed by the next two works,
the novels _Moloch_ (1903) and _Alexander in Babylon_ (1904). In the
former, a rustic of uncorrupted feeling and fanatical sense of justice
loses his honesty and goes to ruin in the mendacity of urban ways of
doing business; and in the latter, the Grecian hero and man of action
is dragged into the intoxication of Oriental luxury, voluptous cruelty,
and dazzling magnificence.
The other side expresses itself in the attempted psychological solution
of the riddles of criminality. It is characteristic of Wassermann's
predilection for these matters that in his novel _Kasper Hauser or
Sluggishness of Heart_ (1909) he seeks to interpret anew and on the
basis of scrupulous attention to all the documents in the case the
oft-treated story of the mysterious foundling who came to light in
Nuremberg in 1828 and who was supposed to be a cast-off prince of
Baden. Moreover, of the three narratives in the volume entitled _The
Sisters_ (1906), two are fantastically constructed criminal cases which
endeavor suggestively to explain the unusual and the baffling by
reference to mysterious undercurrents in the soul. One of these two
stories is the _Clarissa Mirabel_ here translated, and no word need be
said of the technical virtuosity with which the most exquisite climax
is attained through the utmost economy of means.
Many critics regard Wassermann as the pioneer of a new epic style. Even
those who do not share this opinion cannot deny him tenacity of purpose
and a clear conception of what it is that he aims to accomplish.
Wassermann has selected the Oriental softness of the air of Vienna for
his place of abode; it is possible that his _quasi_ elective affinity
with it will save him from the danger of falling a victim to the Moloch
of the metropolis. In the year 1911 he wrote in an autobiographical
sketch.
For ten years I have lived in the neighborhood of Vienna. There are
German critics who cannot forgive me this choice of a domicile. But I
still ask them to approve it. On my part I promise them never to give
in to the Capuan lassitude which, I might add, is nothing but a legend
among the superficial. True, the productive man is here more isolated,
the man resolved to reach a goal is here left more to his own
resources, than elsewhere; but many stormy winds blow, and if the post
which one has taken is rendered dangerous, one's vigilance is enhanced.
I am thirty-eight years old and have a feeling that I am standing at
the beginning of my career. But to reach the end one would need to
be--immortal.
The virtuosity of the narrator Wassermann may have served as a model
for his younger fellow-townsman Bernhard Kellermann (born at Fürth in
1879). He too is a seeker after new forms of expression for psychical
reactions; but he presents himself to us from the very first as a purer
nature of greater delicacy and lucidity. He introduces himself as a
troubadour of narrative art in his first two novels _Yester and Li, a
Story of Longing_ (1904) and _Ingeborg_ (1905). With unutterable
tenderness and richness of tone he depicts in each of these two novels
the love-longing of a solitary nature, the substance of which is
trembling yearning, and the fulfilment of which is a fading dream. A
solitary figure is the hero of the third novel, _The Fool_ (1909), as
well. It is a young clergyman who settles in a small Franconian town
with the sole purpose of doing good. He visits those who are weary and
heavy-laden; with pathetic faith in the goodness of humanity he sees in
every man a brother, and finally he suffers the Saviour's fate of
pining away and dying unrecognized for what he was. This is
Kellermann's profoundest and best work, and it would deservedly be
reproduced here if considerations of space did not compel the selection
of a shorter narrative. As such a narrative _God's Beloved_ (1911)
suggested itself, the work of a later period. For about the year 1910 a
clearly recognizable change takes place in Kellermann's work; he goes
forth into the world, and sojourn abroad causes the gentle dreamer to
awaken into an energetically aggressive, almost brutal man of action.
The sentimental stories of the heart are followed by works of keen
intuition, in which with compelling suggestiveness strange human
communities are comprehended and presented in the characteristic
atmosphere of their milieu. What we find in the insane asylum of _God's
Beloved_ we find also in the lives of Breton fisherfolk in the novel
_The Sea_ (1910); it is unadulterated primitive nature, which blends
the roar of billows and the instinctive ingenuousness of the islanders
into a mighty harmony.
If Kellermann's development should be taken as pointing the way for the
German novel of the future, we should have to conclude that
_Heimatkunst_ has been supplanted by exotic art. Specialties are being
cultivated, like that of the promising Willy Seidel (_The Garden of
Shuhan, Sakîje's Song_) in Oriental themes. Interest is growing in the
literature of travel, and the great publishers are already paying the
traveling expenses of their authors, in order that they may see
something of the world and write about it. This is the manner in which
Hermann Hesse's _Trip to India_ came into existence, and Kellermann has
similarly published two books on Japan (_A Promenade in Japan_, 1911,
_Sassayo Yassal_, 1913). The danger of this tendency lies in the
confusion of poetic invention and journalistic report. Kellermann's
most recent novel _The Tunnel_ (1913), which sold inside of a few
months to the number of a hundred thousand copies, cannot be regarded
as a genuine work of art. It is not "the epic of iron and electricity,
the Odyssey of modern engineering and capitalism" which it was perhaps
intended to be, but a fantastic special article spun out into a
moving-picture series of impressions of America and the possibilities
of technical accomplishment. As such it is a great proof of talent.
This we perhaps see most clearly if we compare it with Hauptmann's
_Atlantis_; for we then perceive how much sharper are Kellermann's eyes
and how much more takingly he knows how to reproduce the bustling
confusion of the modern mart. But it is rather a caricature of the
present than a Utopia of the future, and the idea of the novel is lost
in the abundance of individual motifs. It is to be hoped that this
alienation is not symptomatic in the development either of the gifted
author or of German literature as a whole. National questions will in
the coming years summon Germany from fantastic world problems back to
consciousness of herself.
The technical possibility of the Atlantic tunnel, upon which Kellermann
has founded his novel, is questioned by engineering experts.
Nevertheless, the idea of the tunnel remains a symbol of the need which
the continents of the earth feel, of overcoming the distances that
separate them and of approaching and comprehending one another in ever
closer commerce and mutually profitable exchange. Where technical means
fail, the problem remains unrestricted for the human mind. The more
each individual people gives full expression to its national character,
the better will that world literature for which we strive succeed in
contributing to a mutual understanding on the part of the several
peoples. And when, as at present, the sea is lashed by frightful
storms, a safe conduit must lead from one national spirit to the
other--a conduit in the deep, which remains undisturbed by the waves of
passion that agitate the surface.
HELEN E BÖHLAU
* * * * * *
THE BALL OF CRYSTAL (1903)
TRANSLATED BY A. I. DU P. COLEMAN, A. M.
Professor of English Literature, College of the City of New York
On the long, bare slope of the Ettersberg lay the buildings that
marked the centre of an estate, not far from the Sperber property, but
not, like it, embedded in swelling fields on the side of the steep road
where the land lay broader and less precipitous. It lay nearer to the
wooded mountainside, so that the farm-buildings could look down a
little haughtily on those of the Sperber place--although there was
really no reason for it, since the latter was not at all inferior
either in extent or in great straw-thatched barns and stables or the
stately dwelling-house.
The estate that lay nearer the woods belonged to an old soldier,
Captain Rauchfuss, who, after a busy life in war and peace, had retired
and come back to his native town a little stiff in the legs, to find a
corner where he could live on his little pension in quietness.
But after a few years of rest the querulous veteran had blossomed out
into the likeness of a lively fellow in the prime of life, who enjoyed
a special reputation among the Weimar townspeople as a jolly companion.
And so it came to pass that he finally installed as his wife up at the
Ettersberg the daughter of his housekeeper, a young widow, and thus
became not only a landed proprietor but the husband of a nice little
woman to boot. He sat perched like a falcon above the cramped little
town, where so many strange and remarkable things were going on, things
that seemed quite unnecessary to the old soldier.
Celebrities were going in and out down there in the narrow streets, who
were neither princes, nor generals, nor even captains, and yet the
people looked after them with respectful curiosity--mere quill-drivers!
It was too absurd.
As for the widow and the estate, they were not too well off in the
hands of the old soldier. He drove away from the Ettersberg oftener
than was really necessary, down to the "Elephant," where he stopped and
addressed forcible language to the hostler. He spent more there than
was quite wise, in order to impress his importance upon the "Elephant."
The pleasant little widow had abandoned her comfortable widowhood
without sufficient reflection: and now she had to put up as best she
might with the difficulties of Herr Rauchfuss's disposition--sighing or
complaining would do no good.
"You ought to have taken more time to think about it," was all the
answer she got from her light-hearted husband. "What made you marry an
old soldier? You know that isn't the same thing as a grandmother!" So
she could only try and content herself, and go on looking after the
considerable estate alone.
Frau Rauchfuss became the mother of a little daughter, a regular
ruddy-golden fox's cub. That it was not a boy his wife had borne him
annoyed Captain Rauchfuss.
"Thunder! This won't do--it's ridiculous! Me bringing
women-creatures into the world! Really, my dear ... and such a little
vixen as that!"
Yet he had himself a red brush of hair on top of his head and a thick,
fair moustache.
"Oh, it's too absurd," he said. "To think that I've risked my skin all
these years to come down to sitting at home within four walls and
trotting about after a little brat of a girl! Don't come near me with
it--I won't touch the creature!"
Captain Rauchfuss was angry and out of humor. To be a country
gentleman and husband of the pretty widow was well enough; but father
of a family--that didn't suit him at all; it was not in his line.
And oftener than before he had his trap hitched up and drove down into
Weimar; or else he went shooting over his own ground, or to Sperber's
to play bulldog with the old man and any one who happened in, or
bézique with the pastor.
He was on specially good terms with old Sperber, because he too had a
strong objection to the way things were going down in the town. "That's
all silly impudence down there," he would say. "Well, we'll see how far
they'll go with it--we'll see. Those fellows in the town might give
over scribbling; no cock would crow the louder, nor would loaves of
bread get any smaller. But we ...! Suppose we up there, and people like
us up and down the country were to stop working, what do you think
would happen then, my friend? Simply the end of the world--all up,
done!
"And so I don't set foot down there, if I can help it. I don't let it
irritate me any more--God forbid. I'm very well off up here, I'm bound
to say--and I wouldn't change places with any of those frogs that have
swelled to such unnatural proportions down there in the marsh."
Indeed, the old fellows up on the Ettersberg often held discourses over
their bézique which were almost blasphemous, if you consider that they
were talking about the greatest man of Germany; without whom Germany
would not be Germany; the man to produce whom nature labored for
thousands of years, tossed up millions and millions of stupid or
average heads, more or less lacking in sense and reason.
That down there in Weimar at last the barren tree of humanity had borne
a fruit seemed to the card-players of the Ettersberg a matter of no
importance; but the tree went on producing its green leaves quite
joyously. To them this fruit, indeed, seemed to be not a fruit at all
but a blister, a perfectly unnecessary excrescence.
And they had nothing to complain of, heaven knew, up on their
Ettersberg; their fine properties were prospering.
Herr and Frau Sperber worked together, getting through the day's
business honestly and good-humoredly. Very early in the morning you
might see brisk Frau Sperber in her pink print apron, with her keys
jingling at her waist, cross the courtyard to hold a general inspection
of the stables and stock-rooms; and Herr Sperber's huge rubber boots
carried their fat little master through hedge and ditch, over ploughed
field and meadow and woodland.
On the Rauchfuss place a brave woman was working beyond her strength;
but she made it go--the two properties showed but little difference. To
be sure, it would have been much easier for Frau Rauchfuss if her jewel
of a husband had been of a less jovial disposition and had not
considered it his principal duty to show the people down in Weimar that
persons of importance lived up on the Ettersberg, and to prove to them
that no one could tell, even when he had his heaviest load on, just how
much he was carrying. He could rise from his accustomed table and march
to the door just as straight as when he came in; and the exhibition of
this faculty called for constant repetition.
If Frau Rauchfuss had not had her little daughter Beate, she might have
looked a long time for the joys of life.
The time came, however, when the child was big enough to dance about in
farm-yard and garden, looking like a flower with long golden stamina.
She was simply brimming over with merriment and delight in being alive;
and now Captain Rauchfuss condescended to take notice of his daughter.
He brought her home all sorts of toys and trifles, and took great
pleasure in seeing how quick and clever the little creature was, in
watching her scramble about and in listening to the soft lips repeat in
sweet tones the old soldier's expletives that she heard him use.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
When Frau Rauchfuss's treasure grew to be a pretty little
schoolgirl, it befell one day that the mother went down to the town
with a heavy heart, to ask advice of her doctor about a trouble which
for some time she had been silently carrying about with her, and which
had made her work a heavy and oppressive burden. After long and anxious
consideration she had finally made up her mind to the step, and gone
off with a fervent prayer and a passionate kiss to her little girl.
And now, as she drove home again in her light carriage, it seemed to
her as if, since she came down, the beautiful world had been
transformed into a dark and unfamiliar place. She had set out with an
anxious heart, and had had no one to speak an encouraging word to her;
but still it was only down at the very bottom of her heart that there
crouched, half hidden, the fear of what was so hard to realize--that
her life might be wiped out.
Now she knew it was true. She was nearing the end of her days. The
easy-going every-day life, that went about its business as if there
were never to be an end, had been suddenly rent asunder; and through
the gap the laboring soul stared out into empty darkness.
It was so that Frau Rauchfuss came home; the well-known road looked
terrifying and strange to her, the golden grain in the fields by which
she passed, as the wind went over it, bowed sadly to her because she
must die ... she ... she alone of all the world. What was the death of
others? An empty word. To her alone death meant something. Now for the
first time it was a serious matter--the very first time on earth.
And no one had compassion on her. Her old coachman sat on the box with
bent back and urged the horses to a trot. _He_ was not going to
die--no, only she. To herself, the poor unlearned woman that shrank
back in her terror against the hard leather cushions was the world, the
big splendid world; with her all its splendor would perish.
And this death-struggle of the world went on beneath her dotted blue
Sunday dress, which she had put on for the difficult journey to the
town. Was the seat of this bitter struggle in her breast? Was it in her
flesh and bone--in her beating heart--in her poor aching head? Yes,
_where_ was the conflict going on? Could she point with her finger and
say "Here?" O mystery of mysteries--where is the poor Ego with its
cosmic suffering? Is it leaning against the hard cushions of the
carriage? Is it flesh and bone--is it a living point, in which all this
pain is now alive?
The woman's passive nature woke up, became sharply penetrating, was
alive for the first time. Struck through by the certainty of death, she
became conscious that she was alive--almost as it was when she had her
first consciousness of her child's life, in the same mysterious and yet
certain way.
Then she shut her troubled eyes; and before her mind rose up her little
golden-haired child, her only treasure, her darling. Burning tears
flowed from her eyes, and her own life, the sacred centre of life, was
again shaken, this time by pure love and anxiety about her dearest. Who
would care for the child--who in all the world? "Only a few more
years," she sobbed, "so that they shan't spoil her!"
And as this torture grew overpowering, a ray of comfort stole into her
darkened soul. Who knew whether it was as bad as they thought? And
though she had seen her own mother die of the same disease, why might
it not be different with her?
So she went on from one stage of suffering to another, broke down under
her cross only to raise herself again, and again to fall, as once our
Lord and Saviour did.
When she drove into the courtyard, her face was calm, her tears wiped
away. This she had done automatically, of long habit. It was time now
for her to be silent as to her suffering, and to live what must be
wholly within herself.
"Where is Beate?" she asked the maid.
"With the master, in the garden."
The mother set out to find her, for she needed to fold her child in her
arms, and went through the house into the garden.
When she drew near the great lime-tree, which was now in full bloom and
looked like a fine golden net shot through with glimmering golden
pearls, she heard the powerful laugh of her lord and master, and the
sweet voice of her child like the twitter of birds answering it.
"Tubby," he cried in his mighty bass, "you're a little rogue!" The
child laughed aloud.
With disquiet and emotion the mother drew nearer. On the wide bench
under the tree sat the captain, a bottle of wine by his side. He was
making the child drink from his glass.
"The youngster has a good capacity," he muttered with a grin. "Now
dance some more, Tubby!" The child skipped and danced, her red-gold
hair tumbling about her flushed face. "Confounded little witch! A
regular soldier's girl!" the merry old fellow growled in his red beard.
And the evening glow shone upon the red beard of the father and the red
wealth of hair of the dancing child.
"They are of one blood," she said to herself; and she stood as if
everything were over already, and she only a departed spirit watching.
Then anger, a deadly anger, rose up in her. She rushed at her husband.
"What are you doing to her?" she cried in anguish. "Look--only look!
You've let her drink too much! Oh ...!"
"Well, what of it?" said the captain with a thick tongue, taken aback
by the sudden onslaught.
Little Beate stopped dancing, frightened, and looked at them with
strange, doubtful eyes.
"Oh, you finicky creatures! What wishy-washy stuff! Women are fools! I
should think a fellow might be allowed ..." growled Herr Rauchfuss.
The child made an odd movement, stretched out her arms to her mother,
staggered and fell, her face hidden by her arms, sobbing. The mother
bent anxiously over her.
"There, Tubby--don't be a baby!" stammered the old man. "You ought to
be ashamed of yourself--a good stomach isn't upset by a couple of
mouthfuls! You a soldier's daughter!"
The mother took the little girl in her arms and carried her to the
house, paying no more attention to Herr Rauchfuss, who looked after her
with a forced laugh.
In the room where she and the child slept, she laid Beate, still
dressed, on the bed. The child kept on sobbing; her face was burning,
and her eyes glowed as with fever. Frau Rauchfuss knelt by the bed in
grief and fear. What was she to do? She simply did not know. To whom
could she commend her poor little girl? Now that she had acquired
certainty about herself, she felt for the first time her weakness and
helplessness. At the physician's words a heavy burden had fallen upon
her which she could not shake off.
As the darkness slowly crept into the room, she still knelt there,
holding her child's hand and sadly racking her brains. Finally she
undressed the child, who was now fast asleep, and herself lay down to
rest.
She had the feeling that she was only a guest in her own house. Anguish
came over her, and fear; the weight on her heart was as though she were
buried for all eternity under a huge gloomy mountain. Plans of all
sorts chased each other feverishly through her mind. What could she do?
She thought of going to all the people she knew, whom she felt to be
kind-hearted and begging them to watch over her child; to the Sperbers,
her neighbors, to old Frau Kummerfelden who had a sewing-school in
Weimar, to her pastor. She found few, as she passed them in review for
qualities of heart and head, of whom she could be sure that they would
not soon forget her prayer.
At last she grew weary of thinking and planning, and nestled down upon
the bosom of her weariness as in her mother's arms. A mournful old hymn
that she had been used to sing went through her head before she fell
asleep:
A stranger and a pilgrim
On this terrestrial sphere,
Be peace, O Lord, my portion
While yet I tarry here.
Let me not fix my dwelling
Here on a foreign shore:
The heart to earth is fettered
That seeks of gain a store.
I'll wear but pilgrim's clothing,
O Lord, while here I stay;
For all our cherished treasures
The winds must bear away.
The sun of every mortal
Goes down at last in night,
And flown before you taste it
Is every dear delight.
The next day, in the bright summer evening light, Frau Rauchfuss
took her child by the hand, and they went through the garden and passed
out of a little gate to a narrow path that ran through swelling, sunny
fields up to the wood; then they rambled slowly under the trees.
Little Beate clung close to her mother, for this was a rare treat to
wander in such a holiday fashion with the busy, hard-working woman.
"Look, look, mother!" she kept crying at every moment: "There comes
something! There's something! Listen--a woodpecker! a deer!"
The arms of the sturdy ten-year-old quivered with joy. Frau Rauchfuss
felt her child's delight in life. It went keenly to her heart, and she
pressed the little girl closely to her. "Ah, if God would only grant,
dear, that everything might go on just as it is!"
They came to the other side of the wood which lies like a broad band
across the slope of the Ettersberg, where there was a very old wayside
shrine without a saint. The saints had been too long exposed to the
weather and to the onslaughts of Protestantism, and were worn away,
broken, and vanished. Nothing was to be seen but a dilapidated low
wall, on which the sorrowful Mother of God had once stood. Fran
Rauchfuss sat down wearily on it and lifted her child to her lap.
Together they looked out silently over the world which is closed to
the people of Weimar, the world that lies behind the Ettersberg, a
sunshiny, grain-bearing landscape, over which lay the last warm,
lingering rays of the evening sun.
"What's the matter, mother? You're so quiet!"
"This time yesterday I had to carry you to bed because you had drunk
too much." The child hid her face in her mother's neck. "Other
children," she went on calmly, "while they are young, have a mother to
watch over them. The time will come when you will have none. Other
children have a father who helps them and advises them. That your
father cannot do. Presently you will be quite alone, and will have to
help yourself in every difficulty, and at the same time to look after
your father and see that nothing happens to him."
The child raised her head and looked at her mother with astonishment.
"You will be all alone; you must learn to think now what is right and
wrong." Tears sprang to the eyes of the frightened child. The mother's
eyes were as moist as the little girl's; and they gazed at each other
with sad, uncertain faces. Frau Rauchfuss let her head fall on the
soft, yielding shoulder of her child, and a mighty sob tore itself
loose from her laden heart. The loving fair-haired child stroked her
mother's face and pressed more closely to her.
"I am ill, my darling--I cannot live very much longer; and I'm so
worried I don't know what to do, because I must leave you alone with
your father. No one will look after you."
A sort of convulsion passed through the child's body, which the mother
felt in the clinging arms. Then the little thing let go of her, and
took the edge of her apron and passed it gently across her mother's
eyes. "Don't cry," she said--"I shall be all right." Frau Rauchfuss
looked down into a pair of earnest and determined eyes. "Put your head
down on my shoulder again, and don't worry," said the child. The
mother's heart was wonderfully lightened; she felt that she had with
her a noble little being who could bring her comfort.
"If you die," said the child gravely, "will they put you in a coffin
and carry you away and put you in the ground and cover you all up with
earth?"
"Yes," said the mother.
"Won't you ever be able to come back?"
"No. Then I shall be with God."
"Is God good?" asked the child.
"Yes--God is good."
"Good ...?" the child said thoughtfully.
The mother looked at her with surprise. "Other mothers don't tell their
children when they are going to die; but I had to--it was needful that
you should know."
"That's all right," said the child; "tell me everything. Tell me all I
must do at home, after you're dead. I'll look after father.... And when
are you going to die?"
"I don't know yet."
"Well, then ..." said the child. They sat a while in silence on the low
wall, on which in the times long ago the statue of the sorrowful Mother
of God had stood. The child was not crying now, but gazing steadily and
seriously before her. The mother also wept no longer; she had found
comfort, and looked down wonderingly at the strong, grave little thing
that sat by her side. From this day she felt herself no more alone or
comfortless.
And when, a year later, the time to die really came, and she held the
hand of Beate, now eleven years old, in hers, she felt confident that
the child would know how to help herself and others. She commended her
to God, but to no one else. In the last hard moments of the struggle
she felt that she had some one noble and strong by her, comforting her
with silent power.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
And now Captain Rauchfuss was all alone with his little "Tubby."
His wife had often been an uncomfortable companion to him. He had
imagined something quite different under the name of a wife; and now it
was not so very different with his little "Tubby." He expected to find
in her a pretty little plaything, and began to realize that instead he
had got growing up in his house a small person whom he had to respect,
a manager.
He went off to the town with just as uncomfortable a conscience as
before, and growled in his red beard at womenfolks that put on airs,
whom a man would have to show their place or send to the devil.
Frau Rauchfuss had taken care to provide a capable woman to look after
the house and a bailiff for the estate, so that Beate's inheritance
might be kept in good condition in spite of her light-headed father. In
this plain and thrifty company Herr Rauchfuss was not at all at his
ease. He went on drinking as before; and it was no longer requisite
that it should be the "Elephant" where he washed down his worries and
his ill-temper. Any tavern would do, even up behind the Ettersberg--he
was not so particular. But he still remained a reputable member of
society with his wits about him, behaving with perfect propriety in the
tavern parlor and still proud of his ability to walk and talk straight
after an indefinite number of glasses.
As Beate grew older, she went down every morning at five o'clock in the
milk-wagon to the town, winter and summer, to go to school, and got
down in the Entenfang at Madame Kummerfelden's. The child stayed with
her until school began, had dinner with her at midday, took part in the
famous sewing-class with the other girls under the kind, lively
teacher, and then went home in the wagon when it brought the afternoon
milk.
Good Frau Kummerfelden took a great deal of pleasure in the child's
company--but she had some left over for the father also. When, arrayed
in one of her flowered dresses and a cap tilted up over her still
youthful face, she took her coffee comfortably on Sunday afternoons in
the little house in the Entenfang, it was not at all disagreeable to
her to have the old sinner pass an hour with her. He got two or three
drinks of schnapps, some of the best snuff any nose could wish, and
extra strong coffee, that even a throat as hardened as his could taste
when it went down.
"It's good to see something like a man now and then," she said; "and
Rauchfuss with his red beard and his giant stature and his mighty
stride reminds an old woman like me that there are still men on earth,
which one goes near to forgetting in these endless sewing-classes of
wretched little girls!"
And, to tell the truth, she liked just such an old reprobate. "Yes,"
she said once to her friend, "if the good God were a woman, which isn't
such an impossible thing to imagine, the men would get a pretty good
deal up above. The worst scapegraces would be handled most graciously,
as they are here on earth--where a man can do without any morals and be
loved and run after because he's got a way with him." By such
discourses the wise woman established herself in the captain's favor,
and was able to make herself very much at home with him. Often she
scolded him as if he were a schoolboy--but he took it in the
friendliest fashion.
"With a man you must never come straight out with a thing. Spread
plenty of honey about your mouth, and while they're licking it off they
get the right thing with it, what they should get. That's the only
way." So said the old woman often. And thus she gave it him roughly and
merrily, like many another clever woman, and had a submissive friend
for her pains.
The captain was foolishly vain of "Tubby's" beauty. The old friends
were sitting together one Sunday afternoon in the little house in the
Entenfang--the captain and the old actress turned sewing-teacher.
"Well, Rauchfuss has got a pretty good-looking daughter, eh, my good
Kummerfelden? Such plump, firm arms--and the walk of her! A well set up
creature--and then her red-gold hair, and her confounded eyes! Eh,
Kummerfelden, I didn't do a bad piece of work there, did I? Look at all
the generation that's growing up--can you show me her like?"
"Now, now," said Frau Kummerfelden; "you needn't be stuck up about it,
my good sir. She is more than half the daughter of her noble mother."
"Eh, what? Noble?" said the captain. "Deuce take it--beauty's the thing
in a woman. There you are!"
"You old fool!" said Frau Kummerfelden. "What was it kept your property
in such fine condition? Was it your wife's beauty, or her ability?"
"Ah, bah! Of course non-essentials have their use too. But the main
thing ... Look--she might have gone down on her knees to me, and I'd
never have married Frau Rauchfuss if she hadn't been such a fetching
little thing."
"The Lord have mercy on you men!" said Frau Kummerfelden, stirring the
sugar in her coffee. "You choose one that takes your fancy, and you
call her beautiful as long as you care for her. What sort of a life did
your wife have up there, lonely and deserted, as if she'd married a log
of wood?"
"I say, Kummerfelden! Thunder--you're saying a good deal!"
"Because it's the truth!" said Frau Kummerfelden crossly. "And a
rocking-horse would make as good a father as you are to that dear
child. What kind of a way is that to do--to come home drunk at two
o'clock in the morning, without a thought for the poor little thing
that's waiting for you half asleep to help you to bed, you old rascal?
And at that hour of the morning you make the good little thing get you
a cup of coffee; and you take it like a thankless fool. Pooh, captain,
I don't expect any man to be a pattern of morality and temperance. But
even for a man there are _some_ limits--and those limits you overstep,
my good sir!"
On this particular day Frau Kummerfelden was more than usually put out
with her old friend on account of something that had just come to her
ears. But none the less she poured him out his third cup of strong
coffee, and waited on him just as attentively as if he had been Saint
Nicholas himself.
"And another thing," she said--"do you suppose the good child ever
talks of the way you go on? Not a syllable! People might tear her in
little pieces and they wouldn't get a word out of her that wasn't to
your credit."
"A soldier's child--damn it all!" cried the captain, bringing down his
fist on the table. "She gets that from me, the little rogue!"
Frau Kummerfelden put up both her busy hands to her big cap, as if to
protect it from hearing impossible things. "Lord save us!" she said.
"There's no use talking to people like you."
When Captain Rauchfuss's daughter had reached her seventeenth year, it
came to pass that the old man got involved in a love-affair. On his
Sunday visits to Frau Kummerfelden about this time he had often found
there a neat little widow who professed a charming devotion to her old
teacher. After her husband's death she had been left in poor
circumstances. She came to consult Frau Kummerfelden very seriously
about a project of settling down in Weimar as a nurse; and she made it
all so touching and edifying that the captain, who happened to be
present at some of these discussions, found his heart growing quite
warm. Moreover, the little woman had a fascinating heart-shaped face,
broad in the brow and pointed at the chin, and a pair of round, merry
brown eyes.
"That'd be the kind of nurse for me," said the captain; "a lively
creature, who'd make the whole business look less bad. It would be
rather fun!"
"Shame on you, old simpleton!" said Frau Kummerfelden crossly.
"Well, but, Kummerfelden," said the captain, "you're a stately old
frigate with that cap of yours. A light modern craft like our Marianne
sails in different waters from such a venerable ship of virtue--eh,
Frau Marianne?"
"Oh, really, captain," pouted the little woman. "Do you think I am not
serious about all this?" And once more she paraded her virtues and her
edifying design before the eyes of the good old woman and Herr
Rauchfuss.
"A devil of a girl!" muttered the captain in his red beard.
"Oh yes," said the neat little woman, making a charming gesture with
her little heart-shaped head, about which she had tied a snow-white
three-cornered piece of linen to give herself a tidy and almost nunlike
appearance--"oh yes, I like that! A devil of a girl.... Well, you'll
find out what sort of a girl I am if you ever get into my hands! I'd
take charge of the cooking as well--nobody knows how to get up tempting
little dishes for an invalid's appetite, so that his spirits begin to
come back to him at the very smell of the broth I make him. And another
thing I may say--with me a patient can save on doctors' visits. I
learned a great many things from my poor mother--all kinds of wonderful
remedies, for gout and things like that ... the doctors' noses are out
of joint.
"Haven't got it!" said the captain.
"Well, so much the better," said the little woman. "But I should be in
demand, I think. For who is there now? A couple of old slow-coaches,
that rattle at every move they make, and your friend the old
raven-mother, Frau Kummerfelden, whose rough paws would kill anything
at all delicate."
"Now, now," said Frau Kummerfelden, "you mustn't say anything about the
raven-mother--she's a splendid old soul."
"Soul, perhaps ... but a little too much body with it!" said the little
woman, spinning round to emphasize her dainty figure.
"Well, facts are facts," said Frau Kummerfelden. "The raven-mother is
perhaps a trifle massively built. To be sure, last winter, when I was
full of all kinds of pains, she picked me up out of bed and put me in
again like a child. It's true she puffed and snorted over it as if
she'd been Saint Christopher, which wouldn't suit everybody."
"No, no, no," said the little widow, "one must know how to move without
making a noise."
One day the pretty little woman said, "It's time for me to be getting
home now--my gentlemen will be waiting for me. One of them will need me
to get his beer for him."
"Gentlemen?" said the captain, taken aback. "What kind of gentlemen
have you got?"
"For board and lodging," she said; and her merry heart-shaped face with
its round brown eyes looked up rather challengingly at the old soldier.
"The devil!" he cried.
"What's the matter with you?" said Frau Kummerfelden. "It's a very good
thing that Providence has sent a couple of decent, sensible men into
this part of the town, or how should the poor thing live?"
The captain laughed a little awkwardly. When she had gone, he got up
stiffly from the table and walked about the room. "That boarder
business doesn't please me at all," he said crossly.
"Look at the man!" laughed Frau Kummerfelden. "Captain, you needn't
worry yourself. She's so clever that you have no thread fine enough to
thread her needle."
From that day neither the captain nor the little widow was ever
missing from Frau Kummerfelden's on Sunday afternoon, until it got too
much for the old lady. It was some time before she began to notice that
the captain and the young woman were getting to be on terms of
courtship.
"Lord," she said within herself, "Thou hast chosen to ordain that my
eyes should never see a man who couldn't get a woman, a man whom no
woman would look at. Amen."
When she finally became aware of what was going on, she began to make
excursions into the country on Sunday afternoons. She took her
sewing-bag, put on a big hat over her cap, dressed herself in a
becoming flowered dress, and locked the door of the house in the Entenfang
behind her. Then she went off to contemplate God's free nature, picking
up on the way a few rolls at the baker's, so that she might have
something to dip in her coffee at Rödchen, Tröbsdorf, or Süssenborn.
"Well," she said to herself, "we've got 'Tubby' to the point where she
doesn't need a stepmother; it's quite unnecessary that she should have
one at all, least of all Frau Marianne. I believe in giving every one
their due--but I wouldn't risk a penny on betting that her heart is
even as big as an old hen's that you make soup out of. I really don't
see any reason why we should provide her with a sinecure up on the
Ettersberg."
The first Sunday or two that the captain found the door locked, he was
very much annoyed with Frau Kummerfelden. "An old woman like that," he
growled in front of the door, "steals God's days from him--and just
when there's some use to be got out of her, she's off!"
So far the captain's love had been easy and comfortable to bear, a
smooth and happy love. But now it began to trouble his bones like the
gout. "Getting old ... getting old," he thought to himself; he went to
the "Elephant" to refresh his forces, to dull his longing, to drown his
discomfort--and yet he did not succeed. An unconquerable restlessness
drove him hither and thither. Ten times in the day he marched with
majestic steps through the little town, and could have wished it were
ten times as big. At last he summoned up courage to pay a visit to the
object of his adoration with due formality, but was scornfully repulsed
by the lady herself. "Did he think she received visits from gentlemen?"
That took him woefully aback. "When she's got the house full of men
boarders!" he said to himself.
His astonishment was so plainly to be read in the old soldier's face
that the pretty; little, woman quite understood it, and said to him in
a friendly tone: "My dear Captain, people understand that a poor widow
has to make a living; but if I were to let any one that chose come and
visit me, I should soon be nicely talked about. So you mustn't mind,
Captain." As she said this, she looked very charming, her face tinted
by a sweet blush, for as a matter of fact she was not very much pleased
to have her admirer standing in front of her door, in the tiny garden,
for all the world to see. "But," she said, looking down modestly, "it
might be all right for me to take a little walk some day and pay a
visit to your daughter ..."
"To Tubby!" he laughed, surprised. "On a Sunday, then, when Tubby's at
home," he said slyly, and made such a bow as he had had no occasion to
make, in years. Her prudent behavior proved to him that she looked upon
him without disfavor, and he was thus in an excellent temper.
That evening Tubby had a good deal of trouble with her father. He got
out of the trap with decidedly unsteady steps. Up to that time he had
always marched in a very stately manner through the courtyard,
unnaturally straight, his moustache standing out stiffly, his hand
behind him, like a man who is ready to face anybody's eyes with a
"Well, look at me!"
The trouble had always begun after he got into the house; then he had
collapsed and given poor Tubby a lot of trouble and distress; he had
scolded her crossly and even struck her, and then passed to extravagant
praises, staring at her with glassy eyes, until the poor child was
terribly frightened.
But this evening he was queerer than ever before. He sat in his
armchair, and seemed to be busy with something that was not there.
"Go," he said, "or stay, if you like!" And then he began to stroke the
cat, which was not there.
"Father," said the girl, "what's the matter with you? What kind of a
joke is this? The cat isn't there."
"You goose," said Herr Rauchfuss, "have you got a hole in your eyes big
enough for the cat to get through?" He stood up and pretended to be
playing with the invisible cat. "There ... What? You'd bite, would you?
That's something new! Like a dog ... the beast!" His face took on a
dull red, and the veins in his temples stood out. He gave a kick.
"There--that'll teach her a lesson! Such a brute was never nailed up to
a barn door!"
He sat down again as if satisfied, breathing heavily. He looked ill.
Now he had grown quite pale, with a bluish tint under the eyes, and his
glance was expressionless. The child would have called the housekeeper,
but she was afraid to stir from her place, and began to cry bitterly.
Herr Rauchfuss broke out again: "There ...! It's back again--don't you
see it?" he cried angrily. "Open your eyes!" He stared stonily in front
of him. "There's no doing anything with a beast like that. Out you go!"
And he made as if to thrust it away with his foot.
All at once a tender mood came over him. "Tubby," he said in a weary
voice, "you've got to be a good girl ... What do you suppose it costs
me to see to it that you are? To bring up a motherless child is no easy
job for an old sinner. Go, child, brew me a grog, a fine one ... an
infernally fine one ... that'll do me good!"
Such remarkable scenes as this took place now more frequently. In
between there were calm days, on which Herr Rauchfuss did not seem to
be feeling particularly well. Sometimes he would eat nothing all day,
and was out of humor and dull.
On a fine summer afternoon Frau Marianne, the young widow, came
wandering up to the Ettersberg through the swelling fields, and asked
for Mamsell Beate Rauchfuss, whom she found in the garden. The child
was lying asleep on the lawn that was used for bleaching, and did not
wake when the stranger approached her.
"Queer," thought the young widow, "to lie and sleep like that! What
does the girl do with herself, I wonder, the whole day long?" She
looked at the auburn hair that was wound in a great coil around the
head, the tender face, the small well-cut nose, the mouth that seemed
to be a compound of strength and sorrow, the young body in a short pink
dress; a pair of round childish arms; brown hands that attracted the
eye. One of them was clenched as if to say, "What I hold, I hold; what
I will, I will."
The young widow thought to herself, "The fine estate would be well
enough, and the old man too. But the girl ...!" It was really too bad
that a poor woman should have to go to so much trouble in order to have
a place to slip into--that one might be good and clever and pretty, and
yet all that didn't help. However you took it, it was always a
difficult business ... She thought of her boarders, and of more than
one pleasing possibility that had slipped through her fingers.
The young girl woke up, uneasily conscious of a stranger's gaze, and
looked at her with astonishment and momentary alarm.
"I have come up to pay you and your father a visit," said Frau
Marianne, a little embarrassed, for the unrecognizing, inquiring glance
showed her that Beate knew nothing of her. "Your father asked me to
come and look you up some day."
"My father ...?" said Beate slowly and thoughtfully.
"How _is_ your father?"
The child answered with a short, hard monosyllable: "Well."
"What a charming, lively gentleman he is!"
The young girl was silent, and looked straight before her with a
troubled face. She did not know how to take this dainty, friendly
person; the sweet awkwardness of youth lay heavy upon her, she was not
used to talking with strangers, and the wonderful deep summer sleep
still held her eyelids.
"What a nice place you have here!" said the older woman, hoping at
last to find some echo to her friendliness. Beate gave a slight nod.
"Is it true that your father eats a rose before breakfast every day in
summer, in order to keep so fresh and young?"
"A rose ...?" The girl seemed to start out of a reverie. "Yes, I think
I remember hearing him say that he used to do that. Did he tell _you_
so?"
"Yes," said the widow, "and it must be a good system. When one sees him
going along with that stately tread of his, one can see that it is."
"Tubby!" cried a powerful voice from the house. "Where are you?" And as
Tubby looked up, she saw her father approaching with that identical
stately tread. He must indeed have consumed many roses, for he seemed
to be transformed--she had never seen him look like that in all her
recollection. Could it be true--only today, at table, so lowering and
ill-humored and full of disgust for everything ... and now ...! The red
beard seemed to glow, the eyes sparkled, and he walked on air. Beate
opened her eyes wide.
"That's fine, Frau Marianne!" cried Herr Rauchfuss. "You've actually
taken this long sunny walk in order to be a little company for my poor
girl. I appreciate it, I can tell you!"
The young girl looked anxiously at her father and the guest. What was
this new idea of providing company for her? She had long been used to
loneliness in her upland home. It was true, she had often wished that
the Kirsten girls and their friends whom she met at the sewing-school
and now and then at the Sperbers' would come up and see her; but then
the thought came ... suppose they were to see her father as she often
saw him--and the desire for company went out.
But Beate's loneliness had been a wonderfully strenuous loneliness.
Like a little wild animal she had lived in the shady garden, had slept
under the trees or out in the full sunlight, and dug and planted and
run about through field and wood without any one questioning her
movements. When it was time to work, she had stoutly lent a hand, at
sowing-time or harvest, in stable and dairy, in the orchard and the
vegetable-garden. The men and maids all respected her, and said, "Just
see how she takes hold of everything, as sensibly as a grown-up
person!"
And in winter she scarcely missed companions of her own age and kind;
in the big servants' hall there was always something interesting to
listen to--things were called by their right names, and a rough world
grew up before her mind in which even the ghosts were of a concrete and
tangible nature. In the servants' hall the atmosphere was fairly clean
as regards jokes and silly stories. Like a child of the people, she
soon knew all about love, but without any desire to experience it.
There was nothing mysterious and alluring about it for her; it was a
thing that had to be, like sowing and reaping, like life and death. For
her there was no veil over the phenomena of the world, not even death.
All was as it was, and must be accepted.
And so the relation between her father and the guest struck her at once
as peculiar. In the servants' hall they had more than once tried to
tease her by telling her that her father would some day bring a
stepmother home to her. And now she thought, "Is this the one?"
She found the newcomer beautiful: her daintiness, her pleasant smile,
her dark, well-arranged locks, all charmed her. In fact, the young
woman seemed a wonder to her by the side of her own bashful
awkwardness.
It was a lively afternoon up at the old farm-house; not for years had
the sound of such bright feminine laughter been heard there.
The housekeeper got up an excellent tea and spread it in the garden
under the same tree where Frau Rauchfuss had once watched her child
dance, feeling like a departed spirit. She laid a clean white cloth on
the table, and brought out some special fresh-baked little cakes. Young
Beate cut some flowers and put a bouquet on the tea-table. Frau
Marianne almost drowned herself in the abundance of her own amiability,
and the captain was like the ghost of his departed youth.
Beate sat very still and looked on, comparing this one fine summer day
with all the summer, winter, spring and autumn days that she
remembered. She clenched her firm little hands in an effort to keep
back the tears, and stared at her father, from whom so much sorrow had
come to her life, and thought of the joyless existence of her mother.
"No," thought the child, "she mustn't come here to us--I should be
sorry for her. It doesn't matter about me--I know everything already."
When the pretty widow drove off in the little carriage, the captain
kissed her hand tenderly and with assurance. She departed full of
triumph; she had him now, the old fellow! And how comfortably the
carriage rolled along. It was the same carriage in Which Frau
Rauchfuss, crouching down against the leather cushions, had come back
to her house in mortal sadness.
Frau Marianne was in a haughty mood, and thought lightly of her
boarders. When she rolled up to her door--it was getting late--she was
thinking, "Herr Leinhose ought to have had his beer some time ago, and
Herr Oehmchen his sausage ... Oh, bother! It'll do them good to be kept
waiting for once." They were both sitting in the living-room when she
came in, and looked at her somewhat sourly. One of them took out his
watch and looked at it, as an indignant creditor looks at his bill.
"We're late--we're late!" he said significantly. The little widow
answered with a light laugh. The hunger of her boarders seemed not to
touch her--these same boarders who used to be so near her heart and
whose welfare had been her greatest care; for no bachelor is better
looked after than when a little woman who regards him as a possible
suitor has charge of his affairs.
For a year and a day both of them had received this care from the
little widow, and both of them were on such terms with her that she
believed she had only to choose between them. One was waiting for an
increase of salary, which might happen any day; the other had a nice
little lawsuit on concerning an inheritance, and might at any moment be
master of a few thousand thalers, enough at least to make a good start.
They were, in short, both gentlemen of the fairest prospects; and a
little widow who thought about marrying again could afford to go out of
her way to feed them well and make them comfortable. They were both of
the right age, neither too old nor too young.
So they looked up in considerable astonishment at their
boarding-mistress, who seemed entirely unmoved by their ill-humor, and
was very calmly putting away her hat and cape in the lavender-perfumed
chest of drawers. What could have come to her?
They waited and waited. The little widow was positively dawdling over
the preparations for supper. And when at last it came, she set it in
front of them not with the charming manner to which they were
accustomed, but quite indifferently. And the sausage was not as fresh
and crisp as usual.
The young woman took her seat by the window and began to spin. This was
the time when they had always been accustomed to discuss the program of
the meals for the next day. At supper-time they had thus a double
peaceful pleasure, by virtue of their imagination and its creative
powers. But this also was missing tonight. She spun and smiled dreamily
to herself; and the two boarders at their supper had ceased to exist
for her. She was keeping house at the fine farm up on the hillside; she
was wandering in spirit through stable and kitchen, she was changing
the places of the furniture in the sitting-room to suit her taste, and
feeling herself at last in her proper place.
Suddenly there resounded at the house-door a loud and peculiar knock.
When the little widow reascended the stairs, the boarders heard
hesitating footsteps following her. She came in showing some
excitement, and after her came a visitor for whom the boarders were not
prepared--a childish, red-haired girl. She wore a shawl over her head,
half covering her hair; but it overflowed in ringlets and stray
strands.
The soft figure, neither tall nor short, the tender, rosy countenance,
the sharply-marked dark eyebrows, all these made the apparition which
remained silently at the door so visionary and remarkable that Herr
Oehmchen and Herr Leinhose stopped with their mouths full to stare. But
the fair apparition did not move, and stared at the two men in helpless
confusion.
"Why, Mamsell Rauchfuss," said the little woman with the heart-shaped
face, "to what do I owe the pleasure ...?"
The strange creature did not answer, but kept on staring. Evidently she
was struggling with something that she wanted to say and could not.
"Oh, but won't you sit down, Mamsell?" said Herr Leinhose, pulling up a
chair to the table.
"Tell me, for heaven's sake, what has happened!" cried the widow in a
faint voice.
Then the strange being sat down on the chair, threw her arms out
desperately on the table, buried her face in them, and began to sob.
The widow laid a soothing hand on her shoulder. "Oh, don't marry my
father!" came out passionately and yet with a tender sound like a
breath of spring from between the sobs. "It would be such a pity for
you!" The girl now gave free rein to her tears.
"But who is thinking of any such thing?" asked the little widow, much
annoyed.
"Yes, you are--you are! And so is my father--I know it! For heaven's
sake, don't! You've no idea how wretched it is up there." Her sobs were
so wild and unrestrained that it seemed she had been damming them up
for years, and now it was like the breaking loose of a torrent in the
spring. "I was so afraid that I ran all the way down--I just had to
tell you! It would have been a great sin if I hadn't. If you only knew
how sad my poor mother always was, and how sadly--how sadly--she died!"
The poor dear child, meaning so well in her anguish of heart and yet
doing the widow such an ill turn, was still resting her head with its
glorious crown of hair on her outstretched arms. She did not see how
the two boarders were casting amused glances at the widow, or how pale
her face was and full of woe at the thought of labor spent in vain and
hope dispelled. Solitary in the midst of these three, who all had their
own private thoughts, the lovely young creature wept.
"Ah ... ah ...!" said Herr Oehmchen at last--"Our beloved Frau
Marianne!" His voice sounded rather poisonous. Heaven only knew whether
he had ever taken any advantage of the kindness and readiness of his
benefactress--but he wished to be the one to choose or to reject, not
she. _He_ was the injured one. Herr Leinhose's conduct was very
similar; he also felt himself a lord of creation, and relieved himself
by a grieved and unkind remark or two. The little widow was helpless
against the two men so fully armed with injustice.
The picture of the four puppets which Fate had dancing on its thread
now underwent a change which completely altered the situation. The eyes
of the boarders were no longer directed in anger and injured dignity at
the pretty widow, but fell with complacency and sympathy upon the
weeping girl, who now found friends at the expense of another, as so
often happens--if one loses, another must win.
"Really, can none of us do anything to help Mamsell Rauchfuss to
compose herself?" Herr Leinhose shot out of the door, and returned with
a glass of cold water. "Here, Mamsell," he said as gently as a child's
nurse, "drink a mouthful of this!" Frau Marianne looked up in
amazement; such a note in his voice she had never heard! The two men
had always been well taken care of, only too well, by her, and they had
absolutely no excuse for seeking revenge upon her for fancied wrongs.
But when a man woos, he likes to see the woman in need of help, however
much this characteristic alters after he has won her.
"Oh dear!" thought the pretty widow--"There it is!" She could do
nothing but look on while both of them offered their services to the
young girl. Their voices grew tenderer and tenderer--positively carried
away by emotion. The poor lonely girl felt some good from these kind
voices; she began to be more composed, and looked up.
The rosy face, slightly swollen from crying, under the crown of red
hair, quite visibly inflamed the enthusiasm of the boarders. They
simply poured forth kindness and amiability; and Frau Marianne could
not be too far behind them for fear of making herself ridiculous; so
she was forced to show a certain amount of motherly tenderness toward
the disturber of her peace.
Poor thing, she was now learning by experience that love is not to be
ensnared by correct deportment and just deserts. So she was obliged to
put up with it while her two well-nourished boarders, on whom she had
lavished so much conscientious labor, escorted the little brat home in
the darkness to the Ettersberg. She was also obliged to endure it when
the stupid girl, in her passionate anxiety, threw her arms around her
once more, saying, "You would be sad and unhappy--and you're so pretty
and nice! Oh, if I could only learn to be like you!"
It was hardly necessary for young Beate to have brought so much
disturbance into the house of the unfortunate widow; for Captain
Rauchfuss soon after grew very weak and showed signs of breaking up.
The evil thing came upon him which attacks so many fine fellows that
have drunk freely and stoutly all their days, and condemns them to see
the light of life go out slowly amid pains and tortures. Captain
Rauchfuss began to live in the midst of wonderful tormenting illusions.
He saw things that other people could not see; and since the majority
rules on this earth, and exceptions are penalized, Herr Rauchfuss was
obliged to make a journey now and then to Jena, to a physician whose
house offered a hospitable retreat for such peculiarly affected
gentlemen, until such time as they had provisionally, at least, laid
aside certain errors and misconceptions.
The less severe attacks he fought through on the Ettersberg, in his old
home; and it was there that his last hour found him.
The Sperbers had come, and old Frau Kummerfelden also, when they heard
that Herr Rauchfuss was about to depart. They wanted, in his last
hour, to be near the old fellow who had led his life as foolishly and
light-heartedly as most people, both for his own sake and for Beate's.
And so they sat in an adjoining room, while Herr Rauchfuss prepared
himself amid great sufferings for his long journey; they sat and drank
coffee, which the housekeeper was always making fresh, and ate ham
sandwiches. That night the doctor stayed up at the Ettersberg and
chatted with the three old people.
Tubby watched by her father's bedside through it all, like a brave
soldier. It was a hard death, and the child looked into the horrors of
life as into a blazing furnace. She herself had so much life and
sunshine in her that it was as though Life itself were standing by the
deathbed.
"You rascal, you!" cried Herr Rauchfuss angrily. "Just wait a bit--you
see how it goes? Soldier's child ... soldier's child!"
After he had lain awhile in the night very quiet and indifferent, he
said in a faint voice, "Let Sperber come." And when his old neighbor
entered, he felt for his hand and held on to it as if in terror; but
nothing could be done for him. He wanted to speak, and after a hard
struggle he got out, "well--born--and dying--very ill--old friend--old
friend!"
"Now, now," said Sperber, good-naturedly trying to soothe him, "we all
have to come to it--all come to it ... Oh, my God!" So he held the old
sinner's hand, with whom he had played so many games of bézique and had
so many good drinks, while the poor foolish soul in mortal agony
fluttered over the threshold of the door that leads from life to death.
The summer after her father's death seemed to bring a wonderful
blossoming-time to the young girl. That was a summer! No long rainy
spells--now and then a heavy storm bursting over the old Ettersberg;
showers in the night, and fresh, dewy, sunny mornings--such a summer,
in short, as one might have dreamed of.
The burden of life had fallen from the girl; she fairly bloomed and
glowed. "There's one up here that'll turn many a head," said old
Sperber. "God only knows what that girl will do before she's through.
If she only hadn't that cursed red hair ... but she runs about like a
blazing torch, and everybody that sees her takes after her, down to the
very farmboy!"
She lived like a queen up on the hill, although the old Sperbers
growled and blamed her for doing what she thought best and staying in
her father's house, instead of moving over to theirs and letting the
farm out.
Since that evening at the widow's, when the dry voices of the boarders
had transformed themselves into the melting tones of tenderness and
care, tones that they hardly recognized themselves, she had known that
she was beautiful and possessed power over men. That night, when the
two men had left her at her own door, the lonely girl had opened her
window and gazed out into the huge darkness and silence. Her heart beat
as if it would break; her warm blood glowed through her skin. A miracle
had happened! Men were drunk with her beauty, drunk with joy of her.
She thanked God, and pressed her clasped hands to her bosom, full of
amazed happiness. She could not tear herself away from the peaceful
stillness that filled her with its own splendor.
The fact that poor Frau Marianne's two boarders were after all but
miserable specimens of manhood did not affect her. She had seen them
grow drunk with joy. That filled her with emotion all day long and
hallowed her in her own eyes. In this glorious summer, in which the
burden of life had fallen from her, she expanded and grew increasingly
beautiful through her own happiness. As a child she had envied the
flowers for their beauty--and now she knew that she herself was
beautiful. She possessed a sure and abiding joy. It was well for her
that she was conscious of her beauty. Death she had known, and utter
loneliness, and patient endurance. When she was a child, they had
called her "little fox" and "red-head;" now she noticed that every man
looked after her, that people stood still when she passed. And so again
and again this great joy came to her, ran through all her veins and
strengthened her.
During this summer she worked valiantly. She wanted to show the old
Sperbers that she could be a good housewife and manager. Although the
real responsibility lay upon the bailiff and the housekeeper, she would
not altogether let go of the helm. She insisted on knowing everything
that was to be done and giving her approval.
"The young rascal!" said old Sperber. She was often at their house,
getting advice and meeting the young girls and their comrades, whom she
had so long thought of and wished to know. Now that she was alone in
the world, there was nothing any longer to keep her away from them.
There were two daughters of Councillor Kirsten from the Wünschengasse
down in Weimar, who, with their friends Bundang, Ernst von Schiller,
and Horny, came up to see the old Sperbers and made real festivities of
their visits. The old people loved them very dearly, for they knew how
to be merry and pleasant and were full of youthful audacity and
exuberance that cheered the hearts of the aged couple.
[Illustration: WIFE OF A CLAMDIGGER]
Beate had never known how to make the good old people smile and laugh
in the same way. That hurt her. From her childhood up, there had always
been a heavy weight upon her; she had not known what it was to be quite
carefree. To her the two girls, Röse and Marie, were something
wonderful. Now that she knew she herself was beautiful, she drew nearer
to them as one of their own kind, and they welcomed her joyfully.
The girl of the Ettersberg, who had always been in the habit of taking
flight when they met her by chance at the Sperbers', had long attracted
them, especially since their three friends seemed to have so high an
opinion of her.
"Is it for her mop of red hair that you like her?" the girls asked the
young men.
"She has something queenly about her," said Horny. "I watched her once,
two years ago last autumn, when she lit a fire in the field after the
men and women were gone, all by herself, to roast potatoes. I saw her
gathering dry weeds and setting fire to them, and laying the potatoes
in the hot embers, and then crouching down looking into the glowing
fire, lonely and full of thoughts. I was hidden in the wood, and I had
to press my hands over my mouth to keep from crying out, so much her
loneliness affected me, and her making the fire all by herself and
taking her ease there in the solitude of the woods. Then she ate some
of the potatoes, quite simply, like a young animal that had been
deserted; and, you may believe me or not as you please, but tears ran
down my cheeks. The fields and all around were so big and wide and gray
and cool. Her fire, and she herself, seemed to me the only tiny living
point in all the gray mist. I knew, too, that she had no mother. Then I
saw her go, gravely and silently, along the path toward her home. I
shall never forget that picture."
The two girls looked at each other in amazement. When Horny recounted
to them the experience about which he had so long been reticent, they
were walking up and down in the evening on the Sperber farm.
"Why did he never tell us that before?" asked Röse, but she got no
answer. "The Sperbers want us to take more notice of her," she
continued; "and now it's really possible to do something with her.
She's not so shy as she used to be, and one can talk quite sensibly
with her. And she dislikes the same things we dislike. What pleases her
best is to run about in the fields and work. Oh, but she's got a nice
life of it!"
"I don't know," said Marie--"all alone like that!"
"Yes," said Horny again, "she has something about her that makes me
think of a queen. She does what she pleases and thinks what she
chooses. She lives her own life."
"As if queens did that!" said Röse.
"The kind of queens I mean," answered Horny, "may live in the
Wünschgengasse or on the Ettersberg."
"Oh, that sort of queens!" laughed Marie.
"That's the only sort that's worth while! They must be young, and pure,
and free, and joyous, and look every one straight and proudly in the
eye."
Röse and Marie were delighted. "We're three queens!" they called to
Ernst von Schiller and Budang. "Come, we'll go and pay a visit to the
third."
So they all set off and went by a narrow path through a few fields and
meadows, by a sand-pit, to the Rauchfuss farm, and found its young
mistress sitting in the garden under the lime-tree, eating her supper.
On the white-covered table was a bowl of sour milk from which she
ladled some out every little while, and a loaf of fresh bread, and a
plate of golden butter shining against the white cloth.
"Oh, how nice," said Röse, "the way she has her supper!" And they were
asked to share it, and presently each of them was sitting in front of a
bowl of sour milk and cutting bread and spreading butter on it. To
themselves they thought, "There, Frau Sperber will be waiting supper
for us!" But they saw in their minds the good-natured friendly face of
the old woman who, they knew, would not begrudge them their pleasure,
and they said to themselves, "Who knows? When we get back there,
perhaps well be hungry enough again to eat what she's got for us."
When they had finished their supper, the most natural thing was to
begin to dance under the blossom-laden lime-tree. It needed no long
discussion to decide on this.
"Off you go!" cried Röse. The couples paired off; singing or humming a
tune, they swung round on the firm gravel. Tubby ran into the house
when it began to grow dark and brought out a stable-lantern; for under
the trees the light had faded when it was still only twilight in the
garden. Then came the glow-worms and crawled about among the perfumed
branches. The young creatures caught each other's hands and danced in
circles under the dark old tree, now to the right, now to the left,
without tiring.
They were drawn to each other by the most delightful harmony. The
still, peaceful garden around them, the fragrant, sheltering tree and
the beaming lantern in whose rays young charms shone resplendent, all
made for happiness. They spoke and laughed little. A great, sacred
bliss spread through them all. The lonely maiden whom the merry friends
had drawn into their circle was flooded with an almost unearthly joy.
That was her first dance, this silent, blissful circling under the
trees, first right, then left, as long as their strength held out. It
was a dance in praise of God's goodness, of beauty on earth and of the
wonder of youth. It seemed they could never really tire of it; and they
all knew that they had loved each other from childhood. "Oh, it's
lovely!" said Röse.
Herr and Frau Sperber had come over to see what had become of the
fugitives, and were standing at a little distance, not wishing to break
in upon the sacred dance. Frau Kummerfelden, who now and then spent the
week-end in summer with them--for the Sperbers' hospitality was
boundless--had come with them.
The three old people stood motionless. "Ah ... yes!" said good Herr
Sperber; and if he had made a long speech on all the joy and all the
sorrow of this mysterious earth, it could not have been deeper or more
expressive. The old Kummerfelden said to herself, "You dear good
Sperber, I should like to shake hands with you for that--you've hit it
exactly." And she repeated after him, "Ah ... yes!" But it went to Frau
Sperber's heart, for Frau Kummerfelden had not been a famous tragic
actress for nothing.
"Don't make a person's heart heavy, you foolish Suse!" she said to her
good friend. "You must always go putting emotion into things."
"But," said Herr Sperber, "it can't go on like this--it would be a nice
state of things. Tubby must marry."
"Marry!" said Frau Kummerfelden. "A beauty like her! That would be a
shame!"
"Well, what do you intend to do with her?" asked Herr Sperber. "After
all, that's what women are meant for."
"Yes, more's the pity."
"And old Rauchfuss's daughter especially ought to marry early--or we
shall see things. She's a devil of a girl ... The pastor says he's got
somebody for her."
"Well, why not? The pastor, he'll have somebody decent," said Frau
Kummerfelden.
"And what about our nephew?" asked Frau Sperber. "Both the girl and the
estate would be just the thing for him; and then we should have him
near us."
"Oh, of course," said Frau Kummerfelden; "everything would be
beautifully arranged then."
In the meantime the young people were still dancing under the trees,
paying no attention to the old folks who have forgotten what real joy
is, and with their hateful sensible theories based on experience can't
help spoiling pure young human happiness, however well they mean.
Without knowing that old eyes full of sorrowful memories and wisdom had
rested on them, the happy young things danced on in silent bliss.
When at last they had had enough, they wandered into the darkening
wood and sang and looked at the glow-worms, and talked as only very
young men and maidens talk who are still afraid to speak of love.
It began to grow late. "I'm thirsty," said Röse, "and now we can't
expect to get any supper at the Sperbers'--we'll be lucky if we get in
without a scolding."
Beate had an idea: "Let's go into the cow-stable and drink fresh milk."
Every one was agreeable. "But we shall have to be very quiet, because
the men sleep quite near."
So they stole cautiously into the stable, Beate carrying the lantern.
The courtyard lay dark and still; a strong perfume rose from the high
manure-piles. The lovely girl opened the old, worn door, and they
entered. A warm breath blew into their faces. From a niche in the wall
an oil lamp threw down a faint glimmer of yellow on the white back of a
cow.
"It'll soon begin to get light--the maid will be coming to milk before
long." She threw the light of the lantern into a shelf on which stood
all sorts of brightly-scoured bowls and porringers, and took down a
snow-white wooden bowl.
Prom the swallows' nests up among the dark rafters sounded the chirping
of the young birds, very sweet in the warm damp air. The little spring
plashed in its trough.
Beate took the maid's milking-stool, stroked and patted a fine brown
and white cow, and began to milk into the bowl. The girl's bright head
stood out against the cow's great side. Horny held the lantern.
Presently she had filled the bowl with foaming milk. The cow lowed a
little at being disturbed so early and in such a peculiar manner.
"That _is_ milk!" said the young mistress proudly. "And now all of you
drink." She held out the bowl to them, and they drank long, long
draughts.
"A queen she is!" said Horny again to Röse. "How fine all this is! It's
great to have such a sea of white, fragrant milk rising in waves under
your eyes and filling you with its warmth and strength."
"You've had as much as you want?" said Beate with blissful pride. They
said good-by, reconducting their young hostess to the door of her
lonely house.
But the three old folks had taken a very firm resolution to make some
sort of settlement up at the Rauchfuss place. Tubby must not be left to
herself--it would never do. "A girl like that all alone in the house!"
said both the Sperbers very thoughtfully; and so it came about that
they invited their nephew to come and see them.
He was a good, wholesome fellow. But all the neighbors in the country
round, on the Ettersberg and behind the Ettersberg, in Weimar and the
suburbs, thought as did the old Sperbers: It isn't the thing for a slip
of a silly girl to be alone on the farm like that. Each thought of a
nephew, a brother, a son or some other relative who might be launched,
on the chase of the rare wild creature--all the while that the young
girl was enjoying in fullest measure her freedom and her youth. In
spite of them all, she lived very peacefully and properly, knowing how
to make herself felt as mistress for all the bailiff and housekeeper
were there; all she did was well and diligently done.
But presently there broke loose what the old people in their zeal had
wished--a flood of suitors. The lovely youthful peace of the three
queens and their good friends was disturbed. Such new, wonderful youth
must first become conscious of itself before it can pass on to longings
and desires. The three sensible elders would have better let the three
queens go on quietly with their delightful dances--first to the right,
then to the left, until they were weary. They will never have such
dances again--never in their lives.
The first suitors who presented themselves were the two boarders of the
pretty little widow with the heart-shaped face, Herr Oehmchen and Herr
Leinhose. They paid a visit to the Sperbers, but not together; neither
knew of the other's intention. They did not venture to go directly to
the Rauchfuss farm; the thing was to be conducted with utmost
propriety.
"Hallo!" thought Herr Sperber. "The thing must be getting serious when
such settled gentlemen put themselves in motion." Herr Sperber did not
fly too high in his ambitions for his protégée. "A plain fellow like
that is the best for a woman of her sort," he thought to himself; "then
there won't be any such business as there was with Herr Rauchfuss. Such
a chap hasn't anything particular to show off before the world, no red
beard, no giant's stature, no whimsies in the brain, no big heart, no
wit--just an average fellow that'll settle down and keep quiet."
Herr Sperber received both the gentlemen in a very friendly fashion.
The nephew, of course, would cut them out--but that was his affair.
Beate, who was invited one evening to meet the nephew and the other two
at her old friends', enjoyed the astonished admiration of the three
like a delicious confection--or rather like a sweet perfume that she
breathed in. "Men are drunk with me," she thought again, and was proud
and happy.
Although the two boarders and the nephew were quite sufficiently
wearisome in their enamored state, she was not bored; she was only
conscious of herself and of the incense of sacrifice which arose under
her nostrils and seemed to invigorate her. The three men were alike
indifferent to her; they were only the vessels in which the incense was
burnt.
After such an evening she was gay and strong as a young goddess. The
next day she was indefatigably at work, imposed even more respect than
usual on her people, and felt exceedingly well.
On Saturday evenings the Kirsten girls had a way of strolling up with
their friends; but it was not long before first one and then another
came with them, whom they had met on the way and did not know how to
shake off. This annoyed Röse and Marie very much. "These people are in
the way," they said--"we like to be by ourselves." But Beate Rauchfuss
said, "Oh, let them come--it doesn't make any difference."
"Of course they all run after you, because they think there's something
to get," said Röse. "You'd better tell them you don't mean to have
anything to say to them. What do you want of _them_? You've got _us_!"
The old Sperbers began to be overburdened by the multitude of young
people who developed a desire to visit them; and the nephew in
particular grew tired of it. So they decided to give Beate Frau
Kummerfelden's old friend, the Raven-mother, as a chaperon. She was
quite capable of keeping ten suitors in their proper place, and was
useful for anything; she could watch the dead and the sick--then why
not for once the beauty of a young girl?
She was the widow of the tinsmith Lange; she had married all her
children, and so was ready to come to the service of her friends and
acquaintances. She was even to be called upon for poetical effusions
for special occasions; under the great Saint Christopher's cloak that
she wore winter and summer alike beat a feeling heart, and a noble soul
dwelt in the big strong body.
She was only too glad to go up to the Ettersberg as Beate's chaperon.
It was the beginning of winter when they sent for her. For some time
she had been wishing for something of the sort. Up there on the fine
farm she would be very comfortable. When the snow lay on the ground,
she would not have far to go to find her little pensioners, the ravens,
whom she was accustomed to provide with food when the fields were
snow-covered.
She came up to the Rauchfuss farm at the beginning of November. "By
spring we'll be having a wedding," old Sperber had said to her. "I
don't know why this girl, who ought for all reasons to choose a husband
nicely and quietly, should be such a burning hay-rick! And the rascal
likes it; just as a drinker enjoys his wine, so she enjoys the
lovesighs of all these asses. Ah, there you are--the sins of the
fathers upon the children, unto the third and fourth generation!" Old
Sperber looked very black; he was displeased with Herr Rauchfuss's
Tubby.
"What foolishness is this?" he said to her. "Down in the town a girl
takes what she can get and is thankful--but you make everything that's
got legs trudge all this long way up the hill. You know, you ought to
be ashamed of yourself. A girl ought to have more discretion."
At this the girl laughed rather haughtily. Her heart was still free,
and simply running over with the happiness of earth. No matter what was
said to her, she heard only half of it. She seemed to have wrapped
herself up in a sort of chrysalis. Her soul was round as a ball,
without any angles on which cares could be hung, or cracks into which
they could insinuate themselves--a fair ball of crystal, with light
shining all about and through it.
It is a wonderful thing, the perfect egoism of early youth, the way it
has no ears for the words of reason and wisdom, and only half an ear
for anything else. Like a distant noise and bustle sound the world's
doings amid the undisturbed content of self-centred youth and beauty.
But quite respectable personages came wandering all the long way up the
hill. Herr Oehmchen and Herr Leinhose were indefatigable. With them
came not seldom the young widow with the heart-shaped face, in the wise
conviction that the dangerous maiden could at worst take only one of
her well-nourished boarders from her, and that it would pay her to keep
on good terms with both.
Besides these a courtier often came up, a man who had in the
neighborhood of Weimar a rather heavily mortgaged estate. But he had
also faultless manners, an extraordinarily small head and aristocratic
hands. He could look back upon a long line of ancestors, who had all
nibbled away something of his property and his personality; there was
little of either left, and it was extremely sensible of him to think of
supplementing them. He was superior to all the others when it came to a
question of form, and so made a great impression on them. They
considered him a dangerous rival, and rejoiced when he was obliged to
stay in his town house--for he went to court--when they had anything on
like a sleigh-ride or a dance; in fact, they arranged such things if
possible on days when they knew he would have to be absent.
Dances, musical evenings, masked balls, sewing-circles were abundant
that winter in Weimar, and the pretty Rauchfuss girl was asked to
everything--now it was one paying attention to her, now another. She
had plenty of cavaliers: all the marriageable merchants' sons of the
town, young lawyers--in brief, the wooers recruited themselves from the
entire circle of the townspeople, and even beyond it. The hunt was on,
and every one joined it who could.
She loved dancing. It seemed to her the most glorious thing in the
world to forget herself, to let herself dissolve in music and motion.
She distinguished her suitors only by their ability as dancers; as to
their intellectual capacity, which indeed was not specially noticeable
in any of them, she easily confused them. She herself was without any
instinct of the chase or desire for conquest, simply contented and
happy in herself.
So the time passed on. The impatience of the aspirants might well have
seemed to her like a flood rising to her very lips, threatening and
terrifying her, or like a row of insistent creditors, with herself
sitting in her little room in peace and letting them knock and call as
loud as they would. She did not realize the impatience of the hunters;
they seemed all so foreign, so far off to her.
To take one of these strangers into her house, to have him always
about, to be obliged to see him every day, seemed a thing so
distasteful and impossible that the thought did not even trouble her.
But she dreamed of wonders--of one whom she would long to love. She
felt something strong, great and good in herself, and realized at the
same time her ignorance and her limitations. Her longing for freedom
was also a longing for breadth, a desire to escape from all that was
narrow, a will to grow.
Hitherto no one had offered her the bread of life; and she was hungry.
Her beauty had in it something sleeping, something strong, that
yearned to be active in this world and beyond; but no one offered to
nourish this wonderful thing. What they offered her was no royal,
soul-strengthening food; it was but ordinary, every-day diet, on which
she would pine away and starve.
Yes ... she dreamed long, amidst all her suitors, of an awakening
compared with which the life which these others called into being in
her was but a deep, dull sleep.
The Raven-mother took delight in observing that the fortress she was
set to guard showed no signs of surrendering; for so the comfortable
existence up at the Rauchfuss farm might prolong itself a while longer.
On Sunday afternoons and evenings they had the most of their visitors.
Then came the suitors, the Kirsten girls with their friends, the pretty
young widow, and often the good Kummerfelden, who took great delight in
listening to the irrational chatter of the amorous youths.
"These men-creatures are enough to drive one mad when they're in love,"
she said once to the Raven-mother. "The bird sings his prettiest songs
to his mate and finds the nicest things to tell her; but men, with the
exception of a few, who immediately print their pretty phrases, talk
miserable rubbish. It positively makes my hair stand on end when I
think that they used to do exactly the same in my day, and I didn't
take it in ill part. They are only really clever when they're driven
into a corner and can't help themselves; it must be a fearful strain on
them."
"Yes," said the Raven-mother, "it's as if they thought that a fresh
girl like that could only be caught by extraordinary nonsense--to be
sure, she laughs at their foolishness; but I tell you she's a cool head
all the same."
"And she's right," said Frau Kummerfelden.
But the talk of two old women is a dry affair. In the spring twilight
they were sitting by the window in the great living-room; the young
people were playing forfeits. In the next room the table was laid for
supper.
They had passed a good many merry Sunday afternoons and evenings with
the object of all this devotion, harmless, amusing hours, in which the
suitors forgot what had brought them there and enjoyed themselves just
like other people. But tonight there seemed to be a sort of spring
fever in the air. Outside a cold, persistent rain could be heard
falling, in spite of the new leaves on the trees. In the chicken-house
the fowls were clucking in a Sunday afternoon ennui. The wretched rain
had interfered with the usual Sunday occupations of the men and maids.
Footsteps dragged across the yard in whose very sound discontent and
boredom could be detected. The raindrops beat against the window-panes,
or when the wind dropped, came down like a soft gray curtain.
The little town of Weimar, with all its distinguished men, lay hidden
in mist and equally bored at the foot of the long slope of
the Ettersberg, looking like any other little country town in the
rain--comfortless and desolate'. In the midst of the loneliness and the
spring rain, sounded now and then the note of a thrush, crying for the
sun.
The Kirsten girls and their comrades had slipped up in spite of rain
and mud, because they hoped that on such a day the amorous youths, the
donkeys, as they called them, would stay at home. But the same thought
had struck others. Each had hoped not to find the rest and to be able
to show off his own personality; and all had been disappointed.
The object of their devotion was in anything but a good mood. A sort of
disgust had seized her as all the dripping, commonplace figures
divested themselves of their outer garments at the door with much noise
and snorting. The stable-girl had to clean off their muddy boots, or,
in case they had brought another pair to change, take the wet ones away
to dry them at the stove.
Each one that came in seemed to make a great deal more noise than there
was any need of. To the young girl they all seemed like blustering
husbands; she too would rather have been alone with the Kirsten girls
and their friends. Today all these strange men oppressed her, each of
them coming with the hope of remaining at home there, master of all.
They seemed positively shameless to her. A heavy sadness came upon her.
She thought of her mother's marriage, of the quiet woman's hard-working
life, of her loneliness, of the indifference she had to bear, of the
warm, sorrowful embraces she had for her child.
"A pretty situation!" The young girl grew full of anger and disgust.
"Has one of these men who come here given me anything that I didn't
know all about? They are tiresome! If I were to take one of them, he'd
soon forget to notice that I was beautiful. What is there left, then?"
They played at forfeits, the restless, discontented thoughts of them
all making the very air of the room heavy. At supper, too, it was not
so lively as at other times. The hostess was silent, not beaming as
usual with the consciousness of her youth and beauty.
For the first time since she awoke to the carefree joy of budding
youth, the ball of crystal that was her soul seemed stained and
darkened; it no longer swam in the sunlight, shot through and through
by the rays.
About nine o'clock, when the rain was coming down in torrents, and it
had been proposed that the Kirsten girls should spend the night with
Beate, their three comrades and Frau Kummerfelden at the Sperbers',
while the suitors would have to accustom themselves gradually to the
idea of going out into the wind and wet, there came a loud ring at the
gate of the courtyard.
"For heaven's sake!" cried the Raven-mother. The rest sat in silent
wonder; their number was complete--who could it be?
"Perhaps it's another one coming over from the Sperbers'," said
Röse.
"Heaven forbid!" said Beate. She was thinking, "It will be no life at
all if I marry one of these--it would be a hopeless business." And she
felt again the strength of her longing, hungry young soul, which
yearned to grow and yet no one would give it its food.
She was lost in these thoughts, in her new strange pain, when the
stable-girl came in out of breath and said, "I've just let in a strange
gentleman, who asks leave to wait a little while till the weather's not
so bad. He's come across country, he says."
