_Autumn!_
To the loftiest heights
I wished to soar,
Each nethermost depth
I hoped to explore.
Things near and far
I craved to behold,
Each mystic secret
I fain would unfold.
A boundless roaming,
A hope unwaning
An endless seeking,
A never-attaining--
Such was my life.
But now, oh wonder!
It has been done,
A blissful dream
I now have won.
From a narrow circle,
Why should I depart?
I hold life's fullness
Confined in my heart.
Soft veils of azure
Sank down from above.
A magic circle
Of heavenly love
Now is my life.
These rhymes, together with disconnected sentences in prose, fragments
of thought of all kinds, bits of Greek and Hebrew script and other
scribbled notes, were all on one and the same page. And this page lay
on the writing table of Assistant Pastor Unwirrsch, and Assistant
Pastor Unwirrsch sat in front of it, rested his forehead in his hand
and looked through the open window at the sea which glistened beneath
the veiled sunlight and on which little white dots--the sails of the
fishing boats of Grunzenow--glided back and forth.
Autumn!
On Christmas morning of the year before Hans and Fränzchen had gone
down from the mist-covered churchyard into a quiet, happy time of
labor and love. Under the loving touch of the young girl life had
changed very much for the better in the Grunzenow mansion and soon the
uncouth people of the village would have gone through fire and water
for their young lady. The old gentlemen in the picture frames did not
turn their darkened visages to the wall; a little more and Grips would
now have declared that they were laughing just as if their ladies were
not hanging beside them. Grips had fallen under Fränzchen's spell as
had every inhabitant of the village and castle; the spell was cast
upon him, as he said, and to his praise we must say that he endured
this sorcery with grim cheerfulness and that he never lost more of his
martial gravity than when he heard the young lady's voice in pleading
or thanks, or when her little hand beckoned.
If the servants had thus succumbed to the magic influence it can
easily be imagined how easy "the child" made the existence of the
Colonel and her uncle. Once more Colonel von Bullau had "not thought
it would be like that;" he was happy and only a little jealous of the
lieutenant who was more than happy. It was touching to see and to feel
how tenderly the two old soldiers treated the girl, how one tried to
surpass the other in consideration and attention and how the "pet" had
to protest to prevent them from carrying the whole Grunzenow mansion
to another place on her account. The Colonel's head hummed and buzzed
with the most wonderful plans and suggestions for making the neglected
place into a Paradise; every night something occurred to him and every
morning he came out with something which was not always as highly
practical, pleasant and easily carried out as he imagined. Grips, the
ingenious man and factotum, had never stood as high in his master's
esteem as now. Every few minutes demands were made upon his talent for
painting, cabinet making, gardening and the art of decoration; Colonel
von Bullau himself developed a sense of color and painted the most
impossible things with the gayest colors possible. Never before had his
castle been so much his home; it made him forget not only the Polish
Buck in Freudenstadt, but even the "slayers of nine" in their corner.
Lieutenant Rudolf's fur boots were carried up to the smoke house so
that they might be protected from moths, the wheel chair was trundled
into the storeroom, the gout took its departure and went to stay with
people who were more worthy of its visit. The lieutenant marched about
as briskly as a youth and enjoyed his Fränzchen and enjoyed his life;
the cheerful present made it easy for him to forget all the trouble of
the past. He had mourned for his brother and at the same time rejoiced
in his release; of Kleophea he seldom spoke but when he did so it was
never with hatred but with pity and gentle excuses. Only when the
names of his sister-in-law and Théophile were mentioned did he fly
into a rage and snort with wrath, anger and contempt; but the widow
of the Privy Councillor Götz, _née_ von Lichtenhahn, and Dr. Stein
were not often spoken of in Grunzenow. The old gentleman's feelings
and utterances in respect to his niece's fiancé were very changeable
at first and it was not until the season of long days came that they
became confirmed in equable good humor. If he was a little jealous of
the Colonel he was very jealous indeed of poor Hans. The smiling god
who had so splendidly followed suit when the sly old man had so subtly
put his card into the game, certainly smiled once more at the psychic
process through which Lieutenant Rudolf now passed. His unlimited
amazement was followed by long-winded doubting astonishment at himself
and the world; his wise recognition that what is done cannot be undone
was followed by the usual philosophic attempts to see the matter in
the right and best light possible. It was not until about the time of
the vernal equinox that Uncle Rudolf reached the same point in his
argumentations as Uncle Grünebaum in similar cases, namely that he did
not hesitate boldly to maintain to himself and the world that he had
brought Candidate Hans Unwirrsch from Kohlenau and introduced him into
his brother's house for the very purpose that he might fall in love
with Fränzchen and Fränzchen with him. While climbing in this way the
ladder of victory over himself, his cheerfulness and contentment grew
so much with the growing days of the young year that when the longest
day came it would have been as impossible for them to increase further
as it was for the days themselves.
