Maria, the smith's wife, had not been spoiled. At home her father and
her brothers had beaten her, and now that they were all dead, although
indeed, as Fausch's wife, she had no more blows to endure, yet her life
with Stephen was none the easier because he did not strike her, as
others might have done; for Stephen was a violent man--though his will
was violent rather than his fists. No one else had a will of such a
bull-like obstinacy. For this reason many pitied his wife, and this was
why she cringed; she had grown used to cringing.
In Waltheim, the village to which the smithy belonged, a bit of news
had been traveling about for some time: Ludwig Fausch was gone, and had
been sent away by his brother, the smith, on account of Maria, his
wife. She was going to have a baby! Finally--Ludwig--
More they would not say. The love of gossip is so mean. They only
hinted, and never spoke out plainly.
All the life of the great country road passed by the smithy, a road
that came from far away, and went on and on, to vanish in the far, far
distance. Heavy teams came by on working days, as well as the lighter
traveling carriages of country doctors or commercial travelers and the
rumbling carts of the peasants. They knew of the smithy on their way,
and used to give Stephen Fausch work. His best customers were the
cattle and horse dealers, who used to travel to North Germany, and also
southward toward Italy. They called the smithy their halfway house and
always had Fausch attend to their wagons and their animals. Moreover,
they had a certain weakness for the stubborn fellow, or perhaps this
weakness was only fear of him, since he had gradually come to be a sort
of master over the stretch of road on which he dwelt. Among the
traders, little Moritz Hallheimer was the one who came from the
greatest distance. He was a wiry, thin old man, neat and active, with
gray beard and hair, bad teeth, and weak eyes hidden behind dark
glasses. He was shrewd and talkative and knew a great many people, and
because he thought Stephen one of the most unusual men among his
acquaintance, he always stopped a while at the smithy and watched him
with wonder, but could never understand him.
One evening in early summer, Moritz Hallheimer arrived from Waltheim.
He was sitting in his small open wagon, driving his brown trotting
horse without any whip. On both sides and at the back of the wagon were
tied six horses that he had for sale. Their hoofs and legs were white
with dust, for they had made a long journey. The trader came onward
from the woods toward the smithy through the golden light of the
setting sun. So bright was this golden haze between him and the
blacksmith shop, that the horses and wagon could not be seen, and
Stephen, the smith, who was hammering at a wagon in front of his
workshop, suddenly saw him appear with his trotting horses as if coming
out of a fire. Fausch shaded his eyes with his swarthy arm, then he
bent once more over his work and let the trader come up to him.
Hallheimer found other customers already there. For a time the road was
blocked with vehicles. Two peasants stood watching Stephen, who was
mending their broken pole with a metal ring. Beyond them, a woman sat,
on a wagon loaded with vegetables, waiting for the smith to shoe her
mare who had gone lame.
"Good evening, Stephen," said the trader, and received a curt
greeting in return. Then Fausch drove the last nail into the pole of
the peasants' wagon. As he stood erect again, the brilliant purity of
the evening seemed, as it were, to recoil from his grimy figure. No
brightness appeared on his swarthy face surrounded with the thick black
beard. His flannel shirt, trousers and leather apron, and even his arms
and hands were as dark as the inside of his workshop, whose dinginess
he seemed, as it were, to wear on his person. And the grimy fellow, who
seemed really an insult to the sunset glow, stood there like a tree
trunk, taller and broader than any one else on the road.
"You can harness up," said he to the peasants, who at once went to
bring their poor old nags from a hitching post near by. The vegetable
woman began to unharness her little horse; but Stephen did not concern
himself about her. He turned to the trader.
"You have come over the mountains from Italy?" he asked.
Hallheimer held out his hand, which the smith took, at the same time
glancing at the wagon and inspecting the horses.
"I haven't any work for you today," said the trader, "I only thought I
would pass a word with you."
"The gray has a shoe loose," said Stephen, untying the horse he had
pointed out.
"Never mind. He can easily go as far as the stable," said the other,
declining the proffered aid; but Stephen was already leading the
creature to the ring in the wall, where he tied him. So the little man
got down from the wagon, laughing to himself, and let the smith have
his own way. He knew Stephen. Whatever he took into his head, he must
do. Many complained of him for this reason. He never asked what work he
should do, but took it in hand himself, and did it according to his own
ideas, no matter if the customers told him ten times over that they
wanted it done differently.
Meanwhile the woman on the vegetable wagon was growing uneasy. "Hallo,
smith," she called out, "I came here first. You must take my horse
first!"
"That's so," said Hallheimer goodnaturedly, "she did come first."
"After I've done with this, or not at all," said the smith, loosening
the shoe from the gray's foot.
The woman scolded and swore. "What kind of behavior is that! Do you
think I have stolen my time? Are you going to let me take my turn or
not?"
"After I've done with this, or not at all," said Fausch, and as she
came up close to him, he turned his back on her with a jerk. At this,
she was beside herself, harnessed up her horse and turned away from the
smithy toward Waltheim. Her grumbling could be heard for some time.
While the smith was still busy shoeing the trader's horse, a piece of
work which he did without any help, an agonizing cry was heard through
the closed windows of his house. Then a second and a third.
"What's that?" asked Hallheimer.