"Well," said the Raven-mother, "is he a proper sort of a person?"
"Oh yes!" The stable-girl brought her hand down on her thigh in
emphatic assurance. "He's certainly a gentleman, even if he is wet
through." All laughed loudly. The sudden burst of laughter rose up as
unexpectedly as a covey of birds startled by a pedestrian in a quiet
stubble-field.
Before it had died away, Beate said to the girl, "Bring him in and do
what you can for him."
The Raven-mother also rose, saying, "We'll have a look at him. Didn't
he give his name?"
"Engraver Kosch, he said three times--and how he said it!" answered the
sturdy girl, grinning. "And he said other things too ... that he came
from White of Egg, he said, and Ashes or ... I don't know what all
else." The girl rubbed her arms and kept on grinning. "I was to tell
you that, he said. He was brewed and baked, he said just the same way
as the people up here."
The courtier jumped up, crying, "We can't have him in here--he's a
lunatic! It's quite impossible, my dear Mamsell Rauchfuss."
Beate smiled. "If he's brewed and baked in the same way as all of us,
why not?"
"Because that's foolishness," said the Sperbers' nephew.
"Foolish?" said the much-courted one, laughing. "Are we then from
White of Egg?"
"But, my dear Mamsell," said Herr von Mengersen, "these are things ..."
"And he said more ... other kinds of things," said the maid, laughing.
"Be quiet!" commanded the courtier.
"No, no," said the girl, "I wasn't going to say anything. That was just
for us."
"Go!" cried the courtier, stretching out his long, soft hands as if to
ward off some danger. "Remember that there are young ladies present."
"Leave the room, you stupid creature!" growled the Sperbers' nephew.
"Off with you!"
Still grinning, the maid disappeared. Beate laughed. It seemed as if
fresh air had come into the room. She drew a long breath. How much
merrier and more amusing were the farm men and maids among themselves
than her suitors! What sort of things had she herself heard among them?
They were not strong on ceremony, and said what they thought.
The Raven-mother came back into the room. "Quite a respectable man,"
she said with some excitement; "yes, really."
"Is he coming in, then?" cried the Kirsten girls.
And with that he came in, making so low a bow at the door that his long
hair fell over his forehead. He stood there modestly--rather poorly
dressed, thin, and not specially well cared for. When he raised his
head again, he showed a pale, irregular face, looking on the company
with sharp gray eyes. His mouth was large and sensible, partly covered
by a somewhat bristling, colorless moustache.
He took his place at the table pleasantly enough. He was not a society
man, but he seemed to have taken the resolution not to be put out of
countenance. His whole person seemed to be permeated by a uniform will.
He did not make the impression of having suffered too severely from the
weather; he had simply emerged from the storm, like a pike from the
water, in gray, unobtrusive apparel. In contrast to him the others all
looked over-dressed, hung about with foreign stuffs and incongruous
patches--all except the three queens, whose youth and beauty penetrated
their clothes with a powerful and living harmony.
He took a seat by Beate. There was a general silence.
"Mr. Engraver," said the Raven-mother, "please help yourself."
"Mr. Engraver?" said the stranger with a peculiar intonation. "Why not,
for example, Mr. Walker, Mr. Eater, Mr. Drinker, or Mr. Sleeper? Or ...
no, that's enough!" He put the question with great calmness.
"Well ..." said the Raven-mother.
"Yes, of course," said the stranger, "but how do you know that I spend
more time, or spend it more pleasantly in scratching on copper than in
sleeping or feeding--pardon, eating?"
"Well," said the Raven-mother, "it's customary to call a man according
to his most respectable occupation."
"Respectable? I find it, for example, quite respectable to lie
on one's stomach on a hot summer day in the field, in front of a
mouse-hole and observe the daily occupations of the little gray
mistress of the domain. That way one comes nearer to the soul of the
world than by engraving what any fool has chosen to smear on canvas. Ah
yes ... our respectable professions!"
"Well, but ..." said the Raven-mother, considerably disconcerted,
looking around at the other faces. She saw a merry twinkle in the eyes
of old Frau Kummerfelden. The Kirsten girls looked very roguish,
because they had got launched on a good laugh and had not yet been able
to give it free course. Their young comrades gazed with interest on the
man who had emerged like a pike from the floods. The suitors looked
extremely impatient. Beate's eyes were fastened longingly on the
stranger, as if he were cutting the bread of life for her. To be sure,
it seemed rather crusty and brittle--but there was something there that
had a nourishing flavor.
The stranger's nose had a peculiar shape. It was a nose that seemed
somehow rather lonely in the middle of the face with its prominences
and depressions. Oh, quite a respectable nose, if one did not make too
many claims for beauty on its behalf. It had, as it were, broken away
from its companion features; but it seemed somehow to have great
affinity and sympathy with the inner being of the stranger. There was
something pugnacious about his manner of expressing himself, about his
whole bearing and every gesture he made.
"May one ask," began little Madame Kummerfelden, in her charming
flowered dress and from under her big cap, "where the gentleman has
come from, and where he is purposing to go?"
"I was purposing to pay a visit to your town down there and see your
old man."
"The Duke--"
"No."
"His Excellency?" said Frau Kummerfelden in a very polished tone which
she enjoyed producing. She knew well how to speak to and of people of
rank.
"His Excellency!" said the stranger harshly. "That's the end of
it--now you've spoiled the whole thing for me. Now I might just as well
turn round and go back the way I came. I come from the Harz country,
from one of the many little unknown corners of the earth; and since I'd
passed my life among the animals that are called men in those parts, I
wanted just once to see the real man who said 'The whole misery of
humanity seizes upon me'--and other things like that. I knew it--but
now I hear it. 'His Excellency!' Wonderful! And how beautifully you
said it, my dear lady. One could see him standing stiffly before one.
And I wanted to go in and take him by the hand and say, 'God, I thank
Thee that for once Thou hast created something rational, so that people
may believe in Thee with a good conscience--for most of Thine images
here on earth--well, I don't want to be disrespectful, but really ...!'
No, what I was wanting doesn't fit in with bows and ante-chambers. He
ought to walk perfectly naked, your 'Excellency,' under grand, lofty
trees, on the solemn bare ground!"
"You seem, my dear sir," said the courtier in measured tones, "to have
a peculiar conception of his Excellency. It is not the easiest thing in
the world to get an audience with him."
"And I don't want one!" said the engraver roughly. "To me at home, in
my solitude, he is a wonderful friend whom one loves--as only a lonely
man can love a wonderful friend. No, no, you may keep your
'Excellency!'"
Ernst von Schiller, the friend of the Kirsten girls, said, modestly,
but enthusiastically: "He pervades all the relations of life--he is
stronger than all. The son of well-to-do parents, growing up in a large
city, becoming a lawyer, then holding office and rank in narrow
little Weimar, becoming a courtier, and always in comfortable
circumstances--is there a worse road for genius to travel? And yet he
has remained clear-sighted, penetrating, deep, full of kindness--he has
never grown dull and heavy."
"Ah ...!" said the engraver passionately. "Who says that? Have you
seen him sitting among the poor and miserable? Have you seen him
struggling--striving with the powers of life--fighting his way out of
darkness? Do you know anything of those mighty forces that press
thought out of a man as the winepress squeezes the juice from the
grapes? One year without money--one single year without money, without
followers--and your 'Excellency' would have become alive as God is
alive. There would never have been such a miracle seen on earth. He
would have redeemed the world, if he had been inflamed to the very
marrow; if he had sat among the wretched, among those who see the
world on the side that is in shadow. Ah, to have stood for a little
while where they stand who stretch out their arms to their
fellow-beings for help, to have wandered for awhile through cities and
villages face to face with winter, without knowing where to find
shelter or food, to have known a few good comrades among those on whom
respectable people spit ...! But now ... I'll put my hand in the fire
to show how sure I am ... I might go to his door and knock, and cry,
'Open, brother! One comes that loves you. He comes from the world that
has given you your strength, your insight, your greatness, your
wonderful goodness. Open to him, as it says in the Song of Solomon ...'
He wouldn't even say, as it goes on there, 'I have washed my feet--how
shall I defile them?' If my luck was good, I shouldn't even be let in
to where his Excellency could hear my voice! Well, all right!"
"But, my good sir," said the courtier, "what would become of his
Excellency if he undertook to receive everybody who passed through the
town? Only think!"
"I am not everybody!" said the engraver, and stared at the table before
him as if he were looking upon the most moving sights. Perhaps he saw
himself, his innermost being, his past, all the facts and events that
he knew and that concerned no one else.
Beate Rauchfuss felt as if some one who belonged to her had come home.
She would not have been surprised if the visitor had said to her,
"Well, how is it? Have I changed much in all this time? I hope you will
understand me as well as you used to." She spoke no word, or as good as
none. If she had let herself go, she would have had to pour out her
whole heart to him.
This was a man--a live man. She knew it. None of the people of her
acquaintance, it seemed to her, had ever been so much alive. They were
all lulled into a stupor by habit becoming second nature. Her father?
She half suspected that he might have been alive, if he had chosen. But
it hadn't suited him to, and he had drunk to stupefy himself. It was no
doubt from him that she inherited the longing to be alive and to live
among the living. She could not take her eyes from the keen, alert
face, and she felt a stream of life and power flowing to her from him.
But he scarcely noticed her, and went on arguing in his curt,
pugnacious way with the suitors, who looked at him as if he were some
mad animal.
When the party began to break up, she said to the Raven-mother firmly
and audibly, so that they all heard it, "Herr Kosch will stay here. It
is too late now for him to go down into Weimar to find an inn. Have the
guest-room got ready for him."
These words forced themselves out of her very soul. She seemed to have
to lift a ton's weight to speak them. She would not give him up!
And he stayed.
When all had gone, she had a few short moments alone with him in the
living-room. He stood with his back to the window and looked about the
room. "What will these gentlemen say to your entertaining a chance
stranger here? And what do _you_ think of it?"
"I? I think that it is too late for you to find lodgings down in
Weimar."
"Oh," he said, "I'm not a princess. I'd have crept into any hole that
offered me shelter."
She gazed at him in silence, and blushed a rosy red. There was
something of merry mockery in the glance that he fixed on her. "Ah ...
women ... women!" he said lightly.
It was as if something had seized her by the throat and strangled her.
"That is a man who has been through a great deal," she thought to
herself; and she remembered the men's tales about women that she had
heard in the servants' hall. "What does he think of me?" Hot tears rose
to her eyes. She took a step forward, and tried to speak, but found no
words. "I know ..." she said, and could get no further.
"What do you know, child? What should a pretty child like you
know?"
She grew deadly pale. "Oh, speak to me as you spoke to the young
men! Speak to me as if I were a human being!" There was something
beseeching in her voice, and something shy and awkward. She went on
hurriedly, like one who has much to say and condenses a great deal into
a few words, "Give me your hand, and say quite simply, 'It is good of
you to want to keep me here.'"
"Queer little thing!" said the stranger as if to himself, with a cool
smile. "What?" His eyes took on a bolder expression.
The girl questioned him in deep excitement: "Have you never met a kind,
simple woman, or a girl ...?"
He broke in: "Kind ones there are a-plenty, fair lady."
"No," she said, more calmly now, "I mean a woman who said to you,
'Speak to me as to a human being--tell me what you know and what you
think. I need something for my soul to live on!'"
"No," he said, "I have never met one like that. When I have talked to
one as to a human being, she always began to yawn."
"Really?" said the girl sadly. "Or is it that it happened two or three
times as you say, and then you frightened all the rest?"
"It may be. But it's not a question of much importance."
"Why not!" she asked excitedly.
"Because the most that could come out of it would be a silly
love-story, Mamsell--the same old silly story."
"That is sad," said the girl. "God looks into my heart," she went on
simply. "Yes, I wanted to keep you here because I felt that you could
say some living words to me. I wanted to hear you say them. But now you
are not the sort of man I thought ... Do you think that the men you saw
here tonight are cleverer than I am? And do you suppose that a single
one of them understood what you were saying? I could see in their faces
that they thought you were half crazy. Good night!" she said quietly,
turning from him and going through the door.
"The devil!" he thought. "A clever little bluestocking--and good
looking! Well, we'll see ... Even a few miles from his Excellency
wonderful specimens are growing."
When the Raven-mother had conducted him to his room, he came to the
conclusion, as he stood by the snow-white bed, that he had not fallen
badly. The big farm, the roomy house, the pretty girl whom he had found
surrounded by her suitors and her friends--and her love-sickness, that
she concealed so amusingly ... She had struck him as uncommonly
beautiful at the first glance, and he had thought, "There she sits, and
will no doubt choose of all these polite gentlemen the politest and the
richest and the stupidest!" That her choice might fall on him never
entered into his dreams; and so he had not considered her worthy of any
special notice. He had so far emancipated himself from the tyranny of
small circumstances that he was able to lead a life according to his
own sweet will. He had learned to restrict himself to the most modest
manner of existence, and knew no luxuries except the freedom to think
and act as he chose, and from time to time to drink a glass of good
wine--he liked that, and thought it beseemed a German. His whole
temperament made such a supply of strength from without almost
necessary from time to time. His passion to worm himself into the
things of this world was so violent that it was naturally followed by
spells of exhaustion which had to be relieved. Women played a small,
almost comic, and not very exalted part in his life. He looked upon
them compassionately as very imperfect, morbid creatures. In his
love-affairs he had not been specially fastidious. His mother had been
a downtrodden little woman, who had never understood him; his sister
full of provincial pettiness. So he had no very high opinion of the
sex. Incidentally he considered horses also as particularly stupid
animals, and was capable of flying into a temper when a horse-lover
tried to prove the contrary. All his views were very deeply rooted in
him, and he could be very irritable when any one questioned them.
"Well, it would be an odd chance if, in this out-of-the-way place that
I could hardly see for rain and fog, I should have tumbled into a
love-affair!" he said to himself; and with that he laid his head on the
pillow. "Too bad that such a pretty creature should have a bee in her
bonnet! I wonder how it comes about ... She looks healthy enough
otherwise."
The next thing he knew was a smiling spring morning; the storm had at
last spent its rage. The Kirsten girls had gone down very early to the
town with their comrades, promising to come up again as soon as
possible. Beate had had breakfast with them, and was now strolling
about the garden; but she scarcely heeded the young splendor of spring
about her. The thought of the guest in the spare room made her heart
beat. Yes ... she ought not to have done it. She ought not to have
plucked up courage and said, "Herr Kosch will stay here."
Meantime Herr Kosch was roaming about the courtyard and stables, and
finally, coming into the garden, he spied his young hostess. "Well," he
said to himself, "suppose we make an exception, and see how long it
will be before she begins the yawning game. It'll be worth the trouble,
after all."
So it came about that he talked to her as to one of his own kind, as he
would have talked with his comrades over the familiar table in the
tavern of an evening--although he had never got further with them than
to be considered an eccentric, possibly dangerous fellow: on two
very different grounds, first because they didn't understand him, and
then ... he went easily for this reason into a passion.
So now he took from his young hostess's heart the weight that he had
put there the previous evening by his mocking and contemptuous manner.
He let himself go, spoke after his own manner, and gave up the jesting,
playful tone which he always had ready for women. She listened to him
with silent attention, no matter what he talked about. The wide leaps
his mind took did not seem to weary her in the following. To his
astonishment, she did not yawn once. "She must be very much in love,"
he said to himself.
To her, among other things, he said: "I'm glad you've got your garden
so wild and natural--nothing clipped and trimmed, no rectangles,
circles, or other geometrical figures, from which one deduces at once
that one has to do with men of a very low grade of intelligence. To
take delight in squares and circles is a bad sign. Who wants to have
intercourse with cave-men? No--you've got a very decent garden that
betrays nothing."
"But I know," said Beate, "that people have lived here who got no great
pleasure out of life. If my mother had been happier, I believe she
would have laid out a few tulip-beds--which might have been round or
square, as the notion took her."
"Yes--well," said the engraver, "one must allow people to be happy in
their own way. But it's a horrible way. Just think--a poor devil wants
to create something in the joy of his heart; and he scratches like a
chicken in the earth, longish or oval, until he makes a bed, and is
proud and happy. That's the way life is--all a miserable fraud. There's
eating--and most people understand how to do that fairly
well--but outside of that there's little except scratching up the
earth. Have you, for example, ever thought anything, my pretty young
lady? I don't mean whether it's going to be fine today, or whether to
accept Müller or Meier, or whether the blue dress is more becoming to
you than the pink one, or whether there is an eternal life or not. I
mean, did a real light ever break upon you about anything, contrary to
the opinion of the rest of the world? And did this new light give you
such immeasurable joy that you wanted to do a war-dance with cries of
triumph!"
"No, Herr Kosch, I have never had such a joy," said the girl.
"You see, Mamsell," he laughed--"and you wanted to talk with me!"
"Is what people _do_ nothing in your eyes?" she asked, anxious to know
what he thought on this point.
"What people do? What do you mean?"
"I mean if some one takes care of a person and comforts him in his
dying hour, or if a mother sacrifices herself to her children."
"No, no," he cried passionately--"all those things are mere details.
Thought, thought is what counts! Knowledge is the only thing that makes
a man. Then only is he glad and strong--when he's learned how to think
for himself. Then only is he alive!"
She was intoxicated with his words, and the tenderest feeling which can
spring up in a human heart came to life in her. She, with her so much
younger soul, stretched out her hands to his, longing to love it and to
care for it. She hardly understood him as yet; but she was full of a
mother's feeling for his soul, thinking and studying how to help him.
The glances her suitors had cast at him hurt her to remember. They did
not understand him; they did not even realize that he was a living man.
It was remarkable, the way she pierced searchingly into his mind,
longingly, acutely, gravely and sincerely. He appeared to himself a man
with considerable self-respect, a solitary, tried, and well-tempered
character. And he thought, "She's a pretty creature. It's too bad--why
does she bother her head with thoughts which are of no use to a woman!"
He was a little impatient with her.
The habit of solitude had laid its hand heavily upon him; and now he
was not conscious how a young, hardly awakened spirit sought, anxiously
and full of friendship, to approach his soul. Her senses were still
asleep. It was something not of the earth that he was going through
without realizing it. If he had understood it, who knows whether the
thick skin which had formed on him through renunciation and struggle
would have allowed him to feel it?
He could not help realizing that chance had brought him to the most
important decision of his life; for he could no longer doubt that he
had won complete mastery over the heart of the loving girl. He had
never thought of bettering his condition; he had never even wished such
a thing, for a life without needs is a happy life, good for body and
soul. He loved his freedom; he was exactly what he wanted to be.
And yet fate seemed to intend that he should burden himself with a
wife, with duties to others than himself, and with the comforts which
he had hitherto neglected. He meant not to defend himself, but to let
the thing develop as it would, whatever were the consequences.
On this day he strolled down to Weimar, which had been the goal of his
pilgrimage, in order to tread the streets and roads which the old man
was accustomed to walk. He went to the theatre, and came back to the
Ettersberg and the farm late in the evening. The whole place was
asleep; only the Raven-mother came to bring him some supper.
So he wandered about the next day also. Beate was not to be seen. The
Raven-mother told him that he was always welcome at meal-times, but was
not to put any constraint on himself.
"A sly little creature, that pretty hostess of mine!" he said to
himself. In the afternoon he met her, but outside the garden. It struck
him that she did not blush, but simply looked pleased. Her whole being
had something free and light about it. Her crown of red hair glowed in
the afternoon sun; she had the freedom and the happiness of summer.
Herr Kosch could not help feeling that he had contributed but little to
this beautiful light-heartedness. After all, he was not well acquainted
with the circumstances of these people; and he had had his first sight
of the much courted one in the midst of her suitors. The affectionate
disposition which she had shown toward him that evening seemed to him
no longer so indisputable.
He was decidedly the possessor of what people call luck with women.
"They like," he told himself, "what is unusual. A dark fellow like me,
firm and energetic, with irregular features, and a bearing a trifle
mysterious and suggestive of the werewolf--that's what takes with these
romantic creatures. They are proud of such a lover--as a lover; but a
husband they choose out of other stuff. He must be reliable--a good,
solid member of society." Herr Kosch had had some experience; and he
decided to be simply polite.
So they walked along together. The grass was fragrantly springing in
all its green abundance from the soil, and waved a perfume in the May
breeze soft as silk. The leaves of the beech-trees at the edge of the
wood were still folded together like tender green butterflies on
the branches. The trees out in the open had their full outlines. The
lime-trees were like their own leaves, standing up like great green
hearts. All this Herr Kosch pointed out.
"Yes, like hearts," she answered, smiling. "I've often noticed that
each tree is like its own leaf. Have you ever heard the tops of the
trees whispering to each other. They often make gestures like old
women, bowing with discretion and dignity; again, one sees them talking
together like children, and other times like serious men."
"You're a child of the country," he said--"a child of the country! Be
glad of it."
Now, he thought, she would begin to tell him something of her life, of
her parents, of her childhood--that she was tired of the country, or
that she loved it. "They all do that; they talk of themselves and their
memories as soon as they begin to get a little tamer. They're shut up
within themselves, in a narrow circle. Nothing has grown but their
selves. A man doesn't speak of his growing-process; he speaks of what
he has become, what the world is to get from him. No, these womenfolks
are a bore!"
To his astonishment, his dissatisfied astonishment, she was rather
silent and did not talk about herself. "I have been trying to
understand," she said after awhile, "how it happens that you are full
of thoughts, and all the other people I know and I myself have none."
"Oh," he said, "dear Mamsell, it is simply because you have not loved
life warmly enough."
"Not warmly enough--?" she said thoughtfully.
"Yes," he said, "that's the explanation. You people take everything in
such a cool, such a proper way. You never come to the boiling-point,
and so there are no thoughts. When you are young, you are just
young--without the bliss, the glow, the blessed consuming
consciousness. Young people ought to be positively drunk with happy
thoughts! If I were a girl and had such a wonderful head of red hair,
and limbs of perfect, rounded beauty--by the Lord above! I should run
about joyously, in full consciousness of my powers, letting not a
single hour of the day be lost. I should taste my youth with all its
feelings and thoughts, its sins and its glories. And when old age came
on, I should throw myself on the ground and rage and moan and tear my
clothes and strew ashes upon my head, and die of grief. But you others,
because you don't think and don't know, you are able to live through a
dull, proper youth and a comfortable old age. If people knew what a
thing youth is, there'd be no holding the world. All that was young
would be brewing and fermenting to such a point that no ruler in the
world would be able to keep it down."
"Then the world doesn't seem to be made for thinking?" asked the girl
seriously.
"No," he answered passionately. "If everybody thought, instead
of only one in hundreds of thousands, it would be an impossible
place. Just imagine, fair lady, what would happen if women began to
think! It's inconceivable. The greatest revolution in history would
break out; a volcanic eruption would convulse society. It's quite
right--only the few are supposed to think. There must be dead bodies
without will, to live mechanically, to do mechanically what they are
told. A thinking world--no, thank you! No, Mamsell, we'll stick to the
old system."
So they walked along through the splendor of spring, until music
sounded in their ears. "Where does it come from?" asked the engraver.
"From Rödchen," said she, absent-mindedly.
"Let us go there. Dance-music ... I shouldn't mind ... among the
peasant-folk ... How would it be?"
"These are not peasants," she said. "They're Weimar people who come out
to amuse themselves in the woods. I wonder what's going on ..."
"We'll go and see," he answered. So they went down a narrow path
through the thick woods. The music sounded more clearly amidst the May
green. And now they stood near the forester's low house, and saw the
long gray benches set all about, and people dancing under the trees in
the last rays of the sun. Beate greeted the forester's family, and
introduced her guest to them.
"Who are all these people?" asked Herr Kosch.
"Oh, nothing but a bowling party."
"Would they allow us to join their dance?"
Herr Kosch led his fair hostess to the board-floored dancing-place
under the trees, threw his arm about her, and drew her in among the
other couples. He danced in a way that was like his whole nature,
passionately, irregularly, and yet with power and skill, and found that
his partner fitted him wonderfully. She danced with a perfect
comprehension of his way of dancing. This pleased him not a little.
Before this, when he had had occasion to dance, he had been much
annoyed by finding in the dance the same conflict as in life,
resistance instead of adaptation. But this time he found a singular
pleasure in it, as it were an assertion of himself. Like a good strong
wine the delight ran through his body. He felt himself free and
unfettered as he seldom did--himself, without a struggle.
Now his partner was out of breath, though he was far from exhausted.
She tottered, and there was something unrhythmic in her movements that
disturbed him. Exhausted, she drew him out of the crowd of dancers, and
sank faintly almost into the arms of a short, stout gentleman.
He laughed good-naturedly. "Yes, my pretty child, I've been looking
on for some time--but why must girls dance at such a tremendous rate?"
The engraver saw his partner grow more and more confused--more than he
would have thought a chance contact should have accounted for. "Oh,
pardon!" he heard her say. "Pardon, your Royal Highness, for my
awkwardness!"
"Oh, then it's Karl August that she almost bumped into!" thought Herr
Kosch. To be sure, there by the house stood the hunting-coach which he
had seen in pictures. His eyes eagerly sought further. Quite near him
he caught sight of a dignified old gentleman in a dark-gray coat, a
snowy white neckerchief about his throat in which a reddish-yellow stone
glowed, his hat in his hand, his hair like a well-arranged gray mist
above his lofty forehead, which rose in lines pure as the dome of a
temple--and those eyes! He had danced himself up to the very goal of
his pilgrimage.
But he did not go up to this man and say, "Brother!" He just stood and
stared. "God in heaven, what a man!" he murmured to himself. "He has
built up his manhood like a throne. He stands alone among them
all--they are simply wiped out by his presence."
The engraver saw his friend, for whom he had so longed in his lonely
hours, standing now at an immense distance from him. "Yes--a man must
build such a wall about him if he means to create and express himself
as _he_ has. No--he has nothing to do or to seek among the wretched.
What a plebeian I am that I couldn't understand this!"
Then he saw the prince take Beate Rauchfuss, whose beauty dazzled Kosch
at this moment, so great and strong was it, and lead her with a smile
to the distinguished old man, saying, "This is the red-haired beauty
from the Rauchfuss farm, who crossed our path so often as a wild
youngster when we used to make excursions up to the Ettersberg. Our
hills produce such wonders."
The girl bowed before the dignified old man and kissed his hand
respectfully. He patted her auburn hair softly. "Happy man for whom
this sunny head shall shine! Joy and love beam in her eyes." He turned
to his princely friend. "What an ocean of beneficent happiness lies in
the young creatures of the earth!"
"If it only didn't dribble away in such cursed little drops!" growled
the prince, raising his blunt nose and beckoning to the coach to draw
near.
"Ah, but from another point of view that means watering the earth! Have
no care, pretty child--whichever way it comes!"
The grave, distinguished man followed his prince into the coach, and
both waved a farewell to the pretty girl, who made the deep curtesy she
had learned so thoroughly from Frau Kummerfelden. Every girl in Weimar
who had ever been to the old actress's sewing-classes understood how to
make a proper court reverence; "for," said the good woman, "in a little
town like this, where there are so many princes both of the blood and
of the intellect, a certain _savoir vivre_ should prevail, even in the
streets." In things of this kind she was a past mistress.
The engraver had stood as if under a spell; his meeting with his
"brother," the old master, had come and gone. But he had played no part
in it. He looked at his rough, sinewy hands. "Those are hands for you!"
he cried in his heart. "To gain nothing but a halfway-decent suit of
clothes, four shirts, two pairs of shoes, and a miserable hole to live
in, they have become as rough and lined as if they had conquered a
world. _He_ has conquered a world--and his hands, at his age, have
remained soft, moved by the soul. Ah, plebeian, you won't go and knock
at his window! But the girl whom he caressed with his eyes and passed
his hand over her hair--this little goose--!" He grasped angrily at
Beate's hand. "Let us go, Mamsell," he cried--"let us go!"
And amidst all the still May greenness, under the shelter of the tender
shrubs, he caught the startled girl to him, kissed her and buried his
face in the glory of her hair, which his "brother" had stroked and
the perfume of whose young life intoxicated him. "Into thy hands, O
Lord ...!" he almost sobbed.
She had fallen suddenly into such a storm of hot caresses that her
breath failed her as if a hailstorm were beating down on her. She
pushed him away, and at the same time nestled closer to him.
"Do you love me, then? Do you love me?" she asked him, trembling and
shaken.
"Do I love you? For heaven's sake, would not any one love anything so
young and wonderful when he sees it and feels it? What do you think?
Skin and hair with the scent of May in them!"
She freed herself from his arms and walked silently by his side for a
little way. "Do you love me?" she asked again, as shaken and
distraught as he was. "Do you know me? Do you know what I want in
life?"
"You want me!" he said passionately.
She wanted to speak, she tried--tried--tried, but her excitement was
too great. "Do you wish to be my friend?" she said at last, anxiously.
"Yes--of course I do!" he answered.
"Will you teach me how to think? I want to be as much alive as you
are."
"Silly child!" He would have taken her in his arms again; but she kept
him off with passionate refusal.
"I love you because you are different from the others, and so that you
may speak to me as to a friend, as to a human being."
"And don't I, then?"
"I don't want to live my life asleep all the time, do you hear?"
"What a strange little woman-thing you are! There's a time for kissing,
and a time for everything, you babe!"
"Life is what I long for!" she cried, trembling with the uncertainty of
what it was she wanted.
"Life? Love _is_ life!"
"No, no! To understand--that is life. If I join my life to yours, I
want to be alive, and not dead and dumb as my mother was."
"You have queer notions. Do you suppose, then, that people can learn
how to think as they learn any other trade f I tell you, what you've
got to do is to love life--I'll make it my business to see that you
love it!"
"I shouldn't like to be cast off," she said with a kind of bitterness,
"when you thought I was no longer beautiful. I should run away from you
if you deceived me and were no longer my friend."
"All right," he said, laughing. So they walked along close together,
and he kept his arm tightly about her waist. "Bound," he said, "you
will walk more freely and happily than unbound. Everything is not what
it seems to be. You catch sight of a thought or a feeling, and you
imagine it is as simple and as limited as a point. You come closer to
it, and you find it grows, it turns into a garden with all sorts of
walks and labyrinths. You walk about in it and are astonished. Then
under your very feet it changes to a wilderness full of precipices and
impenetrable thickets. The wilderness grows to a world, which you can
never see the whole of and never come to the end of. All things are
included in this world, all things and everything.
"It is very much less trouble to take things as simply and smoothly as
most people do than to try to move huge blocks of thought. Thinking is
like drinking--a man easily falls into it, if the shoe pinches
anywhere. And what does he get out of it? An endless struggle with
headaches. He's got to be a hero to keep it up. Do you think you'd ever
get used to drinking?"
"I don't think so," laughed the girl.
"Just as soon as you would to thinking. These headaches are much more
serious for a woman. To endure them one must be free--free as a man is
without chick or child, without a little ache or pain; he must be able
to sink himself in his great trouble." She looked at him in questioning
astonishment. "You see," he went on, "you're a little tender spring
world, and you want to go rolling after a burnt-out, petrified, stiff
and stony winter world. 'Deuce take it!' people will say, 'What do they
want with each other?' The sweet spring world will be burned up or
crushed to pieces--it's plainly to be seen."
"Then let it be!" answered the girl firmly and quietly. "We are all
burning up anyhow ..." And he was conscious again of the May-perfume of
the spring world which intoxicated his unaccustomed senses.
She was too full of beauty for him, too ready with her devotion, too
tender of soul and too longing of heart. Something less generous would
have done better for him. Excess always oppressed and troubled him. His
ascetic chamber rose before his eyes: his bed covered with a woolen
counterpane and a few rags, a regular wolf's lair--his work-table, the
whole room with its clouded windows; and he thought of the distress
that came upon him when he knew there were a few gold pieces in his box
and felt himself turned, as long as they weighed him down, into a
commonplace citizen.
To win a scanty reward with great pains had become a necessity of his
life. The comfortable existence which seemed to be approaching troubled
him. What would he do with it, and it with him? He recognized only a
few duties to himself, and they were more than enough. Now a little
spring world came rolling up to him and revolving around him in its
fragrant orbit. He would have to adapt himself to it--and that would be
no simple matter.
Deeply moved, both of them, they reached the Rauchfuss farm, and found
all sorts of guests awaiting them. The Kirsten girls and their friends,
Frau Marianne's boarders and the little widow herself, and some of the
bachelors were there.
To all of these the guest who had dropped from the clouds seemed a
doubtful addition. They had come up to have a look round, and they
found Beate joyous and rosy. She greeted them all more warmly than had
been her wont. Each felt himself specially made welcome.
The new guest stood there, thin and angular in his gray suit in which
he had emerged as a pike from the water, and looked none too well
pleased at the coming and going, at the chatter and the laughter.
"The fellow hasn't accomplished anything here--that skeleton!" said one
of the boarders. He himself showed the good results of Frau Marianne's
care. Her idea was to keep one of the two always well taken care of for
herself--that was her fixed policy, because in any case she wanted to
have one of the two to console her.
The Raven-mother was grumbling because this evening she had all the
labor of preparing supper; but the table under the trees was spread,
and old Sperber, who came to see how they were getting on, announced
that he would provide a punch.
The Kirsten girls and their friends brought the wine from the Sperber
farm and worked reverently and busily at the brewing of the punch. When
it mingled its fragrance with the perfume of the young foliage and the
blooming lilacs, the mood of the assemblage was a. festive one. The
girls began to sip and to laugh, the young men became more lively, old
Sperber nursed his glass lovingly with both hands, as if to caress the
soft golden liquor. The engraver drank not in a festive manner, but in
the measured yet not ungenerous fashion to which he was used at his inn
among his accustomed companions. It was not such an extraordinary
occasion to him as it was to the rather sober-minded guests here. They
were frugal people; the Sperbers and the Weimar folks were in the habit
of drinking of an evening the honest home-brewed stuff that was brought
in open pails from the town hall and then bottled.
The engraver held his glass in his hand and gazed into it. "On my way
to this Promised Land of yours," he said, "I sat in a village tavern
and drank the wretched beer they gave me. In came a miserable old
woman, worn with age and sorrow, and touched me on the shoulder,
saying, 'Give me a sup, for Christ's sake!' 'Here, old girl!' I said,
and gave her my glass. She sat down and drained it to the last drop;
then she looked up at me with her big old eyes and said, 'Now I have
drunk your cup of sorrow!'"
The engraver was silent; the others stared at him. "My hat comes
off to that word!" he said, and seemed to sink into himself. "That was
the greatest word of love that I ever heard in my life. Amen." The
young folks burst out laughing; old Sperber still caressed his glass,
and looked half-mockingly at the stranger. But he went on: "All the
church-bells ought to have been rung when the old woman said, 'Now I
have drunk your cup of sorrow!' People should have rushed out of their
houses to see what was happening--they should have cried, 'Hosanna!'
Does no one understand the immeasurable depth of such poverty and
goodness! I fell on my knees before the old woman, I kissed the
tattered hem of her garments--and she ... spat in my face! Amen. And
the meaning of it all is--that no one knows what he says and does in
this world, neither in the highest sense nor in the lowest. They utter
oracles like the gods, and understand nothing of them. They are angry
with each other, and know not why. A world of dreams ... Here's to your
good health!" And he raised his glass and drank.
"A positive fool!" whispered old Sperber to his neighbor. "Why can't he
talk like other people!" And the same sentiment might have been read in
the glances of the rest.
This brought all her blood to the hostess's cheeks. A warm, protecting
love for him seized upon her; a kind, inextinguishable flame sprang up
in her heart. It seemed to her as if she could dip her young soul in
his and bring it up again full of the power of life and of riches. He
was a revelation to her. She felt that she was escaping from a dark,
dumb world to him and to the light.
It was not long before the suitors became aware that the strange
engraver was on the road to snatching from under their very noses the
rich and beautiful prize to which they aspired. Even to Herr Sperber
the situation seemed to be getting queer; and Herr Kosch had a hard
time of it. The men made him a target for their remarks, and tried to
set him in an absurd light. He held his own bravely, and gave valiant
answers back. The rough give-and-take of the tavern had accustomed him
to that, and at first he defended himself with equanimity--but you must
remember that he was the man who could not suffer it to be said, in
opposition to his views, that horses were intelligent animals. So he
poured upon his wrath no small quantity of the excellent punch,
although he knew it was a dangerous policy.
"What was that you said just now, Herr Kosch, if I may inquire?" said
the courtier with mocking politeness. "What was that expression you
used? 'All those old barnyard cocks that were clustered around his
Excellency?' Do I quote the expression correctly?"
"You do," said the engraver harshly. "Scratching in the earth around
him to see what they can pick up--in a disgusting way, so I imagine.
Barnyard cocks--and barnyard hens!"
"Oh," said the courtier bitingly, "you have a singular conception of
our society here!"
"Society!" said the stranger scornfully. "Two-legged creatures like
those that run about everywhere, a crowing, clucking crowd! And then
one of them crows himself up in the big barnyard to the position of a
demigod! Lord, how the fellow must be bored with the rest of the
tribe!"
"And how do you feel, Mr. Barnyard Cock?" asked Sperber's nephew,
raising his glass. "Here's to you!"
"To you!" said Herr Kosch, bowing very low toward him and trying to fix
a somewhat unsteady gaze upon him. It seemed that in this firmly
organized body of his the eyes were not altogether obedient. "Barnyard
cock? Barnyard cock? Sir, I come from shimmering depths, from the
caverns under the earth. You think the earth ends there where you walk?
You think there is nothing moving under your feet. But the mole and the
rabbit burrow deep--very deep. Well, well, I'm not a barnyard ...
barnyard cock--that I'm not ... certainly not." And he shook his hard,
lined hand. "No ... no!"
"The fellow's drunk," muttered Herr Sperber. He no longer held
caressingly encircled the clear liquor in his glass, but looked at his
old friend's daughter, and saw how, pale and with big, wide-open eyes,
she watched anxiously every movement of the stranger. Old Sperber rose,
came quietly behind her chair, touched her on the shoulder, and said,
"I'll soon get rid of the fool for you--don't worry, Tubby." In reply
he got from her a glance full of rebellion, and yet uncertain, as if
seeking for help. "Listen, child, come with me through the garden," he
said, cheerfully and heartily. She shook her head, and her eyes
fastened again on the engraver.
"A man," the latter was just saying to his neighbor, Sperber's nephew,
"in whom one notices by his walk or his bearing or his speech, even to
the slightest degree, that he has taken too much of a good thing--is a
degenerate! In man there is a whole world at war. The microcosm is in
revolution! Storms are raging in the brain--the world is on fire! He
stands unmoved, a god in revolt! What is your opinion? That is the
highest self-conquest, the primeval type of manhood, the struggle and
victory without a parallel!"
"Well, drinking too deep can happen to a fellow ... I don't say no,"
said the nephew very quietly. "But your way of putting it strikes me as
very grand."
"Oho ...!" The engraver stretched himself, disengaged himself, so to
speak, from his own ego, and looked challengingly down the table. His
eye fell upon the beautiful girl who had given him her heart. He was
aware of her deadly pallor, of her eyes fixed desperately upon him.
"God help me--that sweet soul!" he said within himself. "There isn't
half an ounce of strength and sap in a woman like that. Wash me, but
don't make me wet! She wants a man with spirit, but she can't bear to
see the bottling. Ah, there ...!" He pulled himself together and
remained quite silent.
The young hostess rose now, and with her the guests. The last half hour
at the rustic table under the trees, the air had been a little heavy.
Many an eye had seemed to see old Rauchfuss go by and stop to shake the
engraver's hand mysteriously, as though to say that he spoke after his
own heart, and much more forcibly than he had ever been able to do.
The engraver now approached his hostess and said in a rather thick
voice, "To judge the living and the dead. In heaven's name, then, good
night. Tomorrow I go." She looked at him with eyes full of the
deadliest anxiety, but spoke not a word, holding him only with her
eyes. He was silent and gazed straight in front of him. It was evident
that he was making a great struggle, internally and externally, to
control himself. "I am who I am," he said. "There is no interpretation
to that. What has grown so," and he held out his sinewy hands before
him, "has grown so. Farewell ... But oh, your kisses--your royal
kisses! God keep you!"
"Stay," she said, "stay!" But her features grew even paler, she
tottered, and her head sank against the tree-trunk. Herr Kosch caught
her in his arms. The candles on the table in their glass shades threw a
yellow light on them.
Herr Sperber and some of the others saw the girl resting in the
stranger's arms.
"Good Lord!" As quickly as his short legs permitted, Sperber reached
the spot. "What's the matter?" he cried. "What's the matter?"
"My fiancée seems a little unwell," said Herr Kosch gravely.
"Your--what?" cried Herr Sperber. "But that's--that's--" He was going to
say "horrible," but thought better of it, and only looked at him in a
way that left no doubt, taking the girl without ceremony in his strong
arms.
Then she opened her eyes, and said, as she saw the friendly, horrified
face of old Sperber bending over her, "I love him beyond anything on
earth."
The engraver seized both her hands and kissed them. "Go," she said; "I
want to be alone. You promised to be my friend. I long to be alive as
you are alive. That is what you must understand. Good night!"
He kissed her hand again, and bowed to Herr Sperber. "I will go," he
said, and he went, just as Herr Rauchfuss used to walk when he wanted
to show the world that he was completely master of himself.
The girl remained behind, dissolved in burning tears. Herr Sperber led
her to the deserted table and made her sit down by his side. A bitter
odor came up from the dregs in the bottom of the glasses. The two
candles made a small white island in the midst of the darkness, in
which dim forms were seen walking up and down in excited converse.
Still the tears ran incessantly down the girl's cheeks.
"Child," said Herr Sperber, "what have you done? An utterly unknown
man! Are you womenfolks all crazy? For a whole year everything
respectable that had two legs has been running up here after you--and
you ... A man like our nephew ... Think, child--so straight and steady,
pure and good; he would make a woman happy."
"Don't--don't!" she said.
They sat silently side by side.
"No one need know. Come, child, let us go to the others." Helplessly
she followed him, and took leave of her guests. The suitors went away
in deep, dumb amazement. The Kirsten girls kissed their friend heartily
on the cheeks, and their comrades pressed her hand.
"For God's sake, child," said the Raven-mother, when the last had
departed, "are you clean out of your senses?"
"Let her alone," said Herr Sperber. "We don't need anything. Go to
bed. I'll stay with our child. Leave us alone."
And they were left alone. They went together into the living-room, Herr
Sperber carrying one of the large candles with him. "Now tell me,
child, how all this has happened!" She knelt in front of the little old
man, who sat, full of care, in Herr Rauchfuss's armchair; and again the
hot tears flowed. "Do you remember the night when your father lay
dying, and we sat here and waited for him to draw his last breath--eh,
child?" The girl nodded. "Do you know that Herr Kosch shows a decided
inclination to take to drinking?" She nodded again, her eyes staring
straight before her, full of pain. "And in spite of that ...? Tell me,
is it absolutely necessary for a woman to be entirely without reason?
Do you think you could stop him if he made up his mind to be a
drunkard!"
"No," she said.
"Then what did you mean, my girl, by what you said just now? You want
to be alive as he is alive? And you want him to be your friend? What
did it mean? Look, I'll set the thing all straight for you. You must
know your mother was just such another overstrained little soul,
good and dear as she was. Look at my old woman, look at the old
Kummerfelden. All women of the better sort have had their little
whimsies when they were young. But you see, women learn to think in
another fashion from men. Men come to it sooner--people teach them the
trick. You see, I'm telling you the thing just as I see it ... They
go to school longer; they learn their trade; they've got to play a
part in the world. Of course a good deal of it is put upon them
artificially--it doesn't always come to them naturally; but it's got to
come. One generation tells the next what it has thought. Like an
irresistible avalanche the whole heap of thoughts, whatever has been
thought, comes down on us men. Or, if you'll understand me better, we
get all our food ready chewed up for us.
"Now women learn to think in quite a different way. When they're
very young, life leaves them quiet, doesn't put too much of a strain on
them. But when the time comes, life itself teaches them to think. The
avalanche of thoughts doesn't come down on them, nor do they get their
food ready chewed. Out of their own nature grow the thoughts, and
understanding of life. Look at my old woman and the Kummerfelden.
I take my hat off to those two good old souls! They think simply
about everything; but what they think is nothing foreign, nothing
learned--it is their own, their hard-won property. We men are seldom so
natural, so penetrated by our convictions, so simple. We have much in
us that is foreign--or dead. I'm not talking so much of myself--I'm a
simple old fellow. But for all that, you know, old Sperber isn't a
fool. Do you think he doesn't understand you? Ah ...
"When a man is in love with you, he's everything but your friend. He
can only be your friend when the stage of being in love has passed;
and even then he may not be your friend. That's a thing you've got
to deserve! That is life's highest gift, and it doesn't fall into
everybody's lap. Yes--perhaps you can't even deserve it; it's got to
come to you like the big prize in the lottery.
"And so we come to it: we are too simple for you--you want to go up
higher. You don't want to grow as we have grown, I fancy, to develop
quietly like my old woman. You want to spring up suddenly to the
heights. The air that comes up from Weimar has poisoned you--that fine
spiritual air. But you see there's nothing for you in that. Wait, wait,
wait! What the good God has chosen that we should know here below, we
shall know when the time comes; mother Nature looks out for that.
There's no need of a forcing-house for such plants.
"Look--there's still time. Tomorrow morning early I'll go to your
engraver and say to him: 'My dear fellow, you probably know by this
time what girls are ... An old man has been talking to her, and she has
changed her mind.' It would be ruination for both of you."
"Let me go my way, Uncle Sperber," she said--"let me go my way. I
can't live without him!"
"Tubby, that's exactly the way your mother talked. I don't take any
stock in a love like that--none of God's creatures is worth it. Not
one. My old woman and I began gently and quietly, and we've always gone
along the same way. It seems to me one doesn't want a harbor
where the waves run so high that the ship can't rest in it. Listen,
my girl ... were you intending to copy him in all his nonsense? I don't
know ... I should be telling a lie if I said it would please me
specially!"
"No," she said, "I believe you, Uncle Sperber; I suppose it couldn't
please you. Every one speaks only to his own kind, and the rest don't
understand him. My man is understood here by nobody--if he spoke with
the tongue of an angel, it would be just the same. But I ...! My heart
went out to him instantly: from the very first moment I felt that I
knew him like an old friend."
"Tubby," said the old man with a sigh, "I don't have to tell you what
you'd be exposed to with him. God gave you your father for a warning.
What you are doing is against God's will. Your hot tears bear witness
against you."
"Uncle Sperber," she said gravely, "that is just the reason why words
are unnecessary. My tears must say to you, 'I know everything, I
understand everything, and yet I cannot let him go.'"
"Then God be with you, my child! If it is so that you know what you are
doing, then go the way that you are destined to go. I see nothing good
before you. Exactly so I spoke to your mother--the very same words. She
married the man she loved for no other reason, as it seems to me now,
than that you should come to be what you are at this moment. You wanted
to come to life. And now ... others are wanting to come to life, and
seem, worse luck, to need you and this chance stranger.
"Child, if love only lasted! A marriage for love like that is a
serious thing for anybody. If it were only for a short time, it
wouldn't be so bad. But to choose a partner for life in the glare of a
Bengal light! It would be the same for me to buy my cows by Bengal
light, or when I was drunk. If you'd only listen to me! Let him go,
Tubby, let him go, I've said; take our nephew. I can't do better by
you."
Then the girl raised herself to her full height: "That's enough, Uncle
Sperber," she said with shining eyes, as she gave him her hand. "You
are very good to me! But if in the morning he still wants me, I stand
by it. I am so full of force and courage and joy because he loves me. I
am strong anyhow--I will work out whatever fate lays upon me. I know
that every happiness must be paid for in suffering."
"Well," said old Sperber, "if you go to your folly with courage and
joy, it's one thing--but with burning tears ...? Am I not right, my
girl? If you have courage, you may get the best of this devil of a
fellow--but going to it in sorrow ... no!"
And so they came together, as thousands and thousands of others have
done, driven by love, in the face of all reason. The history of their
marriage was the history of many another that reaches from youth to old
age. They made each other happy and disappointed each other, they did
good and evil to each other, they bored each other and grew accustomed
to each other. As with all mortals, there were long stretches of life
over which dulness lay like a covering of thickly-matted seaweed. Under
this covering the waves of life could hardly move, could not break
through to the light of day; only a mighty wave of joy or sorrow could
break through it and send its spray up toward the heavens.
And now Beate Rauchfuss, as an old woman, sat at the end of an
afternoon in her garden on the Ettersberg. All was over that she had
once known--joys, longings, hopes, desires, and powers; and Herr Kosch
was gone too. She, that loved most deeply, had the most to bear--for
she bore him the rest of his life. His sufferings were her sufferings,
the movements of his life also the movements of hers. So she led
woman's burdensome double existence--the burdensome manifold existence
which is woman's.
With her children she shared the bliss of youth and the sorrows of
youth, felt with them their disappointments and their joys. With two of
her dear ones she had looked into the face of death; she had climbed
Herr Kosch's steep path with him, without his calling her to follow.
She had stolen out after him, learned to keep step with him as an
unnoticed companion of the way. And when he, weary of wandering, found
his faithful helper and comrade by his side, she had reached the goal
of her life.
Yes, women learn to think in a different way from men. She came to
understand her old friend's saying. As she gave birth to children, so
she gave birth to thoughts. Each was a hard-won conquest from the
heart of things, not found by chance, not learned, not strange and
separate--but born alive of herself and paid for with suffering.
When she sat, an old woman, in the rays of the setting sun, full of
peace, her soul was round as it had been in her first youth, with no
projections, no fissures, on which cares could hang themselves or into
which they could creep. Like a distant noise and bustle sounded the
world's business in the undisturbed peace. For the second time in her
life, her soul was like a sunlit ball of crystal; it had been so in her
youth, when no stain or shadow had yet fallen upon it from life, and
now, when all the stains and shadows were purged away from it.
Whether life was easy or hard, marriage happy or unhappy, work
successful or unsuccessful, it was all one--a matter of indifference.
Only one thing was not a matter of indifference: that the old woman sat
here now in the evening sunshine with a soul that was rounded and
transparent, floating in space like a clear shining sphere, dreaming
peacefully and asking nothing--done with the world.
CLARA VIEBIG
* * * * * *
BURNING LOVE (1902)
TRANSLATED BY WILLIAM GUILD HOWARD, A.M.
Assistant Professor of German, Harvard University
There were fires in the village. It was always at night that they
broke out, now here, now there; and this had been going on for eight
weeks. The corn in the fields had just come to the full ear when on a
dark evening the first blaze was discovered. Since that time the
fearful guest had visited no less than ten cottages.
The damage had indeed been slight. One peasant had the reeds and thatch
of his low-hanging roof a little singed. In another house the side of
bacon left from last winter's pig and still hanging from the beam under
the roof had been made to sizzle a bit. At a third, the brushwood that
children had gathered and piled up along the wall had crackled and
snapped, until the wife, wakened by her infant's cries, thought some
one out there was stealing her kindling. At a fourth, the frightened
lowing of the cow revealed a smouldering in the hay-loft. At the
fifth, the flame did not even get started; for a downpour of rain had
beaten upon the attic and quenched whatever of fire was lurking in the
timbers. In every case the protection of all the saints had been plain
to see.
Nevertheless, a secret horror began to worry the minds of the
villagers.
"I warrant," said a wiseacre, contracting the brown leather of his brow
in suspicious wrinkles, "some scalawag is doing this!"
Yes, it could not be otherwise: there was somebody setting fires!
The children could not be the guilty ones--they were led by hand or
carried in the dosser out into the fields; or, if it happened that they
were left behind, their mother did not fail to hide the matches on the
topmost shelf beyond their reach. But had not Annie Marie, watching
alone by the cradle of her sick child one evening when all the others
were still working in the fields, seen a fellow in disguise peering in
at her window? And had not Brewer's Hubert, coming home late at night,
caught sight of a dark shadowy figure that slipped by him and escaped
in the hedgerow between the gardens?
There could no longer be any doubt: there was an incendiary. But where?
Who was the miscreant? Some man in the village? Impossible! In the
village each man knows the other far too well, learns too well from his
daily toil how hard it is to scrape together his little livelihood, for
him out of sheer wantonness to afflict his neighbor. No, it must be
somebody from a distance; somebody, perhaps, who had been a-roving
in the world. To be sure, journeymen, beggars who--how can one
tell?--already have one foot in the lock-up, did not pass through the
village, which is situated apart from others on the Eifel plateau, with
its two straight, compact rows of houses in the protecting shade of a
dark grove of fir-trees, but with its remote fields, reclaimed from the
waste land, exposed to all the winds of the Eifel and all the rays of
the burning sun.
The little village quivered with excitement. And mingled with the
anxiety there was curiosity, and along with the curiosity fury. If they
could catch the culprit, they would hurl him from the roadside down
into the brook with such violence that he should never stand on
his feet again! Or they would climb the mountain that rears its
scrubby head behind the village and there hang him on the wind-swayed
hazel-tree--after having soundly thrashed him with its switches! Then
the cows and swine which the village herdsman pastured on the
close-cropped field would have a sight to see, and the herdsman, Will
Stoker, too!
[Illustration: CLARA VIEBIG]
And as they thought of William they suddenly held their breath. Had he
not for years been a fire-tender down in the Rhineland? He was the only
man in the village who, after serving his time in the army, had not
returned home to till the soil in the sweat of his brow, but had
remained down there, where the world puts forth its temptation and the
saints are only to be found in the cathedrals, not to be met upon the
highways. It was said that people had to toil in the factories--very
likely, but certainly not by far so hard as up here, where often in May
the frost killed the budding grain and potatoes froze as early as
September. Will Stoker had had nothing further to do down there than
poke fires. He had been fireman, night fireman in the factory; but
during the day he had nothing to do but sleep, earning sure money by a
lazy life--merely by making fires!
"Hm!" The chairman of the parish council scratched his head when sundry
villagers turned up their noses in the direction of Will Stoker. What?
He should have set the fires? He was indeed a strange fellow; yes, they
were right, a very curious chap, different from other people--that was
the result of his life out in the world--but an incendiary? No! Was not
his mother, Widow Driesch, a downright honest woman, a God-fearing woman
besides, to whom every one must take off his hat?
The chairman put far away from him the tell-tales and busybodies; but
when, shortly after, one Sunday night the hayrick burned which he had
just stacked up Saturday evening, he too began to scent mischief. From
the direction of Will Stoker's cottage he too began to smell smoke.
Was it after all possible that Will Stoker could not give up the
business of poking fires? He had been in the village since the previous
winter. In the gray of winter nothing had happened; but now, when the
sun was shining again, when it was aglow in the heavens, when day in
and day out it spread its red heat over cottages and fir-trees, over
grain field and hill top, when the underbrush flared and the pebbles in
the dry river bed scintillated, and the powdery dust on the sun-baked
roads was blinding, now--!
Strange thoughts surged through the chairman's head; he took counsel
with this neighbor and that, secret counsel. Behind the barn they
whispered, like pairs of lovers, or far out on the open field, where
only the quivering heat could overhear them. Appealing to courts of law
is always bad business; one never knows whether one is going to get
justice or injustice. But before one should let the village be laid in
ashes, now, just now, when the well was beginning to run dry, when even
the brook in the cooler valley trickled only in a thin stream over
shining stones, now, when one must be mindful of the harvest--it was
abundant this year, but who could have the courage to gather it into
the barns?--now the watchword was, better accuse than regret!
* * * * * *
On a warm evening after a serene summer day the constable from the
nearest city hall and the chairman of the parish council plodded along
together toward the cottage of the Widow Driesch.
Katherine Driesch was cooking her evening porridge. Her William
had just driven in the herd; the last blast of his trumpet still
reverberated in the air and every cow was rushing, tail up, into her
stall. The herdsman could now rest from his labors. He was sitting on
his stool by the hearth, with the bowl in his lap, the spoon in his
hand, and his mother was serving him his evening meal. But he paid no
attention to the scraps of bacon which swam like appetizing little
fishes in the porridge. With unaverted eyes he gazed at the fireplace,
where the sparks were dancing.
His mother said, "Eat, my boy," took the scraps of bacon out of her own
bowl, and gave him these also. Her William was fond of bacon, and
though it might be wickedly dear, the boy must have his scraps every
evening. What else had he in the world? Nothing at all, poor boy!
Of five sons, he was the last--two had died young, two had fallen in
France--all these afflictions she had borne with Christian resignation.
But that William had down there so worn himself out with labor that he
had had to be taken to the hospital and in the prime of life had been
declared no longer able-bodied, that grieved her. Up here he had, to be
sure, obtained the position of village herdsman--but was that a proper
office for one who had always been cleverer than the other boys of his
age?--who even today was cleverer than all those who since his time had
passed through the hands of the schoolmaster,--who really ought to have
been ordained in the Church, if they had only had the money. A dunce
can herd swine and drive cattle!
The mother suppressed a sigh and brushed William's bushy brows back
from his eyes.
He merely grunted; and when she urged him, saying, "Eat, my
boy--your favorite supper: scraps and buckwheat porridge!"--he
mechanically carried a spoonful to his lips and let it run out of the
other corner of his mouth. His brow remained contracted, and from the
back of his head, where a fringe of hair was all that remained, a
tremor seemed to run down the length of his spine. His eyes stared
blankly, until suddenly they began to roll, up and down, right and
left; involuntarily they followed the dancing sparks in the fireplace.
The mother watched her son intently while, silently and without the
usual sipping and a satisfied smacking of the lips, she emptied her
bowl. With a mute gesture she drove away the cat, which had crept up
purring and was rubbing its head on the man's legs. She herself hardly
dared to breathe. What was William thinking about, that he was so
still? A short while ago, in winter, he had been much more talkative.
What stories he had told of the factories down there, with their wheels
and cylinders, their chimneys and kettles, their furnaces that had
bellies as big as a beer-barrel at the kirmess--in fact, much
bigger--as big as the pit of hell, with flames a yard long! He had
grown accustomed to the heat, and now he was always cold, poor boy.
Now, even in summer, when other people seek the shade, he stood in the
broiling sun up in the field, munched his crust of bread, and gazed
fixedly at the ball of burning gold in the sky. But even then, he said,
he did not get warm enough. The whole day she had to keep the fire
burning on the hearth, and in the hardest winter she had never had to
collect so much brushwood and so many fir-cones as now.
Wiping the profuse sweat from her brow and loosening a little the
cotton kerchief about her lean and wrinkled throat, Katherine Driesch
picked up another armful of brushwood from the chimney-corner, broke it
in pieces over her knee, and stuffed all the pieces together into the
jaws of the fireplace. It was almost ready to burst.
But with a groan and shiver her son rubbed his hands, saying slowly and
hesitatingly, as though every word cost him pain, and yet as though in
haste to speak it, "Mother--go--to--bed."
"All right," said she, already reaching for her cap; for she knew that
when William had not had one of his "good days" he was apt to be
impatient. And so she meant to do quickly what he wished and draw the
coverlet over her ears, though people were still stirring outside. From
a distance the shrill cries of maidens could be heard, and the
hammering of scythes.
William listened also. He had now stood up. Craning his neck, so that
the cords were tense and rigid, he remained motionless. His knees were
bent, his underlip protruding. Only the eyes in his sombre countenance
moved incessantly, peering in terror, like those of a hunted wild beast
that itself is impatient to hunt its prey. The nostrils in his bull-dog
face quivered, as if eager to catch a scent.
Through the deepening darkness of the room the old woman's mumbled
prayer was heard:
"Hail to thee, Mary, that art highly favored,
The Lord is with thee,
Blessed art thou among women
And blessed is the fruit of thy----"
She stopped, thinking of her son. "William!" And when he did not
come, she climbed out of bed again, and crept barefoot to him, and on
the forehead of the man of forty made the sign of the cross as once she
had done on the forehead of the boy of four, and contentedly crept back
to bed. A moment later and she was sleeping in peace.
A strange smile passed over the gloomy face of her son: now she was
asleep--now she was asleep--and now he was going--to light the fire in
his furnaces--brr! he was cold--but soon he should be warm again--hi!
when the sparks danced and the red glow spread, shooting out toward you
as if to dry your marrow--hot, ever hotter--ha, who comes there, who
wants to interfere?
Startled, he suddenly stood still, his features convulsed as if in
pain.
A strong hand pressed the latch of the front door. The door was not
locked; it opened, and out of the soft twilight of the mild summer
night the constable and the chairman stepped into the seething darkness
of the widow's cottage.
"Are you already asleep?" said the chairman, somewhat embarrassed. "Eh,
Katie, excuse us! Do you hear?"
But the constable had already seized hold of him on whose account they
came, and had held him motionless with a firm fist accustomed to
overcoming resistance.
Will Stoker did not offer to struggle; he cowed there, his head
drooping between his shoulders. All he did was to utter a peevish cry,
as children do when rudely awakened from sleep.
The old woman, who had not been aroused by the loud call of the
chairman, woke up now immediately and sat up in bed.
"William, where are you? What is the matter, William?"
"He is here--don't get excited," said the chairman, groping his way
to the hearth and stirring the embers till they blazed up and lighted
the room. "Katie, be sensible, make no disturbance! William here we are
going to take away with us for a while--he is--he must--he--"
"Take away William--where, I should like to know?" The woman stopped
short. "William?--no indeed, he stays here," she said in a decided
tone, and reached for her skirts on the stool by the bedside.
"Remain where you are, stay in bed! Pst!--"
The chairman was about to cover the woman's mouth with his hand; but
she had seen the gleam of brass buttons on the uniform, and in
senseless fear of the constable had uttered a piercing shriek. With
both feet she leaped out of bed and now stood trembling before the two
men.
What did they want here? And in the dead of night! In a stupor of
horror her eyes wandered from one to the other. Then she saw the iron
grip in which the constable held her William. What--what had her
William done? Nothing! They must let him go, let him go at once!
Screaming reproaches she made up to the constable; but he rudely
brushed her to one side.
"Hold your tongue, woman," he said curtly, "do not get yourself into
trouble. Forward, march!"
With a prod in the back he urged his prisoner on. But the old lady
seized the skirts of his coat and held him fast with unlooked-for
strength.
"William, William," she cried at the top of her lungs, "What has he
done, what can he have done? Constable, oh, leave him here; in all his
life he has never done anything wrong; he always goes straight to bed;
he does not drink, he never quarrels, he is always peaceable--oh, do
him no harm! Jesus, Mary, constable, dear constable, do the child no
harm!"
Her teeth chattered in fear and sobbing; she had let go the uniform and
tried now to release her son from the iron grasp. She probably did not
herself know that she was hitting and scratching.
The constable had no little difficulty in shaking off the woman,
especially when the prisoner, incited by the example of his mother,
also began to offer resistance. But finally a vigorous push disposed of
the old woman, and handcuffs, taken in a twinkling from his pocket,
fettered the culprit.
"To jail?--" The woman's outcry echoed from the dingy walls. She lay on
her knees and wrung her hands. "Nicholas, Nicholas, constable, God in
heaven, what has he done? I swear he is as innocent as a new-born
babe! He never cuts grass in other people's fields, he tears off no
branches in the wood--he never climbed the fence to steal the pastor's
apples--believe me, believe me, by my eternal salvation, he is a good
boy! He always sent me coffee and sugar, and a black apron to wear to
church on Sunday, and he had his photograph taken for his mother, and
every year he came to spend one day with me. Oh, he is so good, believe
me every word! I will die on the spot if I am not telling the simple
truth. Nicholas"--she turned beseechingly to the chairman--"Nicholas,
you have known me all the days of my life. Have I ever told you a lie?
Help me! Let him stay here!" She made a motion as if to embrace his
knees.
"Do not be too hasty, Katie," murmured the chairman as he drew back.
"Your William will soon be coming home again; it is only that he may
prove that he--hm--" In embarrassment he tried to avoid the woman's
anxiously penetrating look. "Hm, in order that we may find out--in
short, that it was not he who lighted all these fires."
"Fires? He--lighted the fire?" Utterly nonplussed the woman glared at
her own hearth. "No, I have always lighted the fire myself!"
"Nonsense!" The constable was becoming impatient; the idea had been to
arrest the fellow without further ado, and now the tumult had lasted so
long that soon the whole street would swarm with curious spectators.
"Stupid woman, we are not talking about that fire. He has been setting
fires, the scalawag! Forward now, march!"
William had been setting fires? The old woman lifted her hands in
amazement. It could be believed that her William had set fires!
"Jesus, Mary!" she made the sign of the cross and folded her hands. "A
sin!" Why, that was a crime! Her William a criminal? That was almost
enough to make you laugh! "Ha, ha!" She laughed convulsively: "No,
constable, William never does anything of that kind."
"Come along," said the constable, shoving William out of the door.
"We shall find out about that. If the fellow has not done it, they will
send him back home again before very long!"
Indeed they would! Of this she was quite certain.
* * * * * *
But William did not come as soon as Widow Driesch had expected. Four
times she had already been at the chairman's house to find out about
it, and on the street and in the fields she shouted after him, "Hey,
Nicholas, when is William coming home?"
But he too could tell her nothing. He only shrugged, and consoled her,
when he saw her anxious face and expectant eyes, with the unvarying
words, "Do not be so hasty, Katie, he will soon come back!"
Meanwhile four weeks had come and gone. From the grove of fir-trees
near the village went forth an extraordinary odor of pitch;
slow-running, amber colored streaks had oozed from the shaggy trunks;
every drop of moisture seemed to have evaporated from the trees. In the
stillness of the August afternoon one could hear the falling of needles
and the crackling of twigs and branches. The sun had glowed too
ardently overhead.
A mealy odor came from the fields; the grain had been cut. It lay in
swathes on the ground; the women gathered, the men bound it into
sheaves, and the children, who now were at liberty to pass by the
closed door of the schoolhouse, ran about over the stubble and
collected the stray ears. The hammering of scythes after the day's work
was done, this monotonous village music, had ceased; in its stead could
now be heard by day the creaking of ox carts over the hardened clayey
road, while cries of "gee," "haw" and the cracking of whips woke the
echoes in the glimmering air above the fields.
All the people were in the fields--all but Katherine Driesch; she had
no harvest to gather. Quietly she sat in her cottage and heard, when
the rumble of the outgoing wagons had died away, nothing but the
buzzing of flies and the crackling of the brush-fire on her hearth. She
kept the fire going as always; for when he came home she wished him to
find things to his liking. And as she sat there, her idle hands in
her lap--she could not work; what should she do, why should she do
anything?--he was not there--the thoughts passed through her mind,
merciful heaven, what if they did something to William! How long were
they going to keep him in jail? She no longer put faith in Nicholas--he
was deceiving her, in spite of his gray hair. He avoided her; yesterday
evening she had plainly seen it.
She had run up to him as he was striding home in front of his loaded
harvest wagon with his pitchfork over his shoulder.
"When is William coming home?"
But he had turned his head and said something about the weather to
Matt, his son, who was walking behind him.
"Hi, Nicholas!" Was he deaf? She had seized him by the bosom of his
shirt and shouted into his face, "When is he coming?" He must have
heard!
But instead of giving any answer he had grown angry. "Let me alone!"
And had lashed his oxen which, head down under the yoke, were toiling
and panting along; "Hey, you beasts, get up, get up!" Then quickening
his pace, he had passed on with his son and his farm-hand, and his
little grandson high up on the sheaves of golden grain.
And she had stood there unanswered and had stared like a simpleton at
the bits of white foam which had dripped from the mouths of the
laboring oxen.
Why had Nicholas not stayed to answer her question? All night she
could not sleep for wondering; and though she had been diligent in
prayer, she had been able to find no peace. In the old days Nicholas
had been glad to exchange greetings with her--he never had passed her
by! Like a flash it dawned upon her that other people too avoided her!
Her neighbor on the left, Joseph Heid, whose house leaned so close upon
hers that the two seemed to be but one, used never to see her weed her
garden or water her cabbage without having a little chat with her. And
her neighbor on the right, Mrs. Schneider, a widow like herself, who
needed but to reach out in order to tap on her window, had not knocked
at her door for days. What ailed them? She was not conscious of any
unfriendliness, nor had she started any gossip. Could it be because of
William? Mercy, the poor boy; what did they have against him? He had
tended the cattle so carefully; he was fond of every cow, and if a
little pig grew weary, he brought it home in his arms. They would not
find another shepherd so good as he. Now the poor creatures had to
remain in the stuffy stable; nobody found time, during the harvest, to
drive them out into the fresh air. Oh, they would see at last how much
William was worth to them! But that is the way they had always been: if
any one has been a great while out in the world, he is no longer one of
us--and as to William, who was more peculiar than any of them, him they
all looked at askance. May be that they envied him the money which he
drew as a pension, like a retired gentleman; perhaps they even
begrudged his having got in addition the post of village herdsman. It
was such a fine living for them both. Now they did not need, as they
were growing old, to go out working by the day as they formerly had
done--ah, me! how fortunate she was in her William! Other men of his
age are long since married and have children; but she had her son all
to herself!
In the quiet of her loneliness the mother recalled to mind all the days
of their life together. There had not been much talk between them,
William was taciturn; but at times, when the cruel headaches tormented
him, he had leaned his head against her like a helpless child, and she
had stroked his forehead gently, very gently, and he had purred like a
cat in response. That had been such a happy time! Oh, if he were only
there once more!
An overpowering impulse forced her to fall upon her knees here as
though she were in church and vow to the Holy Mother on the supreme
throne a candle of white wax, if she would restore her her son. In the
midst of tears which, without her knowing it, coursed down her wrinkled
cheeks, she promised, "I vow to thee a candle for thy altar, Mary,
Mother of Mercy! I will light for thee a candle which shall burn so
brightly, shall flame so high! Saint Mary, Mother of God, hear my
prayer for thy Son's sake, for thy Son's sake!"
Fervently she repeated this supplication many times.
During the following night she thought she heard his footstep. She
started up, her heart beating violently. But the footsteps did not stop
at her door, they passed by; it was probably some one going home late
from the tavern. Alas! nobody came to her house, and a nameless longing
arose in her to creep on her hands and knees until she came where her
son was.
Where was he? In jail! This was what the Schneider woman had screamed
at her when she could no longer endure her loneliness and had knocked
at the house next door. In jail--yes, she knew that; but what was he
there for, what was he doing there so long? Neighbor Schneider had not
known that either--or was she perhaps unwilling to tell? And why was he
there? Well, the neighbor had made no answer to this question, but she
had struck up a great lamentation about the evil world and wicked
people, and had repeatedly crossed herself. "God preserve us, God keep
us, Holy Mother, pray for us--such a fellow, such a monster!" And then
she had sighed, "Katie, I must say I am sorry for you--heigho, such a
trial!"
There had been no comfort to be got from Mrs. Schneider; on the
contrary, since Katherine had knocked at her door a still more
consuming agitation had come over her. She trotted back and forth in
her room, from the bed to the bench, from the bench to the clothes
press, from the clothes press to the hearth; she picked up now this
thing and now that, first the pail, then the bowl, then the knife, then
the spoon--all to no end and purpose. Back in the stall the forgotten
goat bleated piteously. In the midst of her trotting the woman then
stopped suddenly and took her head in her hands; but she did not
remember the forgotten goat--what, what had neighbor Schneider said? "I
must say I am sorry for you"--and "Such a fellow, such a monster"--whom
did she mean? Who was a "fellow," who was a monster? It was to be hoped
she did not mean her William! Oho! In the meek eyes of the old lady
there began to be a gleam; she clenched her fist and beat at the wall
of the room, so that the woman next door might hear, and reviled her
the while, "Impudent jade, liar!"
No, her son was not a "fellow" and he was not a monster either. The
thought of him appeased her wrath but did not suffice to banish her
agitation. If she only knew why he did not come home for so long! Oh,
if he were only here now, to taste of the good food which daily she
cooked afresh for him, and which the cat then devoured because he still
failed to come. She herself subsisted on coffee; she could not swallow
a single morsel of food; her throat was as though strangled with cords.
And her breast was weighed down as with a rock--there was no longer any
means by which she could roll this away.
In former years she had rejoiced with the others when, heavy laden with
the harvest, the carts had reeled past her cottage; when, without
mishap, the neighbors had housed the corn, ripe and dry. Now, for all
she cared, the heavens might have yawned wide and belched water without
end, till everything had been beaten down as with sledge hammers! She
had used every morning to go to mass and had diligently prayed for
divine protection against flood. Now the thunder might crash and the
lightning strike and hailstones come rattling down as big as hen's
eggs--why did not William come?
There was this year a blessed harvest. The people of the Eifel had
never before had such a quantity of dead-ripe grain dry in their barns.
If the good weather would only hold out a little longer! In two days
the last load would be safely garnered.
The village was glad, all of the two hundred souls rejoiced, man and
woman, boy and girl. Even the little children cooed with pleasure on
the turf by the side of the grain fields where their mothers had left
them in the shade of a chance bush, along with the jug and the tin
dinner pail, while they industriously helped their husbands. Even in
the weary evening the harmonica resounded and maidens laughed around
the well.
Everywhere Widow Driesch heard people talking about the good season.
She was now impelled to go out on the street. Where two or three were
gathered together she drew near--were they talking of William? Oh, no!
Disappointed she retreated, only to continue, passing restlessly along
the row of cottages and pricking up her ears in the direction of the
little windows. Laughter within and the rattle of dishes, the deep
voices of men, chatter of women, and the cries of children. But about
William she heard nothing. Her eyes, which found no more sleep, were
growing dull and red and beclouded. The neighbors and the village and
all familiar things seemed removed to a great distance from her. The
only thing that she clearly perceived was the road along which her son
would soon be coming--yes, must certainly come!
The women followed her with sympathetic eyes when she carried her
bucket to the well, her spare form bent, her gray hair protruding in
disorder from under her cap. But she now shyly avoided the half
curious, half compassionate greetings--what did these women mean by
their stupid peeping? No, she needed now no human companion, she did
not ask for a word from anybody--she wanted her son to come back, she
craved to have him with her again. Defiantly and painfully she closed
her lips tight and kept back the question that in spite of her
continually demanded utterance. Why ask? Even the Holy One before whose
altar she rubbed the pavement with her brow gave her no answer, and
there was only one answer for which she yearned.--
On Sunday evening sounds of merriment pealed forth from the tavern. The
men of the village were inside. Too bad that a Sunday had intervened,
otherwise they might have harvested the last load. Now they must on the
morrow go out once more into the fields. But--all hands on deck! Women,
the older children too, even the old men must not shirk tomorrow, and
then, hurrah! it would be all over for this year!
In the street the children were playing. They had established
themselves right in front of Widow Driesch's house; the two flagstones
that served as steps to the front door were so convenient for playing
jackstones, or only to sit on, with the hands about the bent knees and
the nose uplifted, while you yelled to the insects swarming in the warm
air:
"Come, linnet, come,
Come beat my drum!"
Old Katherine kept her door and window tightly closed; the
children's noise was painful to her. She sat by the hearth, with her
head swathed in a thick kerchief; but she heard the cries
nevertheless.
"Come, linnet, come!"
"William, come!" Lifting up both arms, she stretched her trembling
fingers beseechingly on high. He had not come today either. Jesus,
Mary, where could he be staying so long? Of yore he had stayed away
much longer, a whole year, years at a time, and she had never so longed
to see him--then he had been well off, she knew--but now, how was it
with him now? A frightful uncertainty tormented her. She had never seen
a jail, and of the young men hereabouts nobody had ever been in one.
