Simmen, the landlord, sent for Fausch to come to his little office,
which was near one of the guest rooms. It was a small room, containing
a table strewn with papers, and a chair in front of it; at this table
Simmen used to make out the bills for his guests. A little oil lamp
that hung from the ceiling was burning, and threw a fairly good light
upon the two men, and around the room.
It was the evening of the day when the landlord had scolded his
daughter on Cain's account.
Simmen looked very much displeased.
Fausch had come just as he was, dirty, and leaning a little forward, as
if he had to thrust his great head through a wall. Something seemed to
be seething in his mind, and it often seemed as if he was so busy with
his own thoughts, that he could scarcely take heed of what the landlord
wanted him for.
"You've got to send that boy away," began Simmen in an excited
tone. "My--my daughter has seen too much of him, as young as she
is, the child! She is locked in, upstairs now, until she grows
tamer--but--you must send the boy away, and soon too."
Simmen's anger was evident in his hasty, broken speech. He and Vincenza
must have had a stormy time together.
Fausch looked down and made no answer. His thoughts held full sway
over him.
Simmen thought that he was considering what had just been said to him.
"Anyway, it will be good for him, to go out into the world, your boy,"
he went on, trying to persuade Fausch. "It is always useful for young
people."
"True," muttered the smith; he seemed to be waking up. "I will see," he
added, and as Simmen began to advise him as to where he might send his
boy, and offered to do something for him, he said "Yes, yes," in
answer. The host might take it for assent if he chose. When he had
forced out these few words in answer to Simmen, Fausch shifted from one
foot to the other a few times, as if the ground were hot beneath his
feet, then suddenly he walked out exactly as he had come in, with
clumsy, almost groping steps, as if he were blindly following his own
thoughts.
At supper, he sat with Cain and Katharine, more silent than ever. Only
when the boy began to talk very earnestly once more about going away,
he spoke harshly to him: "Can't you keep still till you're spoken to?"
Cain was not afraid of him. He fixed his clear eyes on his father's
face. "I will depend upon myself as much as I can," he went on,
speaking of his plans.
Fausch did not answer him again.
"Then--I must go, without your consent," Cain concluded, firmly.
"Tomorrow morning early--I shall--"
Katharine, who scarcely knew what had happened, came around the table
and took hold of the boy's sleeve with trembling fingers: "My boy--my
boy!" she said in a warning tone.
But Fausch was a strange picture, as he sat there. His powerful form
was trembling, as if with rage: "Can't you wait?" He forced the words
out between his teeth. "Can't you wait till we have time to think of
something for you?"
Cain was startled at his father's appearance and agreed. "When will you
let me go then?" he asked.
"You shall soon see," said Fausch in the same troubled tone.
Cain and Katharine looked at each other involuntarily; they had never
seen him like that before. He sat bowed over on the table; from time to
time his dark and horny hands opened and shut convulsively, as if he
were squeezing something in his hand.
"Are you ill?" stammered Cain. Then the smith pulled himself together.
"Nonsense!" he growled, and then: "You shall not go, until I have
thought things over for you."
There was something in these words that did not permit Cain to oppose
him. "Then I will wait," said he. In the passageway he turned to
Katharine, who stepped out of the room with him. "What is it, what is
the matter with my father?" he asked.
Poor old Katharine was silent and thoughtful. "He is not easy to make
out, the master," said she.
But after this conversation, Stephen Fausch passed a long, anxious,
sleepless night. His bedroom was above the blacksmith shop, and was
as bare as all the old monastery had been; a hard bed, a chair and a
table were the only furniture. Fausch sat on the bed, near the open
window, from which he could see the lakes and the whole Alpine valley.
At the supper table, an idea had come to Fausch, when Cain had
spoken again of going away. "If the boy wants to go out of your life,
Stephen Fausch, cannot you just as well pass out of his?"
He realized that it was the story of himself and the boy together that
gave the material for all the scandal. And he knew perfectly well that
it was he, Stephen, whose appearance and manner were so conspicuous,
and who had played the principal part during the course of the events,
who chiefly reminded people of the story. Cain was young and fresh and
very much like other people. He lived in the present time, and suited
the present time, so that the world could take pleasure in him just as
he was, and therefore might not ask very much about his past, if there
was nobody there, who was associated with the past and so was more
bound up with it than Cain himself. He, Stephen, was the chief obstacle
that prevented Cain's story from sinking into oblivion. If he parted
from the boy, people would judge him for what he was, instead of for
what he had been!