"She is in labor," growled Stephen.
Thereupon the trader, thinking to make himself agreeable, tried to say
something fitting. "If only it is a boy, to carry on your name, Stephen
Fausch ..."
The smith muttered something to himself, which his companion could not
understand.
"The first child! What a pleasure it will be to you," the trader went
on eagerly.
"It isn't mine," said Stephen Fausch gruffly. With his one eye he
glared at the man, so that his words stuck in his throat. Only then did
the rumor that he had heard occur to Hallheimer:--the rumor that the
smith's wife had been over-intimate with her husband's brother.
At the top of the stone steps of the house there now appeared a woman
who looked very stout, because she wore so many petticoats. With an
important and mysterious look, she nodded to the smith.
"It has come, Stephen Fausch. You have a boy. I--wish you joy!" she
called out. Since the smith behaved as if he saw and heard nothing, her
embarrassment increased; she went dejectedly back into the house.
Stephen laid down the file with which he had been scraping the horse's
hoof, and slowly turned to the trader. "Did you hear what the mid-wife
said?" he asked.
Moritz Hallheimer felt in his pocket and took out a little goldpiece.
"You must make the child a present at the christening," said he,
offering the goldpiece to the smith. But Stephen would not notice the
trader's hand. The eager little old man was quite out of countenance.
He laid the goldpiece on the window-sill of the workshop. "Take it to
the child, Fausch, take it," he begged in his embarrassment.
The horse was now shod, and Stephen led it back to the wagon and tied
it there. Suddenly he raised his great dark head. "Do you know what the
boy's name is going to be?" he asked, and his face had the same
stubborn look that it had worn when he told the vegetable woman to
wait. It seemed as if his square forehead projected still more and even
his nose had a more obstinate and uncompromising look. "He is going to
have a queer name, the boy," he went on. He was uncommonly talkative,
though he spoke slowly and with difficulty: "A strange name. He is to
be called Cain."
As he said this, he came out from behind the wagon and approached
Hallheimer, looking at him with a grim laugh.
"What--what's that you say?" stammered the little man.
The smith nodded. "Yes, yes," he said.
"You can't mean that," said the other. He got into his wagon, took his
place on the seat and repeated: "You don't mean that, Fausch."
"He is going to be called Cain," said Stephen indifferently, without
raising his voice. But his manner seemed to say: "Move me if you can."
The trader looked for some money, to pay for the work, and handed it
down to the smith. "They'll refuse to name the child that," said he.
"They'll have to," answered Stephen. "Did you pick up anything among
the Italians this time?" he asked. And without ceremony he reached in
under the oilcloth cover that was spread over the trader's wagon.
Hallheimer leaned back from his seat into the wagon and took out a
little box without any cover from under the oilcloth. "I may as well
show you this," said he. In the box lay an object carefully wrapped in
cloth and cotton wool. Hallheimer unpacked it and handed it to the
smith. "A Roman bronze," said he, "I got it in Milan from an old junk
man."
Stephen took the little figure, a boy running a race, a work most
delicately and perfectly formed. He placed it upright on the palm of
his broad, fire-scorched hand. The sun had gone down behind the woods,
and only the afterglow still lay over the road, but on the smith's
heavy hand the tiny figure stood as if it were alive, in the infinitely
pure light.
The trader watched the smith raising and lowering his arm, as if the
better to appreciate the beauty of the work of art. Then Fausch began
to speak. His voice was quiet and almost deeper than usual, and yet one
seemed to hear his quickened breathing. "Only see--the position, the
head, the youthful brow, the chest, just look--Hallheimer--!"
"This one pleases you too, does it?" asked the trader. His glance
rested on the heavy, grimy man, who stood bending forward, with a look
of devotion on his dark, almost ugly face. Wasn't he a strange fellow!
Stubborn and rough, like a brute! And yet there was in him something
fine and delicate, that seemed foreign to him. God knows in what corner
of his heart lurked this--this fineness, that made anything beautiful
that he saw affect him as the minister's sermon or a great joy or--no
matter what, might affect other people. Every time Hallheimer came near
the man he had to wonder at him, and--because he wondered at him, he
kept on stopping to see him and--but--but, he was going to have the
baby christened Cain--
Presently Stephen gave the statuette back. "Thank you for showing me
that," said he. "If I can ever manage it, I will go to Italy myself,"
he added, and turned toward the south, gazing into the distance and
seeming quite to forget the trader and his wagon.
Hallheimer packed up his property and took the reins. "I must go," said
he, "Goodby, Stephen Fausch." And then he drove on.
The smith did not take the trouble to look after him. The wagon rolled
away, accompanied by the trampling sound of the horses' feet. It was
quite a while before Fausch went slowly back to his workshop, where he
rummaged among his things, putting them in order, and once stepped to
the door, as a wagon drove rapidly by; then he looked up at the windows
of his house, as if he recollected himself, and then went up the
outside steps. The trader's present of the goldpiece he left lying
where it was.
As Fausch stepped into the dark upper passageway, the woman who had
already told him the news came toward him, "It is good that you have
come, Fausch," said she hurriedly, "I--I think you'd better send for
the doctor. I don't like the way your wife is."
Then Fausch passed by her and went into the bedroom where Maria lay.