Did he get enough to eat there; did they keep him warm? Who stroked his
brow when he had a headache?
"Come, linnet, come!"
The children's singsong caused her almost physical pain. Hobbling to
the window, she opened it so violently that it nearly fell from its
warped frame, and cried out, "Get away from here, go along," and
threatened with clenched fist.
The children were abashed; they had not been accustomed to being driven
away from here. The littlest began to weep; but Heid's Peterkin from
next door, feeling safe in the proximity of his father's house, stuck
out his tongue and yelled, as he retired toward the paternal door,
"Incendiary, incendiary, your William is an incendiary, they are going
to hang him!"
"Ow, they're going to hang him," howled the chorus and scattered on all
sides.
The woman stood speechless; with her threatening hand still raised she
remained by the window. "Incendiary--incendiary--they are going
to hang him"--resounded in her ears. Hang him? She shuddered at
the thought. They surely would not do anything to hurt William?
Incendiary--he was no incendiary! It was ridiculous--children's
nonsense! But suddenly mortal terror seized her: had not the constable,
when he arrested William, also said something about "fires?" She had
thought no more about it, but now it occurred to her--"He has been
setting fires, the scalawag"--really, it was ridiculous!
"Hahahahaha!" She laughed--an insane laughter, while she leaned far
out of the window and held her aching sides.
Then she shut the window; it was time to go to bed. But she was afraid
in the boundless solitude of her room--afraid of what?--She did not
know, herself. What if she should call upon her neighbor to the left?
She had the most confidence in Heid--he was a solid man, he had also
been out in the world, he had got as far as Manderscheid and Daun. She
would ask him what his Peter had meant by the words "incendiary" and
"hang."
With heavy steps the old woman dragged herself from her back door into
her little garden. She stamped her way through the potato patch which
lay along the fence, heedless whether or not she snapped asunder any of
the blossoming sprays.
"Hi, Joseph, pst!"
"Well, what's the matter?" Heid had just been feeding his cows.
In his shirt-sleeves he came from the stable, still wearing the
gay-colored cravat and the starched collar that he had put on to go to
the tavern. "Well, what do you want?" The tone of his question did not
sound very inviting.
But she paid no attention to this. Leaning both arms on the fence, she
bent over, so as to come quite close to him. And in confidence she
spoke, in a low tone, as though she feared the potato vines at her feet
and the beans in her neighbor's garden might hear the words, "Say,
Joseph,--incendiary--what does that mean? And hang--are people still
hanged now-a-days?"
"Why do you ask?" He looked at her in surprise.
"Well, your Peterkin says that William--William--" once more the vague
apprehension of something incomprehensibly horrible came over her, so
that she could hardly utter the words--"he says that William, my
William is going to be hanged! Oh, tell me,"--despairingly she seized
the man's hands--"Tell me, when is he coming back? They aren't going to
hurt him, are they?"
"Hm, well"--Joseph Heid rubbed his nose and scratched himself behind
the ears--"one cannot say for certain. William is now detained on
suspicion and the case is being investigated. They will soon prove that
he set the fires."
"What fires?" She opened her eyes wide.
"Why, the fires here in the village! There was a continual series of
fires, now here, now there--oh, don't act as though you did not know
that!--and since your William has been in jail, there are no more, not
a single one. That is very suspicious!"
"Suspicious--suspicious!" she stammered.
"Yes, say yourself, is it not? Listen! You will yourself be examined.
And all of us, as witnesses. William did it, there is no doubt about
that. Otherwise there would have been more fires long ago. Good
evening!"
He left her standing there and, hopping over the garden beds, he made a
few strides toward his house, glad to have got away from her.
She did not call after him; she spoke never a word. She stood as if
overwhelmed, her hands clasping the fence post. A cold sweat ran down
her body and she shivered in a frightful chill. Her son--her
William--he was--they said he--what was it they said that he had done?
It was as though she had been struck a blow on the head; all at once
she could not think clearly of anything. There was but one thing she
knew: her William must come soon, come _soon_ and shut the mouths of
those slanderers!
Groaning she tottered to her cottage. Inside it was now quite dark;
only the glow on the hearth cast a few feeble rays. The black cat
purred. She took him in her lap and stroked him until sparks snapped in
his fur. He purred louder and louder, like a spinning wheel--the wheel
was whirring in her own head.
It whirred and whirred: incendiary--her William was no
incendiary--hanged--her William was not going to be hanged--the
constable and Heid were asses--there had been fires in the
village--since he had been gone there had been no more fires in the
village--the case was being investigated, they will soon prove--no, her
William was no incendiary, her William was not going to be hanged--the
constable, Heid, the judges, they were all asses--no, her William was
no incendiary--but how, _how_ prove it?
With a shriek she started up. Her William was innocent, perfectly
innocent; she, his mother, could take her oath to this! But who--who
would believe her?
"Holy Mary, Mother of God, have mercy! I will light thee a
candle--so bright, so tall!--He is innocent! Help, have mercy, Holy
Mary, Mother, help!"
She babbled and sobbed and wrung her hands. On her knees she crept
through the room and beat the floor with her brow. What should she do,
how could she prove that her William was not he who had set the fires?
The night was flying, the cocks were already beginning to crow, soon
the ruddy morning would be peering in at the window. What should she
do, how should she help him?
"Holy Mary, that art highly favored, hail to thee! I vow thee--"
There had been fires in the village; now that William was in jail there
were no more fires; but what if--Her eyes suddenly began to stare;
drawing a deep breath, she unclasped her folded hands, her lips ceased
to murmur, she seized hold of her head and turned herself about as if
reeling, and became at once quite calm; through the gloom of her
tortured brain there flashed an inspiration: what if, after all, there
should be fires again?
* * * * * *
They were all far out in the fields. Even the old people and the
children had gone out with the others. The children, dancing ahead of
the wagons, stirring up the dust of the street, the old people plodding
along after, the infant, or the loaf of bread and the jug of coffee in
the dosser.
Only the appealing lowing of a cow that with full udder stood in the
stall, the plaintive bleating of a goat that had been staked by the
house, the furious grunting of a pig that longed to get out of the hot
sty and roll on the ground, animated now and then the stillness of
death that hung over the village.
It was not yet mid-day, but the sun was already very oppressive, its
rays were actually heavy; they weighed down everything in the gardens:
the climbing beans, the broad-leaved turnips, the grass turned to
autumn yellow in the drought. The two closely built rows of houses blew
hot air into each other's faces; they were like ovens. All of the
timbers, which were of pine, the doors and window frames sweated pitch
and, dry to the marrow, gaped in wide crannies. Now and then came a
gust of wind; but it brought no refreshment, it merely stirred up the
dust, and the air became closer than ever. Perfect harvest weather; the
blue sky with a touch of gray from the dusty exhalations of the grain
fields and a suggestion of dinginess from the hot breath of the
steaming earth.
From the chimneys of the empty cottages no smoke was curling; today
nobody came home to dinner, today nobody rested until evening, when the
last load of grain should have been housed. Carefully the housewives
had put out the fire on the hearth before they went to the fields, even
pouring water on any embers that might still contain life.
There was smoke only at Widow Driesch's. She was the only woman at
home, and she had a fire on her hearth, as always. A big fire. Was she
baking cakes? Had her son come home and was that why there was such a
cloud of smoke in her flue? Dense gray clouds poured from the chimney
and settled heavily upon the roof. And now she opened the door, the
back door by the side of which was the brush pile; Widow Driesch came
out, in one hand a box of matches and in the other an oil can.
Carefully she poured the last drop over the dry pile of brush, she
scratched a match--hi, the whole box caught fire, she dropped it and a
swift flame greedily lapped up the oil-soaked twigs.
With wide-open eyes the old woman stood by and saw them burn. The flame
quickly climbed up the wall of the house--crash!--the back window burst
from the heat. Miauing, the black cat jumped out and with singed fur
sought safety in flight.
She too now went away, slowly, one step at a time, often stopping and
looking back: would not the fire go out again? She began to feel
anxious. Had she perhaps not carefully enough raked the great fire in
the hearth out into the room and spread it about the floor? And covered
it with straw and oil-soaked rags? All her woolen things, her black
Sunday gown and the kerchief--a gift from her deceased husband--she had
torn to bits for the purpose. Had she perhaps not put sufficient
burning chips into the bed, among the feathers of the pillows that she
had ripped open? Oh, yes! The bed was already burning like a torch when
she had tottered out of the back door, half smothered, with eyes
blinded by smoke. Oh, yes, she could rest easy on that score, the house
would burn surely enough, there would be a flame that all the village
could see!
Somewhat more rapidly she walked on. She intended to go up to the
pasture. Up on the hill top she could best see how the fire rose higher
and higher, how it caught the roof, which her late husband had thatched
anew for the wedding; how it consumed the house that her grandfather in
paradise had built in days of yore!
She only hoped that nobody would come home too soon, before the house
was really burning, was burning like mad!
She still worried. Concealed by the grove of fir-trees, the village was
now out of her sight. Was the house still burning, was it really still
burning?
She ran and panted uphill. Up, up to the pasture! There she could see,
there--
"Ah!" A long scream of insane delight arose tumultuously from her
breast. There the village lay at her feet. A thick cloud of smoke had
settled down upon it. But now, now--ah!--now there was a red flame
shooting through the cloud! It divided, a whirlwind was blowing in it,
fiery tongues stuck up, gigantic, joyously bright, and lapped to the
right, and lapped to the left, and united, and flowed into one another,
and grew longer and broader--became a fiery ribbon that unrolled more
and more and speedily wound itself out as if from a spool.
With wide-staring eyes the woman gazed: Jesus, that was a fire--that
was a fire!
It was a long while ago that Widow Driesch's cottage was the only one
on fire. Dried by the drought and the ardent sun, the thatched roofs
had been kindled like tinder. Now the cottages were burning, four,
five. But as though this were not enough, the wind got behind and blew
air into the flames. The conflagration swept down one whole side of the
village; in ghostly haste the flames leaped from gable to gable. Like
mats rolled together by a scrupulous hand, the thatched roofs curled
up; first they sizzled, then they flared, but then--hi!--the ripe
grain, every kernel a spark, exploded like powder and shot sheaves of
fire into the air. A noisome exhalation mounted to the heavens and
darkened the sky; from the stables came the desperate cries of the
confined animals.
Katherine Driesch did not hear the wretched bellowing of the creatures
dying in the flames. She did not hear the cries which suddenly like an
alarm were wafted to her from far down in the fields. She did not hear
the crashing of beams and walls--she merely saw. Saw, with triumphant
eyes, a wild, undulating tempest of flame, a glow, gigantic, blotting
out the sunshine with its redness, a torch, tall as a pine-tree,
brandished by the wind and flaring up to heaven, up to the eternal
throne of the Most Merciful.
The mother fell to her knees upon the pasture, upon the green grazing
ground of the herds, and stretched wide her arms and clasped them
together again, as though she were taking some one to her heart; and
wept and laughed and raised her trembling hands high above her gray
head and cried louder than the hundred voices of the on-rushing
villagers--cried into the tumult of the bellowing beasts, into the
crashing of the beams and the crackling of the flames:
"My William! Now he will come!"
EDUARD VON KEYSERLING
* * * * * *
GAY HEARTS (1909)
TRANSLATED BY BAYARD QUINCY MORGAN, PH.D.
Assistant Professor of German, University of Wisconsin
At Kadullen dinner was served in summer as early as four o'clock, so
as to leave the evening clear for summer amusements. Then the afternoon
light rested steadily on the extensive white garden-front and the three
ponderous gables of the manor. In the rectilinear beds the stocks
glinted like bright, wavy silk, and the scent of the box-hedges was
warm and bitter. A servant stationed himself on the steps of the garden
porch and rang a large bell as signal that it was time to dress for
dinner.
The host, old Count Hamilcar of Wandl-Dux, was already completely
dressed and came out into the garden with his guest, Professor von
Pinitz. Count Hamilcar, very tall and slender in his black frock-coat,
had a slight stoop. His Panama was pulled low on his forehead. The
smooth-shaven face with the long, thin-lipped mouth had a touch of the
ascetic, like those faces in which everything that life has inscribed
upon them seems mitigated and as it were disavowed. With long strides
he began to walk down the garden path. The professor could hardly keep
step, for he was short and stout; his white vest was stretched tight
over his round paunch, and his face was red and heated under the
cinnamon-colored, stubbly whiskers. He was telling the count a
remarkable dream he had had; this was his interest at present, for he
intended to write a treatise on the theory of dreams, and the count was
giving him the material which he too had once gathered on this subject.
Count Hamilcar always had material gathered for the books which others
planned to write, but had never written one himself.
"I never knew," he was wont to say, "which one of my books to write,
and so I never wrote any."
"Imagine, then," the professor was reporting, "I was at the house of my
colleague Domnitz, in my dream, you know. Well, Domnitz laid both hands
on my shoulders, put on a very solemn face, and said in a very deep
voice, which he never has had, 'Colleague, I have found the basic,
original form of beauty, simply beauty-in-itself.' I tell you, I felt
it in all my limbs, a kind of fright or joy or emotion, I suppose, I
was so near weeping. Those are sensations which we can only have in
dreams. 'No, really,' I said, 'where is it?' 'There,' he said and
why--and showed it to me."
"He showed it to you?" asked the count, coming to a stop, "well--and
how did it look?"
The professor squinted, as if to look sharply at some object. "It
looked," he said, "why, it really looked quite simple, you know. A
narrow white slab like the gravestones in the Jewish cemeteries, a yard
high, I guess, rounded at the top, and in the curve a face: the eyes
simply two points, the nose a vertical stroke, the mouth a horizontal
one--that was all. What do you say to that, ha?"
"Peculiar," said the count, looking out into the garden over the
professor's head.
"Yes, but the most wonderful part of it was," continued the professor,
lowering his voice as if speaking of very mysterious things, "that I at
once said 'Ah yes,' for it was immediately obvious to me, and I knew
that that was beauty-in-itself; yes, I felt as if I had really known it
for a long time. How do you explain that?"
"Why, that is not easy," replied the count a little absentmindedly,
still looking out into the garden.
[Illustration: A PORTRAIT]
Adolf Münzer
Yonder between the hollyhocks and the beds of mallow there were now
signs of life. A bevy of young girls and men came down the path toward
the house, light summer dresses and flannel suits and an eager whirl of
voices. Now the professor also became silent and turned toward the
newcomers. There were his two daughters, big girls in flaming pink
batiste dresses and yellow sun-hats, both very heated. Both were
laughing at once in a high, rather shrill soprano. Beside them walked
Lieutenant von Rabitow of the Alexander Regiment, a little stiff-legged
in his white tennis suit. The count's two nephews, Egon and Moritz of
Hohenlicht, both students, both very fair, their hair parted all the
way down to their necks, had stopped midway and were sparring with
their racquets. Miss Demme, the governess, was chiding and pushing
fourteen-year-old Erika before her, and Erika opposed her by moving but
sluggishly her thin legs in their black stockings. The two old
gentlemen complacently let this wave of youthful life swirl by them.
Both smiled a little.
"Do you see, Professor, yonder is instantly obvious beauty, too, really
beauty-in-itself," resumed the count, pointing to a bed full of fat
dark-red "Sultan of Zanzibar" roses, beside which his seventeen-year-old
daughter Billy was standing.
It was very pretty to see the girl standing there by the roses in her
light-blue summer dress, her round face pink and smiling and hatless.
In the blinding sunshine her hair had a deep, warm brown like old port,
and the whole picture was as richly colored as a flower-bed. Beside
Billy stood Marion Bonnechose, the daughter of the French governess,
who had been brought up with Billy; short and dark, with brown eyes too
large for her lean, somewhat yellowish face, which were looking at
Billy with watchful interest.
"Certainly," said the professor, "Countess Sibyl is indubitably very
beautiful, but the beauty-in-itself in my dream was simply a
semicircular white tablet."
The young people had disappeared in the house, and Billy and Marion
also ran toward it, their hands full of red roses. The garden grew
quiet again. The count threw his head back a little, and drew into his
long white nose the scents of the late summer flowers, of ripe plums
and early pears, with the expression of a _gourmet_ drinking a
delicious wine. From the tennis-court a last straggler came, Boris
Dangellô. He walked slowly and thoughtfully with bowed head; only when
he passed the two gentlemen he saluted them and his fine pale face
smiled, but his eyes kept their brooding expression, as if they did not
wish to disturb their own sentimental beauty.
"Also beauty," remarked the professor. "Your nephew, Mr. von Dangellô,
looks unusually well."
But in this there was something that put out the count. "For a young
person," he said severely, "it is not advantageous to look so well:
that diverts and detracts."
"You think so," murmured the professor, "I don't know, I have no
experience in that line."
They had now reached the end of the garden path, stood still a moment,
and looked out over the garden gate upon the stubble-fields and cropped
meadows. Behind them the woods formed a blue-black frame about the
picture, yellow in the sunshine--that dense pine forest that extended
unbroken to the Russian border.
"I do not know whether I am mistaken," the professor began again, "but
it seems to me as if good looks were more general in the present
generation than in my youth. Nowadays every one looks well."
"Possible," replied the count, "but perhaps we are accountable for it,
too. We now have the right perspective, and you know that pictures grow
more beautiful when viewed from the right distance. But above all,
Professor, we need that. In our old age we wish to have beautiful youth
about us, we demand beauty of youth. That is very egoistic. We enjoy it
at our ease. But poor youth. Do you think 'being beautiful' is easy?
Beauty complicates destiny, imposes responsibilities, and above all it
disturbs our seclusion. Imagine, Professor, that you were very
beautiful. With every human being you encounter your face establishes
some relation, affects him, forces itself upon him, speaks to him,
whether you will or no. Beauty is a constant indiscretion. Would that
be agreeable?"
"I ... I suppose I can't just imagine myself in that situation,"
replied the professor.
The count smiled his restrained, somewhat crooked smile. "Yes, yes, we
two have been spared these difficulties."
Then they turned and walked back toward the house.
On the porch they found Countess Betty, Count Hamilcar's sister, who
had been managing his household and bringing up his children ever since
he became a widower. She was dressed in her imposing white lace
burnous. The white face with its little pink cheeks looked very small
under the great lace cap fashionable in the sixties. Aunt Betty was
sitting as at a sick-bed beside the reclining chair on which her oldest
niece Lisa had stretched herself. Lisa, the divorced wife of Prince
Katakasianopulos, wearily leaned her head back and half closed her
eyes. Short tangled brown curls hung into the delicate pale face in a
kind of Ophelia-coiffure. She wore a black lace dress, for ever since
the annulling of her marriage she liked to dress in black. She had made
the acquaintance of her Greek at Biarritz, and had obstinately insisted
on marrying him. But when Prince Katakasianopulos proved himself an
impossible spouse, the family was happy to be rid of him again.
Lisa, however, had since then retained a tragic something which Aunt
Betty treated as sickness and invested with the most solicitous care.
The tutor, a stately Hanoverian, and Bob, the youngest of the family,
had also appeared on the scene.
"How do you feel, Lady Princess?" asked the professor.
Lisa smiled faintly. "I thank you, a little weary."
"We need rest," opined Aunt Betty.
In the background Bob's unmannerly voice echoed, "Wary."
The count looked discontentedly at his daughter. "For excessively
lyrical nerves," he said, "perhaps a little employment would be
advisable."
"Why, Hamilcar," parried Aunt Betty.
Lisa raised her eyebrows resignedly and turned to the tutor to begin an
amiable conversation: "Is it as hot as this in your home, too, Mr.
Post?"
Upstairs Billy appeared at the door of the sun-parlor in a white dress
with red roses at her belt, and as she came down the steps to the
porch, all looked up at her and smiled involuntarily. She smiled too,
as if bringing something pleasant. Bob voiced the general feeling by
crying, "Today Billy looks first-class again." Boris followed her and
at once took possession of her, to talk to her in a low voice. He
always spoke with ladies in that way, as if what he said were
confidential.
All the inmates of the house were now assembled, except the professor's
wife. She always kept people waiting.
"Oh yes, my wife," remarked the professor, "she gives me sufficient
proof that time is something subjective. She always has her own."
At last she came, heated and with fluttering red cap-ribbons. They
could go to dinner.
Count Hamilcar loved this situation: to sit at the head of the long
table, look down the lines of young faces, and hear the buzzing of the
lowered voices. That cheered him. Then he kept up the conversation, and
tried to have it agreeable and harmonious. But today something like a
discordant note came into it.
They were talking politics. The professor was a patriot and a
National Liberal. He interrupted the consumption of his peas, seized
a crouton with thumb and forefinger, gesticulated with it, and said
enthusiastically,
"Now, if you please, in science I as a scholar follow reason and logic
quite unreservedly, wherever they may lead me, but in politics it is
different, there an important factor is added, an emotion, the love of
the German fatherland. Understanding and logic must share the supremacy
with love, no, what am I saying--they must be subordinate to love; yes,
actually subordinate. So I too am quite ready to be at times illogical
for love of the fatherland. Yes, my dear count, I am."
He looked triumphantly about him and laughed.
"Surely, surely," said the count, "it would be a bad thing anyway, if
we were not now and then willing to be illogical."
Here Boris bent forward and began to speak with his slightly singing
Slavic accent and his trilled r:
"You are quite right, Professor, but it need not always be love, it can
also be hate. To us Poles hate is sacred too."
The count lifted his eyebrows and bent over his plate. "I have
noticed," he said with an acrimony that surprised them all, "that hate
as an occupation blunts the intellect."
Boris paled. He was about to flare up. "I beg your pardon, uncle," he
began, but then he shrugged his shoulders and smiled ironically. Both
Billy and Marion, who sat opposite him, blushed and looked anxiously at
him. The two children farther down the table snickered. There was an
awkward pause, until the professor hastily began to speak again. Boris
was silent, looked down with an injured expression, and refused all
food. Billy and Marion had also lost all pleasure in eating, and were
glad when the meal ended.
The sun was already shining quite aslant through the fruit-trees when
coffee was served on the porch. Count Hamilcar smoked a cigarette and
looked complacently down the garden, which was again teeming with life.
At this hour his eyelids always grew a little heavy. Yonder along the
box-hedge Boris and Billy were walking up and down. Boris was speaking
eagerly, making large gestures with his slender white hand, so that his
many rings sparkled in the sun. There was in this something that
displeased the count, but he did not wish to be vexed while in this
agreeable situation. But when he rose and went to his room to rest a
little, he met his sister. He stopped, laid one finger along his nose,
and said, "Betty, as I was going to say."
"What then, Hamilcar," said the old lady, bending her head very far
back so as to look into her brother's eyes.
The count pointed through the window toward the box-hedge: "Those two
out there, you ought to watch a little."
"Oh, Hamilcar," said Betty, "do let the young folks talk to each other.
We were young once ourselves."
Again the count smiled his restrained, crooked smile. "Certainly,
Betty, we were young once, too, and it would surely be good if our
children had their own advantage from this experience of ours. Polish
brandy-eyes produce an unhealthy intoxication; we have had enough and
to spare of the Greek variety. You ought to watch a little."
With that he went into his room and stretched out on his sofa. He loved
this half hour of rest. He closed his eyes. The windows were wide open.
From the garden the voices came in to him, as they called, sought, and
joined each other, and with them was the unwearying chirping of the
field-crickets. "How busy they are at their work," thought the count,
"what a hurry they are in; it sounds as if each one were madly reeling
the thread off a spool. How those spools hum, how feverish is the
unrest in them." He felt agreeably aloof from this unrest. As he dozed
off, the voices seemed to withdraw, to become subdued. "Yes, yes, it
must be so, the restless voices move away, die away, and then--quiet.
Yes, it will be so--perhaps--we shall see."
Below along the box-hedge, however, Boris and Billy were still walking
up and down. Boris was talking passionately at Billy. He was quite pale
with eloquence, and knew how to put a wonderfully unreserved pathos
into his words.
"I know your father does not like me; he wishes to humiliate me. Of
course we are not loved here in your land. We are the irksome ones all
through history. Obstinate idealists are not loved. He who is born with
a pain, he who is brought up for a pain, is uncongenial, I know. To be
unhappy is out of date here among you, it is not _comme il faut_."
"Oh, Boris, why do you talk so," said Billy in a voice hoarse with
emotion, "we people here, all of us, like you."
Boris shrugged his shoulders. "All of us, good heavens, as if I cared
about that. But you, Billy, I know you are good, you are for
me,--but no, not as I understand it. Look, we Poles, all of us going
about with a wound in our hearts, understand love differently. We
demand a love which will take our side unconditionally, without a
question, without looking around, which is wholly, wholly, wholly for
us. But," and Boris made a gesture as if he were casting a world from
him, "but, where do we find such a love?"
The sun was now hanging above the fringe of forest, a raspberry-red
disk. Billy stood still and looked wide-eyed at the sun. The dark blue
of those eyes became bright with tears, and two tiny red suns were
reflected in them.
"Oh, Boris, why must you talk so," she struggled to say, "of course you
know--what shall I do, what can I do?"
"You can do everything," retorted Boris mysteriously.
Billy's heart swelled painfully with vast compassion for the handsome
pale lad before her, and it really seemed to her at this moment as if
she could do anything and everything for him.
The garden was now quite red with the light of evening. Everywhere the
young girls and men were standing together, excited by the violent,
many-colored light as by a festal illumination. Egon von Hohenlicht was
making the professor's daughters laugh, always simultaneously. Moritz
was walking about with Marion between the beds of stocks, and they were
speaking of Billy. Even little Miss Demme and the stately Hanoverian
were standing together a little to one side and whispering. Lisa had
had the reclining chair carried out to the grass-plot under the
pear-tree. There she lay motionless, as if she feared a movement might
disarrange the lovely ruddy light that floated over her. Lieutenant von
Rabitow had stretched out on the turf at her feet.
"Oh, how beautiful that is," said Lisa with a softly plaintive melody
in her voice, "seeing it thus, one would not believe that there is so
much pain on this earth too."
"Quite right," remarked the lieutenant, "but we must not think of that.
When I have taken my bath in the evening and finished my toilet, and go
down into the street,--the restaurants are prettily lighted, and when I
turn a corner sharply I bump into dear little giggling girls, and then
I reflect a little and ask myself where I am going--why, then I drive
out of my own head the thought of being on duty tomorrow, with
recruits, et cetera."
"I believe you are happy, Lieutenant von Rabitow," said Lisa softly.
On the veranda, again, Countess Betty and Madame Bonnechose were
sitting together, folding their hands in their laps and saying
reverently, "_Ah, la jeunesse, la chère jeunesse._"
Only the two children were dissatisfied. Bob and Erika stood on the
garden-walk, grumbling because there was no prospect of some amusement:
a walk, or a general game.
"If all of them never do anything but get engaged," said Bob, "then of
course there's nothing doing. Boris takes possession of Billy as if she
was Poland."
"That won't do him any good," remarked Erika, "papa is against the
marriage, I know he is."
The sun had set. From the forest and across the meadows came a damp
breath that shook the branches of the old fruit-trees. Monotonous and
plaintive was the singing of the peasant-girls walking down the dusky
country-road.
Bob had achieved his general game. One person stood by a tree and
counted, the others hid. Billy ran over to the dense barberry-bush.
There it was dark, and one smelled the boards of an old wooden box that
stood there, garden loam, and the sourish barberries. Billy was a
little breathless, her heart beat so violently, she heard it beat: it
sounded like soft steps running, hurry, hurry, toward an unknown
goal. A great agitation made Billy shrink and shudder, such an
agitation as makes the universally familiar things round about seem
strange,--significant and as it were pregnant with secretly,
noiselessly advancing events. Billy was ready for any experience.
Boris' mellow voice seemed to raze all the barriers with which this
child had been solicitously hedged in. Ah yes, to be able to share
Boris' life, so full of great feelings and great words--this was what
Billy now must have.
"Billy," she heard a low voice in the darkness.
It was Boris. Billy was not surprised; she had felt him so passionately
all this time that his presence seemed to her a matter of course.
"Yes, Boris," she answered as softly.
He now stood quite close to her, she detected the strong, sweet perfume
he liked to use.
"Billy," he said, "I come to obtain certainty from you." He was silent,
but Billy could say nothing, and waited. The event whose noiseless
advance she had felt now stood before her.
"Look, Billy," continued Boris, and his voice sounded a trifle dry and
pedagogical, "I must know whether you are in my life that on which I
can absolutely rely. I cannot imagine my life without you, but for that
very reason I must not delude myself, for if I should be deluded in
this, it might be my destruction."
He waited again.
"But Boris, you surely know--" began Billy, but he interrupted her
irritably:
"No, I don't know, I can't know. You don't understand me, all that is
quite different."
Billy was ready to weep; the stern voice that challenged her out of the
darkness was torturing her unspeakably. "I do understand, certainly I
do. Why should I not understand you? Why do you say that? Go and talk
to papa tomorrow: they are all getting engaged, why must it be so
terribly sad in our case?" She was ready to weep; wearily she sat down
on the old box. Then she heard Boris laugh softly, it was the quick,
proud laugh with which he loved to conceal his agitation. Now he too
sat down on the box, took Billy's hand, this cold girlish hand, into
his own, as if it were something fragile and precious, and began to
speak again.
"No, no, you don't understand me. Of course I shall speak with your
father, for I want to be correct; but what good will it do?--your
father hates me. I have always had to fight for my happiness, and that
is what I want and you must want the same. Everything is immaterial, do
you hear?--everything: only one thing matters, that you and I may be
united. I see only you, and you must see only me, and what comes of it
must not affect us, only you and I, you and I." He was still speaking
softly, but his voice resumed its passionately singing tone. He
intoxicated himself again with his own words, his own Self. "If you
cannot do that, then say so at once, for then it is better for me to go
away, no matter what becomes of me. I can die, but to be deceived, that
goes beyond my strength. Can you do it? Speak, speak!" And he pressed
her hand and shook it.
"Yes, I can," replied Billy obediently.
"Then," continued Boris, "we are going toward each other on the same
road: on both sides there are high walls and we can see nothing but
this road, and you see me and I see you and we are going toward each
other, that is all. Do you understand?"
"Yes," said Billy, and she actually saw this yellow road between the
gray walls under a pale-gray sky, and two solitary figures going toward
each other.
"It is immaterial," said Boris, "whether our love is tragic, the only
point is the love itself. We Poles cannot help it if we are born
adventurers, history is to blame for that; but adventurers need
absolutely reliable companions. Are you one? Speak."
Now he drew her firmly to him and kissed her. The great words, her
great compassion, these lips that kissed her, these hands that
feverishly caught at her--all this hurt her. O dear, she thought, if
only this were over. "Please," she whispered, "go now."
Boris at once released her, stood up, and said politely, "If you wish
it. But Billy, I am afraid you are still holding quite aloof from me."
"But I won't be aloof," cried Billy tearfully, and now her tears did
actually come. Boris stood there a moment in silence, then he softly
said "Good night," and left her. Billy remained sitting on the box,
clapped her hands to her face, and wept. The night-dew was dripping
among the barberry bushes. Somewhere out yonder a bat was whirring
through the darkness, uttering its timid and infinitely lonely cry.
Billy was cold, and she was frightened too. She felt as if something
were advancing in the gloom that would take her and carry her away. But
what could she do?--and anyway everything was immaterial now. She
belonged to Boris with his beautiful, incomprehensible pain.
She heard steps; some one stood beside her.
"Billy, are you here?" It was Marion.
"Yes, Marion."
"Are you crying?"
"Yes, I ... I am crying."
Marion sat down on the box at Billy's side, also feeling very much like
crying. Both were silent for a time, then Marion asked,
"Was he here?"
"Yes," replied Billy.
"And did he," continued Marion, "did he say anything? Are you engaged?"
"Yes, I believe so," Billy opined, "but everything is very sad just the
same."
Again the two girls sat in silence side by side. Voices were heard out
in the garden, some one called, "Billy! Marion!" and then it became
quiet.
"Come," said Billy, getting up, "but we won't join the others, for I
don't want to see anybody, nor do I want any tea; we'll go up to our
rooms without letting anybody see us."
Over the roof of the house the moon had risen; the garden was suddenly
alight and the shadows of the trees lay sharp and black on the moonlit
paths. The two girls crept past the bushes along the box-hedge; from
time to time they stood still and listened toward the veranda. There
the others were sitting, and Billy heard the voice of the professor,
then the voice of her father.
"Death, my dear Professor," the latter was just saying, "is
incomprehensible to us for this reason, that we apply to it the
standards of life. It is the same as with dreams. Apply to a dream the
standards of waking, and you will never find your way in it."
"Good heavens," whispered Billy scornfully, "they are talking about
death." Briskly the two girls slipped into the house. Upstairs in the
gable were their rooms, side by side, and they had in common a large
balcony which looked out on the garden. Billy's room was bright with
moonlight, hence she did not light a light. "Has it come?" she asked
Marion.
"Yes," said Marion, "today in the mail," and she fetched out a small
package. By the light of the moon the two girls opened it; it contained
a white china jar with "Anadyomenite" on the lid, and in it was a white
salve which had a sweet odor of roses. "Here are directions, too," said
Marion: she held up a slip in the moonlight and read, "Spread a thin
coat of the salve on the face and then expose it for half an hour to a
soft light, preferably the light of the full moon. The skin becomes
transparent, lily-white ..."
"Good, good," interrupted Billy, "then let's begin."
Silently and eagerly they went to work; carefully they coated their
faces with the salve before the mirror, moved chairs out on to the
balcony, sat there motionless, and looked up at the moon, which hung
round and yellow over the tops of the old maples facing them. Only at
long intervals did one of them say something.
"You know," remarked Billy once, "he has very long eyelashes." "Yes,"
said Marion, "and they turn up a little." Then they were silent again.
In the avenue of maples below, Boris was restlessly walking up and
down. He was smoking cigarettes and thinking. He felt himself, he saw
himself today with particular strength and clearness, he the beloved,
beautiful youth with the tragic, exceptional fate. This caused him a
solemn excitement. But he also knew that he owed himself a significant
experience. Of course Billy was a part of it, that was settled, and now
he was devising plans, busily composing the destiny of the beautiful,
beloved youth. Occasionally he would stand still at the end of the
avenue and look up at the house, up at the balcony on which the white
figures of the two girls sat motionless, their shining faces turned
toward the moon.
Yonder between the flowerbeds the Princess Katakasianopulos was slowly
walking up and down, very slender in her black dress, very pale in the
moonlight. But then, who saw it? She too felt herself to be a precious
instrument of precious experiences. But where were they, for whom these
experiences were destined? At the end of the garden-walk she stopped
and looked pensively out upon the white mists that rose from the
meadow. Once she had lived for a month in Athens with her husband.
Perhaps she was yearning for Greece. Possible. But why was Boris
walking up and down alone in the avenue of maples? and why did the
lieutenant stay there with the others? She seemed to herself like a
festival which stands in lonely splendor, and of which all those who
are to celebrate it know nothing. But from the veranda the voice of
Count Hamilcar, calmly talking on, rang out into the moonlight night.
He was still explaining death to the professor.
A very bright August morning rested upon Kadullen. In the house it was
still quiet. Only Countess Betty was going through the sunny rooms and
pulling down the shades, for the day promised to be hot. Then she went
out into the garden to cut roses. At times she paused in her work and
squinted into the sunshine, looked over at the gardener's boys, or
followed with her eyes the kitchen-maids, coming from the truck-garden
with great baskets full of vegetables. On all sides this easy-going and
well-regulated life was busily stirring. That made her feel good. When
our own life gently begins to incline toward its end, we must warm
ourselves at the strong young life of others, keep our hands full of
great cool roses, and drink in with open lips the morning scent of this
garden. Some one spoke to her from the maple-avenue yonder. Ah yes,
that was Moritz, going down to the lake to bathe. The poor lad. Ever
since he had fallen so desperately in love with Billy, he never was out
of the water, was forever on his way to the lake. The dear children,
how they loved each other and caused each other pain, and how pretty it
all was. Aye, life, this beloved life. Query? will anything come about
between the lieutenant and Elsa. Countess Betty was going to talk to
Madame Bonnechose about it; she had a very keen eye for such matters.
She gathered her roses together and went into the house.
She was astonished to find Boris in the living-room as early as this.
In his suit of cream-colored silk, with the carnation-red belt, he sat
in a chair waiting, pale, very handsome, and a trifle solemn.
"What? Up already, my boy?" said the old lady.
"Yes," said Boris seriously, "I got up on purpose, for I sent to ask
uncle whether he would see me directly after breakfast; I must speak to
him."
Countess Betty looked at her nephew uncertainly and a little anxiously.
"Oh, that's it, well, why shouldn't he see you? But--what is it? Is it
about ... about--"
Boris nodded:--"Yes, about Billy."
"Dear Boris," said the old lady, bending her head back a little so as
to look her nephew in the eyes, "must that be, just at this time? It
will excite Billy so--and your uncle, and me, and us all, and we have
just been so happy and so jolly together. Can't you put it off?"
But Boris grew still more solemn: "I am sorry, dear aunt, that I must
disturb the contentment here. That is, I fear, the part which I am once
and for all destined to play," and he laughed bitterly; "no, I am a
kill-joy, but I do what I have to."
"Oh, oh yes," said Countess Betty anxiously, "well in that
case--perhaps ail will be well. I will go right up to see Billy, for in
any case she must stay in bed for the present; I will take her
breakfast to her." Busily she hurried away, and Boris again seated
himself in his chair, pale and resolute, and waited.
When Boris was called to his uncle, he found the latter in his study,
sitting by the window. He was smoking his morning cigar and looking out
into the courtyard. There the agricultural work of the forenoon was
actively going on. In the pond horses were being watered, quite shiny
in the sun. Harvest wagons rolled past, bright yellow against the blue
sky. The count turned carelessly toward his nephew, nodded to him, and
then immediately looked out of the window again.
"Good morning, Boris," he said; "you wanted to speak to me: very well,
be seated, please."
When Boris had seated himself, it was quite still in the room. He had
prepared so many big words to say, but here in this room before this
old man, whose thoughts seemed to be so far removed from all that
concerned Boris, nothing of what he had prepared now seemed to be in
keeping. "Is he really only interested in the passing harvest wagons,"
thought Boris, "or is he maliciously shamming!"
"How that lad yonder lies on top of the load of barley," the count now
began, "lolling for all the world like a king. He really has the
feeling of ownership now, even though not a straw belongs to him. He
has more feeling of ownership at this moment than I have here at my
window. Remarkable, isn't it?" He turned to Boris. As he noticed
the tense expression on the pale face, he raised his eyebrows a little
and remarked, "Oh, I remember, you wish to speak of yourself; I am
listening." Then he again looked out of the window.
"Yes, uncle," said Boris, and his voice sounded vexed and quarrelsome,
"I wanted to tell you that I ... I love Billy."
The count pulled at his cigar and then said slowly and with marked
nasal intonation,
"Certainly, that is comprehensible. That is natural. Perhaps many
another lad will have the same experience. Billy is an unusually pretty
young girl, and so young men fall in love with her; that has always
been the way of the world."
"But Billy loves me, too," Boris resolutely jerked out.
His uncle looked at him sharply out of his gray eyes; the face kept its
calm, only the nose seemed to grow still whiter: "My dear Boris, in my
youth we too used to fall in love with young girls, and at times we
doubtless said, 'I am in love with such or such a one,' but to say,
'This young girl is madly in love with me,'--that was not considered
good taste in those days."
Boris reddened, but he felt himself regaining his assurance, a certain
agreeable combativeness warmed his heart. He could actually once more
curl up his lips in that sad and proud smile, of which a lady had once
said to him: "That is so pretty that it must be hard not to disappoint
people later on."
"Perhaps it is not good taste," he said, "but there are crises in life
when taste no longer has restraining force; I only meant to say that
Billy and I have come to an agreement. I lack taste, very well, but
only because I should like to be plain."
"Oh, that is it," rejoined Count Hamilcar, and the cigar trembled a
little in his hand, "then I too shall have to be plain. As I have
always taken an interest in you, I have frequently been called upon to
help you out of all the difficulties in which your recklessness, or, to
express myself less plainly, your interesting disposition has involved
you. Then since you know all that I know of you, you will understand
that for the happiness of my daughter I have not counted on you in any
respect."
Now Boris found his eloquence again, found again all the big words that
he had got ready yesterday in the maple-avenue, and he had to rise from
his chair to say them.
"I know all that you have done for me, uncle. I know my failings, too.
But that is not what decides in this case. Billy's love for me is
undeserved good fortune. Such happiness is always undeserved. But not
to stretch out my hands toward it would be suicide for me, yes sheer
suicide."
"My dear boy," interrupted the count, "the use of the word suicide as a
rhetorical device should be urgently discouraged, in the interests of
good taste."
Boris grew impassioned, and his voice rose to a high key: "I care
nothing for rhetorical devices or good taste. The matter at issue is my
destiny, but that would of course be immaterial, immaterial to you. But
Billy is concerned, Billy gives me my right, and even if I am reckless
and unworthy and a bad match and unattractive, Billy's love is my
right."
He had finished and re-seated himself in his chair. That had relieved
him. The count gently stroked his white nose and retorted,
"The right to fall in love with my daughter I cannot deny you, nor the
right to ask me for the hand of my daughter, but what you just said
sounded rather as if you were asking me in Billy's name for your own
hand."
"I wanted to be open and loyal toward you," replied Boris.
"Oh, did you?" remarked the count. "You call it loyal, as a guest in my
house, to 'come to an agreement,' as you call it, behind my back, with
my seventeen-year-old daughter."
"It was perhaps not correct," said Boris wearily and with a superior
air, "but good gracious, when anything so powerful takes possession
here in the heart and here in the head, we simply give it utterance."
Sharply and angrily the count rejoined, "A decent man keeps to himself
nine-tenths of what passes through his head and heart."
"You wish to insult me, uncle," and Boris smiled his handsome
melancholy smile, "very well, very well. Perhaps we Poles cannot keep
our heads and hearts as well in check as you Germans; but that does not
prevent us from being decent."
"It costs little, my boy," scoffed the count, "to lay our faults at our
nation's door; it cannot defend itself. Moreover ..." He stopped, for
his cigar had gone out; he lit it with much ceremony, and when he began
to speak again the irritation was gone from his voice, and it had once
more its contemplatively nasal tone. "The discussion here is probably
fruitless, we are neither of us sufficiently objective in this matter.
I therefore regret having to decline your proposal."
Boris rose and bowed formally. "Then I presume I can go," he said.
"Yes," replied the count, "the subject is exhausted for now. It should
be added that I must beg you to terminate your visit here today."
Boris bowed again.
"Of course in the afternoon," added the count.
"Thank you," said Boris, and then walked out very erect.
Count Hamilcar took a long pull at his cigar and again looked out of
the window. He wished to see another harvest wagon, and a lad lying
sleepily on top of it in the hot yellow straw. In the yard behind a
bush Marion had been standing the whole time, looking in through his
window. Now that Boris was gone, she too ran toward the house. Youth on
duty, reconnoitring against old age, thought the count. He leaned his
head back and closed his eyes.
He was a little weary. Of course she would come at once. As he knew his
daughter, she would not let herself miss the intoxication of loyalty,
of confessing, of having courage to stand before the cruel father.
Goodness, how life kept distributing the same old roles over and over.
Disgusting. Now the door moved. He did not open his eyes: an
unspeakable sluggishness made his eyelids heavy. He heard Billy enter
the room, step up close to him, and stand still before him. Then he
opened his eyes and smiled a little.
"Well, my daughter?" he asked, "come, sit down beside me."
"No, papa," replied Billy, "I had rather stand."
"Very well, stand."--He too had to stand when he delivered his speech,
thought Count Hamilcar. Billy stood there in her white dress, red
carnations at her belt, her arms hanging down, and the hands lightly
clasped. Her face was pale and her eyes very bright. She looks
resolute, flitted through the count's mind, Charlotte Corday at Marat's
bath-tub.
"I simply wanted to say, papa," began Billy, "that I am _for_ Boris,
that I am on his side. Even if you insult him and send him away, I am
for him, I must be."
She spoke calmly, only drawing the red carnations out of her belt and
nervously pulling them to pieces the while.
The count nodded: "Surely, child, I expected nothing else. I fear we
shall not convince each other. You will always see Boris otherwise than
I see him. Our points of vision are simply too different. We cannot
even hold the same opinion about what you are feeling. You consider it
something lasting, even something eternal, h'm? And I--something
transitory. Now I could appeal to my experience and say that I have
seen more things pass away than you have. But you will object that what
you are living through has never been experienced before, is unique. We
cannot meet anywhere. So there is nothing left for it but the old and
tried rule, that I decide and you obey. I am trustee of your life, and
when you begin to be your own trustee, I must hand it over to you
undiminished. But to throw in this Polish cousin I should regard as an
unprofitable debiting of this capital intrusted to me."
"But I prefer to have it debited and ... and ... and all you say, but
with Boris," cried Billy, angrily throwing her carnations on the floor.
The count shrugged his shoulders slightly. "Yes, my child, in this our
views differ, as I say, and for the present my view is the prevailing
one."
Billy was silent. She now let her arms hang limply, her eyes grew quite
round and clear, and into them came the strangest expression of
helplessness, even of fear. "Then--then--" she struggled to say, "then I
don't know."
A boundless repugnance for his paternal rôle rose in the count; was it
really his function to torture this lovely creature? But when he began
to speak, his voice sounded even somewhat more cool and ironical:
"Go now, my daughter. Perhaps it will afford you some peace of mind to,
think that for the pain which you are now feeling not you are
responsible, but I. Life is rich in such little auxiliary hypotheses,
as the professor would say, and why should we not use them."
Billy no longer heard him; her clear eyes seemed to be staring out upon
something at which they wondered and which frightened them. Then she
suddenly faced about and left the room.
The count passed his hand over his face. A devilish feeling, sympathy.
It is really a powerful physical ailment. Then he bent down and picked
up the carnations which Billy had plucked to pieces. He wished to keep
them in his hand.
On this sultry day even life in Kadullen was strangely tense.
Everywhere people stood together in couples and whispered with serious
faces. The professor's daughters sat a little neglected on the
verandah, talking together in low voices. At times Egon joined them and
flirted with them in a half-hearted, absent-minded way. Billy had
withdrawn to her room, whither Countess Betty carried up quantities of
raspberry-juice, and Marion was incessantly racing back and forth
between the garden and Billy's room, carrying messages. No one was
comfortable. Lisa walked around between the flower-beds under her red
parasol. This love affair, in which she was to have no part, made her
restless. The lieutenant had gone partridge-shooting. Of course, she
had seen that in men; when there was a decision to make, or life became
difficult in other ways, they always went shooting partridges. These
poor creatures seemed to exist only for the purpose of helping mankind
over difficult situations in life. Now she was looking for Boris,
wishing to speak with him. Who could give the lovers better counsel
than she. But he was not there. They said he had gone out into the
meadow. Very well, then Lisa would have a conversation with Billy. But
when Marion took this message to Billy, the latter became quite
violent.
"No, she is not to come. What will she say, and she'll talk about her
old Greek. The affair with her Katakasianopulos is altogether
different from mine. Tell her that. She can't help me; nobody can help
me." And she buried her face in the pillows and wept. Marion stood
helplessly before her. "And Boris has disappeared," continued Billy's
wail; "go to Moritz, tell him to find Boris and keep watch over him and
stay with him. Go quickly." Marion rushed down the stairs again.
She found Moritz in the park, stretched out lazy and woe-begone under a
tree. He blinked sleepily at Marion as she delivered her message.
"Bah, keep watch over him," he said, "what's going to happen to him?
He's all right, and for all of me he can----"
"She wants it," said Marion.
With a sigh Moritz raised himself, took his towel, which was lying on
the ground beside him, hung it over his shoulder, and struck
reluctantly into the path toward the meadow.
All over the cropped meadow cobwebs were glittering on the short grass.
Swallows flitted quite low over the ground. The sun beat down
pitilessly.
"Incredible," murmured Moritz, "to have to look for this Polish
narcissus in such a heat. Where's he likely to be? Probably lying here
somewhere."
He did actually find Boris lying flat on his back in the grass under a
willow. When Moritz came to a stop before him, Boris looked at him
indifferently and said, "What do you want?"
"I," said Moritz, "I don't really want anything, but Billy sent me to
keep watch over you."
Boris did not answer, but looked up at the sky again. So Moritz also
lay down in the grass. This handsome Pole in his yellow silk suit was
unspeakably distasteful to him. How he lay there, as it were heavy and
satiated with the admiration of all the beautiful women that were
devoted to him. Moritz could have hit him. Yet he felt a craving to be
near him, for there was something of Billy where Boris was: Boris knew
about her, he was the stupid, hateful, locked door, behind which stood
the only thing that Moritz now desired. To sit before that door was
painful, but for now this pain was simply the only occupation left to
him.
"Thoughtful?" remarked Moritz at last.
"Yes," said Boris with his lyrical inflection, "he who is not yet done
with his life has much to think over."
Moritz laughed scornfully: "H'mp, you've managed to crowd a good lot
into yours already."
"Oh, I've hardly begun yet," said Boris sleepily.
Moritz now reflected as to what he could say, then he began, "Tell me,
how was that affair in Warsaw with the dancer Zucchetti? Didn't you
have a _liaison_ with her?"
But Boris was not vexed. "How was it? Why, how should I know that
now. You don't remember things like that. You might just as well ask me
about the bottle of champagne I drank on the twelfth of August three
years ago. I don't know." And comfortably, as if he were lying in bed,
he turned over on his stomach in the grass, to let the sun warm his
back.
"All right," Moritz continued obstinately. "But you did enough crazy
things on her account, so you must have loved her."
"If you call that love in German," responded Boris, "then I am sorry
for your poor German language."
"Is that so?" Moritz was provoked. "Then what is Polish love?"
"Polish love," said Boris, yawning discreetly, "Polish love is
something infinitely delicate. It needs no more than a movement or a
word to change it so that there can be no talk of love any more,
but--well, heavens--of anything else." Boris raised himself up a
little, closed his big eyes to tiny slits, and looked dreamily over
toward the forest, which drew a very black line through all the
brightness over yonder. "There was once a very beautiful woman. She was
a neighbor of ours. I was on very good terms with her. She was
accustomed to expect me at ten o'clock at night in her park. So far
good. Once I was late, and instead of ten it had got to be a quarter of
eleven. So when I got there and saw she was standing under a tree and
had waited for me after all, I was glad, and at that moment I really
loved her very much. But when I came closer she put on a severe
expression and said, 'Well, you are punctual, I must say, and it is
very chivalrous, too, to keep a lady waiting so long.' That sounded so
pointed and tart and common, that there was no love left at all. 'A
governess talking to a belated pupil,' I thought."
"What did you do?" asked Moritz.
"I made a bow and said, 'Madam, I only came to inform you that I shall
not come today.' Well, and then I went."
Moritz shrugged his shoulders: "I don't see anything wonderful in
that. That is the sort of thing you experience in order to tell about
it afterward."
"You experience nothing and you tell nothing," concluded Boris, and he
laid his head down on the grass again and pulled his hat over his eyes.
The two young men were silent; Boris seemed to be sleeping, Moritz sat
leaning up against the trunk of the willow and looked out upon the
plain, over which a uniform hum could be heard, the profoundly
reassured activity of a sunny work-day. This made him sad and
discouraged. He had a disagreeably distinct feeling that he himself was
uninteresting and commonplace. The girls fell in love with others,
unusual experiences existed for others; and even his sleek, pale-blond
hair, his round face, his light-blue eyes seemed to cause him woe. And
suddenly a very remote recollection came to him. He must have been a
very small child as he sat with his nurse in the sunny garden-corner,
yonder on the West Prussian estate. The old woman was asleep, her lean
face reddened by the heat, and the air was full of a uniform, sleepy
sound. The great burdock leaves, heated by the sun, discharged a strong
sourish odor, and the child felt it to be something that would never
change. But beyond the fence, from below in the village, the laughter
and cries of children reached him from time to time, the children who
had experiences.
Moritz started up. "Nonsense," he murmured, and he leaned forward and
began to shake Boris. "Here, don't sleep."
"What is it," asked Boris, "why this brutality?"
"Come and take a swim," said Moritz.
"Swim?" repeated Boris, opening his eyes and looking sharply and
reflectively at Moritz, as if trying to read something in him. "All
right, let's go swimming," he decided.
The lake was very blue, and full of hard, gently swaying lights.
Between the horse-willows and the club-reeds wild ducks floated
motionless, like shining metal objects.
"Pretty," said Boris; "to climb down into this bowl of color is
rather smart, sure enough."
"Oh," said Moritz ironically, "so you think the lake will be becoming
to you."
"Yes, it probably will," said Boris, beginning to undress. "I suppose
you swim very well?"
"Pretty well, and you?"
"I enjoy it very much," Boris informed him, "but it excites me; I
haven't the feeling that the water is friendly to me."
"That means in German that you swim poorly," Moritz dryly remarked.
Boris laughed: "Your German is particularly good."
The water was lukewarm. It's like burying yourself in warm milk,
thought Moritz, as he swam slowly into the flickering light. All
sadness, all "these imbecilities" were gone, only a strong, quiet
feeling of life warmed his limbs. He turned over on his back, wishing
to let himself be deliriously and lazily rocked by the water, like the
ducks. The dragon-flies lit on his breast, water-plants tickled his
flesh as with small wet fingers, over him flapped gulls with wings of
pale gray, and they looked down upon him and cried shrill notes at him,
which sounded like the laughter of the professor's two daughters.
"Billy, Billy," he murmured. Now he could say it without pain, it was
only the expression of deepest contentment. Then he thought of Boris,
and raised his head a little. The devil, was the fellow crazy, to swim
out so far. Boris's head popped up over yonder between the spangles of
sunlight like a dark speck, but it was not advancing; now it had
disappeared, now it was there again. With vigorous strokes Moritz began
to swim to the spot, and got there just in time to catch Boris by the
arm; enmeshed in a net of water-lilies and water-plantains, he was just
rising again, his eyes weirdly wide and black in his bluish face.
Moritz towed him away, and when he got to standing depth he took him in
his arms to conduct him to the shore. He spoke kindly to him:
"Water swallowed, my boy, yes, that's the dickens when you get into
that mess yonder. Wait, we'll be on dry land directly."
Boris spat out the water and struggled for breath. Once on shore, he
lay down in the grass; he felt a deadly exhaustion and closed his eyes.
Moritz sat beside him and looked at him. Suddenly Boris raised himself
up, threw his arms about his knees, and his strangely dark eyes, still
wide with fear, looked straight ahead of him.
"Sleep, why don't you?" said Moritz kindly.
"I can't," replied Boris; "as soon as I close my eyes, I feel as if
those cursed smooth stems were winding around my legs again and
dragging me under. The strangest feeling. I had the thought: 'Now comes
dying;' but there was no time to think it, I felt such measureless
torturing rage against those stems, against the water that was pressing
me down, all banded together against one--something of that sort I must
have felt." He pondered awhile in silence, the handsome face quite pale
and angry, then he suddenly smiled his proud, reckless smile. "So you
have saved my life, brother," he resumed.
Moritz shrugged his shoulders. "Oh, stuff," he said.
"Yes, you have," continued Boris. "You are my deliverer, and I thank
you. But I should like to know one thing: you hate me, don't you?"
Moritz flushed: "A lot of hate I'm likely to have for you."
"Of course you hate me," asseverated Boris. "Now I should like to know,
when you found me there in the last extremity, whether you didn't
think: 'if I just look on now I'll be rid of him.' Or didn't you for a
minute feel like laying your hand on my head and pressing down just a
little? Eh?"
Moritz looked at Boris in amazement: "No, nobody thinks that sort of
thing."
Boris lay back again, his hands clasped behind his neck The excitement
of what he had just gone through was still quivering in him and
impelling him to speak, dreamily, a little as if intoxicated. "Oh
really, nobody thinks of that!--what sort of people are you?--I thought
of it the moment you suggested that we go swimming; after all, we don't
have the catechism in our bodies by way of a soul. Doing, yes, that's
another thing, lots of things you don't do, but thinking! I like to
have a deed like that come very close to me. It is just as if we were
for a moment permitted to take into our hands and hold some rare object
that doesn't belong to us. And then it's so gloriously exciting, this
suspense: shall you do it or not? We must seek such situations; but
that's all one, I am grateful to you, it was very unpleasant down
there. I never thought one would feel so alone in dying, just among
water-plantains and the divers, that don't care anything about it. No,
death must be undertaken in common. So I am very grateful to you for
saving my life."
"Don't mention it," said Moritz indifferently while dressing.
"Yes, very grateful," continued Boris, "we really ought to be friends
from now on, close friends, you know."
Moritz was now fully dressed. He stood still before Boris, looked down
upon him with aversion, and said, "Just on account of that little bit
of water you swallowed, no thanks." Then he went.
The noon meal was sufficiently uncomfortable. Count Hamilcar and the
professor did to be sure talk eagerly on remote subjects, as if nothing
had happened, but Countess Betty smiled but absent-mindedly and thought
of other matters. The only sensation was that Lisa had not appeared in
black today, but was wearing a mallow-colored muslin dress with
old-rose ribbons. Boris, very pale, conversed with her as formally as
if he had just met her.
"Reception at the Queen of Poland's," Bob whispered to Erika. The two
children were unbearable today and had to be called to order again and
again. Billy's chair remained empty. She was lying half undressed on
the bed in her room upstairs, her disheveled hair falling into her hot
face, and she was very impatient with Marion. Again and again Marion
had to repeat what Boris had said. "I want to know it absolutely word
for word and you don't tell me that way."
"Yes, I do," asseverated Marion, "it was like this: 'Tell Billy that it
is better for us not to see each other again today, and we won't take
leave of each other, either; she must wait, she will have word of me,
and then my fate and hers will rest entirely in her hands.'"
"He certainly didn't say 'fate,' that isn't his style at all,"
complained Billy, "and then decide--what shall I decide, oh dear, it's
terrible. And you say Lisa had on her light-colored muslin today, what
for? and of course Boris is furious because papa insulted him." She
flung herself back and forth as in a fever. "Do pull down the shades,
this afternoon sun is sad enough to make you die; and you have an
expression on your face as if you knew something that I don't know. Say
it, then."
"But I don't know anything," averred Marion whimpering.
"Bah, then go, I don't want to see anybody. Bob can come, but he's the
only one; he can be as naughty as he likes here--that will cheer me
up."
But when Bob came he was not naughty, but embarrassed. Billy in her
excitement was strange and uncanny to him. So Billy sent him away too.
"Go, you're a stupid, tiresome boy."
Bob went, but in the doorway he turned around aggrieved, and remarked,
"I don't understand unhappy love at all."
Now Billy lay there and listened to the sounds that went through the
rooms below her, the voices and the slamming of doors, and she waited.
That was her business now. For he had said so, poor injured, insulted
Boris. When she thought of the wrong that had been done him, her heart
swelled with impatient desire to do something for him, to show him and
the world in general that she was for him, and him alone. The summer
afternoon droned at the windows, the house grew quiet, and Billy felt
as if in this sleepy hour she were quite alone with her excitement in a
world that would not hear of excitement or of events. So she too kept
still, her eyes raised to the ceiling. It seemed as if she had lain
there an endless time before the sound came at last, the sound for
which she had waited. She sat up. The rumbling of a carriage which
stopped in the courtyard below, voices, the banging of doors, and again
the rumble of the carriage, which grew fainter and fainter, and finally
slowly died away. "He is gone," she groaned, and sank back upon her
pillows. Great tears rolled down her cheeks, but an inward tension had
relaxed. Some one whom we love is riding away and we weep: that is at
least comprehensible, and so she cried herself to sleep.
When Billy awoke, the room was ruddy with the evening light, voices
came up from the garden, she heard the twins laughing, and on the porch
her father was delivering a lecture for the professor's benefit. A
fresh uneasiness about life came over Billy, and she got up to look out
of the window. Yes, there was Lisa walking along in her bright muslin
dress and eagerly haranguing the lieutenant, who walked a little
stiff-legged beside her. Poor thing, thought Billy, she wants her love
affair too. But Billy felt as if there were but one love affair in the
world and that one her own: all the rest was simply bungling.
Discontentedly she returned to her bed; she could not join the others
down there yet. Where could Marion be!
When Marion came, she had to tell her story. How did he look as he rode
away? How did he take leave of father? Of course Marion had not seen
the things that really counted, but she brought a message. "But
absolutely word for word, please," Billy admonished her.
"Yes, certainly, this is what he said," reported Marion: "Come tomorrow
at noon to the linden that stands outside the fence at the end of the
park. There Billy shall have news. Tell Billy that she alone has the
decision."
"Oh, dear," wailed Billy, "this horrible decision again! What does
he mean? What will be at the linden?"
And the two girls sat together and whispered about this mystery; they
could not stop talking about it. In the room it grew dusky, and the
mystery became steadily more threatening. Billy could endure it no
longer and sent Marion away:
"Go, you keep saying the same thing. Send old Lohmann to me. She's the
only one of you I can stand. Have her tell her old stories."
"Lohmann came with her little yellow face under the black cap, and the
hands contracted with gout. She was an old nurse-maid, who was now
spending her old age in a small chamber in the basement, by sitting at
the window behind her geraniums, and eating the bread of charity. The
old woman cowered down at Billy's bed and began in a lamenting voice,
"Yes, our little countess is having a hard time, everybody has a hard
time, there's nothing else for it;" but Billy interrupted her
irritably: "But Lohmann, is that what I sent for you for. Tell your old
stories, can't you, I can pity myself."
And Lohmann recounted the stories she had told so often, how as a tiny
girl she had taken milk and cheese to town with her mother, very early
in the gray morning light. In winter it was very cold and they would
warm themselves in a little tavern; other market women would be sitting
there too, wrapped in heavy shawls like big balls of gray, and little
Lohmann was given _Warmbier_, that was hot beer with milk and sugar.
Billy saw all that, it was what she wanted to see, the little tavern
full of those balls of gray; it smelled of damp wool and an overheated
stove, and outside the windows was the blue cold twilight of the winter
morning. That was sad and peaceful, and far, far removed from all
puzzling decisions.
"I say, Lohmann," and Billy started up, "_Warmbier_ would be the only
thing I could take now; go and make me some."
Toilsomely the evening drew to its close. Lohmann had prepared
_Warmbier_, but it tasted so bad that Billy could not drink it.
Countess Betty and Madame Bonnechose came and sat beside Billy's bed,
looked sympathetically at her, spoke of Billy's cough, of remedies,
spoke cautiously about indifferent affairs, anxious not to touch upon
anything dangerous; Billy was glad when they were all gone and the
night began. She wanted to try sleeping, but in the stillness and
darkness life again became very threatening, and dreary too, like
numbers that have to be added up. When she did have a little nap, this
adding and guessing continued, and in addition to it all she was
forever having something to decide, and she did not know what or how.
It was perhaps one o'clock when she awoke; no, she did not care to
sleep, there was no pleasure in that. Through the hangings at the
window a little pale light came in. She jumped out of bed to look out
of the window: the moon was shining very brightly. Quiet and wakeful
stood the fruit trees in the patches of turf, and the hollyhocks in the
flowerbeds, and the moonlight laid a festive touch on the silent
garden. Billy wanted to be out there. She dressed hurriedly and went to
Marion's room to wake her:
"Marion, and you can sleep? I have not closed an eye, come, get up."
"I just fell asleep a little," said Marion in excuse, "what has
happened? Where must we go?"
"We must go to the currant-bushes down in the garden," said Billy.
Marion obediently got up and dressed. By way of the narrow back stairs
the two girls reached the garden. Billy drew a deep breath; that was
it, the damp, sweet breath of the flowers, and this improbable light
which made the sky, the garden, and the meadow with its white mists all
seem so endlessly vast,--this restored to her the intoxication without
which she could not live now. Here she could once more think "Boris!
Boris!" and feel that queer flaming heat in her blood which gave her
courage to undertake anything. In the orchard the strawberry-beds, the
gooseberry and currant bushes, were gray and glittering with dew, and
from the kitchen garden the pot-herbs sent over their powerful odors;
on the gravel paths dreaming toads were squatting. The girls went to a
currant bush and silently began to eat the cool, moist berries.
"Yes, now it is different," remarked Billy at last.
"How so?" asked Marion in a business-like tone.
"I feel," said Billy, "as if everything were quite easy again, as if I
could decide anything. I am not a bit afraid, and it can be as tragic
as it likes."
"Tragic," remarked Marion a trifle indistinctly, for her mouth was full
of currants, "tragic is like at the theatre."
From the other side of the bush Billy's suppressed laughter was heard:
"Why Marion!" Then Billy straightened up, held a bunch high against the
moon, looked at it and said impressively, "Tragic is sad, but sad like
his eyes, sad but still wonderfully beautiful, more beautiful than
anything that is jolly." Then she bent her head back and let the bunch
glide slowly into her open mouth, and in this action she felt wholly
magnificent, wholly beautiful, wholly a part of the moonlight night.
Gradually the moonlight lost in brightness, and a gray luminosity
mingled with it and displaced it, a light which looked as if it were
coming through dusty window-panes.
"The morning is coming," said Billy seriously, "come, let us go."
"Where to?" asked Marion.
"We'll wait for the sun," decided Billy.
The two girls went to the end of the garden, where the meadow begins,
and sat down on a bench. They were a trifle pale and shivered as they
huddled together, but Billy sat quite erect none the less, her eyes
large and wakeful, her lips as if ready for an excited smile. She still
felt all the grateful solemnity of that sadness, which was after all
wonderfully beautiful. The mists on the meadow became transparent, the
sky turned almost white, a magpie began to chatter in the thicket, and
a crow flew through the glassy twilight, very black and heavy. A
dream-world, and Billy felt that surrender which we have in dreams, for
dreams give us all possible miracles even without our aid. Then came
color, a string of rose-red cloudlets laid themselves on the sky, over
the black tops of the forest trees there came a shower of red, and then
suddenly everything was full of the commotion of a purple and golden
light. "Ah, there it is," said Billy, and the two girls stared
motionless and as if stupefied at the rising sun. But as the sun
rose higher, and the colors all drowned in the uniform yellow light,
Billy's face again grew serious and lined with care, for here was
another day with its responsibilities and decisions. "Come," said Billy
to Marion, and they again crept into the house and up into her room.
"Shall we sleep now?" asked Marion.
"How can you think of it?" replied Billy; "at twelve you must be at the
linden. Come sit down beside me." She pulled up a chair for Marion; she
herself climbed into bed, but sat up, leaning against the pillows. So
the two children sat together; their eyes closed at times and then they
slept, but as we doze in the train, constantly starting up again in
fear of missing something. In the course of the morning Countess Betty
knocked twice at the door, but she was not admitted. "No, no, we are
sleeping," was the word. When Lina the chambermaid came, she was given
the order for breakfast. "A whole lot," said Billy, "tea and eggs, ham,
and bread, and a whole lot, do you hear?" She had a veritable
traveler's appetite.
Soon Billy became very restless. She kept asking Marion over and over
if it were not time, and it was only eleven o'clock when Marion was
compelled to go down to the linden. Billy sat quietly in her bed with
burning cheeks and folded hands, intent upon the strange tension of the
spirit within her. Yes, it was all there, her powerful desire for
Boris, the painful emotion at the thought of him, the courage for all
possibilities, and the fear of what now must come. But again and again
she felt the strangest alienation from the Billy who was feeling and
experiencing all this. The familiar noises of the house reached her;
down in the garden the twins were laughing, in the corridor Madame
Bonnechose was scolding a maid, and at the open window of the lower
story Lohmann was singing a hymn. But the Billy of the unhappy love,
who was resolved not to obey her father, who had to decide, she
belonged no more to this long-familiar life. But where was Marion?
Billy raised her bare arms high above her head, wrung her hands, and
groaned, "Oh dear, why doesn't she come!" At last steps came softly
running down the corridor, and Marion appeared, heated and breathless.
The two girls said nothing; Marion mutely handed Billy a letter, sat
down, and stared anxiously at her. Billy had become quite calm, and now
held the letter in her hand without opening it. "How was it?" she
asked.
"There by the linden," reported Marion in a low voice, "a little Jewish
boy was standing. He had very large black eyes, two tightly twisted
black curls hung down over his ears, and he wore a long coat like a
grown man; he brought the letter. It was awfully weird."
"Of course it was weird," remarked Billy, and she leaned back among her
pillows and prepared to open and read her letter.
Boris wrote. There was no heading. "Tonight," the letter read, "at
about midnight, I shall be down by the linden near the park, waiting.
No one must know. On one side stands everything that you have till now
regarded as your life, on the other I stand--decide. If you take me,
then come. If you do not come, I shall forgive you and again walk in
loneliness my dark road. We shall never meet again. To approach so
great a happiness and then be obliged to forsake it again, is fatal."
There was also no signature. Billy dropped the letter; she did not need
to decide, she knew that she would go to him. It seemed to her as if
she scarcely had a voice in this, for the other, the alien Billy, was
acting, and it was she who must go down by night to the lime-tree.
Billy's glance fell upon Marion, whose eyes were fixed on her in
boundless expectancy. Billy smiled and shook her head a little and
said, "No, I can tell you nothing." Marion did not answer, but her eyes
filled with tears. She rose and crept softly out of the room; she was
very unhappy. During the whole time she had felt as if Billy's
love-affair were hers too; she had shared her love for Boris, the
excitements and pains, she had felt herself loved in Billy's person,
and now she was suddenly thrust aside and was again simply Marion
Bonnechose, who was excluded from all the destinies awaiting
countesses.
But activity and life came over Billy. She rang for Lina, asked for her
new muslin dress with the pink carnation figure, and called for her
coral necklace; and moreover she was friendly and talkative to the
chambermaid. Lina had to tell her about the forester to whom she was
provisionally engaged.
The day had grown very sultry, and in the west gray-blue clouds were
piled up. "We shall have a thunderstorm," said Count Hamilcar, as he
stood on the porch steps and sniffed the hot air of the garden.
Countess Betty stood beside him, bending her head to one side and
blinking up at the clouds. Over the garden walks Bob and Billy were
chasing each other. The count followed them with his eyes, then he
turned to his sister: "The emotional crisis seems to be passing off
nicely," he remarked.
Countess Betty however looked frightened. "Oh dear, Hamilcar, I don't
know, this merriment is not natural; I am so afraid for the child.
Madame Bonnechose thinks too ..."
"Do not worry, dear Betty," the count interrupted her, "whatever Madame
Bonnechose may think. Young people like to regard love as a force,
which is elemental, irrational, but irresistible; very well, then this
force must simply be opposed by another force which may also pass for
elemental, for irrational and irresistible. Well, dear Betty, to
represent that force is now my role." He smiled his wry, mocking smile,
and went into the house to take his afternoon nap.
Billy was tired with running. "Enough," she cried to Bob. She brushed
the hair out of her hot face and thought a moment. What should she do
now?--for she must do something, something, anything but keep still and
look into the darkness that lay beyond this day. When little Miss Demme
went past her, she took her arm, saying, "Come, let's eat plums and
talk about Mr. Post." But during these afternoon hours, when the sun
rested upon the garden like a heavy, golden sleepiness, it was hard for
Billy to keep alive the fever that she now required. Finally she went
to hunt up Moritz and ask him to take her rowing on the pond in the
garden.
"What, you and I?" asked Moritz, somewhat astonished and blushing.
"You and I, of course," said Billy.
That seemed to be the right thing. Billy found it soothing to stretch
out in a half reclining position in the bow of the boat, and have
Moritz's heated, peaceful face before her, with the blue eyes that
looked at her unswervingly with satisfied devotion. The water was very
black; here and there a coating of green plants lay on top of it, which
scraped softly along the keel of the boat. How wearily the old willows
bent over the water, and a secure, contented uneventfulness dwelt here,
an uneventfulness which made Billy weak and cowardly. Why can it not go
on so, she thought. As the little crucians lie motionless on the
surface of the water in the sunshine, only stirring their fins a little
from time to time, just to feel they are alive,--that must feel good.
But suddenly she had a recollection that was like a prick of
conscience. She felt as if she were neglecting or betraying something.
She started up.
"Row to shore," she commanded. Moritz looked up in astonishment. "Yes,
yes, to shore," repeated Billy impatiently. And once on shore, when
Moritz lifted her out of the boat, Billy felt that she must do
something which would contradict the aristocratic calm of this quiet
pond, the little crucians, and the old willows, something which would
slap it in the face, and she bent forward and kissed Moritz. "But
Billy, I don't understand," stammered Moritz, turning a deep red, but
Billy had gone.
The evening came, with tea on the porch. As the moon rose late, the
garden lay there in profound darkness; the wall of clouds had risen
higher in the sky, while the western sky was still covered with stars.
At times the blue gleam of a lightning flash flicked across the garden,
and a sudden gust shook at the trees, so that one could hear the fruit
falling upon the turf in all directions. On the porch only the red tips
of the burning cigars were visible, and the voices of the speakers took
on something soft and reassured, as if they were trying to attune
themselves to the dying sounds that were straying through the night.
Lisa was sitting beside the lieutenant and speaking of Greece. "You
see, Marathon, what did Marathon use to be to me? A date, 490, I
believe, but on that evening, with the evening glow falling across the
plain, it sounds improbable, but I said to--to Katakasianopulos, I
said, 'Katakasianopulos, I feel Miltiades here.'"
"Certainly, very remarkable," said the lieutenant. He was now so
passionately fond of hunting that he went out every day to shoot
partridge; in the evenings he was very tired and could follow the
conversation but feebly.
The professor was again talking with Count Hamilcar about dreams. "A
dream is for us a reality like any other," he opined.
"Yes," rejoined the count somewhat indistinctly, for he did not remove
his cigar from his mouth in speaking, "only a reality which we always
cross out again on awaking. Those are experiences which we always throw
into the wastebasket again."
"Good, very good," the professor continued eagerly, "but we do the
same thing in our so-called waking life. When I awake, I look upon the
dream with my waking eyes, and then it seems unreal to me; but these
waking eyes are simply not focused for dreams. And then it is this way
with all experiences: I firmly believe what I am experiencing at one
moment, and the next moment I look back upon it and it seems to me
unreal and false and I strike it out. So, if you please, the sky is now
for me a great, beautiful hall, in which the many tiny shining lights
are standing side by side and twinkling at each other in the pretty
summer night. That is real: what is it to me that I may perhaps look at
it tomorrow through a telescope, that is through an eye which was not
intended for me, and find that it then looks very different. Look, a
shooting-star. When the Lithuanians see a shooting-star, they say,
'Some one is going to see his girl.' Certainly, at this moment that
shooting-star is for me somebody going to see his girl. That is my
'experience.' But, if you please, tomorrow I shall assuredly strike it
out and think of asteroids or such things; but that doesn't prevent it
for today from being for me some one going to see his girl, if you
please."
All had looked up at the sky and seen the star, which glided hurriedly
through the darkness, passing other stars in a wide curve, as if trying
to shun them, hastily and secretly.
"That striking out," remarked Count Hamilcar, "if we could only do it
just when we wished."
Billy was still looking up at the stars. That about the star going to
see his girl had suddenly restored to her the whole joyful impatience
of her love-affair, and she felt as if she were one of that great
secret company of those who are hastening here on earth silently and
hurriedly through the night to meet their beloved.
Upstairs in her room Billy kissed Marion and said, "Tonight let us
sleep, and sleep soundly. But Marion, don't look so at me, as if I had
died."
Marion tried to say something, but then stole anxiously and in
silence from the room.