Fausch had carried these thoughts upstairs with him, and they would not
let go their hold on him. As he sat on his bed, he was struggling with
these ideas.
Until now, Fausch had gone his own way without troubling himself about
anyone. And if a wall stood in his way, he had pushed through it with
his obstinate head, and if anything else was in his way, he had kicked
it aside with his heavy boots. Now for once he must yield, he must
admit that--that in his self-will he had been unjust. If for the boy's
good he should go away, it would be like begging Cain's pardon for what
he had done to him, he, Stephen Fausch, who had no need to ask anyone's
pardon!
This idea was so distasteful to him, that he laughed aloud and was too
angry to sit still. He snatched up the chair by its back and put it
over by the window, and sat down there and gazed out into the night.
The night was very still and clear. There were not many stars in the
sky, but it was mysteriously bright as if from some inner light, and
the few stars in sight were large and still, especially one, which was
just above a dark mountain and had a smaller companion directly above
it. The star gave a bluish light, like moonlight, that shone downwards
from far over the mountain. The great, solemn, silent wall of
mountains, that stood round about the pass, were so clear-cut at the
sky line, that one could count every summit; in the pass itself there
was still a soft light, so that a part of the road was visible in the
midst of the darkness, and the surface of one of the lakes lay
glistening through the night.
At first Fausch did not see this nocturnal landscape, for his anger
seemed, as it were, to lay a hand over his eyes. But gradually the
brilliancy of the two stars, the larger and the smaller, caught his
attention, then the dark distinctness of the mountains, and then the
gray shimmering road and the strange light on the lake. But the more
the great silent picture of the night gained power over his soul, the
more did it appease his anger, until there grew in the mind of this
strange man a stillness and clearness like that which lay over the
landscape. At the same time something recalled to his memory how the
boy Cain and Vincenza had lately wandered about together so often in
this same landscape. The picture of the two handsome young people had
fitted admirably into the frame of this beautiful country. He could
still see them, as plainly as if they were actually before him, hand in
hand, now over by the lake, and again on that distant hill slope.
Perhaps it was because of his remembrance of the evening when he had
gone to look for them, and had found them at the Schwarzsee, that their
image grew upon him, so sharp and distinct, as they had walked close
together, young and slender, and each with a different sort of beauty.
He seemed to see them, and rejoiced in them as he did in the beauty of
the night, and--
Gradually the reason why he was still awake came back to him: Cain
wanted to go away! He had been happy and contented up there, and now he
must go!
Fausch stretched himself. "He shall not go, the boy, I say so!" When
this idea came into his head, he almost spoke the words aloud.
And now another thought forced itself upon him: "If he is to stay here,
you will have to sing small, Stephen Fausch, you will have to take back
half your life and say, I am sorry that it was all wrong!" He breathed
heavily, as if he were lifting an enormous weight that was almost too
much for human strength. Then he seemed once more to see Cain and
Vincenza walking side by side.
"And--and--you must leave the boy," the thought came over him again.
"And--you needn't deny it--you miss him whenever he is away from you.
Since--since Maria gave you up for the other--you have had no other joy
in your life like him--it isn't so easy to leave him for--always, you
needn't pretend, Stephen Fausch!"
The smith rose and laid his hands on the window-sill. He leaned far out
of the window for a long time. The cold night wind blew over his face.
But it seemed as if as he rose he had made his last great effort. He
passed his shapeless hand over his forehead and hair, rubbed his eye
with one finger, as if he had just waked up and now he was fully in
control of himself. By means of his strange, holiday joy in the two
young people, whom he saw wandering through the loveliness of the
night, the same strange inner joy that he felt in all beauty, he
overcame the other tyrannical force which was the foundation of his
character. It had taken a long time, years indeed, and it had been a
life and death struggle, but yet Stephen Fausch had--perhaps only for a
few days, or even a few hours, yet he had conquered his own obstinacy.
What Fausch thought of and reasoned out during the rest of the night,
as he walked up and down the room, Simeon, the landlord learned on the
following morning, and the others might guess it later if they chose.
In the morning, not very early, for haste was not according to Fausch's
habits, he went to see the landlord. "May I have another word with
you?" he asked.
The very fact that the taciturn fellow came of his own accord
astonished Simmen. He willingly opened the door of his little office
for him, sat down once more at his table, and Fausch stood on the very
same spot as on the previous evening. Everything in the little room was
just the same, except that the lamp was not burning. A gray light
reflected from a bare rocky slope, filled the room.
"Have you anything against the boy himself, just as he really is,"
began Fausch without any preamble.