"Lina," Betty directed the chambermaid, "tomorrow I wish to sleep late,
and no one, do you hear?--no one must disturb me."
Left alone, she began to walk up and down quietly and busily. She
changed her clothes, putting on a brown cloth dress, put on her hat,
wrapped herself in her rain-coat, took her umbrella, wrote on a slip of
paper "I am with him" and laid it on her dressing-table, and then sat
there like a traveler in a station waiting for her train. Outside it
thundered at intervals. Downstairs in the sleeping house the old
familiar voices of the clocks called to each other through the silent
rooms.
Billy softly descended into the garden by way of the back stairs. Heavy
clouds hung in the sky. Tonight the whole world was full of voices and
sounds; a gust struck the trees and made them murmur with excitement.
Withered leaves chased with a rustle along the path before Billy.
Somewhere a window-shutter creaked, a branch groaned. It was as if an
Event were straying through the gloom and waking the sleeping garden.
Billy went very quickly, as quickly as in her childhood, when she had
wished to pass through the dark living-room to the brightly lighted
nursery. A flash darted across the sky and snatched the darkness, like
a black coverlet, from the pond, from the willows pensively bending
over the reeds, from the water-lilies lying quietly in all the
blackness; but all this seemed as strange to Billy as if she had never
seen it. She hastened farther, thinking and feeling but one thing: to
be there by the lime-tree with him--there was security, there the storm
would have been weathered. As she issued from the park, another flash
illumined the landscape, and she saw a black figure, the pointed hood
of the rain-coat drawn over the head, leaning against the trunk of the
lime-tree.
"Boris!" Billy cried out.
"Hush," answered Boris, "come." He laid her arm in his and drew her
away with him. They walked over a damp meadow, then along a field of
barley, where a corncrake rattled excitedly as if giving a signal.
"Where are we going?" asked Billy in a low voice.
Boris stopped. "You ask?" he said; "if you are afraid, I will lead you
back. I will lead you to the house, you may be sure; there is still
time."
"And you?" asked Billy hesitatingly.
"Ah, I!" replied Boris, and that sounded so sorrowful, so infinitely
lonely, that Billy was again thrilled by that painful admiring
compassion, which made her quite defenseless against Boris.
"No, no," she cried, "let us go."
They now crossed a piece of swampy land which was white with
cotton-grass and softly smacked under their tread.
"That sounds," remarked Billy, "like the kisses chambermaids talk
about," and she laughed at it. She felt strongly the need of laughing,
of saying something jolly. Beyond the swamp the woods began. Boris
stopped now and then to get his bearings in the darkness; he whistled
once softly, and a whistle answered. At last they came on the forest
road to a carriage; a man stood there--Billy saw this for an instant
in the gleam of a flash of lightning, then again profound gloom.
Boris spoke in an undertone with somebody; they were talking of the
thunder-storm and bad roads. She heard horses rattle their harness,
then Boris pushed her into the carriage, climbed in himself, slammed
the door, and the conveyance slowly got in motion on the uneven
forest-road.
[Illustration: THE GOSSIPS.]
Friedrich Wahlte
The carriage was cramped and dark, the raised windows rattled softly,
and beyond them lay the woods and the night like curtains of black
velvet. At times lightning flashes abruptly cast a bluish light into
this darkness. It began to rain heavily; a loud, uniform rushing sound
enveloped the riding couple, and the drops drummed on the roof of the
carriage and beat against the window-panes. Boris heaved a sigh, a deep
sigh of contentment and relief. He drew Billy to him, pressed her
tightly to him so that it almost pained her, and even shook her
slightly.
"That's what I like, that's what I like!" he whispered. His voice no
longer sounded tragic, but boyish and exuberant. And then he grew
concerned: "But you are cold, of course; I have provided a cloak, I
have provided everything." He wrapped her in a great silk cloak which
smelled faintly of musk. "That feels good, doesn't it?--that is the
cloak of old Mrs. von Worsky. My friend Ladislas gave it to me; you
know he lives there on the border in Padony with his old mother: a good
lad! He has done much for us; he knows everybody there on the border,
he has smoothed our paths for us, and perhaps we shall see him before
the night is done. Is the cloak warm?"
"Yes," said Billy, "but it smells of Madame Bonnechose."
Boris was vexed. "Curse it! It must not smell of Madame Bonnechose;
nothing must smell of your home. That is gone, dropped out of sight."
"Across the border, you say?" asked Billy.
Boris's voice again took on a tortured accent as he replied, "Why--I
don't know, don't ask me now--of course there's nothing else for you to
do, everything will come out all right, but now we won't think at all.
This is what I have longed for, this is what I had to have--I should
have died if I had not had it--to sit here like this with you, close,
close, and about us it is all quite dark and black; everything is gone,
is blotted out, the stupid world beats on the carriage and cannot get
in, and you and I are quite alone and have nothing to do but to be
together. Do you feel that? Tell me." And again he pressed her tightly
to him and shook her slightly.
"Yes, I think so," answered Billy, "but talk some more, talk some more
like that."
"Why, what is our whole life for," pursued Boris, "but for such
moments as these, when we can forget everything. Isn't it this for
which we toil, for which we humble ourselves and borrow money, so that
for a short time all burdens drop from us and we feel one thing and
think one thing: Billy!" He kissed her very firmly on the lips. "You
feel, don't you, everything dropping from you and becoming quite pale
and unsubstantial, the tiresome garden at home, and Joseph with the
dinner-bell, and the tea with bread and butter, and that Billy in the
white dress, who could do nothing and have no thoughts? All that is
unreal? and there is only one reality, and that is I. Tell me, do you
feel that?"
Billy leaned her head against Boris's shoulder and closed her eyes.
Certainly, all that was very far away, the garden, her room with the
drawn curtains, the sleeping Marion, the old familiar voices of the
clocks in the quiet rooms--all strange and unreal, as if it did not
belong to her. But the carriage here with its cramped space and its
darkness, the rushing of the rain, the rattle of the windowpanes, were
they real? were the hands real that seized, pressed, and shook her as
if she no longer belonged to herself, as if she belonged to another,
the lips which were hotly pressed to hers, and this voice which spoke
softly and passionately into the darkness? And she herself, who was
she, with a body and a blood in which a strange fever was venturing
forth. She felt the Billy that she had known and believed in melting
away within her, and it seemed as if something which had heretofore
held her were releasing her, and now she was drifting along and
everything was immaterial, for after all that did not belong to her,
that burning and fever which it was now her sole business to attend to
and obey. Now they were both silent. The rain seemed to be growing
heavier, and with ever increasing frequency the hasty light of the
lightning flashes flickered across the black forest. The carriage only
progressed with difficulty, shaking and rocking. A great weariness made
Billy's limbs heavy, as if they did not belong to her, and
imperceptibly she passed over into a dream-state, into that torturing
somnolescence of first sleep in which the dream-figures approach us so
importunately. It was the face of her father that suddenly rose before
Billy, close before her, so close that the long white nose touched
Billy's nose like something cold, and in the stern iron-gray eyes
little golden points were moving, as always when he was angry. And she
heard him speak in the calm, slightly nasal voice: "Yes, if this
striking out were always possible," he was saying. A loud peal of
thunder made Billy start up; she did not know where she was, only
something heavy and sad was burdening her. She was cold. Boris too had
been startled awake beside her, and as if in fear he put out his hand
toward her.
"We have been sleeping," he said, "no, we can't do that, for if we do
all sorts of things will come back, and above all the morning will
come--that cursed light, how that creeps up on us." They huddled
together shivering. "It ought never to be day again, we ought to die
now, oughtn't we?--in a lightning flash: suddenly a powerful blue
radiance and then again this lovely warm darkness."
Suddenly the carriage stopped. Boris let down the window and stuck out
his head. Through the falling streams of rain a yellow light blinked; a
dog barked furiously. "What is up?" cried Boris. Then he impatiently
opened the carriage door and jumped out. Billy heard him talking
excitedly; a growling male voice answered him, then another voice
interposed, high and strident, with the amused ring of social
intercourse, as if a gentleman were laughing at his own joke in the
midst of a quadrille. Billy, left alone, was frightened, afraid of the
darkness, of the voices outside, of what would happen and what she had
done--the simple, painful fear of the little girl with a bad
conscience. Boris opened the carriage door again. "Come," said he, "we
must get out, this fellow refuses to drive farther; they say the road
is impossible, a bridge is smashed, and I don't know what all." He
helped Billy out of the carriage and led her through the puddles of
water up some rickety steps.
"Careful, everything is rotten here." Again the high, strident voice
was speaking.
They entered a hall which smelled of smoke and onions, and thence a
living-room in which they were met by heavy, over-heated air. It was
light here, for two candles were burning on a table with a white cloth,
and at one side over a small bar hung a smoking kerosene lamp. Billy
blinked blindly at the light; the room seemed to be full of people.
Some one took off her cloak, and the strident voice said, "Your eyes
must first become accustomed to the splendor of Wolf's salon,
Countess."
"Sit down, sit down," cried Boris, and thrust her across to the great
black sofa which stood before the covered table.
Now Billy began to distinguish the figures in the room. There was a
tall Jew with a black beard and flaming brown eyes; he was smiling
quite sweetly. Children in their shirts crowded into the half-open
door, and very large eyes, dark as balls of onyx, looked fixedly over
at Billy from under tangled black hair. Behind the counter sat a
Jewess, the false wig of red-brown hair pulled a little too far down on
her forehead; her yellow, regular face and elongated brown eyes
expressed a rigid, proud patience. Beside Boris stood a gentleman in
riding-dress, wearing spurs on his boots; his fine, sharp-cut face was
laughing, showing very white teeth under a small moustache, which sat
on his upper lip like two inky black commas.
"My friend Ladislas Worsky," said Boris introducing him, "that is a
friend for you! He rode over here in all this weather only to see us
and warn us against some bridge or other."
Again Ladislas showed his white teeth. "Oh," said he, "that is the
merit of my old saddle-mare: she finds the way in all weathers and the
blackest darkness, perhaps because she only has one eye. But, friend
Wolf, on with the samovar and whatever else you have. Let your
'youthful blessings' withdraw, and make things a little cosy here; and
Mother Wolf, assume a more amiable expression. Boris, old fellow, no
dejection! Let us sit down to our _souper_."
And he seated himself at the table, bent over toward Billy, looked at
her with his shining eyes attentively and a trifle impudently, and
began to converse, cheerful and polite, as if he were sitting in a
_salon_.
"_Souper_, oh well, what goes by that name; the delicacies of our
friend Wolf we have no use for. Eggs at most: they are not penetrated
by the Old Testament. And so I permitted myself to coax a cold chicken
in secret from our old housekeeper at home and bring it with me."
He unwrapped the chicken from a paper, laid it on the plate, and began
to carve it, very neatly and correctly; a trifle too dainty and then
again too flourishing were the motions of the white hands with the many
sparkling rings. He spoke the while without ceasing of the weather, of
the road, of the Jew Wolf, and Billy answered as if he were a young
gentleman who was making his first visit and whom she had to receive.
"This piece, Countess, if you please," he said, laying a
chicken-wing on Billy's plate; "this is a Spanish fowl: my mother is
interested in special breeds. But Boris, you are not saying anything,
_tu n'es pas en train, mon vieux_, you are wrong, brother. You have
every reason to be of good cheer, a tremendous lot of reason," and he
bowed slightly toward Billy, "but we'll manage that all right. Wolf,
come here with some of your sinful champagne. You know, our friend Wolf
always has champagne on tap, and uses it to bring happiness by secret
routes to the barbarians beyond the border."
Billy could not eat; the blue-and-white plates, the knives and forks,
the tablecloth, were all repugnant to her. Yonder behind the counter
the Jewess was still sitting, her yellow, regular face unmoved; the
almond eyes looked at Billy indifferently, proudly, and patiently,
seeming to say, "I endure you because I must." These eyes tortured
Billy, she felt as if she had never been so looked at. She forced
herself to look away from those eyes, and to listen to Ladislas Worsky,
who continued his conversation with ardor. Now he was speaking of
literature:
"Bourget, oh yes, of course very fine, but he tries to analyze the
female heart, like sticking butterflies on pins, but that is just the
one thing in this world that cannot be analyzed. You do not know
Bourget, Countess? Ah yes, young German ladies do not read novels, they
read nothing but Schiller. Well, your Schiller ..."
Billy was grateful to him for thus entertaining her, for the
hyper-elegance of his movements, for the white cuffs which he kept
incessantly pulling out of his coat-sleeves, and for the slender,
feminine, beringed hands. All this put something familiar, something
homelike into this alien, hostile environment. Billy answered, laughed
a little, endeavored to act as if she were sitting on the porch at
Kadullen, even imitated a little the lady-of-the-world manners of her
sister Lisa. The champagne was brought.
"There, a different expression, if you please, brother," cried Ladislas
to Boris, pouring out the wine. "But he is always that way," turning to
Billy, "_je connais mon_ Boris. If something alters his program, his
good humor is gone: he always used to spoil half of every Sunday for us
with his bad humor, only because the next day was Monday. Well, that
couldn't be helped. In our senior year we had a comrade named
Andreijsky, you remember, Boris, a mad, merry fellow. All of a sudden
he shoots himself. Why! There was talk of sickness and such things. No,
I know he shot himself because the vacation was over, simply because
the vacation was over, for he hated school like sin. Boris is just like
that too."
"I _beg_ your pardon," remarked Boris.
"There, there," said Ladislas, "don't be vexed, brother, you have no
cause for it. Tomorrow morning the bridge will be fixed again, and here
you are in safety, in the most charming society, the happiest of men:
so let us clink glasses, to your health, Countess! to the fulfilment of
all wishes!"
They clinked glasses. Boris smiled faintly, and that stimulated
Ladislas. "That's right, old boy. You see, Countess, I am such a
harmless fellow that when I see somebody else happy it is like an
intoxication to me. I never experience anything, but I feel as if this
were my adventure, as if you and I, well, all one--" He sprang up from
his chair, seized his glass, and began to sing:
Champagne, when thou dost
Set our blood whirling, etc.
He sang in a pleasant baritone and with theatrical flourishes. The Jew
cried "bravo" and clapped softly. The swarm of Jewish children again
appeared in the doorway, and looked into the room out of large,
piercing eyes. Boris and Billy listened smiling, and only the face of
the Jewess remained impassive, looking with weary scorn at the three
yonder by the table.
The light-hearted strains of Mozart's melody filled the room as it were
with something splendid and precious. Boris rocked lightly on his
chair, beat time on the table with his fingers, and when Ladislas had
finished he nodded and said, "Yes, yes, brother, that was the right
choice."
"Don't you say so?" cried Ladislas. He was so overjoyed at the effect
of his song that he embraced Boris and kissed him on both cheeks. Then
he again sat down at the table and filled the glasses. "Permit me,
Countess," he said, "to kiss your hand: I am so happy to be permitted
to share this happiness here."
Boris laughed a little compassionately. "That was always your forte, my
good Ladislas. Sharing. Do you remember how you were forbidden wine for
a time as a student, and still were always drunk on your soda-water
sooner than we on our wine, out of sheer sympathy? You were born to be
happy by proxy."
"Bravo," cried Ladislas, "_un mot charmant_. You are beginning to be
witty again, thank heaven, and you have every reason to,--any one that
stands like you on the high end of the see-saw, nor stands alone--quite
the contrary."
Boris grew serious again. "All very well, but perhaps we must talk
business a little, after all."
But Ladislas was outraged. "Mercy, brother! Why should we talk
business! Why should we bore the Countess that way? And what is to be
said?--everything is arranged, and everything will go smoothly; no, I
know something better, we'll have a little game, here are some cards, I
brought them with me. You play, Countess, do you not? Any game at all."
No, Billy played no games, but she would look on; she begged the
gentlemen to play. She leaned back against the sofa, the over-heated
air and the wine making her head heavy, making her sleepy and quiet;
Ladislas' "everything will go smoothly" rang agreeably in her ears. Of
course, if only she could sleep now.
"Then a bit of écarté," said Ladislas, shuffling the cards. "You see,
Countess, I am very fond of cards. Why? Because card-games are
symbolic. Cut, Boris, please."
Billy could not help it, she put her hand to her mouth and yawned.
"You are weary, child," said Boris, "lie down a while."
"To be sure," cried Ladislas, "everything has been provided for." He
jumped up and opened the door to a side room: "At your pleasure. But
first, Countess, permit me to take leave of you: I shall ride away
again at once, for I must be at home early, so that my mother shall
find no traces of my nocturnal adventure." He kissed Billy's hand: "I
thank you, Countess, for the happiness of these hours." There was so
much feeling in his words that Billy was almost touched.
In the side room a candle was burning dimly on a commode. White and
gilt china vases stood there full of paper roses, and on the wall hung
a Jewish kissing-tablet. But most of the space in the room was taken up
by two enormous beds, on which mountains of feather-beds towered high
in red cotton cases.
"Yes, lie down," said Boris, brushing his hand across Billy's hair, "Oh
Billy, if you would feel as I do."
"Why do you say that I don't," answered Billy a trifle vexed, "that is
unkind."
"No, no, I am not unkind," said Boris, "sleep now, I must discuss a
number of things with Ladislas."
Billy lay down on the bed and Boris went out. She heard the two young
men talking outside; at first they seemed to be playing cards, then
they whispered eagerly in the Polish language, rapidly and with many
hissing sounds. Billy closed her eyes and lay there motionless, wishing
to sleep, but it seemed to her as if something stood beside her,
something threatening that was trying to steal up on her, and it seemed
as if she must wake, as if she must be on her guard. Again she opened
her eyes: the candle-flame was lightly stirred by a draught, somewhere
in the house a child was whimpering,--a soft, unspeakably mournful
sound,--and round about her lay the red feather-beds with their
disagreeable voluptuous swellings, exhaling a sweetish odor of dust.
They cast great shadows on the wall, and the round soft shapes quivered
gently. Billy shook in boundless disgust: why was she here, what had
she to do here? Ah yes, she loved Boris, that was it. Well, how had
that been?--could she not feel it again, that hot sensation of
compassion and longing which changed everything in her, gave her
courage for all possibilities, and made the utterly impossible a matter
of course. Even for that she was too tired now. She wanted to sleep
now--somewhere where it would be quiet and secure and clean. She closed
her eyes again, so as not to see this room, and tried to think of home,
but these thoughts also gave her no rest, but pained her. So she wished
to think of something quite peaceful, something that could make no
reproaches: of the furniture in the sun-parlor, standing in the
darkness under their white cotton covers, or of the great bouquets of
flowers which were withering there in the vases, and showering their
petals on the table with a very soft rustle. Yes, she would think of
those, only of those things.
Yet she must have slept a little after all, for as she now started up
it seemed to her as if she had been away somewhere where she was quite
safe and where she heard familiar voices, and now she was again falling
abruptly into this alien dream. It was still here, this room with the
stuffy air, the walls with the gently quivering shadows, and the soft
red cushions sat round about her waiting, as if they were still present
and must be continued in her dreams. And then some one else stood there
before the bed, quite motionless. It was Boris, but he too strangely
alien and uncanny. The flickering light of the candle sent shadows
driving across his face, and it seemed as if it were being distorted
and only the dark specks of eyes were unswervingly fixed on her. Weary
and discouraged Billy leaned back on the pillows and closed her eyes.
"What has happened," she said quite softly.
"Nothing has happened," answered Boris similarly.
"Is he gone?" queried Billy further.
"Yes, Ladislas is gone."
"Why do you stand there so?"
When Boris did not answer, Billy repeated the question in a whimpering,
wailing tone. Then she heard him sink down beside the bed. He flung his
arms about her, she felt his face lying cold and heavy on her breast,
and felt a strange quiver shake his body, as if he were weeping.
"Didn't you say everything would be all right?" said Billy, and again
her voice sounded tearful and vexed. "Why don't you speak? I don't know
anything, I thought I must be with you, and that is why I went with
you. Didn't you say everything would be all right?"
Boris clung more tightly to Billy's arm and pulled himself up; the
upper part of his body rested on her, his face quite close to hers, and
now he kissed her with dry hungry lips.
"Yes," he whispered, "everything will be well if you but wish it so.
But I am so terribly afraid of one thing ..."
"You are afraid too," replied Billy dully, "well, then--"
"No, listen," continued Boris, and his whispers became strangely hot
and passionate, "if you but will. I am afraid of tomorrow, when it
grows gray and bright and we must do something and must be burdened
with care, and people will come and everything will be so ugly, the
others and we, and our love,--O Billy, I have never been able to endure
the first morning after such a happiness--"
"Why, we can't help the morning's coming," said Billy, still in her
vexed tone.
"Oh yes, we can," said Boris breathless with emotion, and his hands
closed around Billy's shoulders so tightly that it hurt her. "We are
together, aren't we?--and we can be so happy, so happy, that we shall
not wish to see another morning. That we can do. You will see. Come,
you and I, and then nothing but dying will be endurable." He stammered
this, bent down quite close to her, his face pale and ominous, and his
hands pulling feverishly at Billy's dress.
"Why, how can we die?" responded Billy wearily.
"How--is all one," answered Boris impatiently, "you will see, we cannot
go on living then."
Billy opened her eyes and looked at Boris keenly and anxiously. "Have
you that terrible little revolver that you showed me in the garden at
home, and that you said was your friend?" she asked.
"Yes, yes, but why speak of it," replied Boris impatiently, "we are
thinking only of ourselves now, of our happiness. Will you, tell me! We
are together, each beside the other, and there is nothing here but us,
and we had rather die than let anything else come near us."
Billy raised herself a trifle, and pushed Boris's hands, which were
ardently passing over her body, away from her like something irksome.
Her eyes grew wide and bright with fear, but her lips quivered as in a
mocking and slightly contemptuous smile: "Be happy--here among these
ugly red cushions. Oh, please leave me now. You--you are like the rest
of the things here, I am afraid of you too!"
Boris released Billy and raised himself up. Now he knelt beside the
bed, dropped his arms limply, and gnawed at his under lip. His face
wore an expression of grieved disappointment. Billy again leaned back
on the pillows, turned her face to the wall, and closed her eyes.
Motionless she lay there like a frightened child and listened intently
for the slightest sound.
Boris was silent for a time, but once he said, "Why Billy," and this
was once more the voice she knew; something in it breathed upon her
like the odorous exhalation of the garden at home, and the Boris she
knew and the Billy she knew, and their love--all this was present again
for a moment. She felt like turning around, but she only closed her
eyes the tighter, knowing that if she opened them everything would be
gone in spite of herself. She heard herself say, with a sullen,
superior air, "Die?--no, certainly not. If that is all you can think
of!"
Boris was silent again, and Billy waited in anxious suspense. Then she
heard him get up, take a few steps, murmuring to himself, "Well, that's
another thing, nothing to be done," and then walked slowly and
hesitatingly from the room. She could hear that he merely pulled the
door to, and that he walked up and down in the adjoining room, stood
still, poured something into a glass, and then walked up and down
again. She listened attentively to the soft, restless creaking of those
steps, listening with that agonizing wakefulness with which we follow
something that threatens us, that is about to attack us. For this sound
grew strangely expressive. Billy thought she could hear in it quick,
angry words, a voice that discontentedly muttered abusive epithets to
itself. Then when the rhythm of this voice changed, Billy held her
breath with agitation. "Now he is walking on tiptoe," she thought, "now
he is approaching the door." Boris cautiously reentered the room and
stood still at the foot of the bed. She heard distinctly the faint
clink of the charm on his watch-chain, then came utter stillness. Billy
did not budge, but waited with the resignation we feel in dreams, upon
which we unconsciously base the hope that waking will come and free us
from the events of the dream.
Boris began to speak in a hollow, weary voice: "Of course you are not
asleep. You are trying to deceive me. Do not let me disturb you, I
pray! I never ask a second time. Either people understand me or they do
not. You do not understand me: very well, very well, it is always the
same story. You women never do understand." He paused and it was
strange enough to see how the girlish face with the closed eyes and the
tightly clenched lips flushed and paled. "All that surprises me,"
continued Boris, "is that you came here at all. To be proper, we do not
need to come here. Yes, but that is always the way: we think that
together we stand on a very high plane, high above everything small and
foolish; we think that the great moment is coming now, for which we
have been waiting a lifetime; and then it comes to naught again, one is
alone after all, and you, you have stayed down below there in the world
of--of--Madame Bonnechose."
He was silent again, and Billy thought: "Was he laughing then?" There
had been something in his voice that sounded like that. She pressed her
eyelids more tightly together; not for the world would she have seen
that sad and proud smile of which she had always been afraid, even at
moments when she loved Boris most ardently. Boris took a few steps,
then stood still again: "Only load myself with responsibility, and have
nothing for it?--no thanks! Out of what could have been very beautiful
and great you make something ugly and silly. That's a game I won't
play. I don't understand being ridiculous, we Poles have no talent for
that." Again he paced awhile, again he waited; yes, he was waiting,
Billy knew he was, but not for a moment did the thought come to her
that she might open her eyes, speak to him, or call him back: she had
but one idea, to lie quite still and not move, then perhaps this too
would pass. Boris was now at the door; she heard the soft creaking of
the rusty hinges, and on the threshold he stopped to say in a voice
that sounded strangely alien and altered, the voice of a man who is all
alone somewhere or other, and who is speaking to himself sadly and
hopelessly, "No, not that, I am so tired of having nothing but
misunderstandings to live for." He went out and pulled the door to
again, and Billy heard him stride to and fro in the adjoining room, and
then fling himself on the old cracking sofa.
The thunderstorm was over, and a fine rain trickled down quietly and
evenly, beating quite gently on the window-panes. Billy still lay there
very quietly. Why should she move? Why should she open her eyes? Round
about her was nothing that belonged to her, nothing that partook of
her, nothing that she felt to be Life. A feeling of aloneness, never
before experienced, took physical hold upon her, something that made
her ill, that chilled her.
Boris had spoken in his strangely altered voice of being happy and
dying. These words she had heard once before, at home among the currant
bushes, but there it had had a different sound, there it had sounded
sad and sultry and sweet; she had understood it there, and it seemed to
her to be something possible and easy, if Boris wished it. But to
die--here, that was incomprehensible and repulsive like everything else
here: for that was just the result of this terribly puzzling feeling of
loneliness which was icily creeping over her. She must lie here, and
life was infinitely far away; she saw it like a spot quite yellow with
sunshine, quite gay with autumn flowers, and familiar figures were
passing through this sunshine: before the wash-house knelt the
washwoman with her white apron, at the bed of carnations knelt the
gardener with his yellow straw hat, and under the pear-tree stood her
father, drawing the scent of the early pears and the plums into his
long white nose.
Billy saw this, felt it, smelt it, and yet all of it was living without
her: or rather, she herself was there, and she could see herself, also
her love was there, Boris, and everything, but she could not cross over
to join herself there. Billy raised herself, her eyes wide open, her
mouth very red against the white face, and about her lips the resolute,
obstinate lines which they were wont to assume when Billy felt that she
must have something for which she longed.
She climbed softly out of the bed, crept to the unclosed door and
peeped through the crack. Boris was lying asleep on the sofa. His
tangled hair hung down on his forehead, and his pale face wore the
grief-stricken and at the same time helpless expression with which
sound sleep overspreads a face. On the table stood the champagne bottle
and a half-emptied glass. The candle had burned very low, and the
only sound in the room was a faint moaning that issued from Boris's
half-open mouth, wailing and then changing to short, high-pitched, and
as it were mocking sounds. Billy cautiously pulled the door shut. Then
she bustled about, took her cloak and hat, went to the window, and
opened it. The draught put out the candle; outside it still seemed
dark, the rain was whispering in the gloom, the great pines were
rustling, a deep, loud rustle, a glorious untrammeled breath from a
breast of infinite capacity, and Billy too had to breathe, quite
deeply, before she swung herself upon the window-sill and jumped out.
The wind drove the rain into her face and took her breath. One moment
she stood there, bending forward slightly, like one who stands in the
ocean waiting for a wave to break over him. Then she ran into the
darkness with firm, obstinate steps. On the wet road lay a dull, dead
light. Billy followed it. Water leaped up against her legs with a
splash when she stepped into the puddles, and from her hat tiny cold
rivulets trickled down inside the collar of her cloak. Everything was
against her, everything that whispered, gurgled, snickered, and
murmured round about her, was hostile. It was frightful, and she was
frightened, but she had expected nothing else and she simply had to
advance. And in doing so she found in herself something that she had
never known there before, she found in herself the agitating feeling of
angry watchfulness and as it were sullen curiosity, which are of the
essence of courage. Thinking was impossible, she merely had to be on
her guard. So she rushed on. The road now grew dark. The great pines
murmured about her quite near at hand, and at times a wet branch struck
at her or tried to catch her, whereupon she would thrust it from her
fiercely and pugnaciously. A vast, dreamy resignation toward the
lurking Unknown made her almost apathetic. At the same time it was
queer enough that through all this time an image stood before her,
trying to be felt and seen. She saw herself clearly as if she were
walking by her own side: the slender figure in the brown rain-coat, the
wet hat on her head, bending forward slightly and running along the
unfamiliar black roads as resistlessly and unconsciously as a bullet
hurled by a powerful hand, forward over the roots that treacherously
placed themselves in her way, under the branches that tried to hold her
fast and drenched her with water, past great dusky birds that whirred
across the road, sending terrifying, wailing notes into the night.
But that had to be, life outside the garden-gates of Kadullen was
like that, and only thus could you fight your way back to those
garden-gates. And it seemed to Billy as if she could feel that here in
the gloomy world about her many such solitary figures were running down
black roads, quickly, quickly. She felt so strongly the presence of
these nocturnal comrades that they were uncanny and yet a trifle
consoling to her. The road grew steadily clearer and more shiny, trees
and bushes now stood out distinctly in a gray light, night-ravens
flapped their wings: day was coming. But Billy did not look up. Though
it was frightful to dream this dream, yet she was afraid to wake out of
it. She knew that if she did, this fever of courage and of thoughtless
resignation would forsake her, and that she would then have no strength
left. Her head bowed low over the road, she rushed on; now she was in
the midst of a white mist, then again she would be walking on moss like
red and green velvet. It had grown remarkably still about her; rain and
wind must have ceased. Suddenly she was walking all bathed in a ruddy
light. She felt this light like something that causes pain, and she
narrowed her eyes and bowed her head lower. Gradually the light became
golden, there was a flaming radiance and flicker everywhere, and a
humming began in the air, and a rustling in the moss. Billy felt how a
busy life had awakened about her, and she walked faster: it was like a
race with this Day, that was advancing so calmly and wakefully in all
his glory.
How long Billy had walked this way she did not know, but it seemed an
interminable time. The sun was already high in a pure blue sky and beat
down pitilessly. Billy felt as if she must be carrying a very warm
burden along with her, and moreover her feet grew so heavy, moving
slowly and mechanically like things that did not belong to her; they
were indifferent to her like everything else about her, and for her own
feeling she was some strange thing that was being laboriously driven
forward through the sunshine. Then suddenly, in a small forest
clearing, she sank down on a mossy knoll in the glaring sun. It was
delicious to stretch out her legs, to lay her back against the warm
huckleberry bushes. There could be nothing nicer in life. Around the
clearing stood young firs and pines, as shiny as metal, and so
motionless that the drops which still hung here and there on their
needles seemed frozen. Everything was motionless under this yellow
light, the grass-blades, the moss-blossoms, and the little blue
butterflies, and a bumble-bee crawled into the bell of a bennet and
hung there as if enchanted. In the thicket a fox drew near, his head
lowered to sniff the ground, and suddenly he too stood still without
stirring a muscle and stared into space, his eyes transparent as green
glass, spell-bound by the overpowering silence of the hour.
Billy sat there, and on her too was the burden of this motionlessness
which was so soothing, this delicious intoxication of light, of silence,
and of all the hot odors which the leaves, the pine-needles, and the
great sun-basking mushrooms exhaled. She too stared into space, feeling
how her eyes also grew as glassy bright as the eyes of yonder fox, and
how everything in her merely existed to drink in the sunlit stillness.
Now the cry of the jay rang out excitedly, as if he would waken some
one whether or no. The fox was gone, and Billy also started up; then
she leaned back, lifted her arms, stretched herself, and screwed up her
face as if to cry. Something very beautiful was over. Painfully she got
up: what was the use, she must go on in any case.
A wide forest road, covered with short grass, led her through a young
fir-nursery, and when the road took a turn, a bit of heath lay before
Billy, in the midst of which stood some cottages, standing there with
their golden-brown timbers and silver-gray roofs like tiny, gleaming
caskets on the red-blooming heath. Over there a cow was lowing in
long-drawn, sleepy tones; a cock crowed; smoke rose straight from the
chimney into the sky. Billy stopped short; all this moved her so
powerfully, she did not know why; her eyes grew moist, and yet she
could not but smile. She went straight toward the house; a low lattice
fence inclosed a garden which Billy entered through the half open gate.
Long beds of vegetables, gooseberry bushes. Here and there blue
flowering chicory and dark red poppies laid flaming spots of color on
the uniform brightness of the midday light. Beehives stood around
everywhere. Before one of these a man was kneeling, busied with the
bees. Billy went up to him; doubtless he heard the gravel crunch under
her feet, and he raised his head: a small old face, looking as if it
had been compressed in an upward direction, gazed at Billy calmly out
of dull, very light blue eyes.
"Good morning," said Billy.
"Good morning," answered the man, holding his hands out cautiously
before him, for they were thickly covered with bees as with
golden-yellow velvet gloves. As Billy said nothing, he turned to his
hive again.
"Am I far from Kadullen?" Billy began again.
"Three hours' walk," answered the man without looking up.
Again both were silent. The strong scent of the potherbs in the
garden-beds, the sourish smell of the honey, the faint buzzing of the
bees, all this enveloped Billy like boundless, delicious indolence. "To
rest here," thought she.
"May I sit here?" she asked, pointing to a wheelbarrow which lay
upturned on the gravel path. The old man merely nodded, as he
cautiously stripped the bees from his hands, and Billy sat down,
stretched out her feet, let her arms hang heavily, and sighed deeply:
this was all she needed. Oh, it wasn't so hard to live, after all.
"You're the young lady at Kadullen?" the old man finally said again, "I
often go there with honey. S'pose you're wet, hey?"
"Yes."
"S'pose you've been out in the rain during the night, and now I s'pose
you want to go home?"
Yes, Billy wanted to go home. The old man took off his straw hat and
thoughtfully rubbed his hand over his bald, shiny pate. "We could hitch
up," he said. Then he turned toward the other side and cried, "Lina!"
Over there before the little stable a red cow was standing, and in
front of her squatted a girl in a blue linen dress, milking her. The
girl got up slowly and a little laboriously, stood there a moment,
screwed up her face at the sunlight, looked crossly over at Billy, and
wiped her big red hands on her white apron.
"Come on," said the old man.
So Lina came slowly along the vegetable beds; on the big, stout body
perched a small head, with a puffy-cheeked, very heated childish face
under a heavy mass of oily brown hair. She still kept her hands on her
apron, as if wishing to conceal the fact that she was pregnant. She
stopped short before Billy and asked ill-humoredly, "What is it,
father?"
"Take the young lady in with you," said the father, "put some dry
clothes on her, and give her something to eat; afterward, young lady,
we'll drive on."
Lina turned and strode toward the house.
Billy got up to follow her, when the old man looked slyly at the two
with a sidelong glance, pointed at his daughter with his thumb and
said, "She's lost her good name too." Lina looked back at Billy, passed
the back of her hand across her eyes, and smiled faintly.
The living room into which Billy was conducted must have been freshly
calcimined, for it seemed so surprisingly, glaringly white. The
sunshine was so strangely heavy and honey-yellow as it rested on the
red and white chintz covers of the furniture and the pine boards of the
floor. Then, too, there was an eager, loud medley of bird-voices trying
to outsing each other, for all over the ceiling and at the window hung
canaries in cages; there were perhaps ten or twelve, and the little
creatures, excited by the light, trilled as if they were intoxicated by
their own singing.
"Oh, the birds," said Billy surprised.
"Them!" said Lina peevishly, "they yelp all daylong."
Billy had to sit down on the sofa, and Lina began to undress her. She
drew off her shoes, then her stockings. "The little feet," she
murmured, "I can hold one of 'em in my hand like a little bird." She
was quite absorbed in her task, and talked to herself like a child
playing quietly in a corner with its doll. "The lovely underwear, and
wet through and through, and we have a skin like silk, there, there,
and now comes the shirt, brand new it is, I made it for my wedding."
"For your wedding!" asked Billy, who obeyed mechanically the big,
careful hands.
"The wedding, well, that's all up now anyhow," said Lina, bustling back
and forth between her chests and Billy. "There, this dress here, it's a
bit tight for me, for the young lady it'll be all right. Nope, it's too
big after all, we'll have to pin it together," and the two girls began
to laugh at the loose dress, quite loudly, quite helplessly. Lina sat
down, slapped her knees, and held her sides. The canaries tried to
outsing the laughter of the girls. Now Billy was ready. She asked for a
mirror, surveyed herself attentively, then put away the mirror
satisfied and said, "Very good, your clothes are as soothing as
smelling-salts."
Lina went out to prepare something to eat, and Billy leaned back on the
sofa and closed her eyes. Yes, she really felt as if she had put away
with her clothes the cares and unrest of the former Billy. With the
dotted blue and white linen dress, with the big collar and the coarse
shirt that scratched her skin, it seemed as if she had imbibed
something of the carefree, almost shameless peacefulness with which
Lina had lazily and indolently moved her body, distorted by motherhood,
along the vegetable beds of the garden.
Now Lina brought milk, a shiny, brown loaf, and a great deal of honey.
Billy began to eat; at first with ravenous hunger, then slowly with
enjoyment, almost with devotion: she could not remember ever having had
anything taste so good to her.
When she was satisfied, she rested her arms heavily on the table. In
these unwonted clothes she had an impulse to go through motions which
were otherwise never characteristic of her, which perhaps were Lina's.
Her cheeks were flushed again, her eyes shining, and impatience for
life warmed her blood. Lina sat facing her, her hands laid flat on
her knees, and looked at her steadily and patiently out of her small
blue eyes.
"I think," remarked Billy, "we will go and see the cow, the chickens,
and the bees now."
That was it: in this comical blue dress she felt like going about the
farm outside; yes, she was convinced that she would be able to walk
along between the vegetable beds quite as lazily and cheerfully as
Lina. But when she stood up she felt that her legs were stiff and
pained her.
"Oh, no, let us stay here," she said, "and let us talk instead."
But the calm of the big, heated girl facing her made her impatient.
Could one not poke up this calm, as the child Billy had poked up the
small, quiet ant-hills, so that they immediately teemed with excited
life. "Are you not afraid?" asked Billy suddenly.
"Afraid?" answered Lina, "why? Oh, I see, you mean about that; naw,
what is there to be afraid of?"
"But some die of it," Billy went on probing.
Lina drew the back of her hand across her eyes and smiled faintly.
"Yes, some die." The two girls were silent for a time, listening to the
clamor of the canaries. Then Lina began to ask in her deep, somewhat
singing voice, "And yours is gone too?"
Billy blushed. "Yes, gone," she murmured uncertainly.
Lina sighed. "Yes," she said, "men are a cross, they always go away.
That's what happens to all of us."
Billy was silent, but it was like security and peace to her, this "us"
which placed her in the ranks of the girls who with calmness and
strength take the burden of life upon them.
The rumble of a wagon was heard outside. Immediately thereafter the old
man appeared in the door with a whip in his hand, saying, "We can start
now, young lady." Billy had to put on a very large yellow straw hat,
and then they drove away.
The little wagon rattled violently, the heavy white horse trotted
along imperturbably, patiently shaking off the gadflies that circled
about him. The little bells fastened to his harness tinkled a sleepily
monotonous tune. For a time the wagon continued to roll through the fir
nursery as between quiet blue walls, then the forest came to an end,
and the high road was before them and broad fields. Over all of it lay
a hot, pale yellow dust-film. The countryside seemed to Billy so
awesomely bare. "We see no people," she said.
The old man began to laugh softly and long. "'Cause it's Sunday. Ah
yes, when we go walking by night we don't know what day it is any more,
but that's the way with girls; Lina's got that far too."
"Can't he marry her?" asked Billy timidly.
The old man struck angrily at his white horse. "Marry? Marry who? Where
is the man to marry? Where is our handsome machinist at the
saw-mill? 'Cause he's got yellow cat's-eyes, they all run after him.
Anna at the watermill has come to it too now. Ye-ep, you can't stop it;
soon as spring comes, the young hussies are out o' nights, as restless
as the bees before a thunderstorm, and you can beat 'em, you can tie
'em, but in a jiffy--off they put. Now at this time o' year it don't
happen so often," added the old man with a sidelong glance at Billy.
She smiled. "Yes," she thought, "in a spring night, when we grow as
restless as the bees before a thunderstorm, then maybe there is this
Being-happy and this Dying, that Boris was talking about, but
there"--she shrank and shuddered: she did not even wish to think of it,
she still had a long ride before her, and later she would think it all
over. Good, good, but no thinking now, just listen to the sleepy tinkle
of the little bells.
Gradually however the region became more familiar, here and there stood
a farmer in Sunday coat among his fields, whose face Billy recalled,
and finally Kadullen rose in the distance between the great trees of
the park; a cool green spot in the sun-yellow land.
Billy drew herself up; she suddenly became quite wakeful; it was
almost torturing, how abruptly all her dream world fell away from her
and the former Billy was present once more with the responsibility for
what she had done, with the fear and shame before all those people
yonder. She saw distinctly Marion's eyes, Aunt Betty's helpless little
face, and her father's severe white nose. They had probably found the
slip of paper she had left behind. She tried to think what was on it.
"I am with him." Lord, how stupid that sounded! And now they were
coming closer and closer to the house. If only she could get to her
room unnoticed by way of the little staircase: no one would recognize
her in Lina's clothes, and once upstairs in her room she would lock the
door and let nobody in and sleep--sleep. Perhaps that would take some
burden from her; perhaps when she then awoke everything would be
different, everything better.
"Oh please," she said, "we'll stop at the little gate in the park wall
over there."
The old man nodded indifferently, turned into the side road, and
stopped before the small gate in the park wall. When Billy had got out,
she stood still a moment and said hesitantly: "I suppose I must pay."
"'s all right," answered the old man with a bad grace, "I'm going to
deliver some honey in the courtyard anyway."
"But not right away," pleaded Billy.
"I know, I know the game," murmured the old man, "needn't tell me."
Billy disappeared behind the gate. Cautiously she hurried up the little
paths: everything was silent and unpeopled, and the house stood there
as if asleep, with lowered blinds. Cautiously Billy approached the back
stairs. From the windows of the servants' quarters resounded the
long-drawn notes of a hymn: the servants were having their Sunday
worship. Before the washhouse stood the washwoman, putting her hand to
her eyes and looking out into the sunshine. Where had Billy just seen
that? Oh yes, over yonder in her dream. Now she softly ran up the
stairs, now she was in her room. Here too everything had waited for her
unchanged, and the familiar scent of the room, the familiar light, all
moved her so deeply that tears streamed down her face without effort or
pain. She locked the door, hastily pulled off her clothes, and crept
into her bed. Tears and sleep she craved, nothing else. Then when she
awoke, simply to belong again to all this that had waited here for her
so unchanged, so quietly and proudly.
Strange enough was the Sunday that had broken upon Kadullen. The news
of Billy's return home spread quickly. The washwoman had told the
butler, the butler reported it to Countess Betty, and then the old
beekeeper came into the servants' room and told his story. He was taken
to the Count and there cross-examined; but to no avail, for the affair
remained as incompréhensible as before. Why had she gone away? What had
happened? Marion was sent up to Billy's room, but reported that Billy
would admit no one and wished to sleep. Full of trouble Countess Betty
and Madame Bonnechose sat on the garden-steps beside Lisa, who had
stretched herself out on a reclining chair, for she felt very weak from
all these excitements. The two old ladies were silent: what should they
say?--they no longer understood _la chère jeunesse_. Only Madame
Bonnechose murmured from time to time, "_C'est incomprehensible._"
Countess Betty nodded, but Lisa would smile dreamily and say,
"Understand?--Oh, I can understand it all."
"_Mais chère_ little Lisa, _dites-nous donc, ce que vous savez_," urged
Madame Bonnechose.
Lisa shook her head. "There are things which we understand and yet for
which there are no words. When I stood on the plain of Marathon with
Katakasianopulos that time, it seemed to me as if I distinctly
understood all the pain that was to come upon us, but express it--that
I could not have done."
"Ah, dear child," said Countess Betty dejectedly, "that will not
help us now."
Marion came and reported once more that in Billy's room everything was
quite still.
"Oh dear, oh dear," sighed Countess Betty; she could not calmly sit
still, so she rose and went over to see her brother.
Count Hamilcar lay in his room on the sofa; he was keeping his eyes
shut, his face was strangely sallow, and the features seemed sharper
and more pointed than usual. When his sister came to a stop before him,
he opened his eyes and looked at her with a glance which had the
indifference of a man who to be sure surveys us, but whose thoughts and
dreams are very far from us.
"Still no certainty," said Countess Betty whimperingly. "She admits
nobody, saying she wants to sleep."
"Let her sleep," answered the count.
"Yes, but she might let us in," wailed the old lady further, "what is
all this? all these affairs? the whole house is whispering. The
Professor's family will leave today and carry the story all over the
country, and you, Hamilcar, you don't say anything either."
The count raised himself slightly. "No, Betty," he said, "I say
nothing, because I know nothing. We cannot prevent others from talking,
but we ought not to speak until there is need for it. Let the child
sleep, then she shall tell you everything, and then, Betty, I shall say
my say too. Will it soon be time for breakfast?"
"Oh, Hamilcar," replied Countess Betty intimidated, "you surely won't
come to breakfast, you are so unstrung."
The count laid his finger along his nose and said sharply, "I shall
come, and I hope it will be on time as usual. Also I did not hear you
sing a hymn: did you not have the accustomed worship?"
"No, we were so excited, you see," the old lady excused herself, but
the count was dissatisfied.
"You are wrong, Betty, have your worship as you do every Sunday; but
if I may request it, no reference to these happenings in the Bible
reading or in the prayer, just ordinary devotions. It is not our fault
that something has come in here which does not belong to us, but there
is no reason why we should surrender to it: we insist on our way, and
that ends it."
Wearily the count leaned back and shut his eyes; his sister looked at
him with alarm. "What ails you, Hamilcar?" she asked, "you are so
pale."
The count motioned impatiently with his hand. "I shall manage," he
said, "circulation and heart-beat simply won't listen to us, and the
only trouble is that they are forever meddling with our affairs. There
is an error here in the contract that we call our life. But for the
rest, it is old age, Betty, just that, and that is after all
comprehensible."
Countess Betty softly left the room, and outside she said to Madame
Bonnechose, much troubled, "_Chère amie_, my brother requires of us
that we have devotions; there is nothing to be done, so please call the
chamber-maids and the butler, _ô ma chère, il est terriblement
philosophe._"
Life at Kadullen did not surrender; there were devotions, Count
Hamilcar appeared at breakfast, pale and weary, but his conversation
with the Professor did not falter. They spoke of the yellow race, and,
as if even that were not sufficiently remote, of the Bismarck
Archipelago. Embarrassed silence burdened the remaining company. Egon's
and Moritz's places were vacant, for at the news of Billy's
disappearance they had ridden away and were not back yet. Lisa rejected
all food, and looked out and away over the heads of the breakfasters
with her beautiful eyes. "Today Lisa is altogether in 'Marathon,'" Bob
whispered to Erika. Even Mr. Post and Miss Demme wore a serious, even
somewhat proudly repellent mien. Mr. Post had said to Miss Demme before
breakfast, "It is plain to see that this so-called aristocratic culture
cannot hold its ground: there is much that is rotten at the core after
all." Whereupon Miss Demme, shaking her short curls, had answered,
"There is simply a lack of inward freedom."
After breakfast the professorial family drove away, taking a hasty and
over-affectionate farewell. Countess Betty had tears in her eyes.
"I felt," she said later, "as if Billy had died and they had just paid
a visit of condolence."
Then came the afternoon hours with the steady brightness of
the mid-summer day, with the quiet flaming of the bright colors
in the garden-beds, the Sunday lack of happenings, the troubled
sitting-together-and-waiting.
"Oh dear, if you only know what you were waiting for," sighed Countess
Betty.
But upstairs behind the locked door lay the poor puzzle, and before the
door stood Marion, her head leaning against it, her eyes too large for
the small yellow face.
Once the quiet was disturbed by the hurrying hoof-beats of a horse; a
rider galloped into the courtyard, dismounted and carried a letter in
to Count Hamilcar, then rode away again, and once more Sunday stillness
rested on the house.
"Now what is this new thing," wailed Countess Betty, "Hamilcar doesn't
say anything either; every one sits like a sphinx, guarding his own
secret."
And Lisa in her reclining chair said, lost in thought, "Even when they
go and leave us they have something that pleads for help, as if they
were trying to tell us: help me against myself."
"_Qui? monsieur Boris?_" asked Madame Bonnechose.
"No," replied Lisa, "Katakasianopulos."
"_Ah, ma chère, maintenant il ne s'agit pas de monsieur de
Katakasianopulos_," said Madame Bonnechose with vexation.
At last after dinner, when the sun was already shining red above the
rim of the forest, the news spread, "Marion is in Billy's room."
Billy had slept very soundly. Now she was lying on her bed, her
hands clasped behind her neck, her cheeks reddened, her eyes
wonderfully bright. She looked searchingly up at Marion, who stood
before her and gazed anxiously at her.
"First of all," said Billy, "don't look at me as if I had died. You
have eyes that can look at a person as if he were a spider."
--"Oh Billy, that is only because you are so wonderfully beautiful this
minute."
Billy smiled a little: "Oh well, that may be so; sit down and tell your
story.--So you found the slip?"
"Yes."
"Of course you took it to Auntie and your mother?"
"Yes."
"What did they say?"
"Mama said, '_la pauvre petite, elle est perdue._'"
"Ah, she said _perdue_. Do go on." Marion was ready to cry. "Why, I
don't know; Auntie went in to see your father. Your cousins rode away
to look for you, and Moritz said, 'If I only had that Pole in reach of
my pistol.' I made camomile tea for Auntie and Mama."
"Marion, Marion," Billy interrupted, "you're not much on
story-telling."
"No," said Marion, "you know you are to do the telling."
Billy grew serious: "Oh, I see, that is what they sent you here for;
very well. Pull down the shades and sit down by the window and don't
look at me." She shut her eyes and her face took on a tortured
expression. "I went away in the night, you know; I had to. And it was
quite easy. I could not let him go away alone and insulted, I should
have died for pity. And then we rode, and it rained and lightened, and
finally we couldn't go any farther. We went into a little inn: one of
Boris's friends was there, and an old Jew, and a Jewess sat there
without moving and looked at me as people sometimes look at us in
frightful dreams. Then we ate something and drank champagne, Boris's
friend sang and the two men played cards; but that was when it began,
everything grew different then, and quite sad, and I didn't understand
any more why I was there. I went into the adjoining room and lay down
on the bed. Everything smelled of dust and very bad perfume; there were
terrible red cushions, a child cried somewhere, and everything was
horribly ugly and sad. I never thought anything could be so ugly. Boris
came in. He was quite strange too. Here among the barberries he had
talked before about being happy and dying, but there, there it sounded
awful. And he was angry and went out and I pretended to sleep. Tell me,
Marion, could you love and be tragic, or be happy and die, when one of
the fat green caterpillars that we are so afraid of falls on top of you
and crawls over you and you can't pull it off you and it keeps on
crawling over you? See, that is the way everything was there,
everything. When all was still and Boris was sleeping, I jumped out of
the window and ran and ran."
"Don't you love him any more?" asked a timid voice from the
window-niche.
Billy was silent a moment, then she cried passionately, "Marion, don't
ask such questions. Yes, probably--of course I shall love him again,
here. But I will not talk about it any more, and they are not to
torment me. Go, tell them what you like, but for today I wish to be
left in peace. Auntie can come and sit beside my bed, but she mustn't
ask me anything, or mustn't talk about disagreeable things; she can
tell about her youth if she likes."
Billy turned her face to the wall, and Marion stole softly out of the
room.
Twilight was already falling when Countess Betty timidly entered her
brother's room. Count Hamilcar was sitting on his sofa, somewhat
shrunken, and was looking out of the window. "Well, Betty," he said
without looking up.
[Illustration: LITTLE CURIOSITY]
Jules Exter
The old lady stood still before him, supporting herself by her hands on
the back of a chair; the pale face of her brother alarmed her, it
looked so unapproachably angry, as if he were looking down at something
he despised there outside the window.
"Well?" he said again.
"She has told Marion about it," began Countess Betty, and she narrated
in a low, faltering voice, with something queerly helpless in it. "The
poor child," she finished, "all alone in the night, what she suffered,
the wicked fellow! What do you say, Hamilcar?"
"I?" he said, turning toward his sister. His words issued now with
extreme clearness, sharp and nasal. "I say, Betty: What sort of beings
are we rearing here?--why, they cannot live. Why, we simply cannot
intrust to them the thing that we call life. A housemaid who steals out
to the stable-boy and lets him seduce her knows what she is after; but
what we are bringing up is little intoxicated ghosts that tremble with
longing to haunt the outside world and cannot breathe when they get out
there. That is what we are rearing, Betty."
"I do not understand you, Hamilcar," said the old lady, who had grown
quite pale, "she is a child, she does not know, she will forget, the
others will forget, everything will come out all right. God has
shielded her."
A faint flush rose into the count's pale face, and a powerful agitation
made him a trifle breathless: "Our interesting gentleman
has seen to it that she will not forget it, he has seen to it
that this ridiculous tragedy will cling to the girl like an ugly
sickness. He has deemed it proper to shoot himself yonder in the Jew's
tavern--here."
He held out to his sister a piece of paper which he had been holding in
his fist all the time, and which he had crumpled into a little round
ball. Countess Betty took this little ball; mechanically she unfolded
the paper with trembling fingers, smoothed it out, and tried to read.
There were a few lines from Ladislas Worsky announcing Boris's death.
Inclosed was a little slip on which Boris had written, "To Billy. Then
I shall go alone. Boris."
Countess Betty let the paper drop on her knee and looked into space
vacantly, almost blankly, and only when the count now burst into an
angry laugh did she start up in terrible affright.
"That is a departure for you, eh?" he said, and now he spoke quickly
and pantingly: "These are the people that spend their lives in standing
like actors before the mirror and practising gestures for their
audience. I love--how does that become me? I am unhappy, I die--how
does that look, what will the others say to that? Death and life--a
question of attire, and a pretty girl that loves us is also simply a
part of our toilet, like a gardenia that we put into our button-hole:
and we are bringing up our girls to be gardenias for such worthless
fops. And then they call it Love; with that word they are fed and made
drunk. A pretty estate this love and life and dying have reached, if
they have come to be affairs for the nursery and for fops." He broke
off, for his agitation took his breath. He leaned back wearily and shut
his eyes. Countess Betty wept quietly into her handkerchief. After a
pause the count began again in his quiet, slow way, "Do not cry, Betty,
I lost my temper, excuse me."
Countess Betty lifted her tear-wet face to him and said beseechingly,
"But she must not find it out today."
Count Hamilcar shrugged his shoulders--"Today or tomorrow, that belongs
to her and to us once and for all."
Countess Betty rose, dried her eyes, and said, "How pale you are,
Hamilcar, you ought to go to bed."
Again the count smiled his restrained, kind smile: "Yes, Betty, I shall
go to bed. In all our distress this expedient is always left to us."
Again Billy had slept deeply and soundly. It must have been about
midnight when she awoke; she felt rested and wakeful, and was hungry.
Throughout the day she had crossly refused all food, now she reflected
that she must eat. She resolved to go down to the housekeeper, Miss
Runtze, and get something from her. Softly, so as not to waken Marion,
she dressed and went down to the lower floor to knock at the
housekeeper's door. It took Miss Runtze a long time to understand who
was knocking, and when she did she was greatly alarmed. "Oh dear,
Countess Billy! what is it? another misfortune? you want something to
eat? Yes, yes, that's what comes when you won't eat anything all day."
Scolding softly to herself she preceded Billy into the pantry. There
some cold chicken and a little Madeira were found. Billy began to eat
ravenously. As she took the glass and sipped the Madeira with puckered
lips, she blinked over the brim of the glass at the housekeeper, who
stood before her, the large face, heated from sleeping, closely framed
by the white night-cap, the corners of the mouth drawn down severely
and disapprovingly.
"Well, Runtze, what do you say to all this?" asked Billy.
"I was very sorry for it," answered the housekeeper coldly and
formally.
"Why?"
Runtze turned to the wooden frame on which the sausages hung, and began
to stroke one of them gently with her hand. "Why, it's this way," she
said, "a countess must be like an almond that I have soaked well in hot
water and slip out of its skin, beautiful and white."
Billy had once more bent over her chicken-wing. "Oh, that is it," she
said as she ate, "but Bonnechose says, _cette pauvre_ Runtze has had
her own romance and her own unhappy love-affair."
The corners of the housekeeper's mouth were drawn down still lower and
more tartly. "In our station all sorts of things can happen: we love
for a while and then again we don't and are at peace. But with our
mistresses it is different. If there is a hole in the cover of the old
sofa down in my room, I don't care, and some time when I have time I
mend it; but the company rooms upstairs must be spick and span, and
that's what I look out for every morning."
"I believe he was a miller?" asked Billy in a businesslike tone.
"Yes, a miller."
"Fair-haired?"
"No, red-haired."
Billy, her hunger now appeased, leaned back in her chair. "Oh,
red-haired, that's very pretty sometimes, and his face powdered with
flour and the red hair with it. But I am done now." She stood up. "I
thank you, Runtze, your meal was very good."
"That is the main thing," said the woman, "you are in love, and then
again you are not, but you always have to eat."
Billy went out, but she did not feel like going back up to her room,
which was so full of terrifying dreams. She walked down the corridor to
the outside door which led into the garden. It was the hour at which
she had been accustomed to go about of late anyway. Even to herself she
seemed ghostly and uncanny. But the garden was delicious, homelike. A
bit of a moon and very bright stars were in the sky. The mist had
advanced from the meadow into the garden. It was creeping over the
patches of turf and the beds. The flowers looked black, standing in the
white mists. A very intense joy warmed Billy's heart as she found that
this familiar reality had waited here for her and that she once more
belonged to all this. She walked along the gravel paths, she passed her
hand over the dew-laden tops of the roses and dahlias, she ate some of
the currants, she stood under the barberry bushes and breathed in the
moist, earthy smell that rose out of the old box there. But as she
walked thus, a more powerful agitation came over her. All these spots
spoke of Boris; she saw him and felt him again, and longing for him
again made her wretched and sick. Slowly she had returned to the house,
now she stood before the quietly sleepy garden-facade, saw Boris
standing on the porch again, or coming down the garden-paths and
looking into the evening sun with his dreamy eyes, and she again heard
him speaking in his solemn, singing voice of the pain suffered for the
mother-country. How could she go on living without all that? Suddenly
it struck her that a kind of noiseless unrest was going through the
sleeping house. There was light at Lisa's window, and behind the shades
Lisa's shadow moved back and forth. Billy recognized distinctly
the figure in the long nightdress, her loose hair hanging down her
back. "Why doesn't she sleep," she thought, "why is she walking
around?--after all it's my love-affair, not hers." But Aunt Betty's
window next door was also lit up. And there was the shadow of Aunt
Betty's big nightcap, too, and beside it another big nightcap. How the
two nightcaps gently moved toward each other, swaying and quivering.
Why weren't they sleeping, all of them? Was it on her account? And
there on the other side, light there too, and behind the shades another
shadow walking restlessly to and fro. Now the shadow approached the
window, the shade was raised, the window opened, and Billy saw her
father lean out: his hands tore open the shirt at his breast, and in
the scanty moonlight his face seemed quite white, only the open mouth
and eyes laying black shadows on it. So he stood there, drinking in the
night air greedily and anxiously. Billy retreated behind the box-hedge.
She was shivering with fear. Good heavens, what ailed them all! Was
it not as if she had died and were now stealing about the house as
a spirit, to see how all of them were mourning for her in there.
Cautiously keeping to the shadows, she walked over to the avenue of
maples. She felt impelled to look up from there at her balcony and the
window of her room. On the bench facing her window some one was sitting
asleep, his head drooping on his breast. It was Moritz. Billy stood
still before him. The good lad, he had sat here and looked up at her
window; the thought gave her the feeling of a delicious, warm shelter.
Moritz grew restless, opened his eyes, and looked at her.
"Ah, you, Billy," he said, as if he had expected her.
Billy smiled at him. "Have you been sitting here, Moritz, to look up
at my window?"
"Yes," answered Moritz crossly.
"That is nice," said Billy. She sat down on the bench beside him and
leaned slightly against his arm. "Do you still love me?"
"Yes," said Moritz in the same cross tone, "but why should that matter
to you?"
"Oh," said Billy plaintively, "it is very important, for I feel as if I
had died, and when a person is very much loved, then ... then I think
he comes to life again."
Moritz was silent a moment, and when he began to speak a great
agitation made his voice hesitant and awkward. "Oh Billy, if I could
help you."
"How can you, Moritz?" answered Billy, and he could hear from her voice
that she was weeping. "I--I--am longing so terribly for Boris." The arm
against which Billy was leaning trembled slightly; it was as if its
muscles tightened.
"That--" hissed Moritz between clenched teeth, "you must not think of
him ... how could he do that to you ... he had no right to die ... and
not die that way, even if life had been twice as loathsome to him ... a
man who loves doesn't do such a thing; that was base."
For a moment it grew quite still. Moritz merely felt the girlish body
lean a little more heavily on him. At last Billy began, and it sounded
like the faint wail of a child: "Is he dead?"
"What, Billy, you didn't know--"
"Yes I did, I knew it, I feel now that I knew it all the time--and even
over there when I came away from him." She was silent a while, and it
grew so still that they heard the night-dew trickling through the
leaves. Suddenly Billy raised herself, stood before Moritz white and
erect, brushed the hair from her forehead, while the moonlight rested
on her face, which seemed queerly pale and calm, and said in almost a
matter-of-fact tone, "Will you come along, Moritz?"
"Where to, Billy!"
"I _must_ go to him, you can see that; I left him once before. He can't
stay there alone in that terrible room. The Jewess is looking at him
and the children are standing in the door. No, I will not forsake him
again; but alone through the forest again--please, Moritz, come along."
She swayed slightly, propped herself on Moritz's shoulder, and then
sank down quietly and heavily before him.--
Billy had been sick for a long time. Now it was a sunny September
afternoon, and she was for the first time permitted to go out into the
garden. On the patch of turf under the pear-tree Billy sat wrapped in
shawls, her face haggard and transparently pale, and in her eyes the
lazily relishing glance of the convalescent, who likes to let his eyes
rest a long time upon objects. On the other grass-plot Lisa was lying
in her reclining chair, and Madame Bonnechose sat beside her, knitting
a red child's stocking. Countess Betty and Marion never stopped running
along between the rows of dahlias to and from the house and the
grass-plots. Count Hamilcar was taking his afternoon stroll. He walked
slowly down the garden-path, leaning heavily on his cane; from time to
time he stopped, sniffed the scent of the ripe fruit, the flowers, and
the fading leaves, and put on a stern, angry face, for he was indeed
vexed. Here lay these two beautiful creatures now, blighted by life,
crumpled up, attacked from ambush. Why? Why this barbarity? Why this
waste? He drew up his gray eyebrows discontentedly and blinked out at
the fringe of forest which lay far away in a violet haze. Was it not
perhaps a misunderstanding, his misunderstanding, this charming culture
that he had carefully erected like a fence about himself and his dear
ones? Could one learn how to live here? As he passed Lisa, he heard her
say in her elegiac fashion,
"I do not believe that Billy can understand a great pain, or that she
can enjoy it, for we must be able to enjoy even our pain."
"Enjoy, _ma chère, quelle idée_," said Madame Bonnechose, without
looking up from her knitting.
The count passed on and came to a stop before Billy. "Well, how are
you?" he asked a little sternly.
Billy flushed. "Thank you, papa, well. I wanted to tell you something."
"Oh, you did." The count sat down on a garden-chair facing his daughter
and looked attentively at her.
"I wanted to ask you," began Billy, looking up into the pear-tree, "I
wanted to ask you if you have forgiven me."
"Yes, certainly," the count slowly replied, as if he had been given a
problem to solve. "When we pardon some one, we wish by doing so to help
him get over something he has experienced or done. In this case, of
course, that is my liveliest wish."
Billy leaned her head back satisfied, and gently moved it to and fro on
her pillow as fever-patients are wont to do. "When we are sick," she
said, "time goes faster, I think; what went before the sickness lies so
far away. It seems to me as if I had done so much during this time of
sickness, and especially I have walked a great deal, always walking,
always on the way, and always such wonderfully strange roads. I don't
remember much of it all, I only know one thing: I was walking along a
yellow country road and ahead of me some one was walking, and somebody
ahead of her, and so on; there were many figures, and they were all
wearing my brown rain-coat and my muslin dress with the pink carnation
figure, in fact they were all Billys, and I knew the point was for me
to catch up with the Billy that was ahead of me. That seemed very
important to me."
"H'm," remarked the count, "an interesting dream. Those are our
mirrored images that become emancipated in our dreams. And now," he
smiled at his daughter, "now you think you have caught that other
Billy."
Billy still kept looking up at the pear-tree, and gently rocked her
head. "Now I am quite happy," she said meditatively, "but perhaps I
ought not to be. Lisa says that any one who has a great grief should
stand before it like a soldier on guard."
Count Hamilcar angrily thrust out his underlip and said sharply, "To
stand before one's follies like a soldier on guard is certainly not
commendable."
Billy did not seem to hear him. She still kept on dreamily talking to
the little golden-yellow pears that hung over her: "And to be
faithless, to be faithless is so terribly villainous."
The count bent forward, lifted his extended index finger in the
sunshine, and said slowly and impressively, "My daughter, provision is
made that we shall not be faithless, but remain true, to our sad or
foolish experiences. They run after us in any case. Perhaps we are
continually changing, and that is well. But the score always remains
the same. To come back to your remarkable dream, when the one Billy has
successfully caught the other Billy, you can be sure that the old Billy
gives all the burdens she has had to carry to the new one to take with
her. That is and must be so."
"All--for ever," said Billy under her breath, and she looked at her
father with a glance of such helpless fear that he dropped his eyes,
for a keen compassion caused him almost physical pain.
"Well, well," he rejoined, "when there are as many Billys as you have
before you, there cannot fail to be many pleasant things to take
along."
"Yes, don't you think lots of good things must still come?" cried
Billy. The count looked up in surprise. He saw that Billy had raised
her arms and clasped her hands over her head, and she was smiling a
wonderfully expectant smile.
"Oh, that's it," he murmured, "why, then, in that case--" He rose,
brushed Billy's cheeks hastily with two fingers, and slowly walked back
up the garden-path. Not much need for consolation in that quarter. This
child was far ahead of him in her faith in life; there was nothing
further for him to say. He sat down on the bench at the edge of
the meadow, wishing to sun himself. How they loved life, these poor
children, and how they trusted it! Yes, and life wants that: to be
loved, so as to be cruel. Perhaps a good method, always supposing there
is a purpose in it. He gently passed his hand over brow and eyes: if
only sympathy were not so exhausting, always to share the lives of
others, although--to be sure, three-fourths of our life lies somewhere
in the lives of others. If we cannot share that, only one-fourth is
left to us, and that is too little for intoxication, that is almost
abstemiousness. Oh, very well, abstemiousness generally results in
comprehension, only in this case comprehension is not so simple. He
squeezed his eyelids together as if wishing to gather into his eyes and
crush to powder the flaming gold of the afternoon light. How _was_
that?--he was trying to recall a verse in Homer. His memory left him in
the lurch, too: how does it go where Hector's soul is wailing aloud
because it must give up its beloved life? He could not recall it. Poor
devil, by the way, right out of the midst of his intoxication. One of
the great flies now came flying past Count Hamilcar with softly buzzing
wings. He went "brrr" with his lips and smiled a really cheerful smile
as he watched how this queer bundle of gauzy wings and golden gossamer
floated deliriously through the sunshine. "Mad with life," he thought,
"if all this only has some object. At any rate there is more chance for
meaning than for the lack of it, although--if I am a digit in the great
calculation, then to be sure I have a meaning, but that is no reason at
all why the result under the black line must have a significance for
me." The point was to be a digit in the result under that line.
However, thinking exhausted him. Why must we always think?--another
prejudice. Let us not think, but breathe. He leaned back and opened his
mouth a little. Breathing too might have been made an easier and
simpler affair. He was cold, doubtless he would have to walk a little
further; he tried to rise, but his legs would not carry him. He
stretched out his long arms as if wishing to get an armful of sunshine,
and his face assumed a vexed, anxious expression; then he fell back,
became quite still, and collapsed, leaning a trifle crookedly over the
arm of the bench in that weary movement which the first moment of death
brings to man, before its chill severity comes. The sun was already
low, bathing the mute figure in ruddy light, a gentle zephyr stirred a
gray tuft of hair on the pale temple, and the big fly flew back again
with a buzz past the white nose, motionless now. Round about, the ripe
fruit fell heavily upon the turf, making the whir of the field-crickets
cease for a moment. But yonder under the pear-tree sat Billy, looking
into the evening sun with feverishly shining eyes, and still smiling
her expectant, longing smile.
THOMAS MANN
* * * * * *
TONIO KRÖGER (1902)
TRANSLATED BY BAYARD QUINCY MORGAN, PH.D.
Assistant Professor of German, University of Wisconsin
The winter sun, only a poor make-believe, hung milky pale behind
cloud strata above the cramped city. Wet and draughty were the
gable-fringed streets, and now and then there fell a sort of soft hail,
not ice and not snow.
School was out. Over the paved yard and from out the barred portal
streamed the throngs of the liberated. Big boys dignifiedly held their
books tightly under their left armpits, while their right arms rowed
them against the wind toward the noon meal; little fellows set off on a
merry canter, so that the icy slush spattered, and the traps of Science
rattled in their knapsacks of seal leather. But here and there all caps
flew off, and a score of reverent eyes did homage to the hat of Odin
and the beard of Jove--on some senior teacher striding along with
measured step ...
"Is it you at last, Hans?" said Tonio Kröger, who had long been waiting
on the drive; and with a smile he stepped up to his friend, who was
just coming out of the gate in conversation with other comrades, and
who was on the point of going off with them.
"What is it?" asked the latter, looking at Tonio;--"Oh yes, that's so;
well, let's take a little walk, then."
Tonio was silent, and his eyes grew sad. Had Hans forgotten, not to
think of it again until this minute, that they were going to walk a bit
together this noon? And he himself had been looking forward to it
almost uninterruptedly since the plan was made.
"Well, so long, fellows," said Hans Hansen to his comrades. "I'm going
to take a little walk with Kröger." And they turned to the left, while
the others sauntered off to the right.
Hans and Tonio had time to go walking after school, because they both
belonged to houses in which dinner was not eaten until four o'clock.
Their fathers were great merchants who held public offices and were a
power in the city. For many a generation the Hansens had owned the
extensive lumber yards down along the river, where mighty steam saws
cut up the logs amid buzzing and hissing. And Tonio was Consul Kröger's
son, whose grain sacks were carted through the streets day after day,
with the broad black trade mark on them; the big ancient house of his
ancestors was the most princely of the whole town. The two friends had
to take off their caps constantly, because of their many acquaintances,
and indeed these fourteen-year-old boys did not always have to bow
first.
Both had hung their school-bags over their shoulders, and both were
dressed warmly and well; Hans in a short seaman's jacket, over the
shoulders and back of which lay the broad blue collar of his sailor
suit, Tonio in a gray belted top-coat. Hans wore a Danish sailor's cap
with short ribbons, a tuft of his flaxen hair peeping out from under
it. He was extraordinarily handsome and well formed, broad of shoulder
and narrow of hip, with unshaded, keen, steel-blue eyes. From under
Tonio's round fur cap, on the other hand, there looked out of a swarthy
face, with very clearly marked southern features, dark and delicately
shaded eyes under excessively heavy lids, dreamy and a trifle timid.
Mouth and chin were both fashioned with uncommonly soft lines. He
walked carelessly and unevenly, whereas Hans's slender legs in their
black stockings moved so elastically and rhythmically.
Tonio did not speak. He was grieved. Drawing together his rather
slanting eyebrows, and holding his lips pursed for whistling, he looked
into space with his head on one side. This attitude and expression were
peculiar to him.
Suddenly Hans thrust his arm under that of Tonio with a sidelong glance
at him, for he understood quite well what the matter was. And although
Tonio persisted in silence during the next few steps, yet he was all at
once amazingly softened.
"You know I hadn't forgotten, Tonio," said Hans, looking down at the
walk before him, "but I simply thought probably nothing could come of
it today, because it's so wet and windy, you know. But that doesn't
bother me at all, and I think it's fine that you waited for me in spite
of it. I had begun to think you had gone on home, and was vexed ..."
At these words Tonio's entire being began to leap and shout.
"Why, then we'll go over the ramparts now," he said with agitated
voice. "Over the Mill Rampart and the Holsten Rampart, and then I'll
take you home that way, Hans ... Why no, it doesn't matter if I go home
alone then; next time you'll go with me."
At bottom he did not believe very completely in what Hans had said, and
he felt distinctly that the latter assigned only half as much
importance to this walk as he. But yet he saw that Hans regretted his
forgetfulness and was making it a point to conciliate him. And he was
far from wishing to impede the conciliation.
[Illustration: THOMAS MANN]
The fact was that Tonio loved Hans Hansen and had already suffered much
for his sake. He who loves most is the weaker and must suffer--this
simple and bitter doctrine of life his fourteen-year-old spirit had
already accepted; and he was so constituted that he marked well all
such experiences, and as it were jotted them down inwardly, and indeed
he had a certain pleasure in them, though to be sure without ordering
his conduct accordingly and so deriving practical benefit from them.
Furthermore, his nature was such that he deemed such teachings much
more important and interesting than the knowledge which was forced
upon him in school; during the class hours in the vaulted Gothic
school-rooms he applied himself mostly to tasting the sensations of
such bits of insight to the lees, and thinking them out in their
entirety. This occupation afforded the same kind of satisfaction as
when he would walk up and down his room with his violin (for he played
the violin), letting the soft tones, as soft as he could produce them,
mingle with the plashing of the fountain which rose in a flickering jet
under the branches of the old walnut-tree in the garden below.
The fountain, the old walnut, his violin, and far away the sea,
the Baltic, whose summer dreams he could listen to in the long
vacation--these were the things he loved, with which he encompassed
himself, as it were, and among which his inward life ran its course;
things whose names may be employed with good effect in verse, and which
did actually ring out time and again in the verses which Tonio Kröger
occasionally composed.
This fact, that he possessed a note-book with verse of his own in it,
had become known through his own fault, and it injured him greatly both
with his fellows and his teachers. The son of Consul Kröger thought it
on the one hand stupid and base to condemn him for writing verses, and
he despised on that account both fellows and teachers, whose bad
manners were always repellent to him, and whose personal weaknesses he
detected with strange penetration. On the other hand, he himself found
it really an improper dissipation to write verse, and so had to agree
to some extent with all those who regarded it as a doubtful occupation.
But this could not make him give it up.
As he wasted his time at home, was slow and generally inattentive in
class hours, and had a bad record with his teachers, he always brought
home the most wretched reports; at which his father, a tall, carefully
dressed gentleman with meditative blue eyes, who always wore a
wild flower in his button-hole, shewed himself both incensed and
distressed. But to his mother, his beautiful mother with the black
hair, whose name was Consuelo and who was altogether so different from
the other ladies of the town, because Tonio's father had once fetched
her from clear down at the bottom of the map--to his mother his reports
were absolutely immaterial.
Tonio loved his dark, passionate mother, who played the piano and the
mandolin so wonderfully, and he was happy that she did not grieve over
his doubtful position among men. On the other hand, however, he
realized that his father's anger was much more estimable and
respectable, and although he was censured by his father, he was at
bottom quite in agreement with him, whereas he found the cheerful
indifference of his mother a trifle unprincipled. At times his thoughts
would run about thus: "It is bad enough that I am as I am, and will not
and cannot alter myself, negligent, refractory, and intent on things
that nobody else thinks of. At least it is proper that they should
seriously chide and punish me for it, and not pass it over with kisses
and music. After all, we aren't gipsies in a green wagon, but decent
folks, Consul Krögers, the Kröger family" ... And not infrequently he
would think: "Well, why am I so peculiar and at outs with everything,
at loggerheads with my teachers and a stranger among the boys? Look at
them, the good pupils and those of honest mediocrity. They don't think
the teachers funny, they write no verses, and they only think what
others think and what you can say out loud. How proper they must feel,
how satisfied with everything and everybody. That must be nice ... But
what ails me, and how will all this end?"
This fashion of scrutinizing himself and his relation to life played an
important part in Tonio's love for Hans Hansen. First of all he loved
him because he was handsome; but also because he seemed to be his own
antipodes and converse in all respects. Hans Hansen was an excellent
scholar and at the same time a lively fellow who rode, swam, and played
athletic games like a hero and rejoiced in universal popularity. The
teachers were devoted to him almost to the point of affection, called
him by his Christian name, and advanced him in every way; his comrades
were eager for his favor, and on the street ladies and gentlemen would
stop him, seize him by the tuft of flaxen hair that peeped out from
under his Danish sailor's cap, saying, "Good day, Hans Hansen with
your pretty tuft! Are you still _Primus_? Remember me to father and
mother, my fine boy ..."
That was Hans Hansen, and ever since Tonio Kröger first knew him he
felt a longing as often as he beheld him, an envious longing that dwelt
above his breast and burned there. "Oh, if one had such blue eyes," he
thought, "and lived such an orderly life and in such happy communion
with the whole world as you do! You are always occupied in some
decorous and universally respected way. When you have done your tasks
for school, you take riding lessons or work with the fret-saw, and even
in the long vacation on the seashore your time is taken up with rowing,
sailing, and swimming; while I lie lost in idle thought on the sand,
staring at the mysteriously changing expressions that flit over the
countenance of the sea. And that is why your eyes are so clear. To be
like you." ...
He did not make the attempt to be like Hans Hansen, and perhaps he did
not even mean this wish very seriously. But he did have an aching
desire to be loved by Hans, just as he was, and he sued for that love
in his fashion, a slow and intimate, devoted, passive and sorrowful
fashion, but a sorrow which can burn more deeply and consumingly than
all the swift passionateness one might have expected in view of his
foreign appearance.
And he did not sue wholly in vain; for Hans, who by the way respected a
certain superiority in Tonio, a skill in speech which enabled him to
give utterance to difficult matters, understood quite well that an
unusually strong and tender affection was vibrating here, showed
himself grateful, and gave Tonio many a happy hour by meeting him
half-way--but also many a pang of jealousy and disappointment, the
pain of a vain endeavor to find a common spiritual ground. For the
remarkable thing was that Tonio, although he envied Hans Hansen for his
way of living, constantly tried to bring him around to his own, which
he could never do for more than a few minutes, and then only in
seeming.
"I've just been reading something wonderful, something splendid," he
said. They were walking along, eating fruit tablets from a bag which
they had purchased at Iverson's on Mill Street for ten pfennig. "You
must read it, Hans, it is _Don Carlos_ by Schiller. I'll lend it to
you, if you wish."
"No, no," said Hans Hansen, "never mind, Tonio, that's not my style. I
stick to my horse-books, you know. Splendid illustrations in them, I
tell you. Sometime I'll show them to you at the house. They are
snap-shots, and you see the horses trotting and galloping and jumping,
in every position, such as you would never see in life because they
move too fast."
"In all positions?" asked Tonio politely. "Yes, that's fine, but as for
_Don Carlos_, it is beyond all comprehension. There are passages in it,
you'll see, that are so beautiful that it gives you a jerk, as if
something had suddenly burst."
"Burst?" asked Hans Hansen. "How do you mean?"
"For example, there is the passage where the king has wept because he
has been deceived by the marquis--but the marquis has only deceived him
for love of the prince, you understand, for whom he is sacrificing
himself. And now the news that the king has wept comes out of his
cabinet into the ante-room. 'Wept? The king has wept?' All the
courtiers are terribly taken aback, and it just goes through you, for
he's an awfully stiff and strict king. But you understand so clearly
that he did weep, and I really feel sorrier for him than for the
marquis and the prince together. He's always so utterly alone and
without love, and now he thinks he has found a friend, and the friend
betrays him ..."
Hans Hansen cast a sidelong glance into Tonio's face, and something in
that face must surely have won him over to this subject, for he
suddenly thrust his arm into Tonio's again and asked,
"Why, how does he betray the king, Tonio?"
Tonio was stirred to action.
"Why, the fact is," he began, "that all letters to Brabant and
Flanders ..."
"There comes Erwin Immerthal," said Hans.
Tonio was silent. "If only the earth would swallow him up," he thought,
"this Immerthal. Why must he come and disturb us? I only
hope he won't go along and talk about his riding lessons the whole
hour"--For Erwin Immerthal had riding lessons also. He was the son of a
bank director and lived here outside the gate. With his crooked legs
and his eyes like slits he came along the avenue to meet them, his
school-bag already safe at home.
"Hello, Immerthal," said Hans. "I'm taking a little walk with Kröger."
"I have to go into town," said Immerthal, "on some errands. But I'll
walk a piece with you ... Those are fruit tablets, aren't they? Thanks,
yes, I'll eat a couple. We take another lesson tomorrow, Hans."--He
meant the riding lesson.
"Fine!" said Hans. "You know, I'm going to get the leather spats now,
because I got A on my exercise last week."
"I suppose you aren't taking riding lessons yet, Kröger?" asked
Immerthal, and his eyes were only a pair of shining slits.
"No," answered Tonio with quite uncertain accent.
"You ought to ask your father, Kröger," remarked Hans Hansen, "to let
you take lessons too."
"Ayah," said Tonio both hastily and indifferently. For a moment he
had a lump in his throat, because Hans had called him by his surname;
and Hans seemed to feel this, for he said in explanation:
"I call you Kröger, because your Christian name is so crazy; excuse me,
but I don't like it. Tonio ... that's no name at all. But then it's not
your fault, of course not."
"No, I suppose the chief reason why you are named that is because it
sounds foreign and is uncommon," said Immerthal, acting as if he wanted
to patch things up.
Tonio's mouth quivered. He pulled himself together and said,
"Yes, it is a silly name, and Heaven knows I wish I were named Heinrich
or Wilhelm, you can take my word for that. But the reason is that a
brother of my mother, for whom I was christened, is named Antonio; for
you know my mother came from over there ..."
Then he said no more, and let the other two talk of horses and harness.
Hans had taken Immerthal's arm, and was talking with a fluent sympathy
which never could have been aroused in him for _Don Carlos_ ... From
time to time Tonio felt rising and tickling his nose a desire to weep;
and he had difficulty in controlling his chin, which constantly tried
to quiver.
Hans did not like his name--what was to be done? His own name was Hans,
and Immerthal's was Erwin; very well, those were universally recognized
names that no one thought strange. But "Tonio" was something foreign
and uncommon. Yes, there was something uncommon about him in every
respect, whether he would or no, and he was alone and excluded from
regular and ordinary folks, although he was no gipsy in a green wagon,
but a son of Consul Kröger, of the Kröger family ... But why did Hans
call him Tonio so long as they were alone, if he began to be ashamed of
him when a third person came up? At times Hans was close to him, even
won over, it seemed. "How does he betray him, Tonio?" he had asked,
and taken his arm. But then when Immerthal came, Hans sighed with
relief just the same, forsook him, and found no difficulty in
reproaching him with his foreign name. How it hurt to have to see
through all this!... At bottom, Hans Hansen liked him a little when
they were alone together, he knew that. But when a third person came,
Hans was ashamed of it and sacrificed him. And he was alone again. He
thought of King Philip. The king had wept ...
"For heaven's sake," said Erwin Immerthal, "now I really must be off
into town. Good-by, fellows, and thanks for the candy." With that he
jumped upon a bench that stood beside the street, ran along it with his
crooked legs, and trotted off.
"I like Immerthal," said Hans emphatically. Hans had a spoiled and
self-conscious way of making known his likes and antipathies, of
distributing them with royal favor, as it were ... And then he went on
to speak of the riding lessons, for he was now in that vein. Besides,
it was now not far to the Hansens' house; the walk over the ramparts
did not take very long. They held their caps tightly, and bowed their
heads before the strong damp wind that creaked and groaned in the bare
branches of the trees. And Hans Hansen talked, while Tonio interjected
no more than a mechanical "Oh" or "Oh yes" from time to time, nor felt
any joy that Hans had taken his arm again in the ardor of speech; for
that was only a seeming advance, without significance.
Then they forsook the park strip along the ramparts not far from the
station, watched a train puff by with clumsy haste, counted the cars to
pass the time, and waved to the man who sat perched high on the last
car, muffled in furs. And then they came to a stop on the square with
the lindens in front of the villa of Hansen the wholesaler, and Hans
showed in detail what fun it was to stand on the bottom of the garden
gate and swing back and forth until the hinges fairly screeched. But
hereupon he took his leave.
"Well, now I must go in," he said. "Good-by, Tonio. Next time I'll go
home with you, be sure of that."
"Good-by, Hans," said Tonio, "it was nice to go walking."
The hands they clasped were quite wet and rusty from the garden gate.
But when Hans looked into Tonio's eyes, something like penitent
reflection came into his handsome face.
"And by the way, I'm going to read _Don Carlos_ pretty soon," he said
quickly. "That about the king in his cabinet must be fine." Then he put
his school-bag under his arm and ran off through the front yard. Before
he disappeared into the house he turned once more and nodded.
And Tonio Kröger went away quite transfigured and on wings. The wind
was at his back, but that was not the only reason why he moved away so
lightly.
Hans would read _Don Carlos_, and then they would have something in
common, about which neither Immerthal nor any one else could talk with
them. How well they understood each other. Who could tell--perhaps he
might even bring him to the point of writing verses too ... No, no, he
did not want to do that. Hans must not become like Tonio, but remain as
he was, so bright and strong, just as everybody loved him, and Tonio
most of all. But to read _Don Carlos_ wouldn't hurt him, just the
same ... And Tonio went through the old, square-built gate, along the
harbor, and up the steep, draughty, and wet Gable Street to the house
of his parents. That was when his heart lived; there was longing in it
and melancholy envy and a tiny bit of contempt, and an unalloyed chaste
blissfulness.
II
Fair-haired Inga, Ingeborg Holm, daughter of Doctor Holm who lived on
the market-place where the Gothic fountain stood, lofty, many-pointed,
and of varied form, she it was whom Tonio Kröger loved at sixteen.
How did that happen? He had seen her a thousand times; but one
evening he saw her in a certain light, saw how in conversing with a
girl friend she laughingly tossed her head in a certain saucy fashion,
and carried her hand, a little-girl's hand, by no means especially
slender or dainty, up to her back hair in a certain fashion, so that
the white gauze sleeve slipped down from her elbow; heard how she
pronounced a word, an insignificant word, in a certain fashion, with a
warm ring in her voice,--and a rapture seized upon his heart, far
stronger than that which he had formerly felt at times when he looked
at Hans Hansen, in those days when he was a small, silly boy.
On this evening he took away with him an image of her, with the thick
blond braid, the elongated, laughing blue eyes, and a delicately marked
saddle of freckles on her nose, and could not sleep for hearing the
ring in her voice, softly trying to imitate the intonation with which
she had uttered the insignificant word, and quivering as he did so.
Experience taught him that this was love. But although he knew
perfectly that love must inevitably bring him much pain, affliction,
and humiliation, that it moreover destroys peace and overfills the
heart with sweet melodies, without giving a man peace enough to round
off any one thing and calmly weld it into a unified whole, yet he
entertained it with joy, surrendered wholly to it, and nursed it with
all the powers of his spirit; for he knew that it gives life and
riches, and he longed to be alive and rich, instead of calmly welding
anything into a unified whole.
This loss of Tonio Kröger's heart to merry Inga Holm occurred in the
empty drawing-room of Mrs. Consul Husteede, whose turn it was that
evening to have the dancing class; for it was a private class, to which
only members of the first families belonged, and they assembled in turn
in the parental houses in order to receive instruction in dancing arid
deportment. For this special purpose dancing-master Knaak came over
every week from Hamburg.
Francois Knaak was his name, and what a man he was! "_J'ai l'honneur
de me vous représenter_," he would say, "_mon nom est_ Knaak ... And
this one does not say while one is bowing, but when one is again
standing upright--not loudly and yet clearly. One is not every day in a
position where one must introduce oneself in French, but if one can do
so correctly and flawlessly in that language, then one will certainly
not fail in German." How wonderfully the silky black frock-coat
clung about his fat hips! In soft folds his trousers fell to his
patent-leather pumps, which were adorned with broad satin bows, and his
brown eyes looked about with a satiated happiness at their own beauty.
Every one was crushed by the excess of assurance and decorum in him. He
would glide--and none could glide like him, elastic, rocking, swaying,
royal--up to the mistress of the house, bow, and wait for her to extend
her hand to him. When he had received it, he would thank her in a low
voice, step back springily, turn on his left foot, snap the toe of his
right foot sidewise off the floor, and glide away with swaying hips.
One went out of the door backward and bowing when one left a company;
one did not bring up a chair by seizing one leg of it, or dragging it
along the floor, but one carried it lightly by the back and set it down
noiselessly. One did not stand with hands folded on the--pardon!--belly,
and the tongue thrust into the cheek; but if one did so none the less,
M. Knaak had such a fashion of doing likewise that one preserved for
the rest of his days a loathing for this attitude.
This was deportment. But as for dancing, M. Knaak mastered that in
still higher degree, if possible. In the empty salon the gas-flames of
the chandelier and the candles on the mantle-piece were burning. The
floor was strewn with soapstone, and the pupils stood about in a mute
semicircle. Beyond those portieres, in the adjoining room, sat the
mothers and aunts in plush chairs, surveying M. Knaak through their
lorgnettes, as he bowed forward, grasped the hem of his frock-coat with
two fingers of each hand, and with springy legs demonstrated the
various steps of the mazurka. But when he had a mind to completely
startle his audience, he would suddenly and without cogent reason leap
high in the air, cut pigeon-wings with bewildering rapidity, trilling
with his feet, so to say, whereupon he would return to this earth with
a muffled thud which, however, shook everything to its foundations.
"What an incomprehensible monkey!" thought Tonio Kröger. But he saw
clearly that Inga Holm, the merry Inga, often followed M. Knaak's
movements with a self-forgetful smile, and this was not the only reason
why all this wonderfully controlled corporosity did at bottom wrest
from him something like admiration. How peaceful and unperplexed M.
Knaak's eyes were! They did not penetrate to the point where matters
grow complex and mournful; they knew nothing save that they were brown
and beautiful. But that was why his bearing was so haughty. Yes, you
must be stupid in order to walk like him; and then you would be loved
because you were amiable. He comprehended so readily that Inga,
fair-haired, sweet Inga, looked upon M. Knaak as she did. But would
never a maiden look thus upon himself?
Oh yes, that happened. There was Magdalen Vermehren, lawyer Vermehren's
daughter, with the gentle mouth and the large, dark, shining eyes full
of seriousness--and sentimentality. She often fell in dancing; but she
came to him when it was ladies' choice, she knew that he wrote verses,
twice she had asked him to show them to her, and often she looked at
him from a distance with lowered head. But what good was that to him?
As for him, he loved Inga Holm, the fair-haired merry Inga, who
undoubtedly despised him because he wrote poetic things ... he looked
at her, saw her elongated blue eyes full of happiness and mockery, and
an envious longing, a bitter, harassing pain at being cut off from her
and eternally foreign to her, dwelt in his breast and burned there ...
"First couple _en avant!_" said M. Knaak, and no words can describe how
wonderfully the man brought out the nasal sound. They were practising
the quadrille, and to Tonio Kröger's intense terror he found himself in
the same set with Inga Holm. He avoided her when he could, and still he
kept getting near her; he forbade his eyes to approach her, and still
his glance was forever striking her ... Now she came gliding and
running up hand in hand with red-headed Ferdinand Matthiessen, threw
back her braid, and placed herself opposite him, breathing deeply; Mr.
Heinzelmann the pianist ran his bony fingers over the keys, M. Knaak
called out the figures, and the quadrille began.
She moved back and forth before him, forward and back, gliding and
turning: a fragrance that came from her hair or the dainty white stuff
of her dress reached him now and then, and his eyes grew sadder and
sadder. "I love you, dear, sweet Inga," he was saying to himself; and
he put into these words all the pain he felt that she was so merry and
so intent on the dancing, and paid no heed to him. A wonderful poem by
Storm came to his mind: "I fain would sleep, but thou must dance." He
was tormented by the humiliating contradiction that lay in having to
dance while he was in love ...
"First couple _en avant!_" said M. Knaak, for a new figure was
beginning. "_Compliment! Moulinet des dames! Tour de main!_" And no one
can describe in what a graceful manner he swallowed the silent _e_ in
_de_.
"Second couple _en avant!_" Tonio Kröger and his lady were the ones.
"_Compliment!_" And Tonio Kröger bowed. "_Moulinet des dames!_" And
Tonio Kröger, with lowered head and gloomy brow, laid his hand on the
hands of the four ladies, on that of Inga Holm, and danced
"_moulinet_."
All around there arose a giggling and laughing. M. Knaak assumed a
ballet pose which expressed a conventionalized horror. "O dear," he
cried. "Halt, halt! Kröger has got in among the ladies. _En arrière_,
Miss Kröger, back, _fi donc_! All understand it now except you. Quick,
away, back with you!" And he drew out his yellow silk handkerchief and
waved Tonio Kröger back to his place with it.
Everybody laughed--the boys, the girls, and the ladies beyond the
portières; for M. Knaak had made the little episode too funny for
words, and all were amused as at a play. Only Mr. Heinzelmann waited
with unmoved official countenance for the signal to play on, for he was
hardened against M. Knaak's effects.
Then the quadrille was continued. And then there was an intermission.
The second-girl came clinking through the door with a tea-tray of
wine-jelly in glasses, and the cook followed in her wake with a cargo
of raisin-cake. But Tonio Kröger stole away in secret out into the
corridor, and there placed himself with his hands behind him at the
window with drawn blinds, not reflecting that one could see nothing at
all through the blinds, and that it was therefore ridiculous to stand
in front of them and to act as if one were looking out.
But he looked into himself, where there was so much grief and longing.
Why, why was he here? Why was he not sitting in his room by the window,
reading in Storm's _Immensee_ and looking now and then into the
twilight of the garden, where the old walnut-tree was groaning heavily?
That would have been the place for him. Let the others dance and be
lively and adept at it ... But no, this was the right place after all,
where he knew himself near to Inga, even though he only stood lonely
and far off, trying to distinguish her voice, with its ring of warm
life, in the hum, clinking, and laughter there within. Oh, your
laughing blue almond eyes, you fair-haired Inga! As fair and merry as
you, one can be only when one does not read _Immensee_ and never
attempts to compose its like; that is the sad part! ...
She ought to come to him! She ought to notice that he was gone, ought
to feel how it was with him, ought to follow him secretly, if only out
of compassion, lay her hand on his shoulder and say: "Come in and join
us and be happy, for I love you." And he listened for steps behind him,
and waited in unreasonable suspense for her to come. But she came not
at all. The like of that did not happen on earth.
Had she too laughed at him, like all the rest? Yes, she had done so,
gladly as he would have denied it for her and his own sake. And yet he
had only danced "_moulinet des dames_" because absorbed in her
presence. And what did it matter? Perhaps they would stop laughing some
time. Had not a magazine a short while before accepted one of his
poems, though it was discontinued before the poem could appear? The day
would come when he would be famous, when everything he wrote would be
printed, and then it was to be seen whether that wouldn't make an
impression on Inga Holm ... But it wouldn't make any impression, no,
that was just the trouble. On Magdalen Vermehren, who was always
falling down, yes, on her it would. But never on Inga Holm, never on
the blue-eyed, merry Inga. And so was it not in vain?
Tonio Kröger's heart contracted with pain at this thought. To feel how
wonderful sportive and melancholy powers are stirring in you, and to
know at the same time that those to whom your longing draws you are
gaily inaccessible to them, that hurts grievously. But although he
stood lonely, shut out, and without hope before closed blinds,
pretending in his distress that he could look through them, he was
none the less happy. For in those days his heart lived. Warmly and
sadly it beat for you, Ingeborg Holm, and his soul embraced your
blond, bright, and saucily ordinary little personality in blissful
self-abnegation.
More than once he stood with heated face in lonely spots but faintly
reached by music, the scent of flowers, and the clink of glasses,
seeking to distinguish your ringing voice in the distant hum of the
festive throng; grieving for you he stood, and still was happy. More
than once it pained him that he could talk to Magdalen Vermehren, who
was always falling down, that she understood him and was merry or grave
with him, whereas fair-haired Inga, even though he sat beside her,
seemed distant and strange and estranged, for his language was not
hers; and still he was happy. For happiness, he told himself, is not
being loved; that is satisfied vanity mingled with repugnance.
Happiness consists in loving and snatching up perhaps tiny, deceptive
approaches to the loved object. And he noted down this idea inwardly,
thought it out in its entirety, and tasted it to the lees.
"Faithfulness!" thought Tonio Kröger. "I will be faithful and love you,
Ingeborg, as long as I live." So good were his intentions. And yet a
secret fear and sadness whispered: "You know you have forgotten Hans
Hansen altogether, although you see him daily." And the hateful and
pitiful thing was that this soft and slightly malicious voice had the
right of it, that time went on and days came when Tonio Kröger was no
longer so unconditionally ready to die for the merry Inga as formerly,
because he felt in himself the desire and the ability to accomplish in
his fashion a quantity of remarkable things in the world.
And he cautiously circled about the altar of sacrifice on which the
pure and chaste flame of his love was blazing, knelt before it, and
stirred and fed it in every way, because he wanted to be faithful. Yet
after a time, imperceptibly, without sensation or noise, it went out
nevertheless.
But Tonio Kröger stood yet awhile before the chilled altar, full of
wonder and disappointment to find that faithfulness was impossible on
earth. Then he shrugged his shoulders and went his way.
III
He went the way he had to go, a little carelessly and unevenly,
whistling to himself, looking into space with head on one side; and if
he went astray, that was because there simply is no right path for some
individuals. If you asked him what in all the world he intended to be,
he would supply varying information, for he was wont to say (and had
already written it down) that he had in him the possibilities of a
thousand forms of existence, together with the secret consciousness
that they really were one and all impossibilities.
Even before he departed from his cramped native city, the clamps and
threads with which it held him had gently loosened their hold. The old
family of the Krögers had little by little begun to crumble and
disintegrate, and men had reason to reckon Tonio Kröger's own existence
and nature among the other features of that process. His father's
mother had died, the head of the family, and not long afterward his
father, the tall, meditative, carefully dressed gentleman with the wild
flower in his buttonhole, had followed her in death. The big Kröger
house together with its honorable history was for sale, and the firm
went out of business. Tonio's mother, however, his beautiful,
passionate mother, who played the piano and the mandolin so
wonderfully, and to whom everything was quite immaterial, married anew
after the lapse of a year, this time a musician, a virtuoso with an
Italian name whom she followed to far-away lands. Tonio Kröger found
this a trifle unprincipled; but was _he_ called upon to prevent her? He
who wrote verses and could not even answer the question what in all the
world he intended to become ...
And he forsook his zigzagging native city, around whose gables the damp
winds whistled, forsook the fountain and the old walnut-tree in the
garden, the familiars of his youth, forsook also the sea that he loved
so dearly, and felt no pain in so doing. For he had grown mature and
shrewd, had come to comprehend how things stood with himself, and was
full of mockery of the stupid and vulgar existence that had so long
held him in its midst.
He surrendered himself wholly to the power which seemed to him the most
lofty on earth, into whose service he felt himself called, and which
promised him rank and honors, the power of the spirit and of speech,
which sits smilingly enthroned over this unconscious and mute life.
With all his young passion he surrendered himself to her, and she
rewarded him with all she has to bestow, and took from him inexorably
all that she is wont to take as equivalent.
She sharpened his eyes and made him see through and through the big
words that swell men's bosoms, she unlocked for him the souls of men
and his own soul, made him a seer, and showed him the heart of the
world and every first cause hidden behind words and deeds. But what he
saw was this: comedy and misery--comedy and misery.
Then came loneliness with the anguish and the arrogance of this
knowledge, because he could not endure the circle of the innocent with
their happily beclouded minds, and the mark on his brow was
disconcerting to them. But sweeter and sweeter grew to him the joy in
words and in beautiful forms, for he was wont to say (and had already
written it down) that mere knowledge of the soul would infallibly make
us dejected if the pleasure of expression did not keep us awake and
lively....
So he lived in great cities and in the South, from whose sunshine he
promised himself a more luxuriant maturing of his art; and perhaps it
was the blood of his mother that drew him thither. But as his heart was
dead and without love, he fell into adventures of the flesh, sank
deeply into lust and the guilt of passion, and suffered unspeakably
from it all. Perhaps it was the heritage of his father in him, of that
tall, meditative, neatly dressed gentleman with the wild flower in his
button-hole, that made him suffer so down yonder, and that occasionally
set in motion within him a faint, yearning recollection of a pleasure
of the spirit, which had once been his own, and which he could not find
again in all his pleasures.
A loathing and a hatred of the senses seized him, and a thirst for
purity and decency and peace; while after all he was breathing the air
of art, that lukewarm, sweet air of an eternal spring, pregnant with
fragrance, in which a mysterious procreative rapture seethes and
germinates and sprouts. So the only result was that Tonio, without
support between these crass extremes, tossed back and forth between icy
intellectuality and consuming sensual fire, led an exhausting life amid
torments of conscience, an exquisite, debauched, extraordinary life,
which he, Tonio Kröger, abhorred in his heart. What vagaries, he
thought at times. How was it ever possible that I should fall into all
these eccentric adventures? After all, I was no gipsy in a green wagon
to start with ...
But in the same measure that his health was undermined, his artistry
grew keener, becoming fastidious, exquisite, precious, delicate,
irritable toward the banal, and most sensitive in matters of tact and
taste. When he first came forward, there was much noise of approval and
joy among those concerned, for what he had produced was a thing full of
valuable work, of humor, and of acquaintance with suffering. And his
name, the same name that his teachers had once used to reprove him, the
same name that he had signed to his first rhymes to the walnut-tree,
the fountain, and the sea, this mixture of north and south, this
plebeian name with the exotic flavor, swiftly became the standing
symbol of excellence; for with the painful thoroughness of his
experience became associated a rare, tenacious, and ambitious industry,
whose struggle with the finical sensitiveness of his taste produced,
amid exquisite torments, unusual works.
He did not work like one who works to live, but like one who desires
nothing but work, because he counts the living man as nothing, only
wishes to be considered as a creator, and for the rest goes about in
unobtrusive gray like an unpainted actor who is nothing so long as he
has no part to play. He worked in mute isolation, excluding and
despising those petty ones who used their talent as a social ornament,
who either went about in barbarous raggedness, whatever the state of
their fortunes, or else were extravagant in "personal" cravats; whose
foremost thought was to live happily, amiably, and artistically,
ignorant of the fact that good works can only originate under the
pressure of an evil life, that he who, lives does not work, and that
one must have died in order to be altogether a creator.
IV
"Do I disturb you?" asked Tonio Kröger on the threshold of the studio.
He was holding his hat in his hand, and even bowed slightly, although
Lisaveta Ivanovna was his close friend, whom he told everything.
"Take pity on me, Tonio Kröger, and come in without ceremony," she
replied with her frisking intonation. "It is no secret that you have
enjoyed a good bringing up and know what is proper." Whereat she thrust
her brush into her left hand beside the palette, extended her right to
him, and looked into his face with a laugh and a shake of the head.
"Yes, but you are working," he said. "Let me see ... Oh, you have made
progress." And he surveyed in turn the colored sketches leaning against
chairs on either side of the easel, and the great canvas covered with a
network of squares, on which the first spots of color were beginning to
appear in the confused and shadowy charcoal sketch.
It was in Munich, in a rear building on Schelling Street, up several
nights of stairs. Outside, behind the broad north window, there was the
blue of the sky, the twitter of birds, and sunshine; and the young,
sweet breath of spring streaming in through an open trap-door mingled
with the odor of fixative and oil-paint that filled the large
work-room. Unobstructed, the golden light of the bright afternoon
flooded the spacious bareness of the studio, shone frankly on the
somewhat damaged floor, the rude table under the window covered with
bottles, tubes, and brushes, and the unframed studies on the unpapered
walls; shone on the screen of tattered silk which stood near the door
and shut off a small corner, tastefully furnished as a living-room and
rest-room, shone also on the nascent work on the easel and the painter
and the poet before it.
She might have been about as old as he, that is, a little past thirty.
She sat on a low foot-stool in a dark-blue paint-spotted apron-dress,
resting her chin on her hand. Her brown hair, tightly combed and
already turning gray on either side, covered her temples in soft waves
and supplied the frame for her dark Slavic face, infinitely appealing
in its expression, with a pug-nose, sharply prominent cheek bones, and
small, glittering black eyes. Expectant, distrustful, and as it were
irritated, she squinted askance at her work ...
He stood beside her, his right hand on his hip, his left rapidly
twisting his brown moustache. His slanting eyebrows showed a gloomy and
strained agitation, while he softly whistled to himself, as usual. His
attire, most carefully selected and in excellent taste, was a suit of
quiet gray and of conservative cut. But in his work-lined brow, above
which his dark hair was so very simply and correctly parted, there was
a nervous quiver, and the features of his Southern countenance were
already sharply marked, as if a hard burin had gone over them and
brought them into higher relief, whereas his mouth seemed so soft in
outline, his chin so gently formed ... After a time he drew his hand
over brow and eyes and turned away.
"I ought not to have come," he said.
"Why not, Tonio Kröger?"
"I have just got up from my work, Lisaveta, and the inside of my head
looks exactly like your canvas. A framework, a dim sketch soiled with
alterations, and a few dabs of color, to be sure; and now I come here
and see the same. And the conflict and contrast that tormented me at
home I find here too," and he sniffed the air. "It is strange. If an
idea gains control of you, you will find it expressed everywhere, you
will actually smell it in the wind. Fixative and the aroma of spring,
isn't that it? Art and--well, what is the other? Do not say 'Nature,'
Lisaveta, 'Nature' does not exhaust it. Oh, no, I think I ought rather
to have gone walking, although it is a question whether I should have
felt any better: five minutes ago, not far from here, I met a
colleague, Adalbert the novelist, and he said in his aggressive way,
'Damn the spring! It is and always will be the most horrible season.
Can you lay hold of one sensible idea, Kröger, can you work out the
tiniest point or effect with any calmness, when you are feeling an
indecent prickling in your blood and are upset by a whole mass of
irrelevant sensations which so soon as you test them are unmasked as
unmistakably trivial and wholly unusable stuff? As for me, I am going
to the café now. That is neutral ground, untouched by the change of
seasons, you see; it represents, so to speak, the remote and elevated
sphere of the literary, where one is capable of none but distinguished
ideas ...' And he went to the café, and perhaps I ought to have gone
along."
Lisaveta was amused.
"That is good, Tonio Kröger. That about 'indecent prickling' is good.
And in a way he is right, for spring is really not a specially good
time to work. But now listen to me. Now I am going to do this little
thing just the same, to make this little point and effect, as Adalbert
would say. Afterward we'll go into the drawing-room and drink some tea,
and you will unburden yourself; for I can see well enough that you are
loaded today. Until then you will group yourself anywhere, for example
on that box yonder, if you are not afraid for your patrician garments."
"Oh, let me alone about my garments, Lisaveta Ivanovna! Would you want
me to run around in a torn velvet jacket or a red vest? Inwardly an
artist is only too much of an adventurer. Outwardly he ought to dress
well, devil take it, and behave like a decent person ... No, I'm not
loaded," he said, watching her prepare a mixture on her palette. "You
heard me say that it was a problem and a contrast that is on my mind
and that disturbed me at my work ... What were we saying just now? Oh,
Adalbert the novelist, and what a proud and substantial fellow he is.
'Spring is the most horrible season,' he said, and went to the café.
For a man must know what he wants, mustn't he? You see, the spring
makes me nervous too, I too am upset by the charming triviality of the
recollections and sensations which it awakens; only that I cannot bring
myself to the point of chiding and scorning the spring for it; for the
fact is that I am ashamed before it, ashamed before its pure
naturalness and its victorious youth. And I do not know whether to envy
or to despise Adalbert for not knowing anything of this ...
"We do work badly in the spring, certainly, and why? Because we feel.
And because that man is a duffer who thinks the creative artist is
allowed to feel. Every genuine and sincere artist smiles at the naiveté
of this bungler's error--sadly perhaps, but he does smile. For what one
says must of course never be the first consideration, but the
ingredients, indifferent in themselves, from which the esthetic product
is to be put together with easy, calm mastery. If you care too much
about what you have to say, if your heart beats too warmly for it, you
can be sure of a complete fiasco. You become emotional, you become
sentimental; something unwieldy, awkwardly serious, uncontrolled,
unironical, unspiced, tedious, or banal takes form under your hands,
and the end is simply indifference in your public, simply
disappointment and lamentation in yourself ... For so it is, Lisaveta:
feeling, any warm, hearty feeling is always banal and unusable, and
only the irritations and the cold ecstasies of our demoralized, of our
artistic nervous system are useful in art. It is necessary that one
should be something superhuman and inhuman, that one should have a
strangely distant and uninterested relation to everything human,
in order to be able or even tempted to play life, to play with it, to
represent it effectively and tastefully. The talent for style, form,
and expression presupposes this cool and fastidious relation to things
human, and even a certain impoverishment and stagnation of the artist.
For every healthy and strong emotion, that is beyond doubt, is
tasteless. The artist is done for so soon as he becomes a man and
begins to feel. Adalbert knew that, and that is why he went to the
café, off to the remote sphere, yes indeed."
"Well, God be with him, Batushka," said Lisaveta, washing her hands in
a tin basin; "you don't have to follow him."
"No, Lisaveta, I will not follow him, but only for the reason that I am
now and then able to be a little ashamed before the spring-time of my
artistry. You see, at times I get letters from unknown hands, letters
of praise and thanks from my public, admiring apostrophes from affected
readers. I read these and am myself touched in view of the warm and
inarticulate human feeling which my art has aroused in these people; a
kind of sympathy comes over me at the naive enthusiasm which the
letters utter, and I blush at the thought of how it would sober these
honest folk if they could ever cast a glance behind the scenes, if
their innocence could ever comprehend that an honest, healthy, and
decent human being never writes, acts, or composes ... all of which
does not prevent me of course from using their admiration of my genius
to strengthen and stimulate myself, that I take it with the gravest
seriousness, and put on a face like that of an ape pretending to be a
big man ... Now don't put in your oar, Lisaveta! I tell you I am often
weary to death of depicting things human without having any share in
them ... Is an artist a man, anyhow? Let some one ask 'woman' that
question. It seems to me that we artists all share a little the fate of
those eunuchs that used to sing for the Pope ... Our singing is
touchingly beautiful. And yet--"
"You ought to be a little ashamed, Tonio Kröger. Now come and have tea.
The water will boil directly, and here are cigarettes. You were
speaking of sopranos when you stopped; go right on from there. But
ashamed you ought to be. If I did not know with what pride and passion
you are devoted to your calling ..."
"Say nothing about a 'calling,' Lisaveta Ivanovna. Literature is not a
calling, but a curse--let me tell you that. When does this curse begin
to be perceptible? Early, terribly early. At a time when by rights one
ought still to be living in peace and harmony with God and the world.
You begin to feel yourself marked out, to feel yourself in a mysterious
antagonism to other men, to every-day and decent men, and the abyss of
irony, unbelief, opposition, knowledge, and feeling which cuts you off
from the world yawns deeper and deeper; you are lonely, and from then
on all possibility of understanding is over. What a fate! Suppose your
heart sufficiently alive, sufficiently affectionate still, to feel it a
terrible one ... Your self-consciousness takes fire, because you among
thousands feel that your brow bears the mark and that it escapes no
one, I knew an actor of genius who as a man had to struggle with morbid
embarrassment and instability. His over-sensitive ego-feeling, together
with a lack of parts to play, of histrionic activity, had that effect
upon this perfect artist and impoverished human being ... An artist, a
real one, not one whose official profession is art, but a predestined
and pre-condemned artist, you can pick out of a thousand men,
with a little sharpness of sight. The feeling of separation and of
non-membership, of being recognized and observed, is in his face,
something at once regal and perplexed. In the features of a prince
walking in ordinary clothes through a crowd one can see something
similar. But here no ordinary garb does any good, Lisaveta. Disguise
yourself, mask yourself, dress like an attaché or like a lieutenant of
the Guard on leave: you will scarcely need to lift your eyes and utter
a word before every one will know that you are not a man, but something
strange, something that estranges, that is different ...
"But _what_ is the artist? Toward no question has mankind's indolence
and inertia of discernment proved more unyielding than toward this one.
'Such things are a gift,' humbly say the good people who are under the
influence of an artist, and because cheerful and exalted effects,
according to their good-natured view, must quite inevitably have
cheerful and exalted origins, nobody suspects that we may perhaps have
here a most questionable 'gift,' most evilly conditioned ... It is
known that artists are over-sensitive--well, it is also known that this
is not the case with people of good conscience and well-founded
self-esteem ... You see, Lisaveta, at the bottom of my soul--translated
into the intellectual--I have all the suspicion of the artist _type_
with which each one of my honorable forefathers up yonder in that
cramped city would have encountered any charlatan or adventurous
'artist' that might have entered his house. Listen to this. I know a
banker, a gray-haired business man, who possesses the ability to write
stories. He makes use of this talent in his hours of leisure, and his
things are sometimes quite excellent. Despite--I say 'despite'--this
sublime talent, this man's record is not wholly stainless; on the
contrary, he has already had to serve a long term in prison, and for
valid reasons. Indeed it was really in prison that he first became
aware of his ability, and his experiences as inmate of the jail form
the fundamental theme in all his writings. One might infer from this,
with a little boldness, that it is necessary to be at home in some sort
of a penal institution in order to become a poet. But does not the
suspicion arise that his experiences as convict may have been less
intimately interwoven with the roots and origins of his artistry than
what made him one--? A banker who writes stories is a curiosity, isn't
he? But a non-criminal, honest banker of clean reputation who should
write stories,--_there is no such thing_ ... Yes, now you are laughing,
and still I am only half joking. No problem, none in the world, is more
tormenting than that of artistry and its effect on humanity. Take that
most extraordinary creation of the most typical and hence mightiest
artist, take so morbid and deeply ambiguous a work as _Tristan and
Isolde_, and observe the effect this work has upon a young, healthy man
with strongly normal feeling. You see elevation, invigoration, warm and
honest enthusiasm, perhaps stimulation to some 'artistic' creation of
his own ... The good dilettante! Our hearts look very different from
what he dreams, with his 'warm heart' and 'honest enthusiasm.' I have
seen artists surrounded by adoring women and shouting youths, whereas I
knew about them ... One constantly has the most peculiar experiences
with regard to the origin, the co-phenomena, and the conditions of
artistry ..."
"In others, Tonio Kröger--excuse me--or not only in others?"
He was silent. He drew his slanting eyebrows together and whistled to
himself.
"Let me have your cup, Tonio. It is not strong. And take a fresh
cigarette. And anyway, you know quite well that you look at things as
they don't necessarily have to be looked at."
"That is Horatio's answer, dear Lisaveta. ''Twere to consider too
curiously, to consider so,' am I not right?"
"I say that one can consider them just as curiously from another side,
Tonio Kröger. I am simply a stupid, painting female, and if I can make
any answer to you at all, if I can take the part of your own calling to
protect it a little against you, it is surely nothing new that I am
advancing, but only a reminder of what you yourself know quite well ...
What then: the purifying, sanctifying power of literature; the
destruction of passion by the agency of knowledge and speech;
literature as the road to understanding, to forgiveness, and to love;
the redeeming power of language; literary intellect as the noblest
phenomenon of all human intellect whatsoever; the writer as perfect
man, as saint;--if one considered things so, would that be not
considering them curiously enough?"
"You have a right to speak so, Lisaveta Ivanovna, and especially in
view of the work of your poets, and that worship-deserving Russian
literature which does really and truly represent the sacred literature
you name. But I have not overlooked your objections, nay, they are a
part of what is on my mind today ... Look at me. I do not look
immoderately cheerful, do I? A little old and sharp-featured and weary?
Well, to come back to 'knowledge,' a man might be imagined, originally
unsceptical, long-suffering, well-meaning, and a little sentimental,
who would simply be ground to powder and wrecked by psychological
clearness of vision. Not to let yourself be overcome by the sadness of
the world; to observe, mark, and insert everything, even the most
anguishing things, and for the rest be of good courage, even though in
the full grasp of moral superiority over that horrible invention,
Life--aye, to be sure! Yet at times things get away from you a bit
despite all the pleasures of Expressing. Does understanding everything
mean forgiving everything? I don't know. There is something that I call
the loathing of perception, Lisaveta: a state in which a man only needs
to see through a thing in order to feel nauseated to the point of dying
(and by no means put into a reconciled mood)--the case of Hamlet the
Dane, that most typical man of letters. He knew what it means to be
called upon to know without being born to it. To see clearly even
through the tear-woven veil of emotion, to recognize, mark, observe,
and be obliged to thrust aside one's perceptions with a smile at the
very moment when hands clasp each other, lips meet, and when eyes grow
dim, blinded with deep feeling--it is infamous, Lisaveta, it is vile,
revolting ... but what good in revolting?
"Another side of the matter, but not less admirable, is then of
course a blasé, indifferent, and ironically weary attitude toward all
truth, and it is a fact that there is nothing on earth stupider or more
hopeless than a circle of brilliant people who are already up to every
dodge in the world. All knowledge is old and tedious. Utter a truth in
whose conquest and possession you perhaps have a certain youthful joy,
and your vulgar enlightenment will be answered by a very brief emission
of air through the nose ... Ah yes, literature wearies, Lisaveta! I
assure you, it can come to pass in human society that sheer scepticism
and continence of opinion make you seem stupid, whereas you are only
proud and discouraged ... So much for 'knowledge.' As for 'speech,'
that is perhaps less a matter of redemption than of taking a feeling
and putting it on ice. Seriously, there is an icy and revolting
presumption in this prompt and superficial dispatching of emotion by
means of literary speech. If your heart is too full, if you feel
yourself too greatly stirred by some sweet or exalted experience, what
could be simpler?--you go to the poet, and everything is regulated in
the shortest time. He will analyze and formulate your affair for you,
name and utter it and make it talk, relieve you of the whole thing, and
make it indifferent to you for all time and accept no thanks for it.
And you--you will go home relieved, cooled, and clarified, and wonder
what there was in the matter that only a moment before could perplex
you with so sweet a tumult. And would you seriously stand up for this
cold and vain charlatan? What is uttered, so runs his confession
of faith, is settled. If the whole world is put into speech, it
is settled, redeemed, done away with ... Very good. Yet I am no
nihilist ..."
"You are no--" said Lisaveta. She was just holding a spoonful of tea
near her mouth, and stayed so as if paralyzed.
"Why yes ... why yes ... come to your senses, Lisaveta. I am not that,
I say, as far as living emotion is concerned. You see, the man of
letters fails to understand, after all, that life still likes to go on
living, that it is not ashamed of living after it _has_ been put into
words and 'redeemed.' Lo and behold, it keeps on sinning unflinchingly
despite its redemption at the hand of literature; for all action is sin
in the eyes of the mind ...
"I am ready to make my point, Lisaveta. Listen to me. I am a lover of
life--this is a confession. Take it and keep it, for I never made it to
any one else. They say, they have actually written and printed it, that
I hate or fear or despise or loathe life. I have liked to hear that,
for it flattered me; but it is none the less false. I love life ... You
smile, Lisaveta, and I know why. But I conjure you, do not regard what
I am just saying as literature. Do not think of Cesar Borgia or of any
drunken philosophy that elevates him to its escutcheon. He is nothing
to me, this Cesar Borgia. I have the poorest possible opinion of him,
and I shall never in my life understand how men can revere the
extraordinary and the demoniacal as an ideal. No, 'life,' standing as
it does in eternal contrast to intellect and art--not as a vision of
bloody greatness and barbarous beauty, not as the unusual does it appear
to us unusual men; on the contrary, the normal, decorous, and amiable
are the realm of our longing, and these are life in its seductive
banality. That man is far from being an artist, my dear, whose ultimate
and deepest passion is the exquisite, eccentric, and satanic, who knows
no yearning for the innocent, simple, and vital, for a little friendship,
devotion, familiarity, and human happiness--the furtive and consuming
yearning, Lisaveta, for the raptures of the commonplace.
"A human friend! Will you believe that it would make me proud and happy
to possess one friend among human beings? But so far I have had
friends only among demons, goblins, deep-souled monsters, and spirits
mute with knowledge: that is, among men of letters.
"At times I get on to some platform or other, find myself in a hall
face to face with people who have come to listen to me. Do you know
that I often watch myself surveying the audience, and catch myself
stealthily looking around with the question in my heart: who is it that
has come to me, whose applause and thanks are reaching me, with whom
will my art procure me an ideal union here? ... I do not find what I
seek, Lisaveta. I find the flock and the congregation that are
familiar to me, a gathering of the early Christians, as it were: people
with awkward bodies and fine souls, people who are always falling down,
so to speak--you understand--and for whom poetry is a gentle vengeance
upon life; never any but sufferers, yearners, paupers, never one of
those others, the blue-eyed ones, Lisaveta, who have no need of
intellect!...
"And in the last analysis, would it not show a lamentable lack of
logic, if one were glad to have it otherwise? It is inconsistent to
love life, and none the less to endeavor constantly with every possible
device to drag it over to your side, to win it over to the finesses and
melancholies, the entire diseased nobility of literature. The realm of
art is waxing, and that of health and innocence is waning on earth. One
should preserve as carefully as possible the little that is left of it,
nor try to seduce into poetry those who much prefer to read books about
horses with instantaneous photographs in them.
"For, after all, what sight is more pitiful than life making an attempt
at art? We artists despise no one more thoroughly than the dilettante,
the red-blooded man, who thinks he can be an artist occasionally and on
the side. I assure you, this kind of disdain is one of my own most
personal experiences. I find myself in company in an aristocratic
house, we eat, drink, and converse, and understand each other
perfectly, and I feel glad and grateful to be able to disappear for a
time among harmless and regular people as a normal man.
Suddenly--this has happened to me--an officer rises, a lieutenant, a
handsome, well-built fellow, of whom I should never have suspected an
action unworthy of his honorable dress, and begs in unambiguous words
for permission to communicate to us a few verses which he has
manufactured. With a smile of consternation the permission is given
him, and he carries out his purpose, reading his composition
from a slip of paper which he has till then kept hidden in his
coat-tail,--something about music and love;--in short, as deep in
feeling as it is ineffective. Now in the name of all the world: a
lieutenant! One of the lords of the earth! _He_ surely doesn't need
it!... Well, the result is inevitable: long faces, silence, a little
artificial applause, and the profoundest discomfort round about. The
first spiritual fact of which I become conscious is that I feel myself
an accomplice in the upsetting of the company by this indiscreet young
man; and sure enough: I too, upon whose province he has encroached,
catch glances of mockery and scepticism. But the second fact is that my
opinion of this man, for whose whole being I had just felt the most
honest respect, suddenly falls, falls, falls ... A compassionate
benevolence seizes me. With other courageous and good-natured gentlemen
I step up to him and encourage him. 'Congratulations,' I say, 'what a
delightful talent! Really, that was most charming.' And I am not far
from clapping him on the shoulder. But is benevolence the feeling that
one should have toward a lieutenant? ... His own fault! There he stood
and in great embarrassment atoned for the erroneous idea that one may
pluck a leaf, just one, from the bay-tree of art, without paying for it
with one's life. No, there I agree with my colleague, the criminal
banker. But tell me, Lisaveta, don't you think I am endowed with the
eloquence of a Hamlet today?"
"Are you through now, Tonio Kröger?"
"No. But I will say no more."
"Nor do you need to.--Do you expect an answer?"
"Have you any?"
"I should think I had.--I have listened closely to you, Tonio, from
beginning to end, and I will give you the answer which fits everything
you have said this afternoon, and which is the solution of the problem
that has disquieted you so. Well, then! The solution is this, that you,
just as you sit there, are simply an ordinary man."
"Am I?" he asked, collapsing a little.
"That is a cruel blow, isn't it? It must be. And therefore I will
soften my sentence a little, for I can do so. You are an ordinary man
astray, Tonio Kröger,--an erring commoner."
--Silence. Then he stood up resolutely and reached for hat and cane.
"I thank you, Lisaveta Ivanovna; now I can go home in peace. _I am
finished._"
V
Toward autumn Tonio Kröger said to Lisaveta Ivanovna,
"Yes, I am going away now, Lisaveta; I must take an airing, and I am
going off, going to take to the open."
"Well, how is it, Little Father, will it be your royal pleasure to
return to Italy?"
"Good gracious, go on with your Italy, Lisaveta! Italy is indifferent
to me to the point of contempt. It is a long time since I imagined I
belonged there. Art, eh? Velvety blue sky, fiery wine, and sweet
sensuality ... In short, I don't like it. I resign. The whole
_bellezza_ makes me nervous. Nor I don't like all these frightfully
lively human beings down there with their black animal eyes. None of
the Romance peoples have any conscience in their eyes.... No, now I am
going up to Denmark for a while."
"To Denmark?"
"Yes. And I promise myself benefit from it. Chance kept me from ever
going there, close as I was to the boundary all through my youth, and
yet I have always known and loved the place. I suppose I must have this
affection for the north from my father, for my mother was really fonder
of the _bellezza_, that is, provided she didn't find everything utterly
immaterial. But take the books that are written up there, those deep,
pure, humorous books, Lisaveta--to me there is nothing like them and I
love them. Take the Scandinavian meals, those incomparable meals that
you can only stand in a strong salt air (I don't know whether I can
stand them at all any more), and that I'm a little familiar with
from my own home, for that's just the way we eat at home. Or just
simply take the names, the personal names that adorn the people up
there, and that we also had in large numbers at home, take a name
like Ingeborg,--a harp-chord of the most immaculate poesy. And then the
sea--they have the Baltic up there! ... In short, I am going up there,
Lisaveta. I wish to see the Baltic again, hear these names again, read
those books on the spot; and I wish to stand on the terrace of
Kronborg, where the ghost appeared to Hamlet and brought distress and
death upon the poor, noble young man ..."
"How are you going to go, Tonio, if I may ask? By what route!"
"The usual one," he said with a shrug of the shoulders and a visible
blush. "Yes, I shall touch upon my--my point of departure, Lisaveta,
after the lapse of thirteen years, and that may be rather comic."
Lisaveta smiled.
"That is what I wanted to hear, Tonio Kröger. And so, go with God. And
don't fail to write to me, too, do you hear? I promise myself an
eventful letter from your trip to--Denmark."
VI
And Tonio Kröger journeyed northward. He traveled comfortably (for he
was wont to say that any one who has so much more distress of soul than
other people may justly claim a little external comfort), and he did
not rest until the towers of the cramped city which had been his
starting-point rose before him in the gray air. There he made a brief,
strange sojourn ...
A dreary afternoon was already turning into evening as the train
pulled into the narrow, smoke-blackened, queerly familiar train-shed;
under the dirty glass roof the thick smoke still gathered into roundish
clumps and floated back and forth in long ragged ribbons, just as when
Tonio Kröger rode away with nothing but mockery in his heart.--He
attended to his baggage, ordered it brought to the hotel, and left the
station.
Those were the black, immoderately broad and high two-horse cabs of the
city, standing outside in a row. He did not take one; he merely looked
at them as he looked at everything: the narrow gables and pointed
turrets that greeted him across the nearest roofs, the fair-haired,
idly awkward people round about him, with their broad yet rapid
speech--and a nervous laughter rose up in him that was secretly
allied to sobbing.--He went on foot, quite slowly, with the incessant
pressure of the moist wind on his face, over the bridge on whose
balustrade mythological figures stood, and then along the harbor for
some distance.
Good heavens, how tiny and crooked the whole place seemed! Had these
narrow gable-fringed streets risen to the town in such comical
steepness through all those years? The smoke-stacks and masts of the
ships swayed gently in the breeze and in the twilight on the murky
river. Should he go up yonder street, the one on which stood the house
that he had in mind? No, tomorrow. He was so sleepy now. His head was
heavy from the journey, and slow, nebulous thoughts crossed his mind.
At times, during these thirteen years, when his stomach was out of
order, he had dreamed that he was again at home in the echoing old
house on the slanting street, and that his father was there again too,
chiding him severely because of his degenerate mode of life,--which
censure he regularly regarded as quite proper. And this present moment
now had nothing to distinguish it from one of those illusory and
unrending dream-fabrics, in which one may ask himself whether this be
hallucination or reality, and of necessity and with deep conviction
declare for the latter, only to wake up after all ... He walked through
the sparsely peopled, draughty streets, lowering his head against the
wind, and moved like a somnambulist in the direction of the hotel, the
best in the city, where he intended to spend the night. A bow-legged
man, carrying a pole surmounted by a flame, walked along before him
with a rocking sailor's gait, lighting the gas-lamps.
How _did_ he feel? What was all this that glowed so darkly and
painfully under the ashes of his weariness, without becoming a clear
flame? Hush, hush, and not a word! No words! Fain would he have spent a
long time walking thus in the wind through the dim, dreamily familiar
streets. But everything was so cramped and so close together. It took
no time to reach one's goal.
In the upper city there were arc-lights and they were just beginning to
glow. There was the hotel, and there were the two black lions before it
that had frightened him so as a child. They still looked at each other
just as if they were about to sneeze; but they seemed to have grown
much smaller since that day.--Tonio Kröger passed between them.
As he came on foot, he was received without much ceremony. The porter
and a very elegant gentleman in black who received the guests, and who
was forever thrusting either cuff back into its sleeve with his little
finger, surveyed him searchingly and critically from his crown to his
boots in the visible effort to make something of a social diagnosis of
him, to determine his civil and religious classification, and to assign
to him some definite place in their esteem, without, however, being
able to reach a satisfying result; wherefore they resolved upon a
moderate politeness. A waiter, a mild-mannered creature with light
blond strips of side-whiskers, a dress-coat shiny with age-, and
rosettes on his noiseless shoes, led him up two flights to a room
furnished neatly and patriarchally, whose window opened up in the
twilight a picturesque and medieval prospect of courts, gables, and the
bizarre masses of the church near which the hotel stood. Tonio Kröger
stood awhile at this window; then he seated himself with folded arms on
the rambling sofa, drew his eyebrows together, and whistled to himself.
Lights were brought, and his baggage came. At the same time the
mild-mannered waiter laid the registry blank on the table, and Tonio
Kröger dashed off on it with head on one side something that looked
like name, station, and birth-place. Hereupon he ordered something for
supper, and continued to look into space from his sofa-corner. When the
food stood before him, he left it untouched for a long time, but
finally took a few bites and then walked up and down his room for an
hour, standing still from time to time and shutting his eyes. Then he
undressed with sluggish movements and went to bed. He slept long, amid
confused dreams full of strange yearning.--
When he awoke, he saw his room filled with bright daylight. In
perplexed haste he bethought himself where he was, and got up to open
the curtains. The late summer blue of the sky, already a trifle pale,
was traversed by thin cloud strips, ragged out by the wind; but the sun
was shining above his native city.
He took more pains than usual with his toilet, washed and shaved with
great care, and made himself as fresh and neat as if he were planning
to make a call in some aristocratic, highly proper house, where it was
necessary to make a smart and irreproachable impression; and during the
manipulations of dressing he listened to the alarmed throbbing of his
heart.
How bright it was outside. He would have felt more comfortable if there
had been twilight in the streets, as when he came; but now he was to
walk through the bright sunshine under the people's eyes. Would he hit
upon acquaintances, he stopped and questioned, and have to give an
account of how he had spent these thirteen years? No, thank the Lord,
no one would know him any more, and those who remembered him would not
recognize him, for he had really altered a little in the meantime. He
regarded himself attentively in the mirror, and suddenly felt more
secure behind his mask, behind his prematurely work-lined face, which
was older than his years ... He sent for breakfast and then went out,
out through the vestibule past the appraising glances of the porter and
the elegant gentleman in black, out into the open between the two
lions.
Whither was he going! He hardly knew. It was like yesterday. Scarcely
did he again see himself surrounded by this queerly venerable and
eternally familiar mixture of gables, turrets, arcades, and fountains,
scarcely did he again feel on his face the pressure of the wind, the
strong wind that brought with it a delicate and pungent aroma from
far-away dreams, than something like a veil, a fabric of fog, enveloped
his senses ... The muscles of his face relaxed; and with quieted eyes
he contemplated men and things. Perhaps he would awake none the less on
that street corner yonder ...
Whither was he going? It seemed to him as if the direction he took had
some connection with his sad and strangely penitent dreams by night ...
To the market he went, through the vaulted arches of the city hall,
where butchers weighed their wares with blood-stained hands, and to the
market-place, where the high, pointed, and variegated Gothic fountain
stood. There he stood still before a house, a narrow, simple house,
like many others, with an openwork gable of curving lines, and became
lost in contemplation of it. He read the name-plate on the door, and
let his eyes rest a while on each window. Then he turned slowly away.
Whither was he going? Homeward. But he chose a roundabout way, taking a
walk out beyond the gate, for there was plenty of time. He went across
the Mill Rampart and the Holsten Rampart, holding his hat firmly
against the wind that creaked and groaned in the trees. Then he forsook
the park strip along the ramparts not far from the station, watched a
train puff by in clumsy haste, counted the cars to pass the time, and
looked after the man who sat perched high on the last one. But he came
to a stop on the square with the lindens before one of the pretty
villas that stood there, looked long into the garden and up at the
windows, and finally took a notion to swing the garden-gate back and
forth and make the hinges screech. Then he contemplated for a time his
hand, which had become cold and rusty, and went on, through the old
square-built gate, along the harbor, and up the steep, draughty, and
wet Gable Street to the house of his parents.
Closed in by the neighboring houses which its gable overtopped, it
stood there gray and forbidding as for these three hundred years past,
and Tonio Kröger read the pious legend that was above the door in half
effaced letters. Then he drew a deep breath and went in.
His heart beat fearfully, for he half expected his father might issue
from one of the doors on the ground floor past which he was walking,
his father in office coat and with a pen behind his ear, who would stop
him and sternly call him to account for his extravagant life,--which
censure he would have found quite proper. But he got past the doors
unmolested. The storm door was not shut, but only pulled to, which he
considered censurable, while at the same time he felt as in certain
light dreams, when hindrances vanish of themselves before us and we
press forward unchecked, favored by wonderful good fortune ... The
spacious hall, paved with large square slabs of stone, echoed to his
tread. Opposite the kitchen, where all was still, the strange, clumsy,
but neatly varnished partition-rooms jutted out from the wall at a
considerable height; these were the servants' rooms, which could only
be reached by a sort of open staircase from the hall floor. But the
great wardrobes and the carved chest that used to stand here were
gone ... The son of the house set foot upon the mighty staircase and
rested his hand upon the white enameled, fretwork banister, lifting it,
however, at each step and then gently dropping it again at the next
one, as if he were timidly trying to see whether his former familiarity
with this respectable old banister could be restored ... On the first
landing, before the entrance to the so-called "intermediate story," he
stood still. A white door-plate was fastened to the door, and on it
could be read in black letters: People's Library.
People's Library? thought Tonio Kröger, for it seemed to him that
neither the people nor literature had any business here. He knocked on
the door, heard "Come in," and obeyed. With gloomy curiosity he looked
in upon a most unseemly alteration.
The apartment was three rooms deep, and the connecting doors were open.
The walls were covered almost to the top with books in uniform
bindings, which stood in long rows on dark shelves. In each room a
needy looking individual sat writing behind a sort of counter. Two of
them merely turned their heads toward Tonio Kröger, but the first one
stood up hastily, rested both hands on the table before him, thrust his
head forward, pursed his lips, drew up his eyebrows, and looked at the
visitor with rapidly winking eyes ...
"Excuse me," said Tonio Kröger, without turning his eyes from the many
books. "I am a stranger here, and am taking a look at the city. So this
is the People's Library? Would you permit me to look into the
collection a little?"
"Willingly," said the official, winking still more vehemently ...
"Certainly, that is every one's privilege. Please look around ... Should
you care for a catalogue?"
"Thank you," said Tonio Kröger, "I can easily find my bearings." And he
began to walk slowly along the walls, pretending to be reading the
titles on the backs of the books. Finally he took out a volume, opened
it, and went to the window with it.
This had been the breakfast room. Here they had breakfasted, not
upstairs in the great dining-room, where white gods stood out on the
blue wall-paper ... That room had served as a bed-chamber. His father's
mother had died there in bitter anguish, old as she was, for she was a
pleasure-loving woman of the world and clung to life. And later his
father too had breathed his last sigh there, the tall, correct,
somewhat melancholy and meditative gentleman with the wild-flower in
his button-hole ... Tonio had sat with hot eyes at the foot of his
death-bed, sincerely and completely given over to a strong, mute
feeling, one of love and pain. And his mother too had knelt by the bed,
his beautiful, passionate mother, quite dissolved in hot tears;
whereupon she had strayed off to far-away lands with the southern
artist ... But back there, that smaller third room, now also completely
filled with books over which a needy-looking individual kept watch, had
been his own for many years. Thither he had returned after school, or
after such a walk as he had just taken; against that wall his table had
stood, in whose drawer he had treasured his first intimate and clumsy
verses ... The walnut-tree ... A piercing sadness quivered through him.
He looked sidewise through the window. The garden lay waste, but the
old walnut-tree stood in its place, heavily creaking and rustling in
the wind. And Tonio Kröger let his eyes rove back upon the book he held
in his hands, a distinguished poetic work that he knew well. He looked
down upon these black lines and sentence-groups, followed for a space
the skilful flow of the text, watching it rise in creative passion to a
fine point and effect and then break off with equal effect ...
Yes, that is good work, he said, and put the volume back and turned
away. Then he saw that the official was still standing, winking his
eyes with an expression of mingled zeal and pensive distrust.
[Illustration: ARCO.]
"An excellent collection, I see," said Tonio Kröger. "I have already
gained a general idea of it. I am much indebted to you. Good day." With
that he went out of the door; but it was a doubtful exit, and he
clearly felt that the official, full of disquiet at this visit, would
keep on standing and winking for a quarter of an hour.
He felt no inclination to penetrate farther. He had been at home.
Upstairs in the great rooms beyond the colonnade there were strangers
living, he could see; for the head of the stairs was shut off by a
glass door which had not formerly been there, and some name-plate or
other was on it. He went away, down the stairs and over the echoing
hall, and left his father's house. In one corner of a restaurant he
consumed a heavy, hearty meal, his thoughts ever turned inward, and
then he returned to the hotel.
"I am through," he said to the elegant gentleman in black. "I leave
this afternoon." And he sent for his bill, also the carriage that was
to take him to the harbor, to the steamer for Copenhagen. Then he went
up to his room and sat down at the table, sat quietly erect, resting
his cheek on his hand and looking at the table with unseeing eyes.
Later on he paid his bill and got his effects ready. At the designated
time the carriage was announced, and Tonio Kröger went down-stairs in
readiness to go.
Below, at the foot of the stairs, the elegant gentleman in black was
waiting for him.
"Your pardon," he said, thrusting back either cuff into its sleeve with
the little finger ... "Excuse me, sir, that we must still claim a
minute of your time. Mr. Seehaase, the owner of the hotel, begs for a
very brief conversation with you. A mere formality ... He is back
yonder ... Will you have the goodness to go with me ... It is _only_
Mr. Seehaase, the owner of the hotel."
And he led Tonio Kröger with gestures of invitation toward the back
part of the vestibule. There the owner of the hotel was indeed
standing. Tonio Kröger knew him by sight from his youth. He was
short, fat, and bow-legged. His cropped side-whiskers had grown
white; but he still wore a Tuxedo of wide cut and in addition a small
green-embroidered velvet cap. Nor was he alone. Near him, at a small
writing-desk fastened to the wall, stood a helmeted policeman, whose
gloved right hand rested on a curiously bescribbled piece of paper that
lay before him on the desk, and whose honest soldier-face looked at
Tonio Kröger as if he expected that the latter must sink into the
ground at sight of him.
Tonio Kröger looked from one to the other and applied himself to
waiting.
"You come from Munich?" asked the policeman at last with a good-natured
and ponderous voice.
Tonio Kröger assented.
"You are traveling to Copenhagen?"
"Yes, I am on the way to a Danish seashore resort."
"Seashore?--Well, you must show your papers," said the policeman,
uttering the last word with particular satisfaction.
"Papers ..." He had no papers. He drew out his pocketbook and looked
into it; but besides some bills there was nothing in it but the
proof-sheets of a story, which he had intended to correct at his
journey's end. He was not fond of dealings with officials and had never
had a passport filled out ...
"I am sorry," he said, "but I have no papers with me."
"Oh," said the policeman ... "None at all?--What is your name?"
Tonio Kröger answered him.
"Is that true?" said the policeman, straightening up and suddenly
opening his nostrils as far as he could ...
"Quite true," answered Tonio Kröger.
"And what are you?"
Tonio Kröger swallowed and named his calling with firm voice.--Mr.
Seehaase raised his head and looked curiously up into his face.
"Hm," said the policeman. "And you claim not to be identical with an
individial named----" He said "individial" and then spelled from the
curiously bescribbled piece of paper a most puzzling and romantic name,
which seemed to have been freakishly composed of the sounds of various
languages and which Tonio Kröger had forgotten the next moment.
"--Who," he continued, "of unknown parentage and uncertain competence,
is being sought by the Munich police on account of various swindles and
other crimes, and is probably trying to flee to Denmark?"
"I do more than claim," said Tonio Kröger, making a nervous movement
with his shoulders.--This created a certain impression.
"What? Oh yes, quite so," said the officer. "But that you shouldn't be
able to show any papers at all."
Now Mr. Seehaase interposed conciliatingly.
"The whole thing is only a formality," he said, "nothing more. You must
reflect that the official is only doing his duty. If you can identify
yourself in any way ... Any document ..."
All were silent. Should he put an end to the affair by making himself
known, by revealing to Mr. Seehaase that he was no swindler of
uncertain competence, by birth no gipsy in a green wagon, but the son
of Consul Kröger, of the Kröger family? No, he had no desire for that.
And did not these men of the civic order really have a little right on
their side? To a certain extent he was quite in agreement with them ...
He shrugged his shoulders and remained silent.
"What is that you have there?" asked the officer. "There in that
portfoly?"
"Here? Nothing. Proof-sheets," answered Tonio Kröger.
"Proof-sheets? How so? Let me see a minute."
And Tonio Kröger handed them over to him. The policeman spread them out
on the desk and began to read them. Mr. Seehaase also stepped closer
and participated in the reading. Tonio Kröger looked over their
shoulders to see where they were reading. It was a good passage, a
point and effect which he had worked out superbly. He was content with
himself.
"You see," he said. "There stands my name. I wrote this, and now it is
being published, you understand."
"Well, that is sufficient," said Mr. Seehaase determinedly, and lie
gathered up the sheets, folded them, and returned them. "That must
suffice, Peterson," he repeated brusquely, furtively closing his eyes
and shaking his head as a sign to desist. "We must not detain the
gentleman longer. The carriage is waiting. I earnestly beg you to
excuse the little inconvenience, sir. The official has of course
only done his duty, but I told him at once that he was on the wrong
scent ..."
Did you? thought Tonio Kröger.
The officer did not seem to agree entirely; he made some objection
about "individial" and "papers." But Mr. Seehaase led his guest back
through the vestibule amid repeated expressions of regret, escorted him
out between the two lions to his carriage, and closed the carriage door
himself with attestations of his esteem. And then the ridiculously
broad and high cab rolled down the steep streets to the harbor,
rocking, rattling, and rumbling ...
This was Tonio Kröger's strange sojourn in his native city.
VII
Night was falling, and the moon was already rising bathed in silvery
light, when Tonio Kröger's ship reached the open sea. He stood by the
bowsprit, his mantle shielding him from the steadily freshening breeze,
and looked down into the dark roving and surging of the strong, smooth
wave-bodies below him, as they rocked about each other, met each other
with a splash, separated with a rush in unexpected directions, or
suddenly flashed white with foam ...
A swaying, quietly rapturous mood came over him. He had of course been
a little depressed because they had wanted to arrest him at home as a
swindler--although to a certain extent he had found it quite proper.
But then after going aboard he had watched, as he and his father had
sometimes done, the loading of the cargo with which the deep hold of
the boat was filled, amid cries of mingled Low German and Danish, and
seen them let down not merely bales and boxes, but also a polar bear
and a royal tiger in heavily barred cages, doubtless coming from
Hamburg and destined for some Danish menagerie; and this had diverted
him. Then while the boat was gliding along the river between flat banks
he had completely forgotten officer Peterson's interrogatory; and all
that had gone before, his sweet, sad, and regretful dreams during the
night, the walk he had taken, the sight of the walnut-tree,--these
had again become powerful in his soul. And now that the sea opened out
he saw from afar the shore on which as a boy he had been privileged
to listen to the summer dreams of the sea; saw the gleam of the
light-house and the lights of the seashore hotel where he had stayed
with his parents ... The Baltic! He leaned his head against the strong
salt breeze that came to him free and unchecked, enveloped his ears,
and produced in him a gentle vertigo, a slight stupefaction, in which
the recollection of all evil, of torment and erring ways, of great
plans and arduous labors, became lazily and blissfully submerged. And
in the roaring, splashing, foaming, and groaning round about him he
fancied he heard the rustling and creaking of the old walnut-tree, and
the screeching of a garden gate ... It grew darker and darker.
"De stars, my gracious, just look at de stars," suddenly remarked in a
ponderous sing-song a voice that seemed to come from inside a barrel.
He knew the voice. It belonged to a reddish-blond, simply dressed man
with reddened eyelids and a clammy look, as if he had just taken a
bath. At supper in the cabin he had been Tonio Kröger's neighbor and
with hesitant and modest motions he had taken unto himself astonishing
quantities of lobster-omelette. Now he was leaning against the rail
beside his new acquaintance and looking up at the sky, holding his chin
with thumb and forefinger. Without doubt he was in one of those
extraordinary and solemnly contemplative moods in which the barriers
between men fall away, in which the heart opens even to strangers, and
the mouth utters things which would otherwise close it in modesty ...
"Look, sir, just look at de stars. Dere dey stand and twinkle, upon my
word de whole sky is full of dem. And now let me ask you, when we look
up and reflect dat many of dem are supposed to be a hundred times
bigger dan de eart', how do we feel? We men have invented de telegraph
and de telephone, and so many achievements of modern life, yes, dat we
have. But when we look up dere, den we have to recognize and understand
dat after all we're only vermin, miserable vermin and not'ing else--am
I right or wrong, sir? Yes, we are vermin," he answered himself, and
nodded up at the firmament, humble and crushed.
Ouch ... no, he has no literature in him, thought Tonio Kröger. And
forthwith something that he had recently been reading occurred to him,
an article by a famous French author on cosmological and psychological
philosophy; it had been very elegant chatter.
He gave the young man something like an answer to his deep-felt remark,
and they continued to talk, leaning over the rail and looking out into
the restlessly illuminated, agitated evening. It turned out that the
traveling companion was a young merchant from Hamburg, who was using
his vacation for this pleasure trip ...
"Go and take a little trip," he was saying, "to Copenhagen wit de
_Dampfoot_, I tought, and so here I am, and so far it's very nice. But
dose lobster-omelettes, you know, dat wasn't de ting, you'll see, for
it's going to be a stormy night, de captain said so himself, and wit
such an indigestible supper in your stomach dat's no joke ..."
Tonio Kröger listened to all this complaisant folly with a secretly
friendly feeling.
"Yes," he said, "they eat far too much up here anyway. That makes them
lazy and melancholy."
"Melancholy?" repeated the young man, looking at him in consternation
... "I suppose you are a stranger here?" he suddenly inquired ...
"Oh yes, I come from far away," answered Tonio Kröger with a vague and
evasive gesture.
"But you are right," said the young man; "God knows you are right about
melancholy. I am almost always melancholy, but especially on such
evenings as dis, when de stars are in de sky." And again he propped up
his chin on thumb and forefinger.
He undoubtedly writes verses, thought Tonio Kröger, merchant's verses
full of deeply honest feeling ...
The evening wore on, and the wind had now become so violent that it
interfered with conversation. So they resolved to sleep a little, and
wished each other good night.
Tonio Kröger stretched himself out on the narrow bunk in his cabin, but
he found no rest. The strong wind and its pungent aroma had agitated
him strangely, and his heart was restless as if in anxious expectation
of something sweet. And the shock to the ship which resulted when it r
slid down a steep wave-slope and the screw raced convulsively out of
water, caused him severe nausea. He dressed again completely and
mounted into the open air.
Clouds were racing past the moon. The sea was dancing. There were no
round and uniform waves coming on in order, but as far as one could
see, in the pale and flickering light, the sea was torn up, lashed and
stirred into fragments; its flamelike, gigantic tongues licked and
leaped into the air, beside foam-filled abysses it cast up jagged and
improbable forms, and seemed with the force of monstrous arms to hurl
the spume in mad playfulness to invisible heights. The ship had a
toilsome journey; crashing, rolling, and groaning it worked its way
through the commotion, and now and again one could hear the polar bear
and the tiger, who had suffered from the high sea, roaring in the hold.
A man in an oilskin cape, the hood drawn over his head, and a lantern
buckled about his body, was walking spread-legged up and down the deck,
balancing with difficulty. But there at the stern, bending low over the
rail, stood the young man from Hamburg, taking it very hard indeed.
"Good heavens," he said in a hollow and faltering voice, as he became
aware of Tonio Kröger, "just see de tumult of de elements, sir." But
then he was interrupted and turned hastily away.
Tonio Kröger held on to some taut cable and looked out into all this
uncontrollable exuberance. An exultation winged its way upward within
him, and it seemed to him powerful enough to drown out both tempest and
flood. A song to the sea, inspired by love, rang out within him. Wild
comrade of my youth's delight, once more our spirits now unite ... But
then the poem was at an end. It was not completed, was not rounded off,
not welded calmly into a unified whole. His heart was alive ...