Now Simmen had slept the whole long night since yesterday's fit of
anger, and in the morning his wife, who was quieter than he, and rather
peaceable for all that she was so resolute, had interposed between him
and the stubborn Vincenza to such good purpose that his anger had
passed away. He listened to Fausch's question quietly, settled himself
comfortably in his chair, and answered: "What should I have against
him? On the contrary, he is handy, very useful and a confoundedly
handsome fellow, only you must send him away, Fausch--it wouldn't suit
me at all, what was beginning between my daughter and him, that--"
He said all this quietly, sometimes making a gesture to explain his
words better. When he paused, Fausch began to speak. Simmen could not
understand the first word that he spoke, he brought it out with so much
difficulty, and only gradually did his speech become clearer and more
connected.
"I--I--want to ask you," he began--"keep him here, my boy. I marked him
with that name--so that everybody points at him. I--did him an
injustice! Don't send him away for that. I--"
Fausch had to pause a moment. The sweat stood on his dark forehead. He
passed his hand helplessly across it.
"Yes, yes," said Simmen meanwhile, "What you say is all very true,
but--still he can't stay here, where he will see Vincenza every day--"
Fausch came nearer and interrupted the landlord. Still in the same
broken and difficult way he went on: "You said yourself that the boy is
all right. He ought to come into notice--I think."
At that Simmen laughed: "Only not for my girl--not for Vincenza! She
can take her choice by and by--Smith--I tell you, down in Italy as well
as on our side." His laugh turned into a smile. It had done him good to
boast of his own property, while speaking of his daughter's prospects.
The smith looked about him almost timidly. It was strange to see such a
self-willed man stand there helpless and confused. He laid one hand on
the landlord's arm, and his hand was trembling. "I will give the boy up
to you," said he. "If I go away from him altogether, it will soon be
forgotten, what he was, and how it was when we were together. Believe
me, Simmen. And then when I am gone you could lead him just as you want
to. And by and by no one would ask any more what his name was, or where
he came from--and if he does not turn out as you expect--you could send
him away any time--you could--"
He stopped suddenly. Then he reached out his hand, because he could not
find the right words, and his face blazed scarlet. It came over him
that he was like a beggar. Simmen looked silently at the floor. He was
a reasonable man, and he saw what his words cost the smith, indeed he
hardly recognized him. And the boy was a good boy, one in whom you
could take some pleasure--and--Simmen could not help it, that
Vincenza's face seemed to come before his eyes. The girl's behavior did
not seem as if the smith's boy meant merely a passing fancy to her.
"You'll never repent it," Fausch forced the words out.
Thereupon the landlord replied thoughtfully: "So let it be then. I will
give him employment, Franz, and--he will stay here alone, as I said!
Time will show what comes of it--not that he is to think--that he is
going to get the girl--But he will do well enough for me so far!"
The last few words Simmen said for his own satisfaction, meaning to
cloak his own yielding disposition.
"Good!" said Fausch, and no more, not one unnecessary word. The way in
which he now spared his words, showed how hard it must have been to
bring them out before. His awkwardness slowly changed back again into
moroseness. Once, when he was already on the threshold, it seemed as if
something more had occurred to him. He half turned back toward Simmen,
but changed his mind. With his brow thrust forward, he tramped heavily
out of the house. "Good-by!" he said.
Simmen looked for some time at the door through which the smith had
passed. Only now did he become fully aware, how bitter the hour must
have been for the smith. He could still see him standing there,
dragging out one sentence after another, as if he were doing some
fearfully heavy piece of work, then stopping again and feeling, as it
were, for the words which he could not find. At last he wrenched his
thoughts away from the image of Fausch and began to consider the
circumstances that had brought him here. He was not at all pleased to
have Fausch leave the smithy again, for he had had no other such worker
there, but yet he agreed with him as long as he and the boy were
together, their common story would never be buried in oblivion. So the
smith must go, certainly he must go. If the boy--if Franz alone was
there--Simmen brought his fist down on the table half angrily, half
laughing to himself--it wasn't really so wholly impossible, that they
should make a match of it, the boy and Vincenza! The host thought how
nicely Franz had served in the guests' room, and what a favorite he had
been with the travelers, and he, Simmen, was not a narrow minded man: A
serious and hardworking man stood higher in his esteem than a rich or
well born man of whose character one could not feel so sure. So it did
not seem so impossible to him, about Vincenza and the boy. But--Simmen
hit the table another blow as if he were impatient--all the same the
affair was not quite to his taste.