Long he stood thus; then he stretched out on a bench near the
deck-cabin and looked up at the sky in which the stars were flickering.
He even slumbered a little. And when the cold spray flew into his face,
it seemed in his half wakeful state like a caress.
Vertical chalk cliffs, ghostlike in the moonlight, came in sight and
drew near; that was the Island of Moen. And again slumber intervened,
interrupted by showers of salt spray which sharply stung the face and
benumbed the features ... When he fully awoke, it was already day, a
light-gray, bracing day, and the green sea was quieter. At breakfast he
saw the young merchant again, and the latter blushed violently,
probably for shame at having uttered in the dark such poetic and
disgraceful things, rubbed up his small reddish moustache with all five
fingers, and returned Tonio Kröger's salutation with a curt military
greeting, to avoid him anxiously thenceforward.
And Tonio Kröger landed in Denmark. He arrived formally in Copenhagen,
gave a tip to every one who pretended he could lay claim to it, spent
three days in tramping the town with his hotel as a starting-point and
carrying his Baedeker open before him, and behaved just like the better
class of strangers who desire to increase their information. He studied
the King's Newmarket with the "horse" in the middle of it, looked
respectfully up the pillars of Our Lady's, stood long before
Thorwaldsen's noble and lovely sculpture, climbed the Round Tower,
visited castles, and spent two lively evenings in the Tivoli. But all
this was not really what he saw.
On the houses, which frequently had the very look of the old houses of
his native city with their curved and pierced gables, he would see
names that were familiar to him from olden times, which seemed to him
to signify something tender and precious, and at the same time included
something like reproach, lament, and longing for things lost. And
everywhere, while breathing in retarded, meditative draughts the moist
sea-air, he saw eyes as blue, hair as blond, faces of just the same
type and formation as those he had seen in the strangely grievous and
regretful dreams of the night spent in his native city. It not seldom
happened on the open street that a glance, a ringing word, a peal of
laughter would strike his very marrow ...
He could not long endure the gay city. An unrest, sweet and foolish,
half recollection and half expectation, stirred him, together with the
desire to lie quietly somewhere along the shore and not have to play
the eagerly observing tourist. So he took ship again and sailed on a
gloomy day (the sea was black) northward up the coast of Seeland to
Elsinore. From there he continued his journey without delay by carriage
along the high road for three quarters of an hour, always a little
above the sea, until he stopped at his final and real goal, the little
white summer hotel with green blinds which stood in the midst of a
settlement of low cottages, and whose wooden-roofed tower looked out on
the strand and toward the Swedish coast. Here he got out, took
possession of the sunny room that had been kept ready for him, filled
book-shelf and wardrobe with the effects he had brought with him, and
prepared to live here a while.
VIII
September was already at hand; there were no longer many guests in
Aalsgaard. At the meals in the great timber-ceiled dining-hall on the
ground floor, whose high windows opened out upon the sun-porch and the
sea, the hostess always presided, an elderly spinster with white hair,
colorless eyes, delicately pink cheeks, and a quavering, chirping
voice, who always tried to group her red hands to advantage on the
white table-cloth. A short-necked old gentleman with ice-gray sailor's
beard and dark-blue face was there, a fish-dealer from the capital, who
understood German. He seemed to be wholly stopped up as to nose, and
inclined to apoplexy, for he drew short, jerky breaths and raised from
time to time his beringed forefinger to one of his nostrils, in order
to shut it and procure the other one a little air by means of vigorous
snorting. None the less he paid constant court to the brandy bottle,
which stood before him at breakfast as well as at the other meals.
There was no one else except three tall American youths with their don
or tutor, who silently adjusted his glasses and played football with
them by day. They parted their reddish yellow hair in the middle and
had long, impassive faces.
"Please, give me the wurst-things there,"[A] the one would say.
[Footnote A: Mr. Mann's English.--TRANSLATOR.]
"That's not wurst, that's schinken," remarked another, and this was the
only contribution which either they or the tutor made to the
conversation; for otherwise they sat in silence and drank hot water.
Tonio Kröger would have desired no other sort of company at table. He
enjoyed his peace, listened to the Danish gutturals and the bright and
dark vowels, when the fish-dealer and the hostess occasionally
conversed together, exchanged now and then with the former some simple
remark about the barometer, and would then get up to pass through the
verandah and down on to the shore again, where he had already spent
long morning hours.
Sometimes it was quiet and summerlike there. The sea would rest lazily
and smoothly, in blue, bottle-green, and reddish streaks, with silvery,
glittering reflections playing over it, while the seaweed dried into
hay in the sunshine, and the jelly-fish lay there and evaporated. It
smelled a little of decay and also of the pitch of the fishing-boat
against which Tonio Kröger leaned his back as he sat on the sand,
turning so as to have the open horizon and not the Swedish coast before
his eyes; but the light breath of the sea floated pure and fresh over
everything.
And gray, stormy days came. The waves bowed their heads like steers
lowering their horns to butt, and rushed furiously against the strand,
which was flooded to a great height and covered with shining sea-grass,
shells, and driftwood. Between the long lines of wave-crests the pale
green, foam-flecked troughs extended under the lowering sky; but yonder
where the sun hung behind the clouds, a whitish velvet sheen lay on the
waters.
Tonio Kröger stood enveloped by wind and clamor, lost in this eternal,
ponderous, deafening roar that he loved so much. If he turned and went
away, on a sudden it seemed quite still and warm about him. But at his
back, he knew, was the sea; it called him, enticed him, spoke to him.
And he would smile.
He would go inland through the solitude along meadow paths, and soon
birch woods would receive him, extending far over the rolling country.
He would sit down in the moss and lean against a tree from which he
could see a patch of ocean between the trunks. At times the wind would
carry to him the noise of the surf, like distant boards falling on
each other. The caw of crows above the treetops, hoarse, desolate,
forlorn ... He had a book on his knees, but he read not a line in it.
He was enjoying a deep oblivion, a floating in perfect freedom over
space and time; and only occasionally did it seem as if some pain
quivered through his heart, a short, piercing feeling of longing or
regret, which he was too lazy and too absorbed to question as to its
name and origin.
So passed many a day; he could not have said how many, and had no
desire to know. But then came a day when something happened; happened
while the sun stood in the sky and people were present, and Tonio
Kröger was not even especially astonished at it.
The very beginning of this day took a festive and delightful form.
Tonio Kröger awoke very early and quite suddenly, started up from sleep
with a subtle and vague fear, and thought he was looking upon a
miracle, into some enchanted, fairy-like illumination. His room, with a
glass door and a balcony looking out on the Sound, and divided by a
thin white gauze curtain into living-room and bedroom, was papered in
delicate colors and furnished with light, bright articles, so that it
always made a cheerful, sunny impression. But now his sleep-drunk eyes
saw an unearthly transfiguration and illumination before him, saw his
room immersed to the farthest corner in an unspeakably lovely, hazy
rose-glow, which gilded walls and furnishings and caused the gauze
curtain to gleam with a mild ruddy light ... For a long time Tonio
Kröger did not understand what was happening. But when he stood at the
glass door and looked out, he saw that it was the rising sun.
For several days it had been dark and rainy; but now the sky, like a
taut canopy of pale-blue silk, rose in shimmering purity over sea and
land, and the sun's disk, beflecked and surrounded by cloud-strips shot
with red and gold, was rising impressively out of the sea, which with
its flickering ripples seemed to quiver and to glow beneath it ... So
the day began, and in bewildered happiness Tonio Kröger flung himself
into his clothes, breakfasted downstairs on the verandah before any one
else, swam some distance out into the Sound from the little wooden
bath-house, and then walked for an hour along the shore. When he
returned, several wagons that looked like omnibuses were stopping
before the hotel, and from the dining-room he could see that not only
in the adjoining living-room, where the piano stood, but also on the
verandah and the terrace in front of it, a great company of people,
dressed in provincial style, were sitting at round tables and consuming
beer and sandwiches amid lively conversation. There were whole families
of old and young people, and even a few children.
At the second breakfast (the table was loaded down with cold viands,
smoked, salted, and baked) Tonio Kröger inquired what was going on.
"Guests," said the fish-dealer. "Picnickers and dancers from Elsinore.
Aye, God help us, we shan't be able to sleep this night. There will be
dancing, dancing and music, and it is to be feared that it will last a
long time. It is a family gathering, picnic and reunion at once, in
short a subscription dance or something of the sort, and they are going
to enjoy the fine day. They have come by boat and wagon, and now they
are lunching. Later they will go on across country, but in the evening
they will come back, and then there will be dancing in the hall here.
Yes, damn it and curse it, we shan't close an eye ..."
"That will be a nice change," said Tonio Kröger.
Hereupon nothing further was said for some time. The hostess grouped
her red fingers, the fish-dealer blew through his right nostril in
order to get a little air, and the Americans drank hot water and pulled
long faces over it.
Then on a sudden this happened: _Hans Hansen and Ingeborg Holm went
through the hall._--
Tonio Kröger, comfortably weary after his bath and his rapid walk, was
leaning back in his chair, eating smoked salmon on toast; he sat facing
the verandah and the sea. And suddenly the door opened and the two
entered hand in hand--sauntering and without haste. Ingeborg, the
fair-haired Inga, was dressed in bright colors, as she was wont to be
in M. Knaak's dancing class. The light, flowered dress only reached to
her ankles, and about her shoulders she wore a broad, V-shaped fichu of
white tulle, leaving her soft, supple throat free. Her hat hung on one
arm by its knotted ribbons. She was perhaps a little less grown-up than
of old, simply wearing her wonderful braid wound about her head; but
Hans Hansen looked as he always did. He had on his seaman's jacket with
the gold buttons, over which the broad blue collar lay on shoulders and
back; the sailor's cap with the short ribbons he was holding in one
hand, swinging it carelessly back and forth. Ingeborg kept her
elongated eyes cast down, perhaps a little embarrassed by the gaze of
the breakfasters. But Hans Hansen turned his head squarely toward the
table, as if defying the world, and mustered with his steel-blue eyes
one face after another, challengingly and as it were contemptuously; he
even dropped Ingeborg's hand and swung his cap back and forth more
vehemently, to show what sort of a man he was. So the couple walked
past Tonio Kröger's eyes, with the quiet blue sea as a background,
traversed the entire length of the hall, and vanished through the
opposite door into the music-room.
This took place at half past eleven, and while the regular guests were
still at their meal, the company in the adjoining room and on the
verandah broke up and left the hotel by the side entrance, without any
one having set foot in the dining-room. They could be heard climbing
into the wagons outside amid jest and laughter, and one conveyance
after the other crunchingly got under way and rolled off along the high
road ...
"So they are coming back?" asked Tonio Kröger.
"That they are," said the fish-dealer. "And God help us. They have
ordered music, you must know, and I sleep right over the hall."
"That will be a nice change," repeated Tonio Kröger. Then he stood up
and went out.
He spent the day as he had spent the others, on the shore and in the
woods, holding a book in his lap and blinking at the sun. He
entertained only one idea: that they would come back and have a dance
in the hall, as the fish-dealer had promised; and he did nothing but
look forward to this with an anxious and sweet joy such as he had not
experienced for many long, dead years. Once, by some chain of ideas, he
had a fleeting recollection of a distant acquaintance, of Adalbert the
novelist, who knew what he wanted and had gone to the café to escape
the spring. And he shrugged his shoulders at him ...
Dinner was served earlier than usual, and supper also was eaten earlier
than otherwise and in the music-room, because preparations for the ball
were already going on in the hall: in such a festive manner was
everything brought into disorder. Then, after it had grown dark and
Tonio Kröger was sitting in his room, there was noise and bustle again
on the road and in the house. The picnickers were returning; yes, and
from the direction of Elsinore new guests came by bicycle and carriage,
and already one could hear in the room below a fiddle tuning up and a
clarinet executing nasal runs by way of practice ... Everything
promised to make it a brilliant ball.
Now the little orchestra opened up with a march: the muffled sounds
came up in steady rhythm: they were opening the dance with a polonaise.
Tonio Kröger sat still awhile and listened. But when he heard the
march-time change to a waltz, he got up and glided noiselessly out of
his room.
From the corridor outside his room one could go by a stairway to the
side-entrance of the hotel, and from there to the sun-porch without
entering a room. He took this course, softly and stealthily, as if
treading forbidden paths, and cautiously felt his way through the
darkness, irresistibly attracted by this stupid, blissfully swaying
music, whose tones were already reaching his ear clear and unmuffled.
The verandah was empty and unlighted, but the glass door to the hall,
where the two great oil lamps were shining brightly before their
polished reflectors, stood open. Thither he crept on tiptoe, and the
enjoyment of stealthily standing here in the dark and watching unseen
those who were dancing in the light made his flesh tingle. Hastily and
eagerly he sent his glances in search of that one couple ...
The merriment of the festivity already seemed to be full-blown,
although the ball had begun scarcely a half hour before; but of course
they had been warm and excited when they arrived, after spending the
entire day together, carefree and happy. In the music-room, which Tonio
Kröger could see if he ventured to step forward a little, several
elderly gentlemen had gathered to smoke and drink over their cards;
while others were sitting beside their spouses on the plush chairs in
the foreground and along the walls, looking on at the dancing. They
held their hands propped on their spread knees, and blew out their
cheeks with a well-to-do air, while the mothers, with bonnets on their
parted hair, hands folded on their stomachs, and head on one side,
looked into the swarm of young people. A platform had been erected
against one of the long side walls, and here the musicians were doing
their best. There was even a trumpet, which pealed with a certain
hesitant cautiousness, as if afraid of its own voice, but which none
the less constantly broke and gave out ... Whirling and surging the
couples moved about each other, while others promenaded arm in arm.
They were not in gala dress, but only as on a summer afternoon spent in
the open: the cavaliers in suits of provincial cut, which one could see
had been spared all week, and the young girls in light, bright dresses
with bouquets of wild flowers on their bodices. A few children were in
the hall, too, and they danced together child-fashion, not even
stopping with the music. A long-legged person in a swallow-tailed coat,
a provincial lion, with monocle and curled hair, mail clerk or
something like it, looking like the comic figure of a Danish novel in
the flesh, seemed to be the manager of the festivities and director of
the ball. Precipitate, perspiring, and with his whole soul in his task,
he was everywhere at once; he "sashayed" officiously through the hall,
artfully treading on the balls of his feet, which were shod with
shining, pointed military boots, and setting them down crosswise in
some intricate fashion, swung his arms in the air, made arrangements,
called for music, clapped his hands,--and through all this the ribbons
of the great, gay-colored bow which was fastened to his shoulder in
token of his dignity, and toward which he occasionally turned his head
lovingly, fluttered in the air behind him.
Yes, they were there, those two that had passed Tonio Kröger that day
in the sunlight; he saw them again and felt a joyful shock as he
perceived them both almost at once. Here stood Hans Hansen, quite close
to him, next to the door; with feet spread and a little bent forward he
was deliberately consuming a large piece of Madeira cake, hollowing his
hand under his chin to catch the crumbs. And there against the wall sat
Ingeborg Holm, fair-haired Inga, and the mail clerk just "sashaying" up
to her to ask her for a dance with a choice gesture, consisting in
laying one hand on his back and thrusting the other into his bosom; but
she shook her head and motioned that she was too much out of breath and
must rest a little, whereupon he sat down at her side.
Tonio Kröger looked at the two for whom he had suffered love of
yore--Hans and Ingeborg. It was they not so much by virtue of single
features and the similarity of their dress, as on the strength of their
likeness in race and type, this bright, steel-blue-eyed, fair-haired
stock, which suggested purity, serenity, and cheerfulness, and an at
once proud and simple, inviolable reserve ... He looked at them, saw
Hans Hansen stand there in his sailor suit as bold and as shapely as
ever, broad of shoulder and narrow of hip, saw how Ingeborg laughingly
tossed her head in a certain saucy fashion, and carried her hand, a
little girl's hand by no means especially slender or dainty, up to her
back hair in a certain fashion, so that the light sleeve slipped down
from her elbow,--and suddenly homesickness shook his breast with such
pain that he involuntarily retreated farther into the darkness, lest
any one see the quivering of his countenance.
Had I forgotten you? he asked. No, never! Not you, Hans, nor you, blond
Inga. It was you for whom I worked, and when I heard applause, I
secretly looked about me to see if you had any part in it ... Have you
now read _Don Carlos_, Hans Hansen, as you promised me at your garden
gate? Do not do so, I no longer ask it of you. What is the king to you,
weeping because he is lonely? You must not make your bright eyes dull
and dream-dimmed by staring into verses and melancholy ... To be like
you! To begin once more, grow up like you, honest, happy, and simple,
regular, orderly, and in agreement with God and the world, to be loved
by the innocent and happy, to take you to wife, Ingeborg Holm, and have
a son like you, Hans Hansen,--to live, love, and laud in blessed
prosaic bliss, free from the curse of knowledge and of creative
torment!... Begin again? But it would do no good. It would turn out the
same way again,--everything would be just as it has been this time. For
some go astray of necessity, because there, is absolutely no right way
for them.
Now the music stopped, there was an intermission, and refreshments were
served. The mail clerk hurried about in person with a tea-tray of
herring salad, serving the ladies; but before Ingeborg Holm he actually
dropped on one knee as he offered her the dish, making her blush for
joy.
The people in the hall now began to be aware of the spectator in the
doorway, after all, and strange, searching glances came upon him from
pretty, heated faces; but he stood his ground. Ingeborg and Hans, too,
passed their eyes over him almost at the same moment, with that
complete indifference which almost has the appearance of contempt.
Suddenly, however, he became conscious that from somewhere a glance had
reached him and was resting on him ... He turned his head, and at once
his eyes met the ones he had felt. A girl stood not far from him, with
a pale, narrow, delicate face which he had noticed before. She had not
danced much, the cavaliers had not paid much attention to her, and he
had seen her sitting alone against the wall with bitterly closed lips.
And she stood alone now, too. She wore a bright, filmy dress, like the
others, but under the diaphanous goods her bare shoulders looked sharp
and scanty, and the lean neck went down so far between these pitiful
shoulders that the quiet girl seemed almost a little deformed. She held
her hands in their thin short gloves in front of her flat breast so
that the fingertips barely touched. With lowered head she looked up at
Tonio Kröger out of black, swimming eyes. He turned away ...
Here stood Hans and Ingeborg quite close to him. He had sat down beside
her,--she was perhaps his sister,--and surrounded by other red-cheeked
children of men they ate and drank, chattered merrily, called out
teasing remarks to each other with ringing voices, and let their
laughter peal out. Could he not approach them a little? Could he not
direct to him or her a jest that would come to his mind, and that they
must at least answer with a smile? It would make him happy, he longed
for it; he would then return more contentedly to his room, with the
consciousness of having established some little community with them. He
thought out what he might say; but he did not find the courage to say
it. And then too it was as of old: they would not understand him, would
listen with disapproval to what he could say. For their language was
not his language.
Now the dance was to begin again, it seemed. The mail clerk revealed an
all-embracing activity. He hurried around and invited every one to
engage partners, pushed and cleared away chairs and glasses with the
aid of the waiter, gave orders to the musicians, and took some awkward
ones, who did not know where to go, by the shoulders and pushed them
along before him. What were they going to do? Groups of eight couples
were forming sets ... A terrible memory made Tonio Kröger blush. They
were dancing the quadrille.
The music began, and the couples bowed and marched past each other. The
mail clerk called the figures, and he did so, by heaven, in French, and
brought out the nasal sounds in an incomparably distinguished fashion.
Ingeborg Holm was dancing right in front of Tonio Kröger, in the set
just next to the door. She moved back and forth in front of him,
forward and backward, gliding and whirling; a perfume that came from
her hair or the dainty stuff of her dress reached him occasionally, and
he shut his eyes with a feeling that had been so familiar to him all
his life, whose aroma and bitter stimulus he had faintly discerned
all these last days, and that now filled him again completely
with its sweet distress. What _was_ it? Longing? Tenderness? Envy,
self-contempt?... _Moulinet des dames!_ Did you laugh, blond Inga, did
you laugh at me when I danced _moulinet_ and made such a pitiable fool
of myself? And would you laugh today, now that I have after all become
something like a famous man? Yes, you would, and you would have thrice
as much right as before! And if I, all by myself, had created the Nine
Symphonies, The World as Will and Idea, and the Last Judgment--still
you would be eternally justified in laughing ... He looked at her, and
a line occurred to him which he had long forgotten, and yet was so
familiar and so akin to him: "I fain would sleep, but thou must dance."
He knew so well the deep, clumsy, melancholy Scandinavian awkwardness
of feeling that was expressed by it. To sleep ... To long to live
simply and wholly for the feeling that sweetly and indolently satisfies
itself, without the obligation of becoming a deed and a dance--and
nevertheless to dance, to have to execute nimbly and with presence of
mind the hard, hard and dangerous knife-dance of art, without ever
quite forgetting the humiliating contradiction that lay in having to
dance while one was in love ...
All at once the whole throng broke into mad and exuberant motion. The
sets had broken up, and the dancers shot around jumping and gliding:
the quadrille was ending with a galop. The couples flew past Tonio
Kröger to the furious beat of the music, _chasséing_, hurrying,
overtaking each other, with quick, breathless laughter. One couple came
along, carried away by the universal race, whirling and whizzing
forward. The girl had a delicate, pale face and lean, very high
shoulders. And suddenly, close before him, there was a stumbling,
sliding, and falling ... The pale girl fell down. She fell so heavily
and violently that it almost looked dangerous, and her cavalier fell
with her. The latter must have hurt himself so painfully that he forgot
his partner altogether, for he began amid grimaces to rub his knees
with his hands, without getting off the floor; and the girl, seemingly
quite stunned by the fall, still lay on the floor. Now Tonio Kröger
stepped forward, grasped her gently by the arms, and lifted her up.
Exhausted, confused, and unhappy, she looked up at him, and suddenly
her delicate face was suffused with a faint flush.
"Tak! O, mange Tak!" (Thanks, Oh, many thanks), she said, and looked up
at him with dark, swimming eyes.
"You should not dance any more," he said gently. Then he looked around
at _them_ once more, at Hans and Ingeborg, and went out, leaving the
verandah and the dance, and going up to his room.
He was intoxicated by the festivities in which he had had no part, and
weary with jealousy. It had been like long ago, just like long ago.
With heated face he had stood in a dark spot, full of grief on your
account, ye blond ones, happy and full of life, and then had gone away
lonely. Some one ought to come now. Ingeborg ought to come now, ought
to notice that he was gone, follow him secretly, lay her hand on his
shoulder and say: Come in and join us. Be happy! I love you ... But she
came not at all. Such things did not happen. Yes, it was just like
those days, and he was happy as in those days. For his heart was alive.
But what had there been during all the time in which he had become what
he now was?--Stupefaction; desolation; ice; and intellect. And art!...
He undressed, lay down to rest, and put out the light. He whispered two
names into the pillow, these few chaste Norse syllables which
designated for him the real and original type of his love, suffering,
and happiness, which meant life, simple and intimate emotion, home. He
looked back upon the years elapsed from that time to this. He thought
of the wild adventures his senses, nerves, and intellect had gone
through, saw himself devoured by irony and brilliance, made stagnant
and lame by knowledge, half worn out by the fevers and frosts of
creative work, unstable and in torments of conscience between crass
extremes, cast back and forth between sanctity and passion, exquisite,
impoverished, exhausted by frigid and artificially selected
exaltations, astray, laid waste, tortured, diseased--and he sobbed with
repentance and homesickness.
About him it was quiet and dark. But from below the sweet, trivial
waltz time of life came up to him muffled and swaying.
IX
Tonio Kröger sat in the North and wrote to Lisaveta Ivanovna, his
friend, as he had promised.
Dear Lisaveta, down yonder in Arcadia, whither I shall soon return, he
wrote. Here, then, is something like a letter, but it will probably
disappoint you, for I am thinking of keeping it somewhat general. Not
as if I had nothing to tell, or had not had this or that experience on
my journey. At home, in my native town, they were actually going to
arrest me ... but of that you shall hear by word of mouth. Now I
frequently have days on which I prefer making some good general
observations to telling stories.
I wonder if you still remember, Lisaveta, that you once called me a
commoner, a commoner astray. You called me so at a time when I was
confessing my love for that which I call Life, being led on to it by
other confessions which I had allowed to escape me; and I ask myself
whether you knew how closely you struck the truth in calling me so, how
nearly my commonership and my love for "life" are one and the same
thing. This journey has given me occasion to think about it ...
My father, you know, was of a Norse temperament: reflective, thorough,
Puritanically correct, and inclined to melancholy; my mother of
nondescript exotic blood, beautiful, sensual, naïve, at once slovenly
and passionate, and of an impulsive and unprincipled mind. Quite
without doubt this was a mixture which involved extraordinary
possibilities, and extraordinary dangers. What came of it was this: a
commoner who lost his way into art, a Bohemian homesick for a model
nursery, an artist with a bad conscience. For it is of course my
bourgeois conscience which makes me see in all artistry, in all
unusualness and all genius something deeply ambiguous, deeply dubious,
deeply disreputable, and which fills me with this lovelorn weakness for
the simple, candid, and agreeably normal, for the decent and mediocre.
I stand between two worlds, am at home in neither, and in consequence
have rather a hard time of it. You artists call me a commoner, and
commoners feel tempted to arrest me ... I do not know which wounds me
more bitterly. Commoners are stupid; but you worshippers of beauty who
call me phlegmatic and without yearning, ought to reflect that there is
an artistry so deep, so primordial and elemental, that no yearning
seems to it sweeter and more worthy of tasting than that for the
raptures of commonplaceness.
I admire the proud and cold who go adventuring on the paths of great
and demoniac beauty, and scorn "man"--but I do not envy them. For if
anything is capable of making a poet out of a man of letters, it is
this plebeian love of mine for the human, living, and commonplace. All
warmth, all goodness, all humor is born of it, and it almost seems to
me as if it were that love itself, of which it is written that a man
might speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and yet without it
be no more than sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal.
What I have done is nothing, not much--as good as nothing. I shall do
better things, Lisaveta--this is a promise. While I am writing, the
sea's roar is coming up to me, and I close my eyes. I am looking into
an unborn and shapeless world that longs to be called to life and
order, I am looking into a throng of phantoms of human forms which
beckon me to conjure them and set them free: some of them tragic, some
of them ridiculous, and some that are both at once--and to these I am
very devoted. But my deepest and most secret love belongs to the blond
and blue-eyed, the bright-spirited living ones, the happy, amiable, and
commonplace.
Do not speak lightly of this love, Lisaveta; it is good and fruitful.
There is longing in it and melancholy envy, and a tiny bit of contempt,
and an unalloyed chaste blissfulness.
LUDWIG THOMA
* * * * * *
MATT THE HOLY (1904)
_The remarkable fortunes of the Reverend Matthew Fottner of
Eynhofen, Studiosus, Soldier, and later Pastor at Rappertswyl_
TRANSLATED BY BAYARD QUINCY MORGAN, PH.D.
Assistant Professor of German, University of Wisconsin
Whoso has six horses in the stable is a freeholder, and he sits next to
the burgomaster in the tavern and is a burgess. When he sees fit to
open his head and grumble about the hard times and the taxes, his words
are heeded, and the small fry go about the next day telling how
Harlanger, or whatever his name is, has spoken his mind for once.
Whoso has five horses or less is a farmer, and he grumbles too. But it
does not have the same weight, and is not worth spreading.
But whoso has no horses, and makes a pair of lean oxen draw his plow,
is a cotter and must hold his tongue. In the tavern, in the town
meeting, and everywhere. His opinion is worthless, and no regular
farmer pays any attention to the poor beggar.
The professor of the Cobbler-Sebastian property, house number eight in
Eynhofen, George Fottner by name, was a cotter. And a beggarly one at
that. As to oxen, he had one, of cows very few, but a swarm of
children. Four girls and three boys, making seven according to Adam
Reese[A]; and when there was scarce enough food for the two old folks,
it took good figuring and dividing to give the young ones something.
[Footnote A: popular arithmetic primer--TRANSLATOR.]
But in the country no one ever starved yet, and so the Fottners
managed to pull their children through. As soon as one of them was
eight or nine years old, it could begin to earn a bit, and of course
there was no danger after it could quit school.
The girls soon went into service; of the boys the oldest, Georgie,
stayed at home, the second, Vitus by name, went to the Shuller Farm,
and the third--well, I am going to tell you about him.
Matthew his name was, and he came into the world long after the sixth
child, and quite unexpectedly.
At that time Fottner was already fifty, and his wife was in the
forties.
So in the opinion of all acquaintances there was absolutely no
necessity of getting a seventh child to add to their six.
In its early years this child was weakly and puny to boot; its parents
often thought it looked sickly and would soon become a little angel in
Heaven. But it was not so; Matthew thrived, became a priest
subsequently, and weighed in his prime two hundred and fifty, and not a
pound less.
His choice of a clerical profession was unforeseen, and caused by
nothing less than the pricks of conscience of the Upper-Bridge Farmer
in Eynhofen.
The same had much money, no children, and a grievous sin that weighed
on his heart. Years before he had perjured himself in a lawsuit with
his neighbor and had won thereby.
At first he did not care much, for in swearing he had taken the
precaution of turning down the fingers of his left hand. Venerable
tradition has it that in this way the oath passes downward through the
body into the ground, like a bolt striking a lightning-rod, and so can
do no harm.
[Illustration: LUDWIG THOMA]
But the Bridge Farmer was a timid person, and as he grew older he
brooded frequently over the affair, and resolved to repair the damage.
That is, not the damage which the neighbor had suffered, but the
disadvantages that might accrue to his own immortal soul.
Because we know nothing for certain, and because the Almighty Judge
perhaps thought differently about the lightning-rod oath, and did not
observe the Eynhofen tradition.
So he considered what and how much he must give in order to balance the
account and make his merit outweigh his badness.
That was not simple and easy, for no one could tell him: So and so many
masses will square you; but it was possible that he might make a
miscount of one and lose everything.
The Bridge Farmer had never been stupid in his earthly affairs, and had
often given too little, but never too much.
But in this deal with Heaven he thought more would be better, and as he
had often read in the paper that nothing afforded a better claim on the
next world than assistance in supplying priests for the many empty
posts, he resolved to have a boy study for holy orders entirely at his
own expense.
His choice fell upon Matthew Fottner, and this he rued more than once.
He should have considered more carefully the quality of the Fottner
boy's intellectual endowments.
And he would have saved himself much vexation and much anxiety if he
had taken more time and picked out some one else.
He was in too much of a hurry, and because the teacher said nothing
against it and old man Fottner at once agreed with joy, he was
satisfied.
Doubtless he took the priest at Eynhofen as an example, thinking that
what _he_ knew couldn't be hard to learn.
Now Matthew was not exactly stupid; but he had no very good head for
studying, and his pleasure in it was not immoderate either.
When they told him that he was to become a priest, he was content, for
the first thing he grasped was that he could then eat more and work
less.
And so he went to the Latin School at Freising. The first three years
were all right. Nothing brilliant, but good enough so he could show his
reports at the parsonage when he came home for vacations.
And when the priest read that Matthew Fottner was of moderate talent
and industry and was making sufficient progress, he would say each time
in his fat voice: _magnos progressus fecisti, discipule!_
Matthew did not understand; nor did his father, who stood beside him.
But the priest did not care for that.
He only said it for the sake of his reputation, so that certain
doubters might see that he was a learned gentleman.
When folks talked about it in Eynhofen and told each other that
Fottner's Matt could already talk Latin like a Roman, no one rejoiced
more intensely than the Bridge Farmer.
That is comprehensible. For he had speculated in the scholarship of the
lad, and watched him with rapt attention, as he would anything else
that he had put money into.
So he was glad on general grounds, and especially so when Matt came
home after the third year with glasses on his nose and an actually
priestly look.
This tickled him to death, and he asked the teacher whether, in view of
this circumstance, and inasmuch as Matt knew Latin, after all--more
than was needed to read mass--whether it mightn't be possible to
shorten the time.
When the teacher told him that such exceptions could not be made, he
found it intelligible; but when the schoolmaster tried to explain the
reason, saying that a priest didn't merely have to know the reading of
the mass by heart, but must know even more, the Bridge Farmer shook his
head and laughed a bit. He wasn't such a fool as to swallow that. Why
did anybody have to learn more'n what he needed? Hey?
No, this is the way it was: them perfessers in Freising wanted to keep
Matt a good long while, because they made money on him.
In this belief he was very much strengthened when Matthew Fottner
flunked the fourth year in the Latin school. 'Count o' Greek. Because
he couldn't learn Greek.
That made it as clear as day, for now the Bridge Farmer asked anybody,
what did a priest have to know Greek for, when services and mass were
celebrated in Latin?
They must be slick fellows, those gentlemen in Freising, reg'lar
pickpockets.
He was all-fired mad at them, for he couldn't put any blame on the
Fottner boy.
Matt told him that all he'd ever thought and known was that he'd simply
have to study what the priest in Eynhofen knew. But he'd never heard
him say a word of Greek all his life long, and so he hadn't been
prepared for anything like that.
To this no objection could be made; on Matt's part the deal was
straight and O. K. The rascality was on the part of the others, off
there in Freising. The Bridge Farmer went to the priest and made
complaint.
But thieves stand by each other, and the farmer gets done every time.
The priest laughed at first, and said that was simply the law and he
had had to learn it too; but when the Bridge Farmer doubted that, and
told the priest, if that was the case, to celebrate mass once in Greek,
and he would pay whatever it cost, his Reverence grew abusive and
called the Bridge Farmer an impudent clod-hopper. Because he didn't
know what to say, ye see?
Now things had come to the point where the Bridge Farmer had to make up
his mind whether to try Matt again, or send somebody else to Freising
who would figure on the Greek from the start.
If he did the latter, it would take three years more, and the money for
the Fottner boy would be completely lost. And besides, nobody could
tell whether they wouldn't think up something else there in Freising,
if they couldn't trip up the new pupil on Greek. Therefore he resolved
to have Matt try the thing once more, and admonished him that he'd just
have to take a fresh hold and keep it.
This to be sure Fottner did not do, for he was no friend of toilsome
head-work, but his teacher was himself a clergyman, who knew that the
servants of God could officiate without learning, if need be. Therefore
he preferred, purely from a sense of duty, not to injure Matt, and with
Christian charity he let him be promoted the second year.
Matt came home as a member of the fifth form, and looked for all the
world like a student.
He was already seventeen, and physically very much developed.
The Vicar of Aufhausen he overtopped by a head, and all his limbs were
coarse and uncouth. And at this time also he lost his boyish voice and
assumed a rasping bass.
When he foregathered with his school friends Joseph Scharl of
Pettenbach and Martin Zollbert of Glonn, it was clear that he could
drink vastly more than they, and that he already was well informed on
all convivial regulations.
His class spirit was strong, and he would sing with his boon companions
such college songs as "_Vom hoh'n Olymp herab ward uns die Freude_" or
"_Drum Brüderchen er-her-go biba-ha-mus_"[A] so powerfully and loudly
that the Bridge Farmer at the next table would be astonished at the
scholarly attainments of the former village lad.
[Footnote A: Familiar drinking songs.--TRANSLATOR.]
And when Matt made his visit at the parsonage, he did not as in
previous years request the cook to announce him, but handed her his
calling card, on which was neatly printed:
Matthew Fottner
_stud. lit. et art._
Which means _studiosus litterarum et artium_, a devotee of letters and
fine arts.
Old Fottner was proud of his son, on whom a faint reflection of his
future dignity already rested, who was invited to dinner by the priest,
took walks with the Vicar, and played tarot with the teacher and the
chief of the constabulary.
And the Bridge Farmer was satisfied, too, even though he occasionally
found the expenditures of his young protégé somewhat large. But he said
nothing, fearing that the latter might still lie down in the traces if
he put too little oats before him.
So Matt spent a merry vacation, and marched back to Freising in October
with renewed strength.
Unfortunately he was destined to fall on evil days. The master of the
fifth form was a disagreeable man: strict and very caustic and
sarcastic to boot.
The first time he saw this sky-scraping farmer lad, who did look queer
enough on the school benches, he laughed and asked him whether he
towered equally high above his fellow pupils in intellect. That this
was not the case could not remain a secret, and then the bantering
never ceased. At first the teacher really tried to strike sparks out of
this stone; but when he found he could not, he soon enough gave up all
hope.
Matthew Fottner made no objection at all when they no longer consulted
his opinion on the Gallic War or Caius Julius Caesar, and conjugated
the Greek verbs without his cooperation.
He laughed good-humoredly when every word in his exercises was
underscored with red, and he marveled at the ambition of the little
fellows before and beside him, disputing as to whether something was
right or wrong.
But to be sure, given such a point of view, the end was easy to
foresee, and in August the Bridge Farmer faced the same choice as two
years before, whether or not to maintain his confidence in the Fottner
youth.
That is, he really no longer had any choice, for now, after six years,
he could not very well begin a new experiment with somebody else.
So he comforted himself with the reflection that a good horse pulls
twice, and swallowed his bitter pill.
Doubtless he did make a wry face over it, and his joy of Matt had
become diminished by a good bit; grave doubts began to stir in his
heart as to whether a _bona fide_ priest could be made out of this
gawky Goliath.
But his bad humor was not contagious, at least not for Mr. Matthew
Fottner.
The latter was a welcome guest during his vacation at all the taverns
for ten miles around; and when he got out of money and was far from
home, he remembered that a parsonage stands near every church, and
would go in and ask for a _viaticum_ (traveling money), which was due
him as _studiosus litterarum_, a devotee of letters and fine arts.
And in so doing he would now and then encounter a young vicar,
neophyte, or undergraduate, who would exchange reminiscences of
Freising with him, and who, after the fifth pint of beer, would join in
the fine songs: "_Vom hoh'n Olymp herab ward uns die Freude_" and
"_Brüderchen, er-her-go bi-ba-hamus._"
When he again entered the seat of culture in October, his head was
considerably thicker, his bass appreciably deeper, but otherwise
everything was as before.
In the meantime he had not learned to love Caius Julius Cæsar, nor to
appreciate the Greek verbs; his teacher was as disagreeable as before,
and the result at the close of the year was that Matt must once more
forego promotion.
At the same time he was notified that he had passed the age limit and
might not come back again. Now wouldn't that beat all?
So they were all out in the cold: old Fottner who had been so proud,
the tavern-keeper who had already been joyfully looking forward to
Matt's first mass, and the Catholic Church, which was losing such a
pillar.
But most of all the Upper-Bridge Farmer of Eynhofen, whose whole deal
with our Lord God was off. By all the devils, if that wasn't enough to
madden a man and make him curse!
For seven long years he had had to pay over the nail, do nothing but
pay, and no small sum, either; you can believe that. A mile away you
could tell the quality of the fodder Matt had been standing in. And
everything was in vain; on the heavenly record of the Bridge Farmer
that lightning-rod oath was still written down, but there wasn't an
ink-spot on the credit side.
For after all, nobody could suppose that our Lord God would let Matt's
scholarly training be set down as anything to the good.
Such a miserable, outrageous piece of rascality surely had never
existed before in the history of the world!
This time the rage of the Bridge Farmer was directed not merely against
the teachers at Freising; the priest had enlightened him as to the
fact that Matt was deficient in everything except tarot playing and
beer-drinking. The ragamuffin, the good-for-nothing!
Now he was running around Eynhofen with glasses on his nose and a belly
like an alderman. He looked like a regular Vicar, sure enough, who was
going to begin reading mass the next day. And all the time he was
nothing, absolutely nothing.
The only person who remained calm under these blows of fate was the
quondam _stud. lit._ Matthew Fottner.
If he had studied longer and more, I should be fain to think he had
learned this calm of soul from the seven wise men.
As it is, I must assume that it was inborn.
He had, to be sure, gained no treasure of classical learning for his
future life, but he figured that in any case seven fat years had been
accorded him, which no one could ever take from him again. Not even the
Bridge Farmer with all his rage.
Why should man torment himself with thoughts of the future? The past is
worth something, too, and especially such a jolly one as he had had in
the secret tap-room of the Star Brewery, where he had sat with his
boon-companions and had gradually mastered the art of draining a glass
of beer at a draught. Where he had sung all the bully songs in the
collection, such as "_Crambambuli_" and the "_Bier la la_," and the
ever memorable and eternally beautiful "_Drum Brüderchen er-her-go
bi-ba-hamus._"
Such recollections are also a treasure for life; and even if the
sun-dried country bumpkins didn't understand it, jolly it had been all
the same.
And the future couldn't be so terribly bad either.
For the time being he resolved to go into the army; he would have to
serve his three years anyhow, and so it would be better if he reported
right now. In this way he would get out of the Bridge Farmer's sight
and be left in peace. He tried for the First Regiment of His Majesty's
Grenadiers, and was accepted.
And if the Bridge Farmer wanted to, he could now sit in the Hofgarten
and look with pride at the file-leader of the second company.
That head, which stuck up so big and red out of the collar of his
uniform, had been fattened at the farmer's expense; and if it might
have looked good over the black cassock, with the tonsure on the back
of it, yet any just man must have admitted that it didn't make such a
bad appearance over the white braid and the bright blue uniform.
To be sure, the present calling of the Fottner lad was not pleasing to
God; but he himself liked it.
The food was not bad, and the one-year volunteers willingly treated
the big fellow to a glass of beer when he introduced himself as
fellow-student, boasting that he had not been left behind when his
former _confratres_ had had a little convivial matin celebration.
And as he showed himself apt in the drill manual, he gained the favor
of the captain, and after only eight months he was duly appointed a
petty officer.
All this would have been correct and pleasing, and all mankind,
including Eynhofen, might have been satisfied with the life destiny of
Matthew Fottner.
But a worm was gnawing at the heart of the Bridge Farmer.
It ate and ate and gave him no peace by day or night.
When other people lose all their prospects, they sigh, tie a heavy
stone to their hopes, and sink them in the sea of forgetfulness.
A tenacious farmer does not do so; he keeps turning them over in his
mind to see whether he cannot save a part, if he is not to have the
whole.
And when the Bridge Farmer's anger had lost its edge, he again began to
brood and plan.
But because it was a matter that concerned book-learning, his own
wisdom did not satisfy him; so he resolved to go straight to the right
shop and ask a priest's advice.
The one at Eynhofen he did not trust; not since that time long ago,
when the priest had told him such barefaced lies about Greek.
But in Sintshausen, twelve miles off, there was a priest, the Reverend
Joseph Shoebower, that one could put confidence in.
Oh, but he was a shrewd one; a deputy in the diet, three times as
Catholic as the other "shepherds," and a hotheaded fighting-cock, who
regularly chewed up Liberals with his salad and who set the king's
Ministers dancing to the very maddest of tunes, until he finally got
the best-paid post in the whole bishopric. To him our farmer went, for
he would surely know some means of preventing such a robust churl as
Matthew Fottner from being lost to the Church.
So he asked him whether you couldn't grease some one's palm,--the
school at Freising, or the bishop, or some one.
"It is always a meritorious work," said the Reverend Shoebower, "when
one invests his money for Catholic purposes; but in this case it would
not do much good, for the certificate for admission to the university
can only be got by an examination. At least as long as the civil
power--I am sorry to say--still has the right to put in its oar in
educational matters. But something else can be done, Bridge Farmer,"
he said, "if you are set on having Matt Fottner enter the ministry at
all costs. There is a Collegium Germanicum in Rome, where German youths
are trained by the Jesuits. They are very particular about faith, but
as to education they close one eye in the interest of the faith."
"Hm," remarked the Bridge Farmer, "but I wonder if the masses that such
a one reads, who's come all the way from Rome, have the same force."
"A bigger one, if anything, supposing that was possible at all," said
the Reverend, "for you mustn't forget, Bridge Farmer, that the school
in Rome is right near the Holy Father."
"Well, but I wonder if they require Greek there, too, and such like
gammon."
"Only for the sake of appearances. Nobody will flunk on that account if
he's all right in his faith, and pays his money correctly and in due
season. But here in Germany Matthew Fottner can't be ordained."
"Well, I'd like to know why not?"
"Because those scoundrelly Prussians have made a law against it."
"Well now, aren't they a bad lot?"
"Right you are; and a lot worse than you think for. Probably Fottner
would simply have to become a missionary. That ought to fill you with
joy, for that's actually more deserving than to become priest here."
"Oh, but are you quite sure of that? I wouldn't want to have all those
big expenses again and then have it turn out only a half-way business."
"It is certain and indisputable, for the messengers of the faith were
always most highly honored."
The Bridge Farmer was happy, and went home from Sintshausen with his
tail in the air.
Now everything must surely go right, and his plan would succeed.
They should make eyes in Freising when Matt Fottner got ordained in
spite of them, or actually became a missionary who converts the
Hindians, and whose masses count even more.
And the Eynhofen folks that were forever quizzing him in the tavern
about his Latin officer, they should open their eyes, too, one of these
days.
On the very next day he took the train to Munich. No joy is complete,
and the palm of victory is never to be gained with easy toil.
This was the experience of the Bridge Farmer when he communicated his
plan to the royal corporal Matthew Fottner.
The latter declared roundly that he neither wished to study nor to go
out among the Hindians.
When the old man represented to him that he would only have to study a
very little, he remarked that nothing at all was still better; and when
the Bridge Farmer asseverated by all that was holy that he would become
a saint, just like those plaster men in the church at Eynhofen, he
replied that he didn't care a straw.
Everything was fruitless. The Bridge Farmer had to withdraw with his
business undone, and with the old, gnawing worm in his heart.
Nevertheless, he did not give up hope, but got after old Fottner and
promised him the nicest things for his Matt.
For a long time it was in vain, but after about two years Heaven itself
interposed and brought about a favorable turn of affairs.
The captain of the second company of His Majesty's Grenadiers was made
a major. Into his position came a venomous gentleman who fairly
pestered both troops and petty officers, and thus became an instrument
of Holy Church.
For when Matthew Fottner was punished with solitary confinement for the
second time, he resolved to serve no longer in the army and to give up
altogether his purpose of reenlisting. Just at this time he received a
letter from his father, which read as follows:
"DEER MATTY:
After waitin fur a long time I'll finely rite you the brijfarmer wuz
heer agen Yestiddy an sez you cud becum a sanet an woodn haf to lern
enythin ixcep that yood go to roam, deer matty think it over ef youd
bee prest mung the hindeens but the furst mas sellabrayshun wood bee in
the tavrn an by the way the brijfarmer sez hel pay you threthowzen marx
too boot when yor dun. deer matty think it over wel and how mutch it
wood pleez yor father. I didn rite this letter. Sensi rote it. I mus
stop my ritin cuz the lite didn burn eny mor. With meni regards I
reemane yor luving father. Good nite. Slepe wel and swete dreems. O
revor mayx ushapy. Rite mee at wuns fur I cant wate fur yor ansur.
The letter had its effect. Corporal Fottner reflected that it woudn't
be a bad life among the clerical gentlemen in Rome, better at any
rate than in barracks under a captain who was so generous with the
guard-house.
So he agreed, and when his time was up at the close of the summer
maneuvres, he went to Eynhofen and got in writing the Bridge Farmer's
promise relative to the three thousand marks.
When this matter had been arranged, and he had received a handsome sum
for traveling expenses into the bargain, he set off for Rome.
For seven years he was not seen again; for seven years he dwelt as
Fottnerus Eynhofenensis in the German College among the gentle Jesuits,
who filed and polished at this four-square block for dear life. A high
polish he did not get, but the worthy fathers thought it would suffice
for the savages, and told him that the power of his faith would very
well make amends for the lack of science.
Matthew Fottner had his own thoughts and said nothing.
For seven years old Fottner sat in his house, number eight in Eynhofen
village, rejoicing over the future sanctity of his son; for seven years
the inn-keeper kept figuring out in advance how many gallons of beer
would be drunk at a first-class first-mass celebration; and for seven
long years the Bridge Farmer went every month to the express office in
Pettenbach and sent a postal money order to Roma, Collegio Germanico.
People grew old and gray; now there was a wedding and now a funeral;
old Haberlschneider's house burned down, and Kloyber went bankrupt.
Little events in Eynhofen grew in numbers just like the big ones out in
the world.
Until one day the priest--the new priest, for the old one had died
three years before--announced from the chancel that on the 25th of
July, the day of St. James the Apostle, the Reverend Licentiate Matthew
Fottner would celebrate Holy Mass for the first time in Eynhofen. Then
there was excitement and astonishment in the whole country round! In
all the taverns men talked about it, and the old Bridge Farmer, who
rarely went out any more since he had had his stroke, now sat in the
barroom every day and gave back the taunts that he had had to take in
times gone by.
A week before the celebration Matthew Fottner arrived. He was met at
the station with a decorated carriage, and thirty lads on horseback
escorted him.
A mile and a half from Eynhofen stood the first triumphal arch, which
was adorned with fresh fir-branches and with blue and white flags.
At the entrance to the village another arch stood, and a third was set
up near the tavern. From the steeple floated the yellow and white
banner, salutes were crashing on the hill behind the Stackel Farm, and
the Aufhausen band pealed out its ringing airs.
Now the carriage halted before the parental estate of the licentiate;
Matthew Fottner descended and gave his father, his mother, and their
other children his first blessing.
I must say he did have a clerical appearance and manner. His eyes had a
mild glance, his chin was already double, and the movements of his fat
hands had something well rounded, something actually dainty about
them.
His speech was literary, emphasizing every syllable; he would now say
that he had had a suf-fi-ci-en-cy, and that people had ma-ni-fest-ed
much love to-ward him.
Of the file-leader in the second company of His Majesty's Grenadiers
there was nothing left but the height and the uncouth feet and paws.
His sentiments were mild and kind. He forgave all who had in former
days led him as-tray into temp-ta-tion, he forgave his parents and
relatives and neighbors for having doubted him, he forgave the Bridge
Farmer for having ut-ter-ed angry words to him, and he forgave
everybody everything.
And he looked down with compassion and mercy on those sons of men who
did not stand so close to the throne of God as he.
During the week preceding the first mass he paced from house to house
and blessed all the people; the Bridge Farmer among them, who from that
hour was unshaken in the belief that he was now square with our Lord
God in the matter of that lightning-rod oath.
The first mass was celebrated with rare splendor; folks came from far
and wide, for the blessing of a newly consecrated priest has especial
power, and an old proverb says it is worth wearing out a pair of
shoe-soles to get it.
The festival sermon was preached by the Very Reverend Joseph Shoebower,
who had for years been Councillor for Spiritual Affairs and Papal
Prelate.
He informed the awe-struck congregation into what a high, exalted,
holy, incomparably holy, incomparably blessed calling the young priest
was entering, and praised him in the most extravagant terms.
For you must know that Jesus Christ never was so praised on earth as a
four-square young licentiate is praised nowadays.
After the spiritual feast came the secular one in the tavern, and no
one can hope to imagine the magnificence of it.
Two oxen, three cows, a steer, eighteen calves, and twenty swine had
been slaughtered by the host; and in addition countless geese,
chickens, and ducks had to lose their lives. Two thousand gallons of
beer were drunk, almost nine hundred more than the host had figured.
When the dishes were passed around to take up offerings during the
festival dinner, the gifts flowed in so copiously that two thousand
marks were left over for the licentiate.
It was an elevating occasion.
The people of Eynhofen thought the newly consecrated priest would board
the very next ship and go off to the wild Hindians. Old Mrs. Fottner
shed tears in advance, and all over the village they were telling tales
of the dangers the missionaries had to undergo among the cannibals, who
are wont to take such a martyr, stick a spit right through him, and
then twist him slowly over the fire until he turns nice and brown.
But they little knew the honored son of Eynhofen, Matthew Fottner by
name, if they thought he would have anything to do with that sort of
enterprise.
He now had a fortune of five thousand marks; three thousand from the
Bridge Farmer and two thousand from the special offering. With this
capital he migrated to Switzerland and became a pastor in the Canton of
Graubünden. In those parts the people speak German as well as in
Eynhofen, and they roast chickens and ducks on the spit, but no
missionaries.
There Fottner spent his days in peace and contentment, and soon weighed
two hundred and fifty, not a pound less.
For the Bridge Farmer, who would have liked to see Matt as a saint,
this was a disappointment.
And for the Hindians too.
For they will never again enjoy the prospect of having a corporal of
the Bavarian Royal Grenadiers come out to them as a missionary.
RUDOLF HANS BARTSCH
* * * * * *
THE STYRIAN WINE-CARTER
TRANSLATED BY BAYARD QUINCY MORGAN, PH.D.
Assistant Professor of German, University of Wisconsin
Aye, any one not familiar with the Styrian-Carinthian highway through
the valley of the Drau does not know what one of the good old
Austrian imperial highroads in the good old days might undertake.
Hop-up-and-down is its behavior, with snake-like humps, like a jumping
polecat. Serpentine windings? Don't exist there. Straight as an arrow
it heedlessly goes over mountain after mountain, down to the Drau and
up again to airy heights, and any motorist who is slightly in a hurry
will make a miniature descent into hell of some 250 feet, say beyond
Völkermarkt, approaching Lavamünd; the terrified shriek of the ladies
is already resounding at the bottom, but their stomachs would still be
on top of Völkermarkt Hill, obeying the law of inertia, if they could
have passed up through their mouths. And then immediately after, whee!
up a fresh "mountain."
This is the way we treat the good old times nowadays. Was not that
road, in its day, built to lengthen life? There you could ponder over
your existence, for your little horses, like peripatetic philosophers,
pushed onward with bobbing heads, laboriously and slowly, slowly.
Ah, but it is a beautiful road, beautiful! Beautiful enough to
tarry on, to die on. The more remote from you, the higher rises,
terrace-fashion, the titanic grandeur of the Alps. Clear to the south,
the gigantic flight of the Sann Valley Dolomites sweeps on beyond the
Obir, and then the ghostly pale Karawanken stare across at you. In the
middle foreground the mighty plateaus of the Ferlacher and Eisenkappler
Country gradually become quieter, and then comes the shining plain,
crisscrossed into sections by groves and gold-gleaming fields, by
pale-green marsh-meadows and red-blooming buckwheat. And with an abrupt
descent from the road you come to the Drau far below, flowing with deep
roar between steep banks thickly set with towering young spears of
spruce, and tussling with rocky boulders; yet from the road one could
not look down upon its battles there in the cool canyon, so precipitous
are its banks, so densely black rises the legion of spruces. Only when
a brook storms under the road and down to the Drau can one see its
grayish flow and spume through the gap below--the stream that once
halted the German language on its yearning flight toward the blue waves
of that southern sea.
But we on the road, high up in the sunlight, send a whoop shooting like
an arrow across river and plain into the divine vastness of the
distance, toward the glimmering, rocky mountains, and salute as
exultant children the Father of all that is mightiest in us.
Rarely, rarely nowadays does such a "ya-oo" flit from the wind-swept
height across the valley. For the road has grown desolate and no longer
carries weight. For hours at a time one may vainly hearken to the
rustle of the woods, the deep rumble of the River Drau, without ever
detecting the cheerful home-bound rattle of a rustic cart between
pine-woods and the angle of a mountain. This proud, lofty road no
longer serves a purpose on earth, that once was the soul of the
Carinthian land.
Of all histories and human destinies those are the most conducive to
meditation which are closely knitted together with a bit of universal
fate, and so let me narrate here for the woeful diversion of men the
story of Florian Hausbaum, who was once the youth and the song of this
road.
Florian Hausbaum was a Styrian of the woods from Mahrenberg, that
same superb, defiantly German Mahrenberg below which the Drau plunges
over titanic boulders, and over which two churches stand face to face,
tower against tower, like locomotives desirous of ramming each other;
the old Slovene Church, and the new German-Evangelical Church.
But Florie Hausbaum's youth saw nothing of the future German
death-struggle there in the wooded valley of the Drau. Every one was
still singing the dear old songs, and Florian sang them best of all. He
learned nothing, he never drudged, he merely sang, as forgetful of toil
as the cricket of the south. And when it was time to go to work,
the good-for-nothing did not care to earn his bread in the cool
spruce-grown ravine with its saw-mills; his cheery, worthless soul felt
drawn to the open, sunny country which reaches up a good stretch along
the Drau westward of Marburg, until Bachern and Possruck bite together
their bristly jaws at the river, making the region wild, precipitous,
and rugged.
In sunny Marburg the wine flows down all the hills in streams to this
very day. But at that time, more than forty years ago, there were three
times as many vineyards, extending clear beyond Maria-Rast and
Zellnitz, and Florian Hausbaum became a wine-carter and made trips into
Carinthia.
And so he drove his nodding horses uphill and downhill through his
native village across the border; and in Drauburg, in Lavamünd, in
Völkermarkt, and Klagenfurt, all the inn-keepers waited for him as the
bringer of joy. And he was the lad for that. He sang all the way along
the windblown road, and from all the windows men and maidens nodded to
him.
[Illustration: RUDOLF HANS BARTSCH]
Between Völkermarkt and Lavamünd the liverymen had grown rich on the
relaying which the excellent humps of the road brought them, and there
they also had open purses and open hearts for wine. Hence at the two
ends of his route, where the road did its maddest tricks, Florie was
best loved and known: if for no other reason, because he had so much
time on account of all the "getting his breath," staying over night,
feeding, and changing horses.
He too liked best to dwell in that up-and-down world. For he had a girl
in Drauburg, and one in Lavamünd; one at St. Martin and another at Eis
close by (dangerous and burdensome sweethearting), one at Lippitzbach,
one in Völkermarkt, and a warm terminal station at Klagenfurt. These
seven dear yearning creatures were just enough for him, but he was also
just enough for them; for he never skipped one of them when he went his
rounds.
He was a handsome fellow, of that becoming, jolly, light-blond type of
Old Styria which is now beginning to grow rare among the men in the
valley of the Drau. His eyes laughed; nothing else in the world laughed
so, except his road, when the snow had melted away and the first trip
began. Then the little puddles in the road, formed by the melting snow
and rippled by the wind, looked at the sky out of a thousand bright
blue eyes, and there was a wink and a smirk in them all the way from
Drauburg to Klagenfurt.
He loved this road with all the power of his heart, which otherwise,
i.e., for the girls, was far too gay. Besides, the girls changed, but
the road remained. There was but the one, and it was unique.
His life obeyed the laws which God has given for Nature and wine. In
the winter he lay quietly at Marburg, or made little wooden carts. But
when February was past and the wine was seasoned, so that the new
vintage was at last ready for transport, and when the snow trickled off
the roads, then began his regal course, his bridal entry into
Carinthia, his jubilant, earliest march of triumph.
He always wore a flower in his hat, and his nags each got one, too. But
when in the early days of March he drove along the road, only just
freed of snow, he would take a whole supply of violets with him,
for in his blessed, sunny land these sometimes bloomed by the end
of February in special sunny nooks. God of love, what eyes the
forest-villagers along the Drau made at them, and still more the
Carinthians, who often do not receive their violets from heaven before
May! They scarcely would have primulas, while even Florie's horses were
wearing violets on their collars, because he had kept them fresh
between his casks.
To all the girls he brought the breath of the Styrian spring with him,
and thus Florie Hausbaum fairly came to personify the spring-time over
the whole length of the Carinthian Road, and as such he was cheered and
loved like a young emperor.
He was happy.
The yellow-hammers perched near the road and sang, the larks rose high,
the sun danced in bretzel-shaped figures in the mirroring puddles, the
sparrows fought in exuberant glee over what Florie's horses had dropped
for them, the relaying liverymen grinned, the inn-keepers stood planted
before their doors waiting for him, and shouted Hooray, and beside him
shook and gurgled the fragrant, mighty wine-casks.
But far before him longing girl-faces were waiting behind the windows
near the long road. Love, love awaited him from one end of the road to
the other. Whether it was the jubilee of his boon-companions, the
relieved "At last!" of the inn-keepers, or the smothered sigh of the
pretty girls--it was all a part of the same joy.
And these girls were so modest. First because they were Carinthians
(where you don't always have to marry right away), and then because
Florie had always been away all winter, so that nothing but woeful
legend and delightful little stories about him were current. So
recollection was at work in the yearning girlish hearts, and it made
him twice as cheerful, as golden, as laughing, as slender and handsome,
as he was.
But in March he would come along singing and with a violet in his hat,
and as full of intoxicating power as his casks, and would make them all
happy, inn-keepers and girls; there was a quatrain about him which all
the lads along the Carinthian Road used to sing when they wanted to
tease the love-sick girls. It went this way:
"A vi'let from the roadside, a kiss for the night:
The Styrian wine-carter is my delight."
He knew what he meant to them all; he knew the feeling of happiness
that radiated from him, and often when he creaked along the road in his
wagon until far into the quiet, hissing night of the _Föhn_, and the
gleam of a lighted window replied to the swaying light of his lantern
on the horse-collar, he himself would send that same little ditty out
into the yearning, burning spring night with his strong, clear voice,
making the sleepless girls that heard it bite their pillows with
delight.
Such a night it was that brought him a small misfortune and a great
triumph. On that confounded Völkermarkt Hump his cart had got onto the
slope, while he was still filled with the echoes of the sweetness for
the sake of which he had outstayed his time in Lippitzbach. There he
had been received as the outstretched arms of the trees welcome the
roaring _Föhn_, or the waiting spring earth a warm rain. Now as he
drove on, happiness was still bounding within him, a sea of dreams, but
late, late was the hour. So he drove through the entire night, and at
the gray dawn he had reached the height opposite the Völkermarkt
Hollow. This time he was carting a delicious wine, which seldom grew in
Styria. Farmer Pfriemer in Marburg had become a sworn rival of the
Hungarians, and had begun to export a dark red wine, called Vinaria, so
that the Carinthians might henceforth get a red wine from Styria, too.
The first vintage had turned out sweet and heavy, and now Florian
Hausbaum was carting the seasoned beverage up to Völkermarkt in two
casks, one of them tremendous, the other of very respectable size.
But while he was dreaming thus, his horses had already turned down
the hill. The cart exerted enormous pressure and took the horses off
their feet; at this moment the Styrian wine-carter started into
wakefulness, and while the wagon was thundering downhill with more and
more terrifying speed, he loosened the drag and threw it under the hind
wheel, and at this abrupt braking the wagon leaped mightily into the
air, like a startled rhinoceros. One of the poles on the side cracked,
and the smaller cask toppled over and fell from the cart with a heavy
bum-bum-bum-bum. Florie had tried to throw his weight against it, but
the cask gave his head a severe slanting blow before dropping full
weight into the road.
A stave had sprung, and the pressure made the deep-red fluid gurgle out
in a flood. The white dust of the road, became ruddy. The young carter
had just enough presence of mind to roll the heavy wine-cask into the
grass, and then increasing faintness reeled about him. But with his
last thought he clung to his wine. As he sank down he pressed his body
against the crack from which the wine was streaming out, the cask
leaned heavily against him and crushed him against the ground--and then
he knew nothing more.
Many voices wakened him. A girl was crying, an old woman was storming,
the inn-keeper called him by name, the heavy scent of new wine hung
about him. A crowd of people stood around, and the cart was gone, and
the cask resting on him the men pulled away, so that the wine at once
leaped forth again. So they turned the damaged spot up. But he still
lay there as formerly in his delight he had gone along the road, with
his jacket torn open to let the air of spring cool his heart. Only his
festive white shirt had become spotted with red from the spilled wine.
The keeper of the Ox Inn at Völkermarkt, however, nearly fell upon him
and kissed him. He had already been waiting on the hill-top when he saw
the masterless cart, with the one cask, arrive at the bottom of Steil
Valley and stand there; for of themselves the horses would not climb
the hill. Then he had run for aid, and with him everybody that had been
waiting for wine and Florie, and two score people had seen how the
faithful Florian, in spite of unconsciousness and pain, had with his
own body guarded the wine and prevented 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 Völkermarkt, found his horses sound
and contented, and was extolled for the hero he was. For he had
preserved a sacred treasure for Völkermarkt.
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 day on it was the
railroad that carried wine and love, wood and happiness, wares and
hope.
But on the heights above Florian Hausbaum was making his last trip. His
employer had given him notice. He let his quivering horses rest, and
where in other days an outburst of happiness had made him send a halloo
from the fairest spot far out across the conquered depths toward the
Alps, there he now wept for a whole silly stretch.
Henceforth the road was desolate, at one blow--and no one even drove a
cart over it any more. The manure which the farmers had conveyed to
their fields was almost the only one of this world's goods which it
still carried.
As for Florian Hausbaum, he became a driver for the Ox Inn at
Völkermarkt; that was a little consolation, at least; to settle down
here on the scene of former triumphs, and ever and again to be able to
drive at least a little load of grain or wood over the beloved road. To
be sure, he could no longer reach all his girls with these present
trips. Nor did they need it, for now there was other supply. From over
yonder, from across the Drau, from Prävali, Bleiburg, and Kühnsdorf,
and also from Rückersdorf and Grafenstein, and not to mention the
provincial capital, from there came the new foes, who wore such
handsome red caps when on duty, as resplendent as officers with their
black velvet lapels and the gold rosettes and winged wheels. They were
the young railroad officials, pupils and assistants, and each one was
the Casanova of his district! In those small places there were no other
uniforms, and what was the bouquet on Florian's hat worth, compared
with those caps with gold braid and rosette! They took away his Lisi,
Marianne at St. Martin, and the passionate beauty Resele in the little
hamlet of Eis. At Klagenfurt and Völkermarkt they danced all the girls
away before his very nose, and it was just the winter, toward which he
had looked forward with joyful anticipation, which became the way of
the cross for him, where each stopping-place meant the end of a love
and loyalty. Florie's best quality, his rarity, was of course gone;
from now on he was always on hand, after all, and more than that, he
was no longer the bringer of joy, the messenger of the thawing breeze,
as of yore.
He defended his position with the girls; but as full-bred Styrian he
began quarrels and brawls with his rivals on the railroad, instead of
becoming a railroad man himself. So he was locked up in Klagenfurt for
a couple of weeks, and for the first time this man, hitherto so
open-hearted, so totally without reserve, developed a secret emotional
life: hate of the railroad, and love for his deserted highway.
In reality it was love for his fleeting youth, the unquenchable thirst
of yearning desire for the past, memory! But because the road had been
the scene of his eternally faded greatness, therefore he attached all
this love to it.
The years dropped out of sight in gnawing conflicts with his steadily
thickening blood, and youth was where the violets of Marburg were, and
the songs, and the new wine: with new generations.
For three or four years, indeed, Florie still lived on the echoes of
his victorious days, and was still widely and warmly welcomed. But more
and more strange faces came into the village, and new generations grew
up that had not understood him in his glory of old. Girls of eighteen
and twenty began to develop out of the children of that day, and these
looked upon carter Hausbaum as a relic "of the time before the railroad
came," as a venerable ancestor.
Rarer and rarer grew those admirers who would pound on the tavern
table, saying, "Ah, old Florie, that was a devil of a lad for you!" So
he himself began to play the narrator, and fiercely defended his own
legend. But the more he had to tell, the older he appeared to the
petticoated sex.
At first he was willingly listened to; then he was regarded as played
out. Now he no longer talked with the old sorrowful ease, but with
passionate bawling and irritation. He boastfully forced his stories
upon people, and lost respect all the more.
Only the road, the old road remained his last sweetheart and remained
quiet and faithful; both had become despised and useless, but they had
clung to each other. Only, when he now drove over it--alas, how that
too had changed. Formerly he brought along the new wine with the new
spring.
Now he creaked along with the fire-wood for the winter.
His employer had begun a large business in wood; that made Hausbaum's
carting period come in the fall. And so his little wagon again groaned
over the deserted road, uphill, downhill, without his meeting a human
soul. No driver but he was to be seen; he was like the ghost of the old
road. The autumn tempest lodged in the canyon of the Drau, rebounded
from all sides and whirled up, bidding him pull his old felt hat, on
which he had long since given up putting any flowers, far down on his
forehead. The land shook in the roaring sweep of a wrath of Doomsday,
and his aging bones shivered. It was ending, ending; and where the
larks of spring had once whirred about him, there he was now surrounded
by the tittering dances of the withered leaves.
There he often saw once more the old houses with the little windows
behind which he had had his girls, more of them and prettier ones than
any lad in the land. But they had all married out of the houses or
moved away, or had stayed on the spot and become care-worn housekeepers
and mothers, who did not care to recognize him. The windows stared
blindly at him, and no longer knew him for whom they had once opened
like little gates of paradise, in passionate nights of spring. They had
grown dull and gloomy; God knew who was now squatting behind them. But
when from under one of the windows, despite the late October days,
there came the breath of asters and everlasting, and some fresh young
girl-face gazed in surprise toward the bony bachelor, who looked over
inquiringly as with accursed, forlorn eyes, then his old heart would
double up like a fist within him and cause him great pain.
It was all over; like fireworks.
And then, then even his very last sweetheart, which he had regarded as
inalienable, was snatched from him: the highroad.
The first enemy he had merely followed with horrified eyes: the
stinking, dust-whirling rattle-box, which flung the old road behind it
as a spendthrift flings the precious money. But they kept coming
oftener, the loud-colored power vehicles; faster and faster they
became, and harder and harder it was for the carter's old hands to
control the madly rearing horses.
In former days he had always walked beside his horses. Now that he had
grown old and gray, he was very often glad to perch on the seat and
doze there. But just when a short dream had helped him to forget the
bitter change in his life, another of those monsters would roar behind
him its spiteful, deep "too-oot, too-oot." Then it behooved him to jump
down in a hurry, pull the nags to one side, and speak to the excited
creatures words of calm, of love and kindness, while his old heart rose
into his throat with fright and hate. But the unknown, insolent machine
was already far ahead, and away off on that terrible hill where the
carter's horses quivered and stamped, where he had to breathe them nine
times and smoked a whole pipe of tobacco before he reached the top, he
would see the monster whizzing upward. As with a shout of joy it
stormed the ascent, so that it seemed to fly out into the air at the
top, before it was engulfed by the next hollow. And mockingly, already
at an incredible distance, the "too-oot, too-oot" would come back to
him, its bawling tones seeming to ooze away.
The low curs! Their love for this road was like that of the sportsman
for the shy pigeons: love to shoot them. They joyously sought out this
hundred-hilled stretch, and they exulted when they rolled over these
great humps on the second or even the third speed. It was a delight to
make a mock of the old road. Landscape? Beauty? It was ahead, never
anywhere but ahead, ahead.
Florian Hausbaum had thought he must die of wrath and woe when these
road-gobblers appeared, and yet the opposite happened: he had a new
lease of life. At last he had something that once more linked him to
this earth; and if it was a hatred, it led him back to men! Now they
all understood him, now he could once more get first hearing in all the
taverns; he could tell of dangers he had escaped, so that half a
village would hastily collect to hear him repeat the tale; he might
curse and threat without being ridiculed, think up tricks to play, and
wage malicious battles, and once again the bar-rooms resounded with the
old cry, long silenced, "Hooray, Florie, good for you! A reg'lar devil,
that Hausbaum. Eyah, that's the old Styrian wine-carter for you!"
He found assent, approval, confirmation, wherever he went, and his
superb white hair silenced all contradiction. Venerable and mighty was
the hatred of Florian Hausbaum in all the land, and the eyes of the old
carter again began to sparkle, his cheeks to look red, and his heart
swelled, making the old man look magnificent. He had something to live
for!
On a Sunday in spring he was standing at one end of Völkermarkt, in
the midst of the men-folk who had come from church and were now puffing
at their holiday pipes in God's delicious, mild air. There came a red
motor through the place, quite slowly. A gentle and just citizen was
riding in it, who himself hated the brutality of the speed-maniacs, and
had accustomed himself to drive through towns with the mildness of a
milk-wagon.
Old Hausbaum was still raging at the last "filthy brute," who had shot
through the scattering holiday crowd like a barbarian on his scythed
chariot in the battles of old. His pent-up rage was now vented upon
these travelers, who came so opportunely into his clutches. He jumped
into the path of the machine, the gentleman slowed down still more and
tooted his horn. But Florian Hausbaum did not yield his ground. So the
vehicle stopped.
And now it burst forth, the great speech of the old wine-carter; the
mightiest one in the life of the Styrian, Florian Hausbaum:
"You wind-belchers! You road-stinkers, who sent for you? D' you bring
any money into the land? Naw! D' you ever get out even once in
Grafenstein, in Völkermarkt, in Lippitzbach? Or at Eis, at Lavamünd, at
Drauburg or Hohenmauten or Mahrenberg? Naw! You've come from the city,
you tiresome city-dudes and you women with your faces tied up as if you
had the tooth-ache, and you never stop till you're in Marburg again, or
maybe in Graz, 'cause the country inn-keeper's little bit o' grub ain't
good enough for you. But to run down the poor farmer's last goose, run
over children, drive horses crazy, torment their drivers, cover the
Lord God's grain with dust, and dirty up the hay so 't not a beast'll
take a mouthful of it, go bellowing past the church just when the
pastor's talking inside about the Kingdom o' Heaven, and not only that,
but stink like the devil, that's what you like! You're sent by the
devil, you look like the devil, you haven't got any more justice or
mercy than he has, and now go and drive to the devil and break your
necks, that's my wish for you. There, now you can go on stinking!"
The ladies in the automobile scolded, the farmers round about pressed
forward threateningly; but the gentleman driving, a quiet, composed
person, merely looked sadly at the gendarme who came hurrying up, and
said, "Did you hear all that? Make way for us at least, so that we
shall not be torn to pieces."
He had to crank again. Then he drove away, down into the deep valley
and up the hill beyond and away; but Florian Hausbaum stood like
Siegfried after the battle with the dragon.
The gendarme said to him with some reproach, "Right you were, Florie.
But if the gentleman goes to law, I'll have to testify against you.
Then it'll go hard with you; do be sensible in your old age!" And he
went.
But all the rest were of the opinion that it was quite impossible to be
sensible about this, and Florian was loudly applauded. "That was fine,
what you told 'em! Eyah, old Florie. That's right, Styrian folks know
how to use their tongues."
The old carter was quite intoxicated with success and praise. He knew
that his renown would go circling out over the whole country-side, and
every farmer who had been at church this day would carry home the
mighty speech of Florian Hausbaum more accurately than the sermon. He
was great as in the olden days, and his heart swelled with pride.
Then came the shriek of a siren from the other end of the village.
"Another stinking devil," they said. "Get out of the road, Florie."
But the old carter remained standing there with widespread feet, and
his white hair blew about wildly in the spring breeze. He knew that
signal; it came from a great machine that tore through the country
every day, as if the point were to rescue and prevent a misfortune,
instead of conjuring up one. And this machine was hated throughout the
whole Carinthian land.
"Here I stand," shouted the old man in a frenzy, "and here I'll stay
and not let a single auto out o' the village!"
He had just had a pleasant experience, and thought every machine would
stop for him like the last one. But the monster was already at hand,
and as for stopping, it could not even if the driver had wished to. An
angry shout in the machine, a horrified wail rising from a hundred
voices, and with a mighty leap the automobile crashed over the toppled
obstacle, jumped, dragged, and tore itself along for ten full paces
more, despite brakes and cut-out, and not until then did it come to a
stop. The occupants, wealthy young people, leaped out. There lay Florie
Hausbaum by the roadside.
The automobile had fatally injured him and hurled him to one side. Now
every one ran for aid, and the giddy young people cursed the fact that
their machine was so well known; they feared that assistance here would
be dangerous. But not a soul said a cross word to them. So they knelt
beside the injured white-bearded victim, wiped the blood from his face,
and opened his vest,
As the physician was working over him, Florian Hausbaum awoke once more
in this life.
He looked about him, and drew breaths of pain and affliction. But the
wonderful spring air of that day penetrated even his crushed lungs like
a mild wine in a parched throat. Intoxicating was this air, as of yore;
weak and peaceful, victorious and beloved he was, as of yore: when he
had saved the precious red wine.
Then, in his wandering mind, all his evil days vanished, and all
hatred. Age was forgotten, and at this moment, when his soul began to
flutter its wings like a new butterfly, all the foregoing was blotted
out; there was no longer any suffering, nor dying. Timeless! There was
nothing but spring air, lovely, hopeful spring air. And truly, the evil
days of old age, of mockery, and of the railroad, of autumn tempests on
the road, of a pulse that slackened in the veins--nothing of this could
stand its ground. It was all a mere dream.
For he felt as weak and as happy as on the day when he had almost
sacrificed his glorious youth for a cask of wine. And look, here were
the moist, dark-red spots in the sunlit dust of the road, and the ruby
red on his Sunday shirt flamed even more intensely.
So an unexampled happiness reeled through the Styrian wine-carter's
mind, because his life's greatest day and his deed of heroism were
still upon him. He sobbed in pain and joy, "Leave me and catch the
precious wine. It must not run out. People, the sacred wine!"
And with the happiness of intoxication he sank into the roseate dream
of eternity.
EMIL STRAUSS
* * * * * *
MARA (1909)
TRANSLATED BY WILLIAM GUILD HOWARD
Assistant Professor of German, Harvard University
It was in a Brazilian city. One morning I awoke early and felt my heart
so full of repugnance to all life that I shut my eyes again and
wondered what sort of dream could have left me in this feverish state
of mind. But I could not recollect that I had had any dream; in the
middle of the night, aroused by a creaking casement, I had started up
out of a dreamless slumber. Whence came, then, for the second and the
third time this darkness in me, this torturing feeling of oppression at
every breath, this piteous longing never to have waked up and never
again to have to wake up? I had gone contentedly to bed, and had slept
a deep and peaceful sleep.
Confidingly and unguardedly you yield to fatigue and give yourself over
to rest--what demon is it that then enters through the open portal,
inoculates your heart with a black drop, stirs up and discolors and
poisons with it all your blood until, foul and heavy as lead, it forces
its way through your heart?
Or is it I--I who am that demon! As the dark bottom of a deep well
is lighted up and revealed by the perpendicular rays of the sun only
when the water above is quiet and clear as crystal--is it thus
that the true color of my being stands forth from deep sleep when the
will-o'-the-wisps of waking and dreaming are banished, and that color
irradiates and fills its domain, and is just grazed by the abrupt ray
of suddenly awaking consciousness?
There it is once for all, and there is no escaping it! What is this
darkness? Is it a phantom and a weakness? Is it only an enemy who
challenges you and vanishes away in proportion as your own self
enlarges? Is it death slowly developing in you?
It is intolerable. If this pillow were saturated with mortal poison,
you would take the corner between your lips as the infant takes his
mother's breast, and would drink release from your troubles. But if the
poison stood over there in the other corner of the room, the mere ten
paces to reach it would carry you too far back into life again! And yet
tomorrow, or a few days hence, there will be moments when this darkness
will suddenly surge up in you and consume you as though it were fire,
so that you shrivel up within yourself and cannot excuse in your own
eyes the shame of living. Yes, even though you can calmly look back
upon this thing, smile at it like a reasonable man and joke about it,
even then there is a secret fibre in your being which yearns for that
darkness, which shudders in pride and awe of it, which has a
premonition that in it there is something purer than all light and all
joy.
In search of protection from such worrying phantasms I finally opened
my eyes and turned toward the open window. But what I saw outside was
so surprising that I closed my eyes again and cried, "What the devil is
that?"
Having recovered my composure and the consciousness that I had senses,
I opened my eyes once more and peered out: but on the ridge-pole of the
adjacent farm building, like doves on a German stable, there still sat
at regular intervals five vultures, immovable and waiting. As though
cut out of black paper, they seemed pasted on the gleaming blue morning
sky.
"Shameless fellows!" I ejaculated. "I must admit that I have been
philosophizing here to myself like a dead dog; but I am not yet ready
for you by a good deal!" They remained quietly sitting there.
[Illustration: BACK FROM THE FAIR]
Franz Wilhelm Voigt
Then I jumped out of bed, took an orange from the fruit plate on the
table, and threw it at the creatures. The orange flew neatly between
two of them; the vulture perched nearest to its path straightened up,
inquisitively turned his head with the greedy eyes to right and left,
and then drew his head back again. And in their imperturbable,
diabolical serenity the old fellows remained sitting on their perch, as
uncanny as the stone gargoyles on the towers of Notre Dame in Paris.
I was not disposed to let these amiable beasts feast their eyes on me
any longer; so I quickly took my bath, and dressed.
Although this day was still vacation, I made my rounds through the
empty bedrooms and said to the only boy who--because his tuition had
not been paid--had been required to spend the holidays at the boarding
school, that he might as well roll over on his other side; on the
morrow he should have once more to get under the douche at six o'clock
in the morning. He really did not need, in vacation time, to pull the
wool over my eyes, but even today he tried to make me believe he was
fond of bathing. Not to be outdone in courtesy, I pretended to be
convinced of the fact. And so we separated with mutual satisfaction.
Now I stepped up to the housekeeper's chamber door. As yet, the
resounding report--one could hear it all over the house--with which at
evening her bolt was drawn, and in the morning drawn back, had not
announced to us that Donna Leocadia de Silva Soares e Pimentel had
arrayed herself for contact with the hostile sex; therefore I
cautiously approached the door and listened. But when I heard the sound
of footsteps within, going back and forth with a tread appropriate to
the name as well as to the bodily frame of the Senhora, I plucked up
courage, knocked, and, retreating a pace, reported that I should
breakfast in town. At the moment I could have said little that would
have been more agreeable to the lady. Now she was most happily relieved
of the necessity of dressing decently, early this blessed morning,
merely in order to place a cup on the table before me and fill it with
coffee; nevertheless, she assured me in the most touching tones of her
regret that she must dispense with my agreeable company and drink her
coffee alone. I replied that her regret was a source of pride to me,
made a bow to the door, and departed.
In the courtyard I found the five black brethren still perching on the
shed roof; I tried to scare them away by clapping my hands; they did
not refer this action to themselves.
When I passed under the window of Donna Leocadia, it opened with a
crash, and in a white dressing jacket that had been kept out of the
wash for quite too long a time, the overflowing forms of the upper part
of the lady's body settled into an easy position in the window frame.
She bowed her head of black hair done up in blue and red curlpapers,
and rolled her fine great stupid brown eyes. I merely waved my hat and
strode on. At the garden gate I met the mulatto boy Alcides, who was
just bringing the breakfast rolls in an open basket from the main house
of the institution, across the street. I stopped him and asked why he
was again carrying the bread in an open basket, instead of throwing a
napkin over it, as he was supposed to do.
"Forgot it," he replied with an unconcerned shrug; for one had to speak
to him more emphatically. I therefore selected from the Portuguese
vocabulary of abuse, which is as massive and opulent as that of any
Romance language whatever, a few juicy morsels, and swore that if this
carelessness happened again I would shut the fellow up in the dark
chamber and give him twenty-four hours to fix his duty in mind. He made
a grimace.
"You may thank God," I cried, "that I haven't any gloves on. If I
had, I would pound your face until you hadn't an eye or a tooth left in
the right place!"
He contemptuously showed his two porcelain rows of white teeth.
In anger I made for him--he turned round, and I drew back for a mighty
kick; but to my disgrace, the mishued curmudgeon knew how to frustrate
my effort; the heel of my boot came in all too slight touch with the
hostile posterior, I was hurled about by the momentum of my shot that
missed its mark, and suddenly stood facing in the opposite direction. I
had to laugh at myself. But Alcides made a quick move round the corner
of the house. Donna Leocadia, whose corpulence still filled the window,
called to me that I was always too good-natured; I ought not to have
let the rascal run away, but ought to have banged his head several
times against the wall. Then with an undulating lurch she got up and
stepped back from the window, to receive the fellow in her room; she
was not so squeamish as I, and she generally, moreover, had not washed
her hands.
In the most cheerful frame of mind I now walked along the streets,
which were still fairly cool with the freshness of the morning. I
bought a copy of the latest newspaper, seated myself in the cane chair
of a bootblack, got a shine, and read my paper. Then I entered a café
and in deliberate European comfort sipped a cup of coffee with cream,
and pitied the Brazilians, who hastily sat down at the nearest table
they could find, stirred an enormous quantity of sugar in their
thimbleful of coffee, poured the mixture down their throats, and rushed
out into the street again, as though there or elsewhere they had
anything whatever to do. I enjoyed my coffee as much as one can enjoy
good coffee, and did not commit the impropriety of ordering a second
cup, but bought of the tobacconist in the establishment a package of
those cigarettes--not so much good, as genuine, Brazilian--which are
rolled in corn straw instead of in paper. Leaning against a door-post,
I remained standing there, gazed across the street, unrolled one of the
cigarettes, poured the granular black tobacco into the palm of my hand,
decanted it back into the corn leaf, and lighted the preparation. I
looked across the street and was infinitely happy, though there was not
much to see. Only a few people were passing in one direction or the
other, for the most part with a newspaper fresh from the press in their
hands. One man stood at the curb and had his boots blacked. A street
car went rumbling by; the driver lashed his mules, one of which kicked
out behind and struck the dashboard with both hoofs a thwack that
resounded the length of the street.
Throwing away the stub of my cigarette, I now started off and loitered
along. What should I do? Go to the book store and look at French
books--continue my reading in Faubert's letters? No hurry; nobody will
buy them anyway! The air is still too fine.
Or shall I go to the editorial rooms of the German newspaper and see my
friend from Vienna, smoke a decent cigar, talk over the news, talk
about young Vienna, about Hermann Bahr who in his _furor teutonicus_
smashed a beer mug on the head of a Bohemian? About Loris, who is still
a very young man, not permitted as yet to go alone to join his literary
friends at the café--his father insists upon accompanying him--"I tell
you what, a marvelous genius!"--?--But the upshot of the matter will
be, he will lock me in when I am not noticing, and will keep me there
until I have ground out an article for his paper. And the weather is
really too fine for that.
Thereupon I was roused from my revery by a breath of sultry fragrance.
I turned in the direction from which I heard footsteps, and caught
sight of the tropical profile of a young lady, who with eyes looking
straight ahead was going her way. Her simple, handsome face was not
yellow, but of a hot-blooded, fine brown, which as the sign of
aboriginal vitality is charming, and immediately made me breathe hard.
Now, as if by chance, a calm glance of the great dark eye, the white of
which was as soft as mother of pearl, fell upon me, and then a second,
quick glance, which toppled me over like a stroke of lightning;
thereupon the profile was turned somewhat rigidly forward again. Never
losing sight of the daintily plump figure in the white lace gown, I
gradually made way for her to pass by me; and if I had taken pleasure
in contemplation of the face, I took, if possible, still more pleasure
in contemplation of the easy walk which animated her whole body with
its graceful rhythm.
In this manner we approached a cross street.
Then, as she stepped down from the sidewalk, she made a false
calculation and swung herself somewhat too far forward; her foot came
down hard upon the pavement, her whole body felt the shock, she
stumbled, and her beauty was gone as quickly as a house built of cards
collapses. I stood still for a moment, then I turned in my tracks,
saying, "What a B[oe]otian and Hyperborean you are! Is there anything
more fragile than enjoyment? Is there anything more sensitive to injury
than grace? Did you not know that? If you had not followed this poor
girl, she would have cleared the barrier as gracefully as a kitten; now
she is as much ashamed as though you had seen her in her petticoat." I
looked once more in her direction; sure enough, she too was looking
round, with a flushed face and stupid, anxious eyes. O these soulful
eyes, eyes like the roe, the antelope, the gazelle, or any other
creature known to zoology. God be with them, and spare me!
Now I at once knew where to go and turned my steps toward the new
streets farther out in the country, which are occupied principally by
Germans. There I had a kind of sweetheart, all for the sake of her
eyes. This had come to pass as follows:
After I had been several months in this beautiful and affluent country,
and, whether in the midst of my boys at school or among the people at
the theatre, in the circus, or in the café, kept seeing in the women,
to whom I paid eager attention, always the same great dark eyes, these
eyes began to pall upon me. Why? In Germany, by contrast to our
cerulean blue, steel blue, greenish, and iron gray eyes, brown ones had
often seemed to me especially beautiful and touched my heart as nothing
else could do. Now they bored me. Always the same apparent expression
of strength, which goes back to the contrast between the dark pupil and
the surrounding white, and in turn between this white and the dusky
skin; always, even on the most indifferent occasions, this pregnant
glance, this rolling and melting! "Anyhow," I asked myself one day,
"why have all these people replaced their human eyes with the eyes of
animals?" I began, when on the streets, to look about for light-colored
eyes, for glances which had something of the clearness of the sky or
the wave in spring time, something of the lustre and translucency of a
November mist, something of the keen brilliancy of an ice crystal. I
paid attention once more to the people of the Northern Hemisphere, whom
heretofore I had avoided, and these people of the North are, of course,
mostly Germans.
Now it happened that one morning in those days I was going my way, and,
in order to keep in the shade, sticking as closely as might be to the
houses. Then out of a low window in the ground floor of one of these
houses a hand shot out right before me, holding a dust-cloth, which it
was about to shake; and I should naturally have got the full benefit of
the operation. With a quick grasp I seized the hand by the wrist; and
not until I had so secured myself could I look up to see to whom the
hand belonged. The girl stood inclined somewhat forward, leaning on her
other hand, and stared at me with great startled eyes, the most
transparent, silvery-gleaming eyes that I remember ever to have seen.
I was so surprised that I lost all my audacity; but I still kept a firm
hold of her hand. And so she was after all the first to recover her
power of speech, and she said, "Pardon me."
"On the contrary, I thank you," I replied, rising on my toes, kissing
her hand, and then releasing it.
She made no answer, her expression became troubled, she struggled with
herself, her eyes filled with tears, and I felt that I had done
violence to an innocent heart. That pained me and I blurted out, "Shake
the cloth in my face! I have offended you. It was not my intention; but
let me have my punishment."
"Not for the world!" she responded. "How can a man say such a thing!"
I looked at her in amazement and curiosity. Was that meant to be a
reprimand? Did she strike a blow and pretend the while to put far away
from her any such intention? No. Her eyes beamed appeasement and also
appeasingly; surrendering myself to her, I had disarmed her resentment.
Nevertheless, I continued, "He who can say such a thing has no right,
then, to wear hair on his face? I shall presently go straight to the
barber's. I have been so proud of my manliness! But--repulsed with
loss! And, to make a clean breast of it, for an opportunity like this I
would gladly remain a foolish youth a long while yet; like silly Jack,
you know, in the fairy tale, who is always doing foolish things; but
the princess with the blue eyes does not think any the worse of him on
that account!"
Pricking up her ears and collecting her thoughts, she looked at me half
roguishly out of the corner of her eye; then she shook her head with
its heavy braids and said, "I do not understand you. You are so
comical. You must talk quite simply to me."
She looked so charmingly simple that I forgot my speech and watched her
standing there, so youthful and radiant in the window frame, against
the dark background of the room. Everything about her was healthful and
strong: her figure in the blue washable dress, her round throat, her
well formed face, in which eyes and teeth gleamed brightly; but the
abundance of her chestnut braids was so heavy that her neck seemed
hardly able to support them.
"What sort of follies did silly Jack commit?" she asked when I became
silent.
"I don't know myself; but when he came to woo the princess, and was
asked what present he had brought her, he pulled a handful of mud out
of his pocket and filled her white hands with it. She liked that so
well that she took him for her husband."
"A handful of mud! Such a dirty fellow! Did she marry him?"
"Yes, indeed! The other suitors had brought her jewels and crowns--she
had plently of those already. But with mud she would have been glad to
play, like other children, if the court ladies had allowed her to.
Therefore she now rejoiced in her childish heart, and she thought he
would certainly be the pleasantest husband for her."
"Yes, yes--the fact of the matter is, she was right."
Thus it began, and so it continued.
She was the daughter of a German cabinet-maker, who had developed his
business until he had a prosperous furniture factory. Two years before,
her mother had died, and since that time she had run the household with
the most complete devotion, in the way that she had learned, and as
befitted her single-minded, unsophisticated nature. She did all her
work as though it were a benefaction, with whole-souled joy and
boundless happiness in her ability. As often as my way led me near to
where she lived, and that was almost daily at the same hour, I looked
in at her window and found her always occupied with some sort of work.
We chatted for a quarter of an hour; she told me what animated her day,
asked me about everything that interested her in my existence, and
initiated me into the sphere of her domestic cares. It pleased her that
my needs were few; but that I did not even feel the need of damming up
the briskly flowing stream of my income and making a little lake of it,
this appeared to her as frivolity, indeed as unrighteous, and she
endeavored to reform me, to make me more aware of the value
of money, of the money that I had earned, and in some measure to
guide my expenditures. I do not mean to say that she ever made
tiresome reprimands or admonitions. Simple and innocent as her mind
was,--whenever she had resolved to bring pressure to bear upon my
indifference or my wilfulness, she pondered the possible method with
such affectionate patience that she did not fail to find a delicate or
a touchingly irresistible form. I once brought her a rare orchid, whose
fantastic form and brilliant colors I had so much admired in the shop
window that I was unwilling to allow any other human being to possess
it than Mariandel--by this name I called my friend. She did not say
anything so commonplace as that I ought not to have done it, or I ought
not to have spent so much money; she showed the honest joy of a child
who is proud to have received such a costly gift; but she added to her
praise of the flower, "It is sacred!"
The expression seemed to me somewhat pompous, as many of her
expressions were; nevertheless, I could not but nod assent, thinking of
the virgin forest in which this flower first gleamed forth through the
twilight, as a new miracle rising out of the ruins of innumerable
generations of trees. But Mariandel then continued, "It is a part of
your life."
I smiled in astonishment.
"Perhaps you have given for it the hardest and unhappiest of your days
of toil."
Such a thought as that did not come into her head on the spur of the
moment. I knew at once that she had excogitated it, and kept it in
reserve for a good opportunity of impressing upon my mind what my money
was. And then for days at a time I strove not to employ my money in
ways that ran counter to her honest feeling.
Neither in the city nor in the country did I know anything that
afforded me a purer, more genuine joy than my meetings with this
imperturbable, self-contained woman. We had rapidly come to
confidential terms with one another, so that one day without
consultation or emotion we said "Du" to each other--I do not even know
whether it was she or I who began the practice.
And now I was once more walking along the broad, hot street with the
one-storied houses, once more on the same side in the shade, which
today, to be sure, was deeper than the first time; for it was still
early morning. And now I stood by the window, put my arms on the
window-sill and said, "Good morning, Mariandel, sweetmeats!" And she
stood before an ironing board which rested on the windowsill and the
table, and was ironing with a charcoal flat-iron. She put the iron down
on the rest, gave me her firm, warm hand, and said, "_Bom dia, senhor
doutor! Passa bem?_" and her eye seemed to beam more cordially than
ever, and yet could not express more cordiality than it had expressed
before.
She seated herself by the window, put her right hand on the sill, above
which my head and shoulders protruded, and began to speak, turning her
head in such a way that I saw now her profile, with the inconspicuous
but firm lines of her nose, mouth, and chin, and the heavy braids of
her lustrous hair about her neck, now her full face beaming upon me;
then, however, I forgot all her other, beauty, in contemplation of the
incomprehensibly reposeful and unsullied blue of her eye. I was never
in love with her; never had the sight of her or thoughts of her taken
my breath away; but never was I so full of joyous love for a human
being as then for her.
After she had asked questions about this and that and had told me all
sorts of things, she said, "Professor, don't let me forget to tell you:
George Bleyle down there at the _Mercadinho_ is not having very good
trade, they say; if you need anything, just bear him in mind. He has
bought at bottom prices a whole invoice of men's furnishings that was
put up at auction down at the dock, and things are very cheap at his
shop just now."
And she told what she had purchased for her father, and what her
sister-in-law had got for her husband, named the prices, and praised
the quality of the goods. I gazed first at her eyes, then at the
glowing coals within the flat-iron, listened to the tones of her dear,
faithful voice and thought of my home of long ago, of brothers and
sisters and friends, of a home of my own with wife and children in it,
of things dear and compelling, for which I could stake my life; and I
tasted the sweetness of one of those moments which do their best to
broaden our hearts, to strengthen them and renew their allegiance.
All at once she stopped speaking, and when I did not notice this she
cried out, "Senhor, are you again failing to listen to me!" "Oh, yes.
Henrique Bleyle has put up at auction a cargo of furnishing goods--"
"_O não, senhor_, not at all! But you are a discourteous
good-for-nothing; you think, 'Just let her talk!'"
"Missed by a mile, my child! I have been listening to you without
hearing what you said. Look, when I sit down on the curb of a fountain
and let myself be enveloped and captivated by its splashing and
tinkling, its silvery spraying, and forget everything, even the
fountain, and think uncommonly pure and good thoughts--don't these
thoughts come from the fountain? Do I not hear them in its plashing,
even though I no longer hear the sound of it, and am I, in this
absentmindedness, not more the bondman of the fountain than if I had
counted its drops of water? That is how it was just now. While I
listened to your voice and felt your eye upon me, I learned something
better from you than that Bleyle has socks for sale. Nevertheless, I
shall buy the socks from him. But that you help me in my vanity and
hastiness not merely to let serious thoughts enter my mind when they
come like a stroke of lightning, but also quietly and modestly to admit
them, to await them, and to attain to the inner core of their
sweetness--that is to me more delightful and more important than all
the cargoes of all the continents."
She looked at me with childlike confidence, put her little, warm hand
on mine, and said, "You are not angry with me, Erwin?"
"How could I be angry with you for that? Is there a human being who
could be angry with you? See, Mariandel, the only pain you cause me is
the fact that I am not the only one who can take nothing ill of you!"
"Oh!" she cried, laughing down her shamefacedness like a school-girl,
"just ask my brother and his wife whether they cannot take anything ill
of me!"
"Then they are not human beings. There aren't so very many."
"No, my brother is good," she replied, "and Anna too."
"In any case, I shall prove to you that I am ready to help my
fellow-man. I shall buy of Henrique Bleyle a complete new outfit from
head to foot, and hope thereby to save him from bankruptcy."
"Not Henrique Bleyle, but George Bleyle at the _Mercadinho_, and there
is no question of bankruptcy. For Heaven's sake don't say anything of
the kind!" She looked at me in the utmost confusion and with guilty
eyes; she had of course emphasized the fact that business was bad--as
it was in general at that time--merely in order to induce me to buy of
George Bleyle, since she feared she could not make me budge by speaking
only of the cheapness of his wares.
Now I gave her great pleasure by inquiring at exactly what prices she
had made her purchases, and by asking for advice of various sorts. I
did not get much profit from this; the effort to distinguish between
linen, cotton-warp linen, cotton, shirting, and _fil d'Écosse_ caused
me something of a headache. But she was all joy and eagerness.
Then she had to use her iron while it was hot. She lifted one end of
the ironing board, drew a light calico gown over it like a ring, put
the board down again, and ironed, gradually letting the whole of the
gown travel across the board.
The shade in which I stood grew smaller, the heat penetrated markedly
nearer to me and awakened my daily desire to go to the city park and
sit in the shade of its giant trees and bamboo bushes. I lighted a
cigarette at one of the little glowing eyes of the charcoal flat-iron,
and started away.
"_Ate logo, senhor!_" said she, using a phrase that corresponds exactly
to the Rhenish "So long!" Since she did not know much Portuguese, she
took pleasure in seizing all opportunities to use the most current
expressions; but she used these with such perfect pronunciation that
you would suppose she had complete command of the language.
As was always the case, I was in a peaceful frame of mind when I left
her, I was filled with a sense of cosy comfort which gained all the
more piquancy because flavored with an infinitely delicate bitterness
that I could not understand. In a revery I strolled along through the
streets which, because the diminutive houses cast so little shadow,
became hotter every minute, and passed slowly out of the city.
When I looked up again, I had already passed through the great gate in
the wall and felt as though immersed in the more expansive and, from
the intermittent shade of shrubs and trees, more invigorating
atmosphere of the great park. I stood still and peered into the depth
of the garden through the silver-gray columns of two gigantic palms.
Thickly surrounded by dark shrubs with a silvery sheen, enormous
hedges, and groves of bamboo, a fountain reared the fluttering banner
of its spray from the midst of a black pool confined within a white
curb; but the bubbling pillar did not attain to the height of its dark
sylvan background. In the dim background, however, above the cold deep
green of the park, rose a mighty erythrina like a rose-colored flame
into the rich blue air, like a monstrous, fiery syringa. The light
coursed hotly down the smooth trunks of the palms, golden white it
curled about the gentle curve of their slender hips, like frozen silver
it weighed upon the serrated palm-leaves, often seeming to slip down
and fall, so that the liberated leaf gave a little leap upward into a
new bath of silver; the rigid leaves of black-green bushes were sown
with immobile, penetrating scintillations; above the masses of
dagger-sharp leaves in the grove of bamboo the light swarmed like a
golden vapor rolling up, as it were, in itself; red and white and deep
violet and yellow and iridescent blue flowers of gigantic size cowered
in the dark green; the erythrina stood quietly there upright like a
mountain of fire; everything rested voluptuously, or overwhelmed, in
the glow of the higher-mounting sun--only the snowy importunity of the
fountain wore itself out in impotent resistance to his sway. I too
stood motionless in an unshaded opening; I no longer felt the glow as a
burden; with rapture, with awe, with rapture I felt its untamable
creative energy--just as years before, one cold winter night, I had
felt its lust of destruction at a conflagration in a village of my
mountain home,--the one as wild, as inexorable as the other.
For a long while I stood thus absorbed in meditation, until suddenly I
became conscious that something or other disturbed, disquieted,
irritated me. I spied about, and found that at quite a distance away,
near a low bosket of light green, a head covered by a yellow straw hat
emerged and vanished again in rhythmical alternation. I recognized the
chief gardner of the city park, a German with whom I was well
acquainted. I went slowly up to him and was about to ask him what game
he was playing--I had almost taken him for a ghost--when I observed in
his hand a small basket nearly half filled with leaves. The handsome,
well preserved old man with the shrewd, kindly, white-bearded face told
me now that these bushes with the grayish green, lanciform little
leaves were Chinese tea, and that he was picking the two or three
outside leaves on each twig in order to dry them for his domestic
consumption. I listened while he informed me of the details of tea
culture and the curing of the crop; then, having at the moment to take
off my hat and wipe the sweat from my brow, I said, "How would it be,
do you think, if, just for a change, one could follow one's nose to
Germany and bury it in snow or hoarfrost? At this instant perhaps the
sleighs are jingling along and the skaters are on the ice, or the south
wind is driving its blue-gray mist over the Alps--"
He interrupted me with a shake of his head, and added: "--and everybody
is coughing and spitting and wiping his nose, while the rich are
wrapped in furs like the Greenlanders and the poor are starving and
freezing. That is no joke, especially for such old bones as mine. I no
longer hanker for it. Not in this life! When you are as old as I am you
will realize what a blessing the sun is. You complain of the heat; but
I feel its benefit in the marrow of my bones and still deeper. I no
longer run away from the sun. I have been more than forty years in
Brazil, and I too often wonder how things look in the old town--whether
they still loiter about the well, whether Hannah is still living, and
how this one and that one is getting along. But--they have probably got
along very much as I have myself, well and ill; they have grown old, if
they are not dead already, and they are probably glad to be where it is
warm. No, no! Not in this life!"
"You are quite right! Later! It will be much more convenient when we
are spirits. But then you must come to see me sometime; promise me, and
do not forget your promise! I shall be established somewhere in the
Black Forest, high up in the snow, alone in a great house. The storm is
raging and the old timbers and wainscoting are creaking and groaning. I
am smoking my pipe on a bench by the stove and staring into the flame
of the burning candle. All of a sudden I hear some one clapping his
hands outside, and as I listen there comes a call, _O da casa! O da
casa!_'
"'Hello!' I say, standing up, 'the Brazilian! He has kept his word. And
he is just as courteous and respectful as ever!' I open the door for
you, prepare a fine place for you on the bench, so that you may warm
your tropical astral body, and give you the fur robe to wrap your
poor spiritual feet in. Then you shall have coffee and cigarettes and
fruit-cakes and a glass of genuine cherry brandy--anything you want!
Then we will talk Portuguese, long for the Brazilian sun, and sing,
I in a hoarse bass and you in a sweet spiritual tenor,
_Minha terra tem palmeiras_,
_onde canta o sabia_,
_minha terra tem primores_,
_que eu nunca encontro ca._"
He smilingly listened to me, smilingly shook his head and said, "You
are an enviable youth! Every time I think of you I think that. As a
child amuses himself at an annual fair, you scamper through the world,
feast your eyes on what you like to look at, take your pleasure in what
you see, and build air-castles out of these materials."
He continued to pluck his tea leaves; I stood silently by and marveled
at his words, their truth and their error.
"Yes, there are such favorites of fortune," he continued. "As children
build castles of sand, demolish them, and build them up again, so you
build air-castles. When one of them has occupied you long enough, you
turn your back upon it and build another; this is your pleasure, and
you never tire of it. We others, when at the age of fifteen or sixteen
we have come to our senses, we build a single air-castle: one sees
himself as a prosperous farmer--as far as the eye can reach all the
land is his; the other sees himself as a merchant, with a heavy golden
chain on his paunch, standing at his shop-door; the third means to
cultivate black roses and incidentally become a millionaire--and this
castle in the air we cherish, and care for, and prop up, and support as
long as we live, and for the most part we do not in the least notice
that it has long since collapsed beyond repair. I have long thought I
must tell you this some time, in order that you might know it and thank
God!" He straightened up, looked me in the face, and nodded to me with
kindly seriousness. With a smile I returned his nod.
He continued plucking leaves. In silence I watched him a while longer;
for anything that I could have said in answer was no concern of his.
"Since my bones are as yet somewhat younger than yours," I remarked
finally, "I will keep them fresh, and now take them into the shade."
We separated.
"Every one sees you in a different light from every one else," I said
to myself as I walked along, "and even the wisest fails to see you as
you are; for even the humblest human soul is like the sun, which one
can gaze upon only through a dull medium."
Along shady paths I meandered toward the bamboo alley, which was like a
grove, in that it formed a high vaulted way under closely interwoven
branches, and its twilight was cool. Here I strode back and forth, sat
down, wandered on again, in physical discomfort and mental instability.
The old man had excited and aroused me; I pondered this and that, I
could not stick to any subject whatever, I hurried from the hundredth
to the thousandth thing and took some hurt from every one.
I sat down again, and again walked back and forth.
All at once I found myself at a cross path; I stopped involuntarily and
thought, "I have stood here before; what is there here?" So it was. Two
days before, I had here been struck by the fact that just above the
knot on the bamboo stem there was a broad ring of blue-white hoarfrost,
which blended imperceptibly with the greenish-yellow of the stem. In
this fine congealed breath, I had thought at that time, one ought to
write a secret message to one's sweetheart, in dainty characters, with
a feather from a humming-bird's wing! Since I could not find a
hummingbird, I had sharpened the end of a twig of bamboo, and with that
had scribbled in the fragrant circlet the words, "Where art thou,
beloved?"
Since then I had not again thought of the matter; but now I sought out
the thick stem once more, and thought I ought to have written a poem on
it, began to compose verses, and murmured:
_A saudade no coração_
_mi e doce como o teu bejo--_
then I stood a long time with my head down, trying to formulate the
following verses; and finally I added:
_vivrei d'esta consolacão_,
_de ti, e se nunca te vejo!_
and once more looked for the stem bearing the inscription from the
previous visit. I found it, and was almost terrified when underneath my
words, "Where art thou, beloved," I read inscribed in the dainty hand
of a woman, "Here I am."
I was amazed; then I smiled with joy, and my heart beat violently, as
on the eve of an adventure. My Portuguese verses did not fit now, and I
meditated a jolly, German answer; but I was too unskilful in my
excitement and could not compose anything with any sense to it. I had
to think too much of the writer. Who was she, and what did she look
like?
Finally I took out my dagger, sharpened a twig of bamboo to the finest
of points, and after I had assured myself that I was unobserved, I
wrote simply,
Whether there or here,
Be with me, dear!
Once more I strode back and forth. Then it occurred to me that so long
as I remained in the park I could observe from some hiding-place
whether any one read the inscription.
My bamboo stood right at the intersection of a smaller path and the
bamboo alley, and could be seen from a distance. I accordingly followed
the cross path and came thus into the dark green bosket out of which
the erythrina stood towering. From a distance it seemed as though the
flowering giant were closely surrounded by the smaller trees and
bushes; but if one stepped through the green hedge, one found in the
centre of it a great open circle, like the hallowed precinct of a
sacred tree; out of the ground rose massively the mighty trunk, showing
in clear outline its flower-laden branches, of which the lower ones
were far extended and dipped their fiery burden deep in the surrounding
thicket. Beneath the tree was a bench; from it I could, to the left,
look back along the path and into the bamboo alley, while straight
ahead an opening in the bushes afforded a view of the fountain and the
middle of the garden.
I seated myself in the hedged-in sultry air, which seemed to have been
very little cooled by the night, and dreamed of the expected
sweetheart. I gazed to the left and saw the sunbathed stems and twigs
of bamboo stand out clearly and prettily on the dark shady background;
and looked straight ahead and saw the fountain spraying and foaming,
and often in the tea plantation observed the old man bend forward and
rise erect again.
What did she look like? Like this woman and that woman who had before
now found favor in my sight? Hardly; in that case those other women
would have held me captive. How must she be? Black, white, or red--that
cannot matter. Her eyes will take me, her lips will intoxicate me,
because they are hers! She will be such that my eye will no more
estimate and compare, that my mind will no more dream and desire, that
I shall feel she is she, and acknowledge her as the only power outside
myself; so that my heart, my brain, and every fibre of my flesh will
glow under the same compulsion to take from itself this body and spirit
now subject to another will than mine, to transform it, to engraft it
upon my being, whether for life or for death, to consume it, to drain
it up as the sole valid increase of my existence! I shall feel myself
to be a force nevermore divisible!
Her hair will be curly and of the soft brown of an old walnut, and,
like the shell of a walnut, her twisted braids will surround the back
of her head--and her eyes gray as a German lake in May, when clouds
hover over it and the wind chases bright electric sparks over the
waves ... her hair may also be black, and her eyes brown like snuff; but
her heart must be strong, so that a man may succumb to it!
My eyes watched the bamboo alley and saw the littlest leaves and the
tiniest twigs gently quiver in the heat. Nothing else. She did not
come.
I peered into the park through the opening in the bushes: in the purest
brightness the fountain waved its spray over the tops of the shrubs and
palms up into the blue, vibrating air. And the old gardener continued
his plucking of tea leaves, rising a little and bending again at every
short step, almost unreal in this noiseless, torrid realm. I turned my
eyes back to the bamboo. I was aglow with heat, perhaps also with
expectation; my heart throbbed convulsively and irregularly--and
reminded me of a telegraphic key in an empty, sun-heated railway
station, which, left to itself, ticks incessantly.
For a long while I sat occupied with my thoughts and staring at the
same spot. Suddenly I had a feeling as though there were a shaking of
twigs in the upper part of my particular bamboo. I looked sharply;
there was another gentle agitation, a quiver of the stems and leaves,
as though some one had struck against the trunk below;--only at this
one spot. Then all was calm again.
I grew impatient. She is not coming! Mayhap she will come as soon as I
am gone, and when I return I shall find an answer. I stood up,
stretched myself, and walked slowly toward the bamboo alley.
In passing, I glanced once more at the place of the inscription, and
looked fixedly at it, and examined it still more closely, and breathed
audibly, and my heart thumped. Beneath my words,
Whether there or here,
Be with me, dear!
there were now written in dainty characters the words,
I am.
The green avenue was empty. Nobody had passed through here; I had
seen nobody stop at this spot. And yet she was here, and had written
her answer! In sudden embarrassment I took a step backward, and
involuntarily asked, "You are here? Here with me?" My voice
was so hollow that I myself noticed its unnaturalness. "_With_ me?" I
repeated, sighing, unable to comprehend. And then, like a liberation, a
feeling of terror and awe thrilled my whole being, and I looked down
upon myself cautiously, almost timidly, as though thereby I might
injure somebody. In vague apprehension I turned quite around until I
again faced the inscribed bamboo trunk.
"You are here--with me--?" I whispered. "Verily--I saw how you took
hold of the bamboo to write on it, and let it go again, so that it
quivered. I saw that you were here, even though at present I cannot see
you. You--are--with me?" I could speak no more; my heart beat slowly
and hard, like a rubber hammer that I could feel even up to my throat
and ears; a mute, voluptuous rapture filled my soul, a pride, a sense
of triumph, such as peradventure the chosen one feels when in the midst
of the multitude he realizes his good fortune and reveals it to no man.
"Come!" I said finally, waited a moment to let her take the lead, and
then strode composedly back to the erythrina; and leaving the place at
my right vacant for her, I seated myself upon the bench. I did not
stir, I sat there quietly, shuddering with rapture and expectation, and
at the same time depressed by the impotence of my clumsy senses, to
which I yielded only with difficulty.
I waited--I waited. Was she there? Had she not followed me at all? Have
I driven her away? Must I act otherwise?
Then I felt a brushing of my right cheek, and my whole body fluttered
upward. I looked down in her direction and saw that an erythrina
blossom had grazed my cheek and fallen close beside me upon the
bench. I gazed at it lying fiery there upon the gray wood; I quieted
myself and collected my faculties. I said to myself, "Do not lose your
self-control! Do not let yourself be submerged! No anxiety! No terror!
There is nothing contrary to nature! All being is spirit. If she is
here, she will reveal her presence again, more plainly, as distinctly
as you can bear.--"
I looked straight ahead and perceived that the gray-garbed old man with
the little basket in his hand was slowly traversing the quivering
glassy air of the garden; I saw him disappear behind the snowy spray of
the fountain, reappear again on the other side, and then vanish in the
bushes. I felt as though I had been left alone in the world and were
about to be lost forever; I listened for some bird or other creature,
and was happy to hear the shriek of a parrot and the hissing of the
fountain through the ardent air.
I waited immovably.
Suddenly, whether because a breath stirred the air or because weary
ripeness released them, suddenly a shower of blossoms descended from
the branches, and erythrina flowers rained down upon my head, neck,
shoulders, and arms, into my lap, upon the grass at my feet, like heavy
drops of fire from burning torches. I surveyed their resting places
round about; the space at my right had remained empty; not a single
blossom had lighted upon the bench on this side of me, while to my left
a handful lay scattered. I turned again toward the right: before and
behind the bench the blossoms gleamed from the grass; unless some one
were sitting there, the place could not but have been covered with
blossoms! I drew a deep breath of excitement--bliss--sweet awe. The
weary blossoms continued to fall; and now I was aware how, above the
place at my right, they scattered in the air in every direction, how
they were pressed to the right and left, front and back, and how some
trickled down slowly and hesitatingly, as though impeded by garments.--
I forcibly released myself from the strange spell, stood up, took a
step forward, and turned round. Where I had just been sitting, four or
five blossoms were already gleaming from the gray wood--next to that
place the bench was still uncovered.
In wonderment I stood there and gazed. And now I felt, I saw, how,
gradually, as from a delicate haze, outlines and shadowy forms emerged
and rounded out. With my bodily eyes I saw, like a colorless picture
mirrored in running water, the forms of a head and oval face, fine,
gently sloping shoulders, arms symmetrically bent, with clasped hands;
and, as though through a gray veil, I saw crystal clear eyes beam upon
me.
My heart was almost broken with happiness and intolerably growing
desire; lifting my hands, I sank down before her and kissed the place
where the shadow of her feet fell upon the grass. Then I looked upon
the crystal orbs of her eyes, lifted my hands high in supplication, and
stammered, "Dearest, help me! Appear to me! Come forth to me! Let me
hear the sound of your voice! Let me know your heart and learn what is
your will!"
She did not stir; the cold gleam of her eyes did not turn away from me;
methought two sharp rays of icy air pierced me; I froze, I froze, and
in torture I cried, "What is your wish? What shall I do?"--
My cry sounded to me as horrible as a crime; her eyes flashed white and
were extinguished; and I saw her no more. Shivering with cold and
despair I remained on my knees and waited to see whether she would not
come again.
An eternity of time passed by.
Then I perceived that another rain of fiery blossoms descended, and
covered her place too.
I arose painfully and groaning; hopeless, I left the bench and hastened
with weak tottering steps to get into the sun. Warmth, burning heat was
the only thing I was still able to wish for. Near to the rustling of
the water, I lay down on a bench in the glaring sun; and when I there,
as it were, felt the icy frame within me slowly melt, when the
cold sweat on my skin dried up, and the cold shivers ebbed away in
warmth--then I breathed easily, with infinite inspirations of rapture
which were near to bursting my lungs; then I inwardly rejoiced, as
though I had barely escaped death and after the last leap of my
strength had sunk down exhausted by the gate of the promised land. Have
patience; the gate will be opened. Confidence in this hope surged
through me like blood newly revived.
Whence came she? Where is she now? Have I driven her away?
Was the happiness passing all understanding, the rapture like unto none
ever experienced, was this not enough? Oh, that I could not refrain
from asking more and urging for more! Did she not give me more than I
had believed possible only an hour before? Was it weakness, that I felt
her eyes pierce me like icy arrows? Must I not have frightened and
driven her away by that shriek of the weak beast in me? What a wretched
creature I am! Have I not always found cause for discontent in women;
were they not always in my sight too much of the earth earthy--mothers
from the first? And now, when one who steals away to me from who knows
what distant body, a thrilling emotion, an unearthly powerful light,
then I tremble in terror like a child before the evil one! I have
wounded her, have frightened her away with my shriek for flesh and
blood!
But she will come again! From the far distance something has impelled
her to come hither, I have drawn her here to me; for only in me on
earth does she find her portion, as also I only in her; and if we miss
each other, we shall forever suffer the penalty. She will come again. I
shall learn patience; I shall purify my strength of all gross capacity
for feeling pain; I shall endure to stand in the presence of her
strength, and shall grow to be like unto her!
I did not now expect her again on this day, and the garden was desolate
to me; but I could not leave it. For hours long I lay here, sat there,
went hither and thither along the untraveled paths; and only when
visitors became more numerous, so that I could no longer avoid them,
late in the afternoon, I turned toward home.
Returning from their vacation, the scholars soon began to reoccupy the
boarding school; I had to answer inquiries, make arrangements, and take
counsel with the housekeeper and the director. My heart and mind were,
however, so full of other matters and so far away from these, that I
performed all my duties with the greatest good-nature and
serviceableness, very much as, while at work, you stroke and scratch
your dog with your free hand.
In this manner I passed the evening hours.
The night, however, I passed with little sleep, and much meditation and
wakeful dreaming. Then it became evident to me that I was just
beginning an apprenticeship to love. And the first lesson showed me
that a weak, deluded, selfish heart must suffer pain and torture
through love. For love is not yielding, pitiful, indulgent,
self-surrendering; it is proud, compelling, inexorable as beauty, as
God Himself, who certainly does not love those to whom He is gracious
and merciful, and who has never yet taken pity on His elect. In such
thoughts I bathed, as in the icy morning dew of the mountains, for the
coming day.
When my duties of the forenoon were over, I hastened through the
already scorching heat to the park, into the bamboo alley, under the
erythrina, where I sat down.
For a long while I waited, and saw and felt nothing indicative of her
presence, and was nevertheless sure she would come. The bamboo scarcely
trembled in the blue heat of the sky. The dark trees and shrubs kept
still, as though not to frighten away the swarm of silver lights that
had descended upon them for rest. Unchangeable, flowing only back upon
itself, stood the pillar of spray of the distant fountain dazzlingly in
the air; its splashing resounded indistinctly. Only rarely, as though
waved by an indolent fan, a hot current of air rolled over to me and
eddied about me, sweet and comforting.
I looked over toward the fountain, and there she sat on the marble
curbing of the pool.
Briskly I arose and went toward her with measured steps. She had
disappeared. I seated myself upon a shady bench over against the place
that she had occupied. Soon she returned with flowers in her hand, and
without looking at me, seated herself once more upon the marble. She
was as delicate as a shade. An oval face with severe profile,
surrounded by nut-brown hair; I could not see her eyes. Her drapery was
of cobweb-colored gauze, the clasp of her girdle a simple buckle of
soft, shaded vermilion. Face and hands were bloodlessly pale; her
figure tall, slight, and fine. Thus she sat there; delicately, and yet
with color and warmth, she contrasted with the spraying banner of foam
of the fountain. She did not stir. I did not take my eye from her. Once
something whirred through the air before her and I saw a humming-bird
descend upon the lily blossoms in her hand. And darting back and forth,
the gleaming little bird flew several times back to her flowers, so
still was she.
This motionlessness filled me with sadness on account of my folly of
the preceding day, and oppressed me. I cautiously stepped up to her and
remained standing in front of her, to see whether she would not raise
her eyes; but she made no sign. Then I could not help falling upon my
knees, and my eyes sought hers. Her transparent face, her half-closed
eyes made no movement. Without a sound I got up from my knees and
returned to my bench. Then she arose, walked slowly round the glowing
white marble ring of the pool, and vanished in the shrubbery beyond,
without my venturing to follow her.
I remained at my place and recalled again and again to my eyes how she
sat there at the edge of the water, could not be forced to lift up her
countenance upon me, and still gave me so much happiness. Could I have
endured more?--how she, noiselessly and gracefully waving the folds of
her soft flowing garment, slowly glided about the fountain, like a
fairy of old, and bestowed upon my last glance the never-failing
comfort of beauty.
Not until the hour of my duty at the boarding school drew near in the
late afternoon did I drag myself away and forsake the park.
I performed my duty according to my custom.
As soon as duty was over on the following morning I found myself on the
way to the city park.
Suddenly I was aroused at hearing my name called. I looked up and
saw Mariandel standing in her window, stared at her, and came to my
senses, and felt the desiccating heat of the day.
"Do you mean to run by again?" the girl asked in surprise.
"I was thinking," I answered.
"And yesterday you were thinking so hard that you did not even hear me
call after you!--How you look!" she cried in sudden apprehension.
"I do not know of anything. How do I?"
"Worn out! Terribly! Have you been revelling all night?"
"Revelling!" I murmured with a smile, and relapsed into my revery.
"But what is the matter with you? Erwin!"
"I don't sleep well."
"Are you writing verses again all night long?"
I shook my head.
"And in what condition you come along here! You neither see nor hear
anything!"
I grew impatient and said, "I am thinking; excuse me!" and went on
quickly, paying no more attention to what she called after me.
I entered the gate of the park, and stopped. My eye took in the welcome
sight of all the familiar things, the sparkling sandy paths, the
silvery sheen of the grass, the dark shrubbery, the ragged umbelliform
palms, the ceaselessly foaming gush of water, the feathery forest of
bamboo, the blossoming of the giant trees--I breathed the heat-refined,
insinuating air, heavy with perfume, and suddenly I felt my heart
relieved, and delighted, and secure, as though I were entering my home.
I went right through the garden, past the pool, to the bamboo alley.
There came Mara from the brightness at the other end, slowly through
the green vault to meet me. So long as she was at a distance she looked
at me. I saw only the penetrating, mighty gleam of her eyes, and
nothing more; almost as unbearable as two stars they shone out from
under the shade of her great straw hat. Approaching, she cast down her
eyes; and now the winsome swaying of her tall figure, as she easily
moved along, caused such a rush of rapture to surge through me that I
would have prostrated myself on the ground, merely that she might pass
over me. But I restrained myself. I said, "God greet you," and stepped
up to her side. Without another word we wandered on together.
To adapt my pace to hers, to be able with my hand to stroke the soft
folds of her garment, to have the privilege of gazing at the sharp
profile of her white face, the shade of her dark lashes, the pale
redness of her lips--this happiness was so great that for a long time
the desire to speak did not come over me.
Finally I asked, and my heart beat anxiously, "Who are you? Are you
called Mara? Whence do you come? Counsel me!"
Now she raised her hand slightly, with a deprecating gesture; we went
silently on again, and I was not again able to escape the dominance of
her will. Could anything better befall me than being with her? Can one
sign of love give more happiness than another? It may be a different
one, but not meant to be more genuine.
Suddenly she got somewhat ahead of me. I started to catch up with her,
but did not exert myself especially, and the distance between us grew
still greater. Mara crossed the garden; try as I might, I remained
farther and farther behind; she strode ever farther from me,
disappeared in the bushes, appeared again, then vanished never to
return.
Oh, that I might at least have said good-by to her, have touched her
garment only once more, have looked once more into her mysterious eyes!
I sought for her in the whole gigantic park. I sat for a long time on
the marble curbing of the pool, where yesterday she had tarried, under
the erythrina also for a long time; in the green light of the bamboo
alley I walked and dreamed--dreamed of the solution of this riddle.
I stayed away from a class with which I was supposed to resume work
this afternoon, and did not return to the boarding school until the
wonted hour had struck.
On this night I could get no more real sleep than on the nights before.
Whether I lay awake or dozed, my thoughts incessantly hovered about the
mystery of these days, endeavored to overcome its fascination, and to
see clearly. Was the rapture which this maiden's beauty gave me not a
danger? Had I the right to let my pain at Mara's disappearance pass
away in this rapture? Was the pain not just and rightful? Every love is
a test of love, and one must meet the test! What must I nourish and
justify within me, Mara's love or my love? If I yield and bow to the
will of her love, how can I be faithful to mine? The love of man and
woman shall be like two linden-trees which grow separately side by
side, their tops only forming a single indistinguishable dome; but if
one trunk leans upon the other, they will wound each other in the storm
and will become crippled. Let the love of man and woman be like a sword
with two edges; neither edge may grow dull out of love for the other,
else they cannot unite to form a point. Let the love of two be the
untroubled unity of the man and of the woman of purest essence, so that
the man shall admit nothing womanish, and the woman nothing mannish
into her being; else they will become a puzzling confusion, not a
unity.
"Let the morrow be governed by my will!" I said to myself; and
a dream, the only one to abide with me from among the fugitive
half-dreams of the night--a dream confirmed my resolution, although it
flowed like a tributary into the stream of the thoughts that I thought
I had, and brought nothing surprising.
I saw Mara walking amidst the mountains of my home on a snowy night.
Neither moon nor stars shone in the heavens, there was merely the faint
gleam of the snow in contrast to the edge of the dark forest; but
Mara's figure was bright and of distinctive color, as she had appeared
to me under the tropical sun. In red shoes she strode down the
snow-clad river valley, stepped up to the dark houses, and peered in at
the windows; immediately all the windows of the house were illumined as
with the rays of a bright light, and became dark again when the maiden
wandered on. Tirelessly she did the same thing at every house that
faced toward the river, in every hamlet, the length of a long road. At
last she came to my native town and to the house of red sandstone in
which my mother lay in travail. Mara stretched, and grew, and looked in
at the window; the house lighted up within and grew more and more
light, flames flickered within, burst forth at all the windows, and
united together above the high roof. Like a great scarlet flower the
house stood there in the night, the light of the fire flowed over the
snow in the yard and across the ice of the river, and illumined the
snow-covered houses of the city on yonder side. From all the church
steeples the clocks struck the first hour of the day, one after the
other; when the sound of the last stroke died away, the fire in the
house was suddenly extinguished, and once more I caught sight of Mara,
who had eluded my eyes. She came out upon the highway, placed a naked
baby boy on his feet in the snow beside her, and strode back the way
she had come. The boy kept hold of a fold of her garment, and with his
poor little legs trotted along beside her; his heavy head tottered in
every direction, his eyes were tightly closed, and he uttered a
plaintive croaking. Mara too had closed her eyes, a quiet joy animated
her countenance, her feeling seemed to be far off from the poor little
creature which, side by side with her, tramped up into the snowy
forest.
With a shudder I had awaked, and after long pondering I had returned to
my thoughts of the previous evening: yes, this day should be subject to
my will!
And so in the morning I went at the wonted hour not into the park but
into the city. Reading the paper, I stood in squares and at cross-roads
and waited. Ill at ease, I goaded myself through the streets, as though
dragged hither and thither in a stream of molten metal; I loitered in
the café and the bookshop. But my mind was so absorbed that the waiter
or dealer who brought me what I had ordered startled me as if from
sleep. My eye saw Mara wandering in the park, resting at the fountain,
sitting beside me on the bench under the erythrina, transparent, like a
figure formed of water, in a rain of drops of fire; and my heart was
filled with a longing to which I had willed it should not yield.
At noon when, unheeding the shadeless heat, I sauntered toward a bridge
which spanned the deep valley of the river--there in the middle of the
road, engulfed by the undulating air, there walked Mara! The desire of
my conceit, to avoid her, was of no avail against my overpowering joy.
I stepped up to her. How daintily she moved in the obedient folds of
her brownish-gray garment, beneath the hem of which the tip of her red
shoe peeped out and disappeared again. Like a blossom of the softest
red the clasp of her girdle shone beneath her breast. Her eyes seemed
to me full of the joy of meeting again, as they gleamed forth from the
shade of her hat. My will gave itself up and died, as shame dies.
Whispering her name as a greeting, I turned round when I reached her,
and by her side I retraced my steps. She looked straight ahead, a
childlike smile softened the expression of her mouth, heretofore so
serious, and her lips blossomed red in her white face. I strode along
beside her and lost myself. Why do I not snatch her to my bosom? Why do
I not kiss myself to death on her lips?
Yes--why did I not do that?
When I chanced to become aware that she avoided the populous streets,
then indeed there came to me a fleeting consciousness, an angry pain at
my weakness, and I turned into the main street. She remained by my
side. If you do not do her will, then she will do yours. Because you
did not go to her, she came to you! And as I had purposed, I meant now
to subject her to my will. But in my distracted excitement I could
think out no plan; nothing occurred to me but to go aimlessly hither
and thither, to turn back, and to stand still. And in this very
inability I recognized how fully I was under her spell.
I began to speak.
"Mara, if you wish to put me to the test, give me a task that I can
comprehend, that I can struggle with! This is playing a game that
tortures me. You know my heart. It wears a mantle of pride, but under
the mantle lurks melancholy; many a time it rises in its might, tears
off the mantle, and treads its starched purple in the dust, and--" Mara
gently placed her left hand, which was as cool as the folds of her
garment, upon my right hand, so that my will retreated in fear within
me. I thought, "How ridiculous to talk like that! In what poor
taste--how did you come to do it? It was well that she interrupted you.
And she knows everything; she knows more about you than you know about
yourself." Ashamed, not daring to look at her, I walked along a short
distance.
But soon I once more revolted against her power. In some way or other I
must subdue her.
At a street corner I suddenly remained one pace behind her, turned into
a side street, darted into a shop, and observed through the window how
she, searching, came back the way that we had gone. Then I ran farther
down the side street and through a passage way into another street,
hastily, excitedly, almost beside myself.
All of a sudden I saw Mariandel standing amazed and waiting for me a
few paces in advance. Her fine blue eyes were filled with tears, she
held out her hand to me, and called out reproachfully and
compassionately at the same time, "Erwin--!"
I barely touched her hand, whispered that I was in a hurry, and fled
past her into another street. Mara, I thought, will surely know where I
am; but by the time she gets here, I shall be somewhere else. And
spying around on all sides, I rushed on.
Behold, on the same road ahead of me there walked a lithe maiden of
middle size, whose unexpected sight took my breath away and robbed my
knees of their strength. In a dark-green woolen dress, as I had last
seen her in Germany, she walked apparently absent-minded whithersoever
her footsteps carried her. How many a time I had seen before me this
childishly slender brown neck, this knot of dark hair; how often this
hat on her arm as now, or in her slender brown hand. I longed to see
her familiar face, but I feared to meet her glance. I crossed the
street, outdistanced her as she slowly advanced, and then walked slowly
to meet her. "How far away from me that seems!" I thought, "God
preserve us, I cannot avoid her!" With her head bent slightly, as
though in a revery, she came along. Her dark hair was as of yore combed
far back from her forehead; the dainty lines of her mouth had the same
expression of silent sorrow. Alas, how well I knew every line and
feature of this kindly countenance, the soft cheeks, the great eyes,
which were not fortunate when they looked upon me--and how far away
that all lay! I could not go furtively by; little strength though I
had, I stopped. Then she raised her gravely animate, dark eyes and
gazed at me with the glance of a stranger; she did not recognize me,
and passed on undisturbed. I groaned aloud and watched her as she went,
shook my head in resignation to a power greater than I, and reeled
along the way I was going.
But I did not reflect on this incomprehensible meeting; like the
meeting with Mariandel, it was immediately blotted out of my
consciousness, and I asked myself after Mara. Where was she? Where was
she seeking me! What is she likely to be doing? I ran every which way
and, seeking to escape her, I hoped to find her.
At last I felt fatigued and wanted a resting place, where in the
stillness I could dream of her and, after the pitiful confusion of this
foregathering, could try to understand her and myself. I turned again
toward the main street; I knew of a great restaurant there, in which
there was a quiet palm room with marble walls and a fountain.
When I arrived in front of the building a gray-veiled figure was
crouching on the steps. I stopped in dismay. With her hat pushed back
behind her shoulders, she sat cowering forward. Her head, covered by
her gray cloak, rested upon her right arm bent at the elbow; her right
hand clasped the back of her neck and gleamed forth incredibly white
and fine from under the dull folds and wrinkles of her garment; her
left hand she stretched toward me beneath her right arm, in
supplication. A beggar, it seemed, had collapsed here exhausted, and
even in sleep did not forget her necessity. I stood still and thought:
"Take her in your arms! Carry her away!" But that was not what her hand
wanted.
"Do you beg for my heart?" I whispered to her. "I can put my heart into
your heart, but not into your hand!" I hurried past her into the palm
room and seated myself in the darkest corner.
Mara did not follow me.
I ordered a sherbet. But for the same reason that the restless running
about in the noon-day glow had not heated me, the cool of the marble
walls now made me shiver, and the sherbet gave me such an icy thrill
that I hardly touched it. Nevertheless, I did not dare to go out again.
I could not another time pass the figure on the steps. I sat there in
agony, and against my will gazed into the little fountain, though the
eternal tossing of its little ball and its splashing were a torture to
me. So I was a captive. Had she come in, she would have seen me
prostrate at her feet, and that was my sole desire.
Against what, then, was I struggling? Does one struggle against love?
Is not that insanity?
When my time was up, I forced myself to arise, and stepped out, in deep
shame and anxiety. She was no longer there. I stared in amazement at
the spot where she had sat and hastened despairingly for home.
The evening passed and my work with it. The boys went to bed, Donna
Leocadia disappeared in her quarters, her bolt snapped like a gun-shot
into its socket, and I did not even smile. Voices could still be heard
coming from the bedroom, and I did not call for silence.
I was as wide-awake as I had hardly been in the morning; to what end
should I lie down to rest? After I had turned out the light, I seated
myself in the large reading room--its windows and door opening on the
courtyard had not been closed--on a little school bench, and abandoned
myself to my thoughts.
Where was I? Was I sitting here, watching the first moonbeam glide
across the floor? Was I roaming in the park? Was I loitering about the
city? Was my heart beating within me, so gently? Was it not beating
from some place far distant in the abyss of time? Was there not in my
breast a yearning emptiness, a painfully anxious void? Oh--I had
fancied that Mara was holding out her hand for my heart, and I must
keep it: was it not in fact lying in the hollow of her hand,
unsubstantial, a shade, a particle of dust? The wind may have blown it
away and dissipated it.--
And where is she? Where must I now seek her, now that I cannot dream of
her?
In a broad stream the moonlight came through the windows and drove the
shadows of the table and chairs slowly and noiselessly through the
room. Little mice darted out of the crevices and around in the light
and the shadow under the table, looking for crumbs; their coats
glistened often like soft silk, and their little eyes gleamed like
black diamonds. They scampered helter-skelter, they squeaked, they sat
upon their hind legs, and feasted merrily. Suddenly they scattered and
disappeared. In from the courtyard came rushing a great rat with a
great pattering of his claws on the floor; he dragged his tail behind
him as though it were some lifeless thing. He went hither and thither.
his greedy eyes shone like black glassy beads; finally he crossed the
threshold to the corridor, and remained sitting hard by, but invisible;
only the naked tail lay like a piece of string across the threshold. I
did not move. I looked away, and forgot the rat.
I stared at the moonlight on the floor, and my thought was always one
and the same. I have never been so at my wits' end, so tortured with
yearning, so wretched as at this time.
When I looked up again, Mara stood in the doorway, and fastened the
splendor of her eyes upon me. I thought that all human discontent was
purged out of me. I felt no further desire, so liberating was her
appearance. If she had stayed there throughout the night, I should have
remained steadfast in her sight.
Soon she glided on, stopped in the corner opposite to me, and
contemplated me with her head strangely bowed. I did not understand
her, and kept still. She came along the wall the whole length of the
room; only the hem of her garment and the tips of her red shoes
glistened in the moonlight. Now she stood before me, and looked down
upon me. My eye avoided hers; for my will was trembling heavily as a
rain drop that is about to fall to earth from the tip of a leaf. "O
speak a word!" I thought fervently; "give me a sign, help me!" She
remained silent. Then I plucked up courage, looked up at her, and
endured her glance, and did not yield. Finally, she turned her eye away
in sadness, shook her head, slowly turned around, and walked past the
windows, now shrouded in the sheen of blue light, now gleaming out of
the shade, and left the room.
For a considerable time I sat there in horror, stared vacantly into the
air, and thought, "This is the end--the end!"
Then suddenly I felt my heart beat as hard and painfully as when a fist
desperately beats upon a gate, and covers itself with bloody wounds
thereby; I jumped up, and rushed after her. Like a shade she was
already gliding through the street far in advance of me. I meant to
follow her at a certain distance; for at once the will to solve her
riddle came back to me.
With no apparent end in view she walked through several streets, which
were filled with the smoke of the nightly rubbish fires; then she
turned out of the city in the direction of the park. I thought to
myself, "She knows that you are following her, and will not give
herself away." And that pleased me with a new sense of community with
her.
I found the gate to the park, through which she had just passed, only
half closed. I could not catch sight of her in the silvery twilight of
the umbrageous garden. Hastily I ran across grass plots and flower beds
to the fountain, which filled the air with the mighty noise of its
waters, and heavily as silver splashed down into the black pool.
She was not here.
Oppressed with eagerness I circled the pool and searched at the
erythrina. Here my footstep roused her; like a gray moth she fled to
the bamboo alley, and through the nocturnal vault farther and farther
away. I could not overtake her; and when we were once more in the
bright moonlight, I sank exhausted by my mad hurry, and in despair I
cried, "Mara!"
Then she paused, turned about, and, holding the palms of her hands at
her breast, as though carrying something, she slowly drew near. Her
eyes gleamed in soft pearly lustre, and rolled anxiously. When she
stood before me I felt my strength sweetly restored to me; I kissed
Mara's shadow in the grass and got up groaning. Then I saw something in
her hands glowing like purple wine, and knew at once that it was my
heart. I tried to seize it. She drew back and glided away from me.
"Give it me!" I cried in frightful need, "Give it me!"
But she fled. Then I snatched my dagger from its sheath, and with the
last ounce of my strength hurled it after her; it whirred like a silver
arrow through the moonlight and pierced her back. Seeing her fall, I
myself plunged down; my senses left me.
I awoke in a strange room. Traversing the park in the early morning,
the head gardener had found my dagger sticking in the ground, and
farther on had found me; and when he failed to rouse me, had had me
taken to his home and put to bed. Two days and nights I had lain in a
heavy sleep; now they had by force to prevent me from rising from bed,
and had to compel me to take nourishment and submit to nursing. Raising
myself on my stiff arms, I sat upright in bed, and gazed with
wide-open, restless eyes out among the trees in the park, until,
exhausted, I once again sank back and fell asleep.
HERMANN HESSE
* * * * * *
IN THE OLD "SUN" (1908)
TRANSLATED BY A. I. DU P. COLEMAN, A.M.
Professor of English Literature, College of the City of New York
Whenever, in spring or summer or even early autumn, there comes a soft,
pleasant day, just warm enough to make it agreeable to loiter in the
open air, then the extravagantly crooked path that joins the Allpach
road, just before you leave the last high-lying houses of the town, is
a charming spot. On the serpentine windings of the path as it goes up
the hill the sun always lies warm. The place is sheltered from every
wind. A few gnarled old fruit-trees give not indeed fruit but a little
shade, and the border of the road, a green strip of smooth surf,
entices you in the friendliest way by its soft curves to sit down or to
stretch yourself at full length. The white path gleams in the sunlight
as it climbs slowly and easily, sending a thin cloud of dust up to
greet every farm-wagon or landau or post-chaise; and it gives a view
over a steep huddle of dark roofs, broken here and there by the tops of
trees, down into the heart of the town--to the market-place, which
indeed, seen from here, loses a good deal of its impressiveness, and
appears only as a peculiarly fore-shortened rectangle of irregular
houses and curiously protruding front steps and cellar doors.
On such mild, sunshiny days the comfortable turf border of this lofty
hill-climbing path is always occupied by a small troop of resting men,
whose bold, weather-beaten faces do not entirely harmonize with their
tame and sluggish gestures, and the youngest of whom is well up in the
fifties. They sit or lie at their ease in the warm greenness; they are
silent, or carry on short, muttered conversations; they smoke short
black pipes, and are continually spitting, with an air of contempt for
the world, down the steep slope below them. The few workmen who pass by
are sharply observed by them and critically placed; and each, according
to the verdict, is greeted with a benevolent nod and "How are you,
comrade?" or allowed to pass in disdainful silence.
A stranger who watched the old men lounging there, and inquired in the
first street he came to about the odd collection of gray idlers, could
learn from any child that they were known as the "Sun-Brothers." Many
such strangers turned to look back once more at the weary group
blinking in the sunlight, and wondered how they came to get such a
lofty-sounding and poetical name. Some traveling enthusiasts felt a
mysterious thrill at the name, and made out of the half-dozen gray
loafers the surviving remnants of an almost extinct and very ancient
community of worshippers of the orb of day. But the luminary after
which the Sun-Brothers had been named had long ceased to shine in any
sky; it was only the sign of a miserable tavern which had vanished
several years before. Both sign and fame had disappeared, for the
building served later as the city poorhouse, still harboring, indeed,
numerous guests who had lived to see the setting of the sun taken down
from the sign, and had acquired at its bar the reversion of their
present shelter and guardianship.
[Illustration: HERMANN HESSE]
The small house stood last in the steep lane and in the town, close to
this sunny strip of turf. It offered a warped and weary front to the
eye, as though it was a considerable effort to stand upright, and had
nothing now about it to show how much merriment and cheerful clinking
of glasses, joking and laughter it had seen, to say nothing of lively
brawls and knife-play. Since the old pink paint of the front had grown
pale and peeled off in cracked patches, the ancient abode of vagabonds
corresponded accurately in its external appearance to its purpose,
which is not always the case with municipal buildings in our day.
Plainly and honestly, even eloquently, it gave every one to understand
that it was a refuge for those who had made shipwreck of their lives
and been left behind in the race, the desperate end of a narrow
backwater from which no plans or hidden resources could ever work them
out again into the stream of life.
Fortunately, little of the melancholy of such reflections was to be
found in the circle of the Sun-Brothers. Rather, they--most of
them--went on living after the fashion of their bygone days, puffed up
their petty bickerings and fancies and amusements, friendships and
jealousies, to the dimensions of weighty events and affairs of state,
and took not each other but themselves as seriously as possible. In
fact, they behaved as if it was only now, since they had extricated
themselves from the noisy streets of the bustling world, that the chase
was beginning; they carried on their insignificant affairs with a
gravity and a tenacity which for the most part they had never been able
to attain in their earlier activities. Like many another small
collection of men, although they were ruled on the principles of
absolute monarchy by the head of the institution and treated as mere
imaginary existences without rights, they believed themselves to be a
small republic, in which every free citizen had the same title to rank
and position as another and was firmly determined never to allow
himself to be too little esteemed, even by a hair's breadth.
The Sun-Brothers had this too in common with other people, that they
experienced the greater part of their destinies and satisfactions,
their joys and sorrows, more in imagination than in tangible reality. A
humorist might indeed have considered the difference between the life
of these wrecks of humanity and that of busy citizens as consisting
only in imagination, since both alike carried on their large and small
affairs with the same busy gravity, and in the last resort an
unfortunate inmate of the poorhouse might possibly not be much worse
off in God's eyes than many a great and honored personage. But without
going as far as that, it might well be contended that for the easygoing
observer of life these Sun-Brothers were no unworthy object of
contemplation, since human life, even upon a small stage, always offers
an amusing drama and one well worth consideration.
The nearer the time approaches when the present generation will have
forgotten the name of the old "Sun" tavern and the Sun-Brothers, and
its poor and outcast members will be cared for in other places, the
more desirable it is that there should be a history of the old house
and its inmates. As a contribution to such a chronicle, these pages
will narrate something of the life of the first Sun-Brothers.
In the days when the present young men of Gerbersau were still wearing
short breeches or even dresses, and when over the door of the present
poorhouse there still swung proudly from the pink facade, at the length
of a wrought-iron arm, the tin sun which was its ensign, one day late
in autumn Karl Hürlin came back to his native town. He was the son of
Hürlin the locksmith in the Senfgasse, who was long since dead. He was
a little more than forty, and no one knew him any longer, since he had
wandered away as a very young man and had never since been seen in the
town. Now, however, he wore a good, neat suit of clothes, a moustache
and well-trimmed hair, a silver watch-chain, a stiff hat and a high
clean collar. He visited some of the former acquaintances of his family
and a few old school friends, and bore himself in general as a man who
had gone away and risen in the world, conscious of his value without
over-emphasis. Then he went to the town hall, exhibited his papers, and
declared that he intended to settle down in the place. After the
necessary preliminaries had been accomplished, Herr Hürlin developed a
busy and mysterious activity and correspondence, often took little
journeys, and bought a piece of ground at the bottom of the valley. He
began to build there, on the site of an oil-works that had burned down,
a new brick house, a stable and coachhouse near it, and between the
stable and the house a huge brick chimney. In the meantime he was seen
now and then in the town taking his glass of an evening. At the
beginning he was quiet and dignified, but after he had had a few
glasses he would talk loud and emphatically, and made no secret of the
fact that he had money enough to live a fine gentleman's life--but that
one man was a thick-headed idler and another a genius and a man of
business, that he belonged to the latter class and had no idea of
sitting down to rest until he was able to write six ciphers after the
figures that denoted his wealth.
Business people from whom he asked credit inquired into his history,
and found out that up to that time he had never played an important
part, but had been employed in various workshops and factories, rising
finally to be a foreman. Lately, however, he had fallen into a tidy
inheritance; and so people accorded him a certain measure of respect,
and a few enterprising men put money also into his business. Soon,
then, a moderately large and good-looking factory arose, in which
Hürlin proposed to turn out certain rollers and other machinery
required in the woolen industry.
Hardly was the place opened when its projector was sued by the same
firm for which he had been overseer, on a charge of illegally
representing as his own inventions and using some technical secrets
which he had acquired there. He came out of the endless litigation
without discredit but with heavy costs; he pushed his business with
redoubled zeal, lowering his prices somewhat and flooding the country
with advertisements. Orders were not lacking, the big chimney smoked
night and day, and for a few years Hürlin and his factory flourished,
and enjoyed respect and ample credit.
He had attained his ideal and fulfilled his old dream. It was true that
in his earlier years he had made more than one attempt to acquire
wealth, but it was the almost unexpected inheritance which had set him
on his feet and enabled him to carry out his bold plans. Riches
had not been his only aim; his warmest desires had all along tended
toward the acquisition of a great and commanding position in the
world. He would have been in his element as an Indian chief, as
a privy councillor, or even as a master-huntsman; but the life of a
factory-owner seemed to him both more comfortable and more independent.
A cigar in the corner of his mouth and a grave and thoughtful smile
upon his face, standing at the window or sitting at his desk to issue
all sorts of orders, to sign contracts, to listen to suggestions and
requests, to combine the wrinkled brow of the very busy man with
an easy, comfortable manner, to be now unapproachably strict and now
good-naturedly condescending, and at all times to feel that he was a
leader of men and that much depended on him--this was his gift, which
unfortunately had come only too late in life to full exercise. But
now he had his desire to the full; he could do as he pleased, set
people up or put them down, heave delightful sighs over the burden of
wealth, and feel that he was envied by many. All this he enjoyed with a
connoisseur's pleasure and with entire absorption; he wallowed in
happiness, and felt that fate had at last given him the place that
belonged to him.
In the meantime, the rival at whose expense he had grown great, made a
new discovery, the introduction of which showed a number of the earlier
products to be useless and turned out others much more cheaply. Since
Hürlin, for all his self-confidence, was not a genius and understood
only the externals of his trade, he descended at first slowly and then
with increasing rapidity from his height of success, and finally
reached a point where he was unable to conceal from himself that he was
beaten. In desperation, he tried some daring financial expedients,
through which he involved himself and a number of creditors with him in
a complete and unsavory bankruptcy. He fled, but was caught and brought
back, tried, and sent to jail; and when after several years he appeared
once more in the town it was as a discredited and broken man
who could not hope to make a fresh start.
For a while he found humble occupations; but in the sultry days when
the storm was gathering he had developed into a secret drinker--and
what had then been concealed and little regarded became now a public
scandal. Dismissed from a small clerk's place for untrustworthiness, he
became an insurance agent, and in this capacity took to visiting all
the taverns of the neighborhood. He lost this employment too, and, when
an attempt to peddle matches and pencils from house to house also
failed to produce an income, he sank to be a charge on the community.
In these years he had become suddenly old and wretched; but from the
days of his ruined splendor he had retained a certain provision of
small arts and an external manner which helped him over some rough
places and still produced their effect in the lower class of
public-houses. He took with him to these places certain majestic and
sweeping gestures and well-sounding habits of speech which had long
corresponded to no inner reality, but on the strength of which he still
enjoyed a standing among the good-for-nothings of the town.
At that time there was no poorhouse in Gerbersau; but people who were
of no use to the community were maintained at a small provision from
the town funds here and there in private families as lodgers. Here they
were furnished with the absolute necessities of life and employed
according to their capacity in small domestic labors. Since, however,
all sorts of inconveniences arose from this system, and since no one at
all was willing to receive the broken-down manufacturer, who enjoyed
the hatred of the whole population, the community saw itself compelled
to establish a special house as an asylum. And as at that particular
moment the miserable old "Sun" tavern came under the hammer, the town
acquired it and placed there as the first inmate, with a manager, Karl
Hürlin. Others soon followed him; and they became known as the
"Sun-Brothers."
Now Hürlin had long had close relations with the "Sun," since in the
course of his decline he had frequented always lower and more wretched
places, and finally had made his main headquarters there. He was
expected among the daily visitors, and sat in the evenings at the same
table with several boon companions who, when their time too came, were
to follow him as despised paupers into the very same house. He was
really glad to take up his abode there. In the days after the purchase
of the property, when carpenters were busy transforming the old place
to its new condition, he stood watching them from morning till night.
One mild, sunshiny morning he had arrived there as usual and taken up
his position near the main door to watch the workmen at their task
inside. One of the floors was broken and had to be relaid, the rickety
stairs had to be patched up and provided with a firm balustrade, a
couple of thin partitions put in. The town foreman was getting
after the workmen, who were simulating great industry, and the
school-children were wandering from room to room. All this activity
delighted old Hürlin. He looked on with cheerful interest, pretending
not to hear the malicious remarks of the workmen; he plunged his hands
into the deep pockets of his greasy coat, and twisted his charity
trousers, much too long and wide for him, into various spiral forms in
which his legs looked like corkscrews. He pulled continually at a
chipped clay pipe, which was not lit but still smelt of tobacco. His
approaching entry into his new abode, from which he promised himself a
new and fairer existence, filled the old drunkard with delighted
curiosity and excitement.
While he was watching the laying of the new stairs and silently
estimating the quality and probable durability of the thin pine boards,
he suddenly felt himself pushed to one side. As he turned in the
direction of the street, he saw a workman with a large step-ladder
which with great care and many props he was attempting to set up on the
sloping surface of the street. Hürlin betook himself to the opposite
side of the street, leaned against a stone, and followed the activity
of the workman with great attention. The latter had now set up his
ladder and made it secure; he climbed it and began to scratch about
in the mortar over the main door with a view of taking down the old
sign. His efforts filled the ex-manufacturer with interest and also
with pain, as he thought of the bygone days, of the many glasses of
wine or spirits he had drunk under the now disappearing sign, and of
the past in general. He took no little joy in observing that the iron
arm was so firmly fixed in the wall that the workman had much trouble
in getting it loose. Under the poor old sign there had been so many
infernally good times! When the workman began to swear, the old man
smiled; when he pulled and pushed and twisted and knocked, when he
began to sweat and almost fell off the ladder, the spectator felt no
little satisfaction. Finally he went away, and came back in a quarter
of an hour with an iron-saw. Hürlin perceived that now it was all over
with the venerable ensign. The saw bit shriekingly into the good iron;
after a few moments the arm began to droop, and finally fell with a
rattle and a clang on the pavement.
Hürlin crossed the street. "I say, Mr. Workman," he begged humbly,
"give me the thing; it's of no value now."
"Why? Who are you?" asked the fellow.
"I'm of the same religion," answered Hürlin entreatingly--"my father
was a locksmith too, and I've been one in my time. Give it me, won't
you?"
The workman picked up the sign and looked at it. "The arm is still
good," he decided. "For its time it was not a bad piece of work. But if
you want the tin thing, that's no use to anybody ..."
He tore away the green tin wreath in which, with long since dimmed and
lumpy rays about it, the golden sun had hung, and gave it to him. The
old man thanked him and made off with his prize, to hide it in the
elder-bushes further up with a strange greed and pleasure in the
thought of contemplating it. So, after a lost battle, a paladin might
have hidden the insignia of fallen royalty, to preserve them for other
days and new glories. When he returned, to recommence his inspection of
the carpenters' work, the house struck him as changed and desolate
because the sun was gone, and in its place over the door there
was nothing but an ugly hole in the plaster.
A few days later, without much pomp or ceremony, the opening of the
scantily-furnished poorhouse took place. A few beds had been put up;
the rest of the furniture was the product of the tavern-keeper's sale,
except that a supporter of the scheme had decorated each of the three
bedrooms with a Bible text surrounded by wreaths of flowers painted on
cardboard. For the position of manager, when it was put up to
competition, there had not been many applicants; and the choice had
fallen upon Herr Andreas Sauberle, a widowed weaver of good repute, who
brought his loom with him and continued to work at his trade--the
position was not very remunerative, and he had no desire to become a
Sun-Brother himself in his old age.
When old Hürlin had his room assigned to him, he at once began a minute
examination of it. He found a window looking on the small courtyard,
two doors, a bed, a chest, two chairs, a jar, a broom and duster;
further, a shelf in the corner covered with oilcloth, on which stood a
glass, a tin basin, a clothesbrush and a New Testament. He felt the
stout bedclothes, tried the brush on his hat, held up glass and basin
critically to the light, sat down experimentally on both the chairs,
and decided that all was satisfactory and in order: Only the impressive
text on the wall failed to meet with his approval. He contemplated it
for awhile with a scornful expression, read the words, "Little
children, love one another," and shook his bushy head discontentedly.
Then he pulled the thing down, and with great care hung the old "Sun"
sign in its place--the only piece of property he had brought with him
to his new dwelling. But just as he did so the manager came in, and
ordered him in a tone of rebuke to put back the text. He was going to
take the tin sun with him to throw it away, but Karl Hürlin clung to it
desperately, insisting with loud outcries on his rights of property,
and finally hid the trophy, still growling, under his bed.
The life that began on the following day did not quite correspond to
his expectations and at first did not please him at all. He was obliged
to rise at seven and go to get his coffee in the weaver's quarters,
then make his bed, clean his wash-basin, polish his boots, and
generally tidy up the room. At ten o'clock there was a piece of black
bread for him, after which began the forced labor which he dreaded. A
huge pile of wood had been dumped in the yard, which was all to be
sawed and split.
As winter was still a long way off, Hürlin did not hurry himself with
the wood. Slowly and carefully he laid a log in position, then he
adjusted it with great accuracy, and considered awhile where he should
begin to saw it, whether in the middle or on the right or the left.
Then he applied the saw with the same care, laid it aside once more,
spat on his hands and picked it up again. Now he took three or four
strokes, cutting half an inch into the wood, but then drew the saw out
again and examined it minutely, turned the screw, set it a little
sharper, held it up and blinked at it for awhile, then heaved a deep
sigh and rested for a time. Presently he began again and sawed a few
inches into the wood; but he grew unbearably warm and stopped to take
off his coat. This process he performed slowly and with reflection, and
then looked about some time for a clean and safe place to put it. When
it was properly bestowed, he began to saw once more--but not for long;
the sun had come up over the roof, and shone directly in his face. This
necessitated moving the log and the trestle and the saw, each
separately, to another place where he could be in the shade. This
exertion brought out the perspiration, and he was obliged to look for
his handkerchief to wipe his forehead. It was not in his trousers
pocket; he remembered having it in his coat, and so he strolled over to
where he had put the coat, spread it out carefully, sought and
found the colored handkerchief, wiped off the sweat, blew his nose,
put the handkerchief away, folded the coat with great attention,
and returned to his saw-horse much refreshed. Here he came to the
conclusion that he had perhaps set the saw at too sharp an angle, and
so he performed a new operation upon it which took some time, and
finally, with much grunting, achieved the complete division of the log
into two pieces. By this time the midday bells were ringing from the
church-tower, so he quickly got into his coat, put the saw away, and
went into the house to dinner.
"You're punctual, I'm bound to say that for you," remarked the weaver.
The woman brought in the soup, after which there was some cabbage with
a slice of bacon, and Hürlin fell to with a will.
After dinner the sawing was supposed to continue, but this he declined
with emphasis. "I'm not accustomed to it," he said in an injured tone,
and stuck to it. "I'm tired out, and must have a little rest."
The weaver shrugged his shoulders and said "Do as you like--but a man
that won't work must'nt expect any supper. At four o'clock there'll be
bread and cider, if you've done your sawing--otherwise nothing more
till the soup at night."
[Illustration: A HUMAN LOAD]
Franz Wilhelm Voigt
Bread and cider, thought Hürlin, and was confronted with a very serious
problem. In the end he went out and picked up the saw again; but he
shuddered at the thought of working in the hot midday hours, and he
let the wood lie where it was. He went out in the street, found a
cigar-stump on the pavement, put it in his mouth, and slowly covered
the fifty paces to the bend in the road. There he stopped to take
breath, sat down by the roadside on the fine warm turf, looked out over
the many roofs and down to the market-place, catching a glimpse at the
bottom of the valley of his old factory, and dedicated this place as
the first of the Sun-Brothers--the place to which afterward so many of
his comrades and successors have come to lounge away their summer
afternoons, and often mornings and evenings as well.
The gentle, beneficent contemplation of an old age free from cares and
troubles, which he had promised himself in the poorhouse, and which
that morning had faded under the pressure of hard work like a fair
mirage, now returned gradually to him. His heart soothed by the feeling
of a pensioner assured for the rest of his days from anxiety, hunger,
and homelessness, he sat at his ease on the turf, feeling the pleasing
warmth of the sun on his withered skin. He gazed over the scene of his
former activities and misfortunes, and waited without impatience till
some one should come who would give him a light for his cigar-stump.
Shrill hammering from a workshop, the distant ring of the anvil in a
smithy, the low rumbling of a far-away wagon came up to his heights
with a little dust from the road and thin smoke from chimneys of all
sizes, to show him that down in the town people were bravely toiling
and sweating, while Karl Hürlin sat peacefully untroubled on his throne
at a dignified distance from it all.
About four o'clock he came quietly into the room of the weaver, who was
moving his shuttle regularly back and forth. He waited a while to see
if there might not, after all, be some bread and cider, but the weaver
only laughed at him and sent him away. He returned disappointed to his
post of observation, growling to himself; there he put in an hour or
more in a sort of half sleep, and then watched the coming of evening to
the narrow valley. It was still warm and comfortable up there, but his
cheerful mood departed little by little; in spite of his slackness, he
began to get horribly bored doing nothing, and his thoughts returned
incessantly to the snack that he had missed. He saw a tall glass full
of cider standing in front of him, yellow and sparkling and perfumed
with sweet herbs. He imagined how he would have taken it up, the cool
round glass, and gulped down a good draught at the first, drinking then
more sparingly. He gave an angry sigh as often as he woke from the
delightful dream; and his anger went out against the pitiless manager,
the weaver, the miserable skinflint, the little stumpy fellow, the
oppressor, the seller of his soul, the poisonous Jew. After he had
fumed enough at the manager, he began to be sorry for himself and fell
into a tearful mood; but finally he made a resolution to work the next
day.
He did not see how the valley grew paler and filled with soft shadows,
and how the clouds took on a rosy tint; he was blind to the mild, sweet
evening colors of the sky and the mysterious blue that came over the
distant mountains. He saw nothing but that lost glass of cider, the
toil that waited inevitably for him on the morrow, and the hardness of
his lot. Those were the kind of thoughts he had been used to having
when he had passed a day without getting anything to drink. What it
would be like to have a glass of something stronger than cider was a
thing he did not even dare to think about.
Stooping and languid, he made his way down to the house at
supper-time, and took his seat ill-humoredly at the table. There was
soup, bread, and onions, and he ate grimly as long as there was
anything on his plate; but there was nothing to drink. After the meal
he sat still disconsolately and did not know what to be at. Nothing to
drink, nothing to smoke, no one to gossip with! For the weaver was
working busily by lamplight, paying no attention to him.
Hürlin sat for a half hour at the empty table, listening to the click
of Sauberle's machine and staring at the yellow flame of the hanging
lamp, until he sank into an abyss of discontent, self-pity, envy,
hatred and malice from which he neither sought nor found any way of
escape. At last his silent anger and hopelessness grew too much for
him. He raised his fist and brought it down on the table with a bang,
rolling out a good German oath.
"Here!" said the weaver, coming over to him. "What's the matter with
you? No cursing allowed where I am."
"Well, what in the devil's name am I to do?"
"Oh, you find the evening long? Then go to bed."
"There you are again! People send little children to bed at a certain
time--not me!"
"Then I'll get a little work for you."
"Work? You're too free with your tyranny, you old slave-driver!"
"Come, keep cool! But there--there's something for you to read." He put
out a couple of volumes from the thinly-furnished shelves that hung on
the wall, and went back to his work. Hürlin had no inclination to read,
but he took one of the books in his hand and opened it. It was an
almanac, and he began to look at the pictures. The first was a
fantastically dressed ideal woman's figure depicted as an ornament for
the title-page, with bare feet and flowing locks. Hürlin remembered
that he had a stump of lead-pencil in his pocket. He took it out, wet
it in his mouth, and drew two large round breasts on the woman's
bodice, which he continued to emphasize, wetting his pencil again and
again, until the paper was almost worn through. Then he turned the page
and saw with satisfaction that the impress of his artistic design had
gone through several other pages. The next picture on which he came
illustrated a fairy-story, and represented a kobold or some malicious
spirit with evil eyes, a fierce moustache and a huge open mouth.
Eagerly the old man wet his pencil again, and wrote under the monster,
in large, legible letters, "This is Weaver Sauberle, the manager."
He was proposing to go through the whole book and deface and defile it
all. But the next picture arrested his attention, and he forgot himself
in studying it. It represented the explosion of a factory, and
consisted of little beyond a huge mass of smoke and fire, around and
above which whole or fragmentary human bodies, bricks, plaster, laths,
and beams were flying through the air. This interested him, and led him
into trying to reconstruct the whole story, and especially to imagine
how the victims must have felt at the moment of being hurled into the
air. There was a charm and a satisfaction in this for him which held
him intent on the picture a long time; with all his egoism, he belonged
to the numerous class who find more to think about in other people's
fate, especially when it is strikingly illustrated, than in their own.
When he had exercised his imagination sufficiently on this exciting
picture, he went on turning over the pages, and presently came to
another that arrested him, though in quite a different way. It was a
bright and cheerful picture--a pretty arbor, on the outer boughs of
which hung a star for a sign. On the star sat, with ruffled neck and
open beak, a little bird singing. Inside the arbor was to be seen,
about a rough rustic table, a small group of young men, students
or roving journeymen, who chatted and drank a good wine out of
cheerful-looking bottles. To one side of the picture was visible a
ruined castle raising its towers to heaven, and in the background a
fair landscape stretched away, as it might have been the Rhine valley,
with a river and boats and distant hills. The revellers were all
handsome youths, merry and amiable lads, smooth-faced or with light
youthful beards, who were evidently singing over their wine the praises
of friendship and love, of the good old Rhine and of God's blue heaven.
At first this engraving reminded the morose and lonely man who looked
at it of his own better days, when he, too, could call for a bottle of
wine, and of the many glasses of good sound stuff which he had
consumed. But by degrees the conviction stole over him that he had
never been as happy and gay as these young revellers, even long ago in
his light-hearted years of wandering, when he had taken the road as a
journeyman-locksmith. The summer gladness in the arbor, the bright,
good-humored faces of the young people made him sad and angry. He
wondered whether it was all the invention of a painter, idealized and
false, or whether there were in reality somewhere such arbors and such
merry, carefree youths. Their smiling faces filled him with an envious
longing; the more he looked at the picture, the more he felt as though
he were looking for a moment through a small window into another world,
into a fairer country and the life of freer and more gracious men than
he had ever met in his life. He did not know into what strange kingdom
he was gazing, nor that his feelings were those of people who read
poetry, and get their pleasure in the beauty of the description from
the reflection how much smaller and meaner the every-day reality is,
passing into a slight, sweet sadness and longing. He did not well
understand how to extract the sweetness from this kind of sadness, and
so he shut the book, threw it angrily on the table, muttered a forced
"Good night," and went up to his room, where the moonlight lay on bed
and floor and chest and was reflected in the filled wash-basin. The
deep stillness, early as the hour was, the peaceful moonlight, and the
emptiness of the room, almost too large for a mere sleeping-chamber,
awoke in the rough old fellow a feeling of unbearable loneliness, from
which he escaped only after many muttered curses and some time later
into the land of slumber.
There followed days in which he sawed wood and enjoyed his afternoon
refreshment, alternating with days in which he was idle and did without
it. He often sat up there by the roadside, full of poisonous, malicious
thoughts, spitting down toward the town with all the bitterness of his
unrestrained heart. The feeling he had hoped for, of being at peace in
a safe haven, failed to visit him; instead, he felt himself sold and
betrayed, and either made violent scenes with the weaver or brooded
secretly in his own heart on the feeling of defeat and disgust and
ennui.
Meanwhile the term for which board had been paid for one of the
pensioners in private houses expired, and one day there came to the
"Sun" as a second guest, the former sailmaker, Lukas Heller.
While business reverses had made a drinker out of Hürlin, it was just
the opposite with Heller. Nor had he, like the manufacturer, fallen
suddenly from the height of showy riches; he had gone down slowly and
steadily, with the necessary pauses and interludes, from an uncommon
workman to a common vagabond. His good and energetic wife had been
unable to save him; rather, the hopeless struggle had been too much for
her, though she seemed much stronger than he, and she had died--while
her good-for-nothing husband enjoyed rude health, played the fool for a
few more years, and then, after he was ruined and dependent, went
lazily on with no apparent diminution of strength toward a ripe old
age. Of course his conviction was that he had had bad luck with his
wife as well as with the sail-making business, and that his gifts and
performances had merited a better fate.
Hürlin had awaited this man's arrival with great eagerness, for he was
growing daily more utterly weary of being alone. But when Heller
appeared, the ex-manufacturer stood on his dignity and would scarcely
have anything to do with him. He even grumbled because Heller's bed was
put in the same room with his, although he was secretly glad of it.
After supper, since his comrade seemed disposed to be so grumpy, the
sailmaker took a book and began to read. Hürlin sat opposite him and
threw occasional glances of suspicious observation at him. Once, when
the reader could not help laughing at something amusing, the other was
very much tempted to ask him what it was. But as Heller looked up from
his book at the same moment, evidently willing to communicate the joke,
Hürlin assumed a gloomy expression and pretended to be wholly absorbed
in the contemplation of a fly that was crawling across the table.
So they sat the whole evening through. One read, looking up
occasionally as if ready for a chat, the other watched him incessantly,
only turning his eyes away haughtily when his companion happened to
raise his. The manager worked away busily until late. Hürlin's face
grew more and more sour and hostile, although he was really pleased to
think he would no longer be alone in his bedroom. When ten o'clock
struck, the manager spoke: "Now you might as well be going to bed, you
two." Both rose and went upstairs.
While they were slowly and stiffly undressing in the dimly-lighted
room, Hürlin thought the time had come to enter on an inquiry into the
qualities of the companion in misfortune whom he had so long desired.
"Well, there's two of us now," he remarked, throwing his waistcoat on a
chair.
"Yes," said Heller.
"It's a pig-sty, this," the other went on.
"Oh--is it?"
"_Is_ it? I ought to know! But now there'll be a little life in
it--yes."
"Say," asked Heller, "do you take your shirt off at night or keep it
on?"
"In summer I take it off."
So Heller took his shirt off too, and lay down in the creaking bed.
Soon he began to snore loudly. But Hürlin's curiosity was not yet
exhausted. "Are you asleep, Heller?"
"No."
"There's plenty of time.... Tell me, you're a sailmaker, aren't you?"
"I was--a master sailmaker."
"And now--?"
"And now--you must think a lot of me, to ask such silly questions."
"Oh, you needn't be so snippy! You old fool, you may have been a master
sailmaker, but that's not so much. I was a manufacturer--I owned a
factory, do you understand?"
"You needn't shout at me--I knew that before. And after that, what did
you manufacture?"
"What do you mean, after that?"
"You know what I mean--in jail."
Hürlin emitted a bleating laugh. "Oh, I suppose you're one of the pious
kind--a psalm-singer, eh?"
"I? That's the last thing! No, I'm not pious--but at the same time I've
never been in jail."
"You wouldn't have been at home there. Most of the people there are
fine fellows."
"O Lord! Fine fellows of your sort? You're right--I shouldn't have
liked it."
"Some people have got to talk, whether they know what they're talking
about or not."
"Just what I was thinking."
"Oh, come now, be a good fellow! What made you give up the sailmaking?"
"Oh, don't bother me! The business was all right, but the devil got
into it somehow. It was my wife's fault."
"Your wife? Did she drink?"
"That would have been too much. No, I did all the drinking that was
done, as is mostly the case, not the wife. But it was her fault just
the same."
"Was it? What did she do?"
"Don't ask so many questions!"
"Have you got any childen?"
"One boy--in America."
"Sensible fellow--a man's better off there."
"You'd think so--but he's always writing for money, the rascal! He's
married, too. When he went away, I said to him, 'Friedel,' I said,
'good luck to you, and take care of yourself; do whatever you like--but
if you marry, there'll be trouble.' Well, now he's got himself into it.
Say, were you ever married?"
"No--but you see man can get into trouble even without a wife--don't
you think so?"
"That's according to the man. I'd have my own shop today, if it hadn't
been for my fool of a wife."
"H'm--!"
"Did you say anything?"
Hürlin was silent, and pretended to be asleep. He had a premonition
that if the sailmaker ever got fairly started on the subject of his
wife, there would be no end to it.
"Go to sleep, then, stupid!" cried Heller; the other did not allow
himself to be drawn, but went on deliberately taking long breaths,
until he really fell asleep.
Next morning the sailmaker, who at sixty did not need so much sleep,
was the first to wake. He lay for half an hour staring at the white
ceiling. Then, although he had seemed so stiff in his movements the day
before, he got out of bed as lightly and gently as a morning breeze,
stole over in his bare feet to Hürlin's bed without making a sound, and
began to explore the latter's clothes. He searched carefully through
them, but found nothing except the stump of a pencil in the waistcoat
pocket, which he took out and appropriated. A hole which he discovered
in the left stocking of his companion he enlarged with the help of his
two thumbs until it was of considerable size. Then he crept quietly
back to his warm bed and did not move again until Hürlin was awake and
up and had thrown a few drops of water in his face. Then he sprang up
nimbly and got into his trousers. He did not, however, hasten to finish
his toilette, and when the ex-manufacturer advised him to hurry, he
said "Oh, you go on down--I'll be after you in a minute." Hürlin did
so, and Heller heaved a sigh of relief. He seized the washbasin and
emptied the clean water out of the window--for he had a horror of
washing. When he had avoided this distasteful process, he was soon
ready to hasten down and get his coffee.
The making of the beds, tidying up the room, and polishing of shoes was
attended to after breakfast, of course without undue haste and with
plenty of pauses for conversation. The manufacturer found it all much
more sociable and pleasant in company than alone; he began to have very
friendly feelings toward his housemate, and to congratulate himself on
the prospect of a lively and cheerful existence. Even the inevitable
work seemed less terrifying than usual, and at the manager's summons he
went down to the yard with Heller, not indeed swiftly but with an
almost smiling countenance.
In spite of passionate outbursts on the part of the weaver and his
constant endeavors to conquer the reluctance of his charge, in the last
few weeks the wood-pile had shown very little alteration. It seemed
almost as high and wide as ever--as though it had the blessed
permanence of the widow's cruse of oil; and the little heap of sawed
bits lying in a corner, barely a couple of dozen, looked like the
result of a child's play, begun in a whim and as lightly thrown aside.
Now both the old men were to work at it. It was necessary to arrange
for a combination, since there was only one saw-horse and one saw.
After a few preparatory motions, sighs, and remarks, they conquered
their inner reluctance and addressed themselves to their task. And now,
unfortunately, Karl Hürlin's glad hopes showed themselves to have been
idle dreams, for the manner of working of the two displayed the
essential difference between them.
Each had his own special way of being busy. In both, alongside of the
innate overmastering laziness, a remnant of conscience exhorted timidly
to work; neither of them really wanted to work, but they wanted to be
able to pretend to themselves at least that they were of some use in
the world. They strove to attain this result in different ways; and in
these two worn-out and useless fellows, whom fate had apparently
destined to be brothers, there appeared an unexpected divergence of
aptitudes and inclinations.
Hürlin was master of a method by which, though he did next to nothing,
he was or seemed continually busy. The simple act of taking hold of a
thing had come with him to be a highly developed man[oe]uvre, owing to
the way in which he associated with this small action a noticeable
_ritardando_. Moreover, he invented and employed, between two simple
motions, as between the grasping and applying the saw, a whole series
of useless but easy intervening details, and was always concerned in
keeping actual work as far as possible from contact with his body by
such unnecessary trivialities. Thus he resembled a condemned criminal
who devises this and that and the other thing that must be done and
cared for and attended to before he goes to suffer the inevitable
penalty. And so he contrived to fill the required hours with an
incessant activity and to bring to them a pretence of honest toil,
without having really accomplished anything that could be called work.
In this characteristic and practical system he had hoped to be
understood and supported by Heller, and now found himself disappointed.
The sailmaker, in accordance with his inner character, followed an
entirely opposite method. He worked himself up by a convulsive decision
into a foaming fury, rushed at his work as though he did not care for
life, and raged at it until the sweat flowed and the splinters flew.
But this only lasted a few minutes; then he was exhausted--but he had
appeased his conscience, and rested in motionless collapse until after
a certain time the fury came upon him once more, and again he raged and
steamed at his task. The results of this fashion of working did not
notably surpass those of the manufacturer's.
Under these circumstances each was bound to be an offence and a
hindrance to the other. The hasty and violent method of Heller,
beginning at the wrong end, revolted the deepest feelings of the
manufacturer, while his steady sluggish appearance of doing something
was just as abhorrent to the sailmaker. When the latter fell into one
of his furious attacks on the job, Hürlin stepped back a few paces as
if alarmed and looked on scornfully as his comrade puffed and panted,
retaining, however, just enough breath to reproach Hürlin for his
laziness.
"Look at him," he would cry, "look at him, the good-for-nothing loafer!
You like that, don't you? to see other people doing your work! Oh yes,
the gentleman is a manufacturer. I believe you've been quite capable of
sawing away four weeks on the same log!"
Neither the offensiveness nor the truth of these reproaches stirred
Hürlin up very much; but he did not let Heller get the better of him.
As soon as the sailmaker, wearied out, stopped to rest, he gave him
back his accusations, finding a choice variety of ingenious terms of
abuse to describe him, and threatening to hammer on his thick head
until he should be in condition to mistake the world for a dish of
mashed potatoes and the twelve apostles for a band of robbers. It never
came, of course, to the execution of these threats; they were merely
rhetorical exercises, and neither of the adversaries regarded them in
any other light. Now and then they brought charges against each other
before the manager; but Sauberle was wise enough to decline to
interfere. "You fellows," he said crossly, "are not school-children any
longer. I'm not going to mix myself up with such squabbles--and there's
an end of it!"
In spite of this, both of them came again, each for himself, to
complain to him. Thereupon one clay the manufacturer got no meat for
his dinner; and when he defiantly asked for it, the weaver said merely
"Don't get so excited, Hürlin; there must be penalties now and then.
Heller has told me what you've been saying to him again this morning."
The sailmaker was not a little triumphant over this unexpected victory;
but at supper the thing was reversed--Heller got no soup; and the two
sly dogs realized that they were beaten at their own game. From that
time on there was no more tale-bearing.
But between themselves they gave each other no peace. Only now and
then, when they crouched side by side on the turf by the roadside and
stretched their wrinkled necks to look after the passers by, a
temporary soul-brotherhood grew up between them, as they discussed the
ways of the world, the weaver, the system of caring for the poor, and
the wretchedly thin coffee in their abode, or exchanged their slender
stock of ideas--which with the sailmaker consisted in a conclusive
psychology of women, with Hürlin in recollections of his travels and
fantastic plans for financial speculations on a grand scale.
"You see, when a fellow gets married--" that was how Heller always
began. And Hürlin, when it was his turn, opened with "If I knew anybody
who would lend me a thousand marks," or "Once upon a time, when I was
down at Solingen." He had worked there for three months many years ago;
but it was remarkable how many things had happened to him or come under
his notice in Solingen.
When they had talked themselves out, they sucked silently at their
usually empty pipes, folded their arms about their thin knees, spat at
irregular intervals on the road, and stared past the gnarled old
apple-trees down into the town whose outcasts they were, and whom in
their folly they held responsible for their misfortunes. Then they
became gloomy, sighed, made discouraged gestures with their hands, and
realized that they were old and played out. This always lasted until
their dejection changed again into malice, which generally took half an
hour. Then, as a rule, it was Lukas Heller who opened the ball, at
first with some little teasing remark.
"Just look down there!" he would cry, pointing toward the valley.
"What is it?" growled the other.
"You don't need to ask--I know what I see."
"Well, what _do_ you see, in the devil's name?"
"I see the cylinder-factory that used to be Hürlin & Schwindelmeier,
now Dallas & Co. Rich men they are, I'm told--rich men!"
"Oh, go to the deuce!" growled Hürlin.
"Thank you!"
"Do you want to make me out a swindler?"
"No need to make you one!"
"You dirty old sail-cobbler!"
"Jail-bird!"
"You're an old drunkard!"
"Drunkard yourself! _You've_ got no call to abuse decent people!"
"I'll knock in half a dozen of your teeth!"
"And I'll make you walk lame, my fine fellow. Bankrupt!"
Then the fight was on. After exhausting all the terms of abuse usual in
the locality, the imagination of both rascals would invent new ones of
the most audacious sort, until this capital too was used up, and the
two fighting-cocks would totter back to the house, exhausted and
embittered.
Neither had any dearer wish than to get the better of the other and
make him feel his superiority; but if Hürlin had the better brain, the
sailmaker was the more cunning--and since the weaver took no side,
neither could claim a real triumph over the other. Both longed ardently
to attain a position of superior consideration in the house; and they
employed for this purpose so much energy, caution, thought, and secret
obstinacy that with the half of these either of them, if he had put it
to use at the right time, might have kept his bark afloat instead of
becoming a Sun-Brother.
In the meantime the huge pile of wood in the yard had slowly become
smaller. What remained had been left for another time, and other
employments had been taken up. Heller sometimes worked by the day in
the mayor's garden, and Hürlin was occupied under the manager's
supervision in washing salad, picking lentils, shelling beans and the
like--tasks in which he was not required to overexert himself, and yet
could feel he was being useful. Under these conditions the feud between
the two brethren seemed slowly healing, since they never worked
together the whole day, and in their leisure hours each had enough to
complain of and to report. Each of them imagined, too, that he had been
selected for this particular work on account of special aptitudes which
gave him a certain superiority over the other. So the summer drew
along, until the leaves began to turn brown, and the evenings on which
one could do without a light until nine o'clock were no more.
At this time it happened to the manufacturer, as he was sitting alone
on the doorstep one afternoon and sleepily contemplating the world, to
see a strange young man come down the hill who asked the way to the
town hall. Hürlin was civil out of sheer boredom, went a couple of
streets with the stranger, answered his questions, and was presented
for his trouble with two cigars. He asked the next wagon-driver for a
light, lit one of them, and returned to his shady place on the
doorstep, where with enthusiastic delight he gave himself up to the
pleasure, long unknown, of smoking a good cigar. The last of it he put
into his pipe and smoked it until there was nothing left but ashes and
a few brown drops. In the evening, when the sailmaker came from the
mayor's garden, with, as usual, plenty to relate about the pear-cider
and white bread and radishes he had had for his lunch, and how
splendidly they had treated him, Hürlin also recounted his adventure
with long-winded eloquence, to Heller's great envy.
"And what have you done with the cigars?" he asked at once with
interest.
"Smoked them," said Hürlin, haughtily.
"Both?"
"Yes, you old simpleton, both."
"Both at once?"
"No, you fool, first one and then the other."
"Is that true?"
"Why shouldn't it be true?"
"Well," said the sailmaker, who did not believe the story, quickly,
"then I'll tell you something. You're a dumb ox, and a big one at
that."
"Am I? And why?"
"If you'd put one by, you'd have had something for tomorrow. Now what
have you got?"
This was too much for the manufacturer. With a grin he drew the
remaining cigar from his breast-pocket and held it before the eyes of
the envious sailmaker, in order to annoy him. "Do you see that?
There--I'm not such a God-forsaken idiot as you think I am!"
"Oh, so you've still got one left! Let me look at it."
"Hold on! I don't know--"
"Oh, just to look at it. I'm a judge of whether it's a good one. You'll
get it back right away." So Hürlin gave him the cigar. He turned it
about in his fingers, held it to his nose and sniffed at it awhile, and
said, as he reluctantly gave it back, "There you are--it's miserable
cabbage-leaf, the kind you get two for a kreuzer."
Then there arose a discussion as to the goodness and the price of the
cigar, which lasted until they went to bed. When they were undressing,
Hürlin laid his treasure on his pillow and watched it anxiously. Heller
mocked him: "Yes, take it to bed with you! Perhaps it'll have little
ones." The manufacturer made no reply; when his companion was in bed,
he put the cigar carefully on the windowsill and went to bed too. He
stretched himself luxuriously, and before he went to sleep still
savored the enjoyment of the afternoon, when he had so proudly
blown his smoke out into the sunshine, and when with the fragrance
something of his former splendor and consciousness of greatness had
returned to him. Just so in the old days, between his office and
his workshop, he had pulled at his long cigar and sent up careless,
lordly, captain-of-industry clouds. Then he went to sleep, and while
his dreams conjured up the picture of his vanished greatness in all its
glory, he stuck up his red and swollen nose into the air with the same
proud contempt of the world as in his best days.
In the middle of the night, however, contrary to his custom, he
suddenly woke up, and there he saw in the dim light the sailmaker
standing at the head of his bed, with a thin hand stretched out toward
the cigar on the window-sill.
With a cry of rage he threw himself out of bed and barred the retreat
of the malefactor. For a while no words were spoken; the two enemies
stood facing each other, breathing hard but not moving, surveying each
other with piercing glances of anger, uncertain themselves whether it
was fear or excess of surprise that prevented them from having each
other by the hair.
"Drop that cigar!" cried Hürlin at last, hoarsely. The sailmaker did
not alter his position. "Drop it!" shouted the other, and as Heller
still did not move, he hauled off and would undoubtedly have given him
a swinging blow if the sailmaker had not ducked in time. In the
movement, however, he dropped the cigar, Hürlin tried to grasp it,
Heller trod on it with his heel, and with a light crackle it went to
pieces. Then the manufacturer gave him a good one in the ribs, and the
next thing a fair tussle was on. It was the first time they had come to
blows; but their cowardice outweighed even their anger, and no serious
damage resulted. Now one advanced a step, now the other; the two naked
old men circled about the room without much noise as if they were
performing some antique dance, each a hero and neither receiving a
blow. This went on until in a favorable moment the manufacturer got his
hand on his empty wash-basin. He swung it wildly over his head and
brought it down forcibly on the skull of his unarmed foe. It did him no
particular harm, but the crash of the tin basin gave out a warlike and
resonant sound that rang through the whole house. At once the door
opened, admitting the manager in his nightshirt, who stood between
scolding and laughing before the duelists.
"You're a pair of precious old rascals," he cried, "knocking each other
about without a stitch on you, like a couple of old he-goats! Into bed
with you--and if I hear another sound, you'll get something to be
thankful for!"
"But he was stealing--" Hürlin began to shout, almost crying with rage
and injured dignity, only to be instantly interrupted and ordered to
keep quiet. The he-goats retreated muttering to their beds; the weaver
listened a few moments at the door, and when he had gone all was still
in the room. By the wash-basin the fragments of the cigar lay on the
floor; the pale summer night peeped in at the window, and over the two
old rogues in their deadly hatred hung the flower-bedecked text,
"Little children, love one another."
Hürlin extracted at least a minor triumph out of the affair the next
day. He steadfastly refused any longer to share the same room with the
sailmaker; and after a stubborn resistance the weaver was obliged to
give in and assign Heller another room. So the manufacturer once more
became a hermit; and glad as he was to be rid of the sailmaker's
company, it preyed on his spirits to such an extent that he realized
fully for the first time into what a hopeless _cul de sac_ fate had
thrust him in his old age.
The poor old man could make no cheerful prognostications. Formerly,
however badly things went, he had at least been free; even in his most
miserable days he had had a few pennies to spend at the tavern, and
could set out on his wanderings again whenever he chose. Now he sat
there, stripped of all rights and under discipline, never saw a copper
that he could call his own, and had nothing before him in the world
except to become older and feebler and, when his time came, to lie down
and die.
He began to do what he had never done before--to look up and down from
a high point of vantage on the Allpach road, over the town and along
the valley; to measure the white high-roads with his eye, and watch the
soaring birds and the clouds; to follow longingly with his eye the
passing wagons and the pedestrians that went up and down, as a mourning
exile from their company, left behind never to join them in their
journeys. To pass the evenings, he accustomed himself now to reading;
but from the edifying histories of the almanacs and pious periodicals
he often raised a distant and depressed eye, feeling that he had
nothing in common with such people and events, recalling his young
days, Solingen, his factory, the prison, the joyous evenings in the old
"Sun," and coming back always to the thought that now he was alone,
hopelessly alone.
Heller, the sailmaker, cast sidelong and malicious glances at him, but
after a time attempted to reëstablish intercourse with him. When he met
the manufacturer out at their resting-place, he would occasionally put
on a friendly expression and greet him with "Fine weather, Hürlin! I
think we shall have a good autumn, don't you?" But Hürlin merely looked
at him, nodded wearily, and made no sound.
In spite of all this, some thread would have gradually spun itself to
link the two perverse creatures together; out of his very melancholy
and disgust, Hürlin would have grasped as for dear life at the first
comer, if only to get rid now and then of the wretched feeling of
loneliness and emptiness. The manager, who was displeased by the
manufacturer's silent moroseness, did what he could also to bring his
two charges together. But finally a sort of salvation, if a dubious
one, came to all three. During the month of September there came to the
house at short intervals two new inmates--two very different ones.
One was called Louis Kellerhals; but this name was not known to anybody
in the town, for Louis had borne for decades the appellation of
Holdria, whose origin is undiscoverable. When, many years before, he
had become a pensioner of the community, he had been placed with a
friendly artisan, where he had been well treated and counted as a
member of the family. The artisan had now, however, died with
unexpected suddenness; and since his protégé could hardly be reckoned
as part of the inheritance he left, it was necessary for the poorhouse
to receive him. He made his entrance with a well-filled linen bag, a
huge blue umbrella, and a green wooden cage, containing a very fat
common sparrow. He seemed little upset by his change of quarters; he
came in smiling and beaming with cordiality, shook every one heartily
by the hand, spoke no word and asked no questions, brimmed over with
delight and kindliness when any one spoke to him or looked at him, and
even if he had not long been a well-known figure, could not have
concealed for a quarter of an hour the fact that he was a harmless and
well-meaning imbecile.
The second, who made his appearance about a week later, brought with
him not less joyful benevolence, but was not weak in the head; on the
contrary, though harmless enough, he was a thoroughly cunning fellow.
His name was Stefan Finkenbein; he was a member of the wandering
beggars' dynasty of the Finkenbeins, long well known throughout the
whole town and neighborhood. Of this complicated family two branches
had settled in Gerbersau, counting several dozen members. They were all
without exception sharp-witted fellows; yet none of them had ever come
to any notable fortune, for it was an inseparable characteristic of
their nature to love to be free as the birds and to rejoice in the
humor of having no possessions.
The said Stefan was still below sixty, and enjoyed perfect health. He
was rather thin, indeed, and his limbs were delicate; but he was always
well and active, and it was something of a mystery how he had been able
to foist himself upon the community as a candidate for a place in the
poorhouse. There were plenty of people in the town older, more
wretched, and even poorer. But from the very foundation of the
institution he had been consumed by a desire to enter it; he felt
himself a born Sun-Brother, and would and must be one. And now there he
was, as smiling and amiable as the excellent Holdria, but with much
less extensive baggage--for besides what he wore on his back he brought
nothing but a stiff Sunday hat of old-fashioned respectable elegance,
well preserved in shape if not in color. He bore himself as a lively
social light, accustomed to the world. Since Holdria had already been
assigned to Hürlin's room, he was put in with Heller, the sailmaker. He
found all his surroundings good and praiseworthy, except that the
taciturnity of his companions did not please him. One evening before
supper, as all four sat outside the door, he suddenly began: "Say, Mr.
Manufacturer, are you always so mournful? You're a regular streamer of
crape!"
"Oh, don't bother me!"
[Illustration: FLOWER MARKET AT LEYDEN]
"Why, what's the matter with you? Why do we all sit round, anyhow, so
solemnly? We could have a drop of something good once in a while,
couldn't we?"
Hürlin gave ear for a moment with delight, and his tired eyes
glistened; then he shook his head despairingly, he turned his empty
pockets inside out, and assumed an expression of suffering.
"Oh, I see--no coin!" cried Finkenbein, laughing. "Good gracious, I
always thought one of those manufacturer fellows had something jingling
in his purse. But today's my first day here, and it mustn't go dry like
this. Come on, all of you--Finkenbein's still got a little capital in
his breeches for a time of need."
Both the mourners sprang to their feet at once. They left the
weak-minded old fellow sitting where he was, and the three others
tottered off at a quick pace toward the "Star," where they were soon
sitting on a bench against the wall, each with a glass in front of him.
Hürlin, who had not seen the interior of a tavern for weeks and months,
was full of joyous excitement. He breathed in the atmosphere of the
place in long draughts, and absorbed his liquor in short, economical,
timid sips. Like a man awakening from an evil dream, he felt that he
had been restored to life again, and welcomed home by the familiar
surroundings. He brought out once more all the half-forgotten free
gestures of his old sporting days, banged thunderously on the table,
snapped his fingers, spat at ease on the floor and scraped noisily over
it with his foot. Even his manner of talking showed a sudden change,
and the full-toned words of power that recalled the days when he was a
commanding figure rang out from his blue lips with something of the old
brutal security.
While the manufacturer thus renewed his youth and sunned himself in the
afterglow of his old accomplishments and his bygone happiness, Lukas
Heller blinked thoughtfully at his glass and felt that the time had
come to repay the proud fellow for all his insults, and especially for
the dishonoring blow with the tin wash-basin on that memorable night.
He kept quite still and waited watchfully for the right moment.
Meantime Hürlin, as had always been his custom, began with the
second glass to listen to the conversation of his neighbors at the next
table, to take part in it with nods and grunts and play of expression,
and finally to interject an occasional "Oh yes," or "Really?" He felt
himself quite restored to the beautiful past; and as the conversation
at the adjoining table grew more animated, he turned more and more to
face the speakers and, as his old habit was, soon plunged with fire
into the clash of conflicting opinions. At first the other men paid no
attention to him, but presently one of them, a driver, suddenly cried
out, "Lord, it's the manufacturer! What's the matter with you, you old
rascal? Be good enough to hold your tongue, or I shall have to tell you
something!"
Hürlin turned away, cast down; but the sailmaker gave him a dig in the
ribs and murmured eagerly to him, "Don't let that fellow shut you up!
You tell _him_ something, the smarty!"
This encouragement at once inflamed the sensitiveness of the
manufacturer to new self-consciousness. He banged on the table
defiantly, moved a little nearer to the speaker, threw bold glances at
him, and spoke in his deep chest-tone, "A little more manners, if you
please. You don't seem to know how to behave."
Some of the men laughed. The driver answered, still good-humoredly,
"Look out for yourself, manufacturer! If you don't shut up, you may get
more than you bargain for."
"I don't have to," said Hürlin with emphatic dignity, once more egged
on by a nudge from the sailmaker; "I belong here just as much as you
do, and have got as good a right to talk as the next man. So now you
know!"
The driver, who had just paid for a round of drinks at his table and so
felt entitled to take the leading position, got up and came over, tired
of the altercation. "Go back to the poorhouse, where you belong!" he
said to Hürlin; then he took him, shrinking in alarm, by the collar,
dragged him over to the door, and helped him through it with a kick.
The others laughed, and were of the opinion that it served the
disturber right. The little incident was closed, and they resumed their
important discussion with oaths and shouts.
The sailmaker was happy. He persuaded Finkenbein to order one more
little drink, and, recognizing the value of this new associate, he bent
all his endeavors to establish friendly relations with him, to which
Finkenbein yielded with a quiet smile. He had once undertaken to beg
where Hürlin was already at work on the same line, and had been
forcibly warned off by him. In spite of this, he bore no grudge against
him, and declined to join in the abuse which the sailmaker now poured
out upon the absent man. He was better adapted than these who had sunk
from happier circumstances to take the world as it came and to tolerate
people's little peculiarities.
"That's enough, sailmaker," he said protestingly. "Hürlin's a fool, of
course, but by long odds not the worst in the world. I'm glad we've got
him to play the fool with up there."
Heller accepted the correction and hastened to adapt himself to this
conciliatory tone. It was now time to leave, so they moved along and
got home just in time for supper. The table, with five people sitting
at it, had now an imposing appearance. At the head sat the weaver; then
on one side came the red-cheeked Holdria next to the thin, decayed and
miserable-looking Hürlin. Opposite them sat the cunning sailmaker with
his scanty hair, and the merry, bright-eyed Finkenbein. The latter
entertained the manager successfully and kept him in good humor, from
time to time addressing a few jokes to the imbecile, who received them
with a flattered grin. When the table had been cleared off and the
dishes washed, he drew a pack of cards from his pocket and proposed a
game. The weaver was disposed to forbid it, but finally gave in, on
condition that the game should only be for love. Finkenbein burst out
laughing.
"Of course, Herr Sauberle. What else could it be for? I was born to
millions, but they were all swallowed up in the Hürlin stock--excuse
me, Mr. Manufacturer!"
They began to play, then, and for awhile the game went along merrily,
broken only by numerous jokes from Finkenbein and by an attempt at
cheating on the sailmaker's part, discovered and exposed by the same
clever person. But then the sailmaker began to feel his oats, and
displayed a tendency to make mysterious allusions to the adventure at
the "Star." At first Hürlin paid no attention; then he made angry signs
to stop him. The sailmaker laughed maliciously, looking at Finkenbein.
Hürlin looked up, caught the disagreeable laugh and wink, and suddenly
realized that Heller had been the original cause of his ejection and
was now making merry at his expense. This struck him to the heart. He
made a sour grimace, threw his cards on the table in the middle of a
hand, and could not be persuaded to continue the game. Heller saw what
was the trouble; he discreetly said nothing, and redoubled his
endeavors to place himself on a friendly footing with Finkenbein.
Thus the fat was in the fire again between the two old antagonists; and
the discord was all the worse because Hürlin was now convinced that
Finkenbein had known of the plot and helped it along. The latter bore
himself with unchanged geniality and comradeship; but since Hürlin now
always suspected him, and took in bad part his jesting designations as
"the Councillor," "Herr von Hürlin," and the like, the Sun-Brotherhood
soon split into two parties. The manufacturer had soon grown accustomed
to the silly Holdria as a roommate and had made him his friend.
From time to time Finkenbein, who from some hidden source or other had
now and then a little money in his pocket, proposed another secret
excursion to the tavern. But Hürlin, strong as the temptation was for
him, kept a stiff front and never went with them, although it hurt him
to think that Heller was thus getting the better of him. Instead, he
stayed at home with Holdria, who listened to him with radiant smiles or
with large, troubled eyes when he growled and cursed or when he drew
fanciful pictures of what he would do if any one lent him a thousand
marks.
Lukas Heller, on the other hand, cleverly kept up his relations with
Finkenbein. It was true that in the early days he had exposed the new
friendship to grave peril. One night, in his characteristic fashion, he
had gone through his roommate's clothes, and found thirty pfennigs in
them which he appropriated. The victim of the theft, who was not
asleep, watched him calmly through his half-closed eyelids. Next
morning he congratulated the sailmaker on his dexterity, paid him high
compliments, requested the return of the money, and behaved as though
it had all been a good joke. In this way he got Heller completely in
his power; and although the latter had in him a good, lively comrade,
he could not pour out his complaints against Hürlin to him quite as
unrestrainedly as could Hürlin to his ally. And his diatribes against
women soon became wearisome to Finkenbein.
"That's all right, sailmaker, that's all right. You're like a
hand-organ with only one tune--you haven't any changes. As far as the
women are concerned, I dare say you're right. But enough of anything is
enough. You ought to get another waltz put in--anything else, you
know--otherwise I wouldn't care if some one stole you."
The manufacturer was secure against such declarations. This was well
enough, but it did not make him happy. The more patient his auditor
was, the deeper he sank in his melancholy. A few times the sovereign
light-heartedness of the good-for-nothing Finkenbein infected him
for half an hour to the extent of reviving the grand gestures
and sententious utterances of his golden days--but his hands had
grown stiff, and the words no longer came from his heart. In the
last sunshiny days of autumn he sometimes sat under the decaying
apple-trees; but he never looked on town and valley now with envy or
desire. His glance was far-away and strange, as if all this meant
nothing to him and was out of his range. As a matter of fact, it did
mean nothing to him, for he was visibly breaking up and had nothing
more ahead of him.
His decline came on him very swiftly. It was true that soon after his
downfall, in the thirsty days when he first grew well acquainted with
the "Sun," he had grown very gray and begun to lose his agility. But he
had been able for years to get about and drink many a glass of wine and
play the leading part in a conversation in the tavern or on the street.
It was only the poorhouse that had really brought him to his knees.
When he had rejoiced at his installation there, he had not realized
that he was cutting off the best threads of his life. For he had no
talent for living without projects and prospects and all sorts of
movement and bustle; and it was when he had given in to weariness and
hunger and abandoned himself to rest that his real bankruptcy took
place. Now there was nothing left for him but to wait a little while
until his life went out.
The fact was that Hürlin had been too long accustomed to tavern life. A
gray-haired man cannot break off old habits, even when they are
vicious, without damage. His loneliness and his breach with Heller had
helped to make him increasingly silent; and when a great talker grows
silent, it means that he is well on the road toward the churchyard.
It is a depressing sight when an artist in life, even on a small scale,
who has grown old in elegant trifles and ostentation and self-seeking,
instead of coming to a sudden end in a fight or as he goes home at
night from the tavern, must live on to grow melancholy and end as a
dabbler in the sentimental reflections which have always been foreign
to him. But since life is incontestably a powerful composer, and thus
cannot be accused of senseless caprices, there is nothing for it but to
listen to the strains it produces, to admire, and to think the best of
it. And after all there is a certain tragic beauty in the thing when
such a spirit, that has been spoiled and left raw and then beaten down,
rebels at the very end and clamors for its rights, when it flutters its
awkward wings and, since nothing else is left, insists on having its
fill of bitterness and complaint.
There was much now that came to rub and gnaw at this rude, ill-trained
soul; and it became evident that its earlier stubbornness and
self-control had rested upon insecure foundations. The manager was the
first to realize his condition. To the pastor, on one of his visits, he
said with a shrug of his shoulders: "One can't really help being sorry
for Hürlin. Since he's been looking so down in the mouth, I don't make
him work; but it's no use--that's not what's troubling him. He thinks
and studies too much. If I didn't know his sort too well, I should say
it was just his bad conscience, and serve him right. But that's not all
of it. There's something gnawing at him from inside--and at his age a
fellow can't stand that long. We shall see." After this the minister
sat now and then with Hürlin in his room, near Holdria's green
bird-cage, and talked to him of life and death, and tried to bring some
light into his darkness--but in vain. Hürlin listened or not as his
mood was, nodded or hummed, but spoke no word and grew constantly
stranger. Once in a while one of Finkenbein's jokes would appeal to
him, and he would give a dry laugh or beat on the table and nod
approvingly; but immediately afterward he would sink into himself again
to listen to the confused voices that claimed his attention and
tormented him without his being able to understand them.
Outwardly he only seemed quieter and more plaintive, and all treated
him much as before. The imbecile alone, even if he had not been himself
so feeble-minded, was capable of understanding Hürlin's condition and
his gradual decline and feeling a certain horror at the sight; for this
friendly and peaceful soul had become the manufacturer's constant
companion and friend. They sat together by the wooden cage, put their
fingers in between the bars for the fat sparrow to peck at, lounged of
a morning, now that winter was coming on, by the half warm stove, and
looked at each other with as much comprehension as if they had been two
sages instead of a pair of poor hopeless fools. You can see at times
two wild beasts locked in together looking at each other in just the
same way; according to the mood of the observer, their gaze will seem
dull, amusing, or terribly moving.
What troubled Hürlin most was the humiliation he had experienced at the
"Star" through Heller's instigation. At the very table where he had
long sat almost daily, where he had spent his last penny, where he had
been a good customer, a friend of the house and a leader in debate,
there landlord and guests alike had looked on and laughed when he was
kicked out. He had been forced to feel in his own bones that he
belonged there no longer, that he did not count, that he had been
forgotten and struck off the list and had no longer any shadow of
rights.
For any other scurvy trick he would have avenged himself on Heller at
the first opportunity. But now he did not even bring out the accustomed
words of abuse that sat so easily on his tongue. What could he say to
him? He had been entirely right. If he were still the same man as of
old, still worth anything, they would not have dared to turn him out of
the "Star." He was done for, and might as well pack up and go.
And now he looked forward to contemplate the destined straight and
narrow path, an uncounted series of empty, dull, dead days, and at the
end of it death--of which he thought sometimes with longing, sometimes
with an angry shudder. It was all settled, nailed down and prescribed,
unmistakable and inevitable. There was no longer any possibility of
falsifying a balance-sheet or forging a paper, of turning himself into
a stock-company, or by tortuous paths through bankruptcy sneaking out
again into life. He was no longer a firm or a name--only a worn-out old
man before whom the abyss of the infinite opened in all its terror,
with the grisly skeleton silently grinning at him to cut off his
retreat. Though the manufacturer had been accustomed to many different
kinds of circumstances and knew how to find his way about in them,
these were different. Now he tried to wave them away with weak gestures
of his old arms, now he buried his face in his hands, shut his eyes,
and trembled with fear of the unescapable hand which he felt descending
to grasp him.
The good-hearted Finkenbein, coming gradually to suspect that all
manner of ghosts were closing in upon the manufacturer, sometimes gave
him an encouraging word, or clapped him on the shoulder with a
consoling laugh. "I say, Mr. Councillor, you oughtn't to study so much.
You're quite clever enough--in your time you got the best of plenty of
rich and clever people, didn't you? Don't be cross, millionaire--I
don't mean any harm. It's just my little joke--man, think of the holy
text up over your bed!" And he would spread out his arms with a
pastoral dignity, as if in blessing, and recite with unction, "Little
children, love one another!"
"Or, wait a bit," he would say again, "we'll start a savings-bank, and
when it's full we'll buy from the town its shabby poorhouse, and take
the sign out and make the old "Sun" rise again, so as to get some oil
into the machine once more. What do you say to that?"
"If we only had five thousand marks--" Hürlin would begin to reckon;
but the others would laugh, and he would break off, heave a sigh, and
return to his brooding.
When winter had fully come, they saw him getting more silent and
restless. He had fallen into the habit of wandering in and out of the
room, sometimes grim, sometimes with a look of terror, sometimes with
one of watchful cunning. Otherwise he disturbed nobody. Holdria often
kept him company, falling into step with him in his incessant
wanderings through the room, and answering to the best of his powers
the glances, gestures, and sighs of the restless rambler, always
fleeing before the evil spirits whom he could not escape because he
carried them with him. Since all his life he had loved to play a
deceiver's part and played it with varying luck, now he was condemned
to play through to a desperately sad end with his harlequin-like
manners. He played miserably and absurdly enough--but at least the role
corresponded to himself, and the former poseur now for the first time
came on the stage without his mask, not to his advantage. The
realization of the infinite and the eternal, the longing for the
inexpressible, innate in this soul as in others but neglected and
forgotten through a whole lifetime, found now, when it swelled up, no
outlet, and attempted to express itself in grimaces, gestures, and
tones of the strangest kind, absurdly and laughably enough. But there
was a real power behind it all; and the uncomprehending desire for
death was certainly the first great and, in the higher sense, rational
movement which this small soul had known for years.
Among the queer performances of a mind off the track was this, that
several times a day he crawled under his bed, brought out the old tin
sun, and offered it a foolish reverence. Sometimes he carried it
solemnly before him like a holy monstrance; sometimes he set it up in
front of him and gazed upon it with entranced eyes, sometimes he smote
it angrily with his fist, only to take it up tenderly the moment after,
caress it and dandle it in his arms before he restored it to its
hiding-place. When he began these symbolic farces, he lost what little
credit for intelligence remained to him among his housemates, and was
put down with his friend Holdria as an absolute imbecile. The sailmaker
especially regarded him with undisguised contempt, played tricks upon
him and humiliated him whenever he could, and was seriously annoyed
that Hürlin seemed to take so little notice of him.
Once he got the tin sun away from him and hid it in another room. When
Hürlin went to get it and could not find it, he roamed through the
house for a while, looking for it repeatedly in many different places;
then he addressed impotent threatening speeches to all the inmates, the
weaver not excepted; and when nothing did any good, he sat down at the
table, buried his head in his hands, and broke into pitiful sobbing
which lasted for half an hour. This was too much for the sympathetic
Finkenbein. He gave a mighty box on the ear to the terrified sailmaker,
and forced him to restore the concealed treasure.
The tough frame of the manufacturer might have resisted for many more
years, in spite of his almost white hair. But the desire for death,
though it was working almost unconsciously in him, soon found its way
out, and made an end to the ugly tragi-comedy. One night in December it
happened that the old man could not sleep. Sitting up in bed, he gave
himself to his desolate thoughts, staring at the dark wall, and seemed
to himself more forsaken than usual. In this mood of weariness, fear,
and hopelessness he finally rose from his bed without knowing too well
what he was doing, unfastened his hempen suspenders, and hanged himself
with them to the top of the door-jamb. So Holdria found him in the
morning, and the imbecile's cry of horror soon brought the manager.
Hürlin's face was just a little bluer than usual, but it was impossible
to disfigure it very much.
It was a terrible surprise, but its effect was of short duration. Only
Holdria whimpered softly over his bowl of coffee; all the others knew
or felt that the manufacturer's end had come at a good time for him,
and that there was no real cause for regret or horror. And then no one
had loved him.
Of course a few penny-a-liners made haste to investigate the
interesting case, and communicated to the readers of their cheap
papers, together with the necessary moralizings, the fact that the not
unknown bankrupt Karl Hürlin had made a rather suitable end as a
suicide in the poorhouse.
When Finkenbein had come as the fourth inmate, there had been
some complaints in the town about the way in which the newly-founded
institution was rapidly filling. Now one was gone from the number; and
though it is true that paupers are usually of robust constitution and
reach a good old age, yet it is also true that a hole seldom stays as
it is, but seems to eat into the stuff around it. So it was here, at
any rate. The colony of good-for-naughts was scarcely founded before
consumption seemed to set in and went on working.
For the moment, indeed, the manufacturer seemed to be forgotten, and
all went on as before. Lukas Heller took the lead in the little
community, so far as Finkenbein would allow him the primacy, made the
weaver's life a burden to him, and managed to put off half of the
little work he was supposed to do upon the willing Holdria. He was thus
comfortable and cheerful; he began to settle down as in a warm nest,
and resolved not to worry under these delightful circumstances, but to
live many years for his own pleasure and the annoyance of the citizens.
Now that Hürlin was gone, he was the eldest of the Sun-Brothers. He
made himself quite at home, and had never in his life found himself so
much in harmony with his environment, whose secure though not luxurious
peace and idleness left him time to stretch himself easily and to
contemplate himself as a respectable and not altogether useless member
of society--of the town, and of the world as a whole.
It was otherwise with Finkenbein. The ideal picture of a
Sun-Brother's life which his lively fancy had painted in such glowing
colors was far different from what he had found the reality to be. To
be sure, to all appearance he was still the same light-footed jester as
of old; he enjoyed his good bed, the warm stove, the solid and
sufficient food, and seemed to find no fault with anything. He
continued to bring back from mysterious trips into the town a few small
coins for drink and tobacco, in which he generously allowed the
sailmaker to share. He was seldom at a loss to know how to pass the
time, for he knew every face up and down the road, and was a general
favorite--so that at any house or shop door, on bridge or steps, by
wagons or push-carts, as well as at the "Star" and the "Lion," he was
able to enjoy a gossip with any one who came along.
In spite of all this, he was not at ease. To begin with, Heller and
Holdria were hardly satisfying daily companions for him, who had been
used to intercourse with livelier and more rewarding people; and then
he found increasingly burdensome the regularity of this life, with its
fixed hours for rising, eating, working, and going to bed. Finally, and
this was the main point, the life was too good and comfortable for him.
He was trained to alternating days of hunger with days of feasting, to
sleeping now on linen and now on straw, to being sometimes admired and
sometimes browbeaten. He was used to wandering where the spirit moved
him, to being afraid of the police, to having little games with the
fair sex, and to expecting something new from each new day. He missed
this poverty, freedom, movement and continual expectation here; and he
soon came to the conclusion that his admission to the house, which he
had procured by many stratagems, was not, as he had thought, his
master-stroke but a stupid mistake with troublesome and lasting
consequences.
If these views led Finkenbein to a somewhat different end from the
manufacturer's, it was because he was in everything of an opposite
temperament. Above all, he did not hang his head, nor did he let his
thoughts travel ceaselessly over the same empty field of mourning
and dissatisfaction, but kept them fresh and lively. He paid little
heed to the future, and danced lightly from one day into the next. He
captivated the weaver, the simpleton, the sailmaker Heller, the fat
sparrow, the whole system on their humorous side, and had retained from
his old life the comfortable artist's habit of never making plans or
throwing out anchors for wishes or hopes beyond the situation of the
moment. So it proved successful for him now too, since he was assured
and provided for the rest of his days, to lead the life of the birds
and the flies; and it was a blessing not only to him but to the whole
house, whose daily life acquired through his presence a touch of
freedom and of elegant hilarity. This was distinctly needed--for
Sauberle and Heller had, of their own resources, hardly more than the
good-natured simpleton Holdria to contribute to the cheering and
adornment of the monotonous existence.
So the days and weeks flowed along quite tolerably, and if it was not
always jolly, at least there were no more quarrels or discords. The
manager worked and worried himself thin and weary; the sailmaker
greedily enjoyed his cheap comfort; Finkenbein shut one eye and lived
on the surface of things; Holdria positively bloomed in eternal peace
of mind, and increased daily in amiability, in appetite, and in weight.
It would have been an idyllic state of things--but the haggard ghost of
the dead manufacturer was hovering about. The hole was destined to grow
larger.
And so it came to pass that on a Wednesday in February Lukas Heller had
some work to do in the woodshed in the morning; and since he was still
unable to work in any other way than by fits and starts and with long
pauses, he came and sat down under the archway in a perspiration and
developed a cough and a headache. At midday he ate hardly half his
usual amount; in the afternoon he stayed by the stove shivering,
coughing, and swearing; and by eight in the evening he went to bed.
Next morning the doctor was sent for. This time Heller ate nothing at
all at dinner; a little later fever set in, and in the night Finkenbein
and the manager had to take turns in watching by him. The next thing
was that the sailmaker died, recalcitrant, envious, and by no means
patient or tranquil; and the town was rid of one more pensioner, which
no one regretted.
It was to have better luck still. In March an unusually early spring
set in, and things began to grow. From the big mountains to the ditches
by the roadside, everything became green and young; the high-road was
peopled by precocious chickens, ducks, and traveling journeymen, and
birds of every size flitted through the air on joyous wings.
The growing loneliness and stillness of the house had been getting more
and more on Finkenbein's nerves. The two deaths seemed to him of evil
omen, and he felt more than ever like the last survivor on a sinking
ship. Now he took to smoking and leaning out of the window by the hour
into the warmth and mild spring feelings. A sort of ferment was in all
his limbs and around his still young heart, which felt the call of
spring, remembered old days, and began to consider whether there might
not be a spring for it too amidst all this universal growing, sprouting
and well-being.
One day he brought back from the town not only a packet of tobacco and
the latest news, but also, in a worn bit of waxed cloth, two new pieces
of paper which were adorned with beautiful flourishes and solemn
official blue seals, but which had not been procured at the town-hall.
How should such an old, bold traveler not understand the delicate and
mysterious art of producing on nicely written documents any desired
stamp, either old or new? It is not every one who knows how to do it;
it takes skilful fingers and much practice to extract the thin inner
skin of a fresh egg and spread it out without a wrinkle, to press on it
the stamp of an old certificate of residence and permit to travel, and
to transfer it cleanly from the damp skin to a new paper.
One fine day, then, Stefan Finkenbein disappeared without any flourish
of trumpets from the town and the district. He took for his journey his
tall, stiff hat, and left behind as a sole memento his old woolen cap
which was almost falling to pieces. The officials instituted a small
and considerate investigation. But since rumors soon came in that he
had been seen in a neighboring jurisdiction, alive and happy in a
favorite resort of his kind, and since nobody had any interest in
bringing him back without necessity, standing in the way of whatever
happiness he might find, and continuing to feed him at the town's
expense, it was decided to abandon the investigation and allow the free
bird, with the best of wishes, to fly wherever he chose. Six weeks
later came a postcard from him to the weaver, in which he wrote:
"Honored Herr Sauberle: I am in Bavaria. It is not so warm here. Do you
know what I think you'd better do? Take Holdria and his sparrow and
show him off for money. We might both travel on that. Then we might
hang up Hürlin's sign. Your true friend, Stefan Finkenbein,
Doorknob-gilder."
There might have been more trouble in the almost empty nest of fate,
but the last Sun-Brother, Holdria, was too innocent and of too
sedentary a disposition. Fifteen years have gone by since Heller's
death and Finkenbein's disappearance, and the imbecile still dwells,
sound and rosy-cheeked, in the former "Sun." For a while he was the
only inmate. The numerous personages who were qualified held back
discreetly and timidly for some little time; the terrible death of
the manufacturer, the swift taking off of the stout sailmaker, and
the flight of Finkenbein had gradually shaped themselves into a
widely-known theory, and surrounded the dwelling of the imbecile for as
much as six months with bloody legends and tales of horror. After this
period, however, need and laziness again brought several guests to the
old "Sun," and since that time Holdria has never been alone. He has
seen some curious and tiresome brothers come, share his meals, and die;
and at this moment he is the senior of a company of seven, without
counting the manager. Any warm, pleasant day you may see the whole
company on the turf by the side of the hill-road, smoking their stumpy
pipes and with weather-beaten faces and various feelings looking down
on the town which in the meantime has grown considerably up and down
the valley.
ERNST ZAHN
* * * * * *
STEPHEN THE SMITH (1906)
TRANSLATED BY KATHARINE ROYCE
Chapter I
Toward the south lay a wood, while toward the north lay another wood.
Between these woodlands spread the white, wintry plain. A road ran
directly onward from the southern wood, and a road ran just as directly
outward to the black woodland on the north. This broad and snowy road,
cut by deep wheel ruts, trampled by many heavy footprints, was really
all one road, but the blacksmith's shop, which stood midway between the
two woodlands, and between the two parts of the road, seemed to cut it
into two separate parts. The two colors, white and black, of which this
landscape was composed, struck the eye powerfully, almost oppressively.
All day long no other tone was to be seen but these two, but they
filled so wide a space and were so very strongly marked, that they
seemed to weigh down the picture and changed the loveliness, which it
perhaps might have in summer, to mournful gloom. There stood the two
black pine woods, like the frame of the picture, between heaven and
earth. The sky was white with clouds and the earth with snow. Both the
snow and the clouds were so white, that each reflected upon the other a
painfully livid brightness. The road was white, but sharply cut by the
shadows that lay in the wheel tracks and footprints. The blacksmith
shop also was black and white. The shingled roof, from which the wind
had swept the snow, was black, while the whitewashed walls beneath it
were dirty white. Through the wide open doorway the interior of the
smithy could be seen, like a cavern, and the smoke streaming out had
made a sooty streak from the door to the eaves.
The gloomy landscape lay quiet; for it was Sunday and the road was but
little traveled. The smithy also was quiet. Only the door of the
workshop stood open as on a working day: Stephen, the smith, never
closed it all the year round. Neither was there any sign of life inside
the house; and yet there were three people sitting in the living room,
and a fourth, Katharine, the maid, had just left the room and gone into
the kitchen. At the long, deal table, dark with age, sat the three,
Stephen, the smith, Maria, his wife, and the blond Ludwig, his brother.
In the dark room reigned the same gloomy desolation that lay over the
surrounding landscape. If one stepped from outside into the bare living
room, the strange similarity of the one with the other, would strike
one like a blow in the face. There were the bare, sooty, whitewashed
walls, the grimy floor, a black stove, clumsy, dark colored chairs, a
rough table, a chest of drawers to match, with a soiled crocheted cover
on it. There sat these people, with three tin plates and a steaming
platter before them. At the head of the table sat the smith, in a
strong chair with hard wooden arms, which creaked whenever Stephen
moved, for he was as heavy as lead. His tall form, as strong as oak,
was surmounted by a head covered with crisp curling black hair. His
chin was framed by a short, thick, woolly beard, and his eyebrows and
moustache stood out from his face like black tufts of hair. The skin on
his face was red as if it had been toughened by fire, and it was
furrowed by wrinkles and scars. His forehead, which seemed like a rock,
was more marked by wrinkles than his cheeks by scars; a red streak ran
across his blunt, thick nose. One eye was black and most unfriendly
looking, while the other eye was lacking; the half-closed eyelid hung
over the empty, inflamed socket.
[Illustration: ERNST ZAHN]
The smith sat erect, and his hairy right hand lay on the well-worn old
Bible, from which he read every evening before supper. His two
companions at table sat with strange humility at each side of the
smith. Even now when the maid had left the room, all was still, as if
no one could breathe. At last Ludwig, the smith's brother, pushed his
chair back angrily and started to rise from the table.
"I will not sit here any longer," he exclaimed. His face was fair and
young by contrast with the other, his figure slenderer, and more
supple, and his ways more refined, such as one brings back from foreign
lands. But his features resembled Stephen's, and his hair and beard
were thick and wavy like the other's, only they were blond, beautiful
silvery blond.
"Of course you will stay," said the smith in a low tone, but shortly,
and gloomily, and as he raised his heavy arm to draw his brother back
into the chair, the latter sat down again. He sat there as before,
stooping over and staring at his plate. So too, sat Maria gazing into
her plate. Yet her graceful blond head rose erect from her black neck
frill, and her throat, which was of a strange, transparent, blue-white
tint, showed a beautiful, upward curve; so that her depression only
showed in the timid droop of her eyelids.
The smith took up the Bible. "And you are going to read too!" said the
blond brother breathlessly, turning toward him suddenly, and once more
half rising from his chair.
Stephen seized him by the wrist. "I shall do the same as every day.
When you have eaten your supper, you may go, and not before!"
Ludwig sank back again. There was no use in trying to do anything else;
he could not prevail against his brother's bodily strength.
Mastering both the others with his quiet force, the smith sat towering
above them and began to read from the Bible. He did not seek long. He
opened the book and turned a few leaves.
"And Cain talked with Abel his brother: and it came to pass, when
they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and
slew him."
Stephen closed the book with a bang. "Well--I made it short enough,
didn't I?" said he. A peculiar drawn look disfigured his face yet more.
His lower jaw seemed to tremble as if with physical pain. Then he went
on: "A man can also kill his brother, without laying hands on him--he
can--he can--kill his soul, you see."
Two tears ran down Maria's pale, delicate face into her plate. She
trembled as if with cold or fear. The blond brother snatched up his
sharp table-knife. "Now let me go, you!" he muttered savagely.
The table stood between him and the door. Stephen rose and stood before
the door. His head reached almost to the ceiling of the high room. His
shoulders were broader than the doorway that he was guarding. "Lay the
knife down," said he. The other looked up at him and obeyed. It was
unthinkable that he could defend himself against such a man.
Stephen came slowly back to the table. "When you are through eating,
no one will keep you any longer," said he, "but supper must be
eaten--everything in regular order."
So then they ate their strange meal together. Each took his portion
from the platter onto his plate; Ludwig set his teeth and ate, neither
more nor less than on ordinary days, the smith ate just as usual, but
Maria took only a few drops which seemed to choke her. When they
had eaten in silence, Ludwig rose, and forced out two or three words.
"Now--perhaps I may go--now--" and he took his blacksmith's cap from a
chair near by.
Stephen Fausch, the smith, did not hinder him. He too arose, picked up
his ragged leather apron from the floor, and tied the stiff thing on.
Meanwhile his brother stepped to the door. There he made some sign to
Maria, and for a moment it seemed as if she too was going to turn
toward him; but in an instant it was as if fear had overcome them both.
Maria put the plates together, and the blond young man left the room
without any sign of farewell. With leisurely tread the smith followed
his departing brother.
On the landing Ludwig picked up a traveling sack that was already
packed, slung it on a stick, and shouldered it. Then he walked out with
a long, firm stride, exactly like his brother Stephen's. The smith
followed the younger man down the steps of the house and as far as the
workshop, into which he stepped for a moment. When he had fumbled about
among his tools and came back to the threshold, he was carrying his
heavy sledge hammer in his right hand, from long habit. He stood
leaning on the blackened handle, the heavy head of the hammer buried in
the snow, and looked after his brother, who was walking along the road
northward, toward the wood. Above this wood a sharp, orange red streak
now seemed to slash through the monotony of the landscape like a gaping
wound. The sun was sinking. The dark, still and motionless wood seemed
to keep watch and ward over the young man's path, above this the flame
colored band, against which the separate treetops were outlined as if a
fret-saw had cut them out of the brilliant background. A yellow tint
lay also upon the road, and Ludwig's figure, the only living thing in
sight, looked taller and sharply outlined. He now stood still, looked
about him and threw the sack from his shoulder onto the snow. When
Stephen saw this, he stepped out into the road and planted himself
firmly there, as if he were asking: What's this? What now? The brothers
stood thus for several minutes, and it was strange to see the two men
standing in the middle of the road, burly and motionless as if defying
each other: "You can't make me stir from this spot." Finally Ludwig
took up his bundle, strode off with rapid steps, soon reached the wood
and disappeared. Then Stephen Fausch also left the road. He busied
himself in the workshop for a while, and then went back to his wife.
Maria seemed to have been whispering with the maid in the kitchen. As
she heard his step on the landing, she slipped back into the living
room, and as he entered, she seemed undecided what to busy herself
with, and afraid that he might notice her confusion. Since she found
nothing to her purpose, she turned at the window and faced him,
supporting herself with trembling hands on the window-sill. The waning
light streamed over her blond head, her slender shoulders, and her
delicate, long neck. Her face was almost as white as her throat, her
eyebrows were light and glistened against her brow like gold. Her blue
eyes were big and dark with fear.
Stephen walked up to her and placed a chair in front of her. Then she
shrank together, and crossed her slender arms, as if she were cringing
from a blow.
"You needn't shiver so, I shall not beat you," said the smith. Her lips
parted, but no words came at first.
"Let me--let me go--I--don't want to be in your way any more," she
stammered at last.
Fausch sank into the chair, close in front of her: he was now like a
block, barring her way. "Don't try it," said he, "you know me--don't
you try to run away, I should have you brought back!" He threw his arm
over the back of the chair, and the sudden movement made her shrink
again, as if he had meant to strike her.
"No, no, I will stay," she whispered, trembling.
He leaned forward and gazed long at his beautiful wife, from head to
foot. "You have nobody left," he said slowly. "Your people are all
dead. That is why you took me, as you told me, for the sake of a home.
But--you have one thing--a pretty face--you have that! And Ludwig found
that out too."
Stephen spat.
"He--we--it all came over us so"--Maria began to explain in a
frightened tone.
"Ha, ha!" laughed the smith, and grasped her wrist, which his hand
encircled like a handcuff, and shook her.
She cried out.
"Be still," he commanded, "I shall not beat you." Then he pushed her
from him. She slipped away to the back part of the room, found her
knitting, dropped into a chair and began to put the stitches in order.
"When is the child coming?" asked Fausch after a while, speaking over
his shoulder. Obediently she put her hand to her forehead and thought.
"It will be in the summer," she said humbly.
Stephen got up. He took off his leather apron and went into the next
room. After a time he came back in his Sunday coat, passed his wife
without a word, and went out of the door. He made his usual trip to the
tavern as his custom was on Sundays. It was late when he came home.