Autumn!--In the verses which stand at the head of this chapter Hans
has really said everything that he could say about his _vita nuova_ on
the shores of the Baltic; but even if he now no longer "departed from
a narrow circle," still, it was not a narrow life. He had longed so
much for real, thorough work; now he had his full share of it and did
his duty as a true man should. After the most reverend chief consistory
and the government had approved his appointment as assistant pastor,
the aged Tillenius smilingly loaded a good part of his official burden
upon Hans' back and the latter had never taken any load upon himself
more readily. Although he came from inland the sea-faring folk were
satisfied with his sermons and grew to love him. He baptized the first
child, laid the first body in the earth and married the first couple
and it was very seldom that Pastor Josias Tillenius had to tell him
that neither he, himself, nor the people of Grunzenow had understood
him, their Assistant Pastor.
He had never experienced such a spring and such a summer as in this
first blessed year of his life in Grunzenow. All the glories of a dream
did not equal the reality of those golden days of love and hope on the
shore of the Baltic. He looked into life clearly and courageously;
whatever indecision and instability nature and fate had laid in his
character he sought to thrust away from him with a manly will. All he
had to thank fortune for he sought to deserve and more than deserve
by faithful endeavor and earnest striving. The indefinite hunger
of his youth had now become the quiet, deliberate, steady endeavor
that, active in millions, keeps mankind in its course and leads it
on. Johannes Unwirrsch had learnt to know life, both its good and its
evil side. Now all the circles through which he had wandered with all
their figures, charming and terrible, had sunk into the past; he stood
in the middle of a sphere which his activity was to fill. It was not
indifferent to him that no tie bound him to his home town any longer,
that he could bring nothing with him from Kröppel Street into his new
life but sweet, melancholy remembrance and the shining glass globe
which had formerly hung above his father's table. This glass globe now
threw its brilliance on the life which Master Anton Unwirrsch had built
up in his dreams of the true life on earth; but no generation extends
far enough into the coming generations to see fulfilled its ideals
which by that time are seldom the only ones.
Autumn!
The days of spring and of summer were past; but the autumn sun shone
as lovely as ever and land and sea rejoiced in it. Nevertheless the
Assistant Pastor at the open window had the right to disregard it in
spite of all its glory; it was the seventh of September and on the next
day, the eighth, a Sunday, his wedding was to take place. He had not
made those rhymes in the moment in which he scribbled them down among
the other fragments of thought.
Pastor Tillenius had chosen and fixed the wedding day; with art and
diplomacy Pastor Tillenius had cajoled Uncle Rudolf and Colonel von
Bullau into giving their consent and had held them to their promise
when the two old gentlemen had wanted to take it back and not give up
"their girl." Pastor Tillenius, backed by the apostolic principle: a
bishop must be the husband of one wife--had held the field against the
two obstinate, stubborn old soldiers. It was settled that Fränzchen was
to leave the Grunzenow mansion and move to the vicarage;--Fränzchen
herself had also given her consent and after all that was the most
important thing.
Autumn! What was all the rapture of spring and summer compared with
the bliss that autumn promised to give? It seemed as if all the birds
of passage must stay to join in the celebration of the wedding and the
honeymoon.
After the Grunzenow household had once resigned itself to the
inevitable, it took infinite pleasure in the necessity and threw itself
into the preparations for the festive day with an eagerness that
surpassed everything. The Colonel was in a mild fever day and night,
the lieutenant in a similar condition; but great indeed was Grips, the
man for everything.
Who can find praise enough for the man's dexterous hand? Now it boxed
the ears of a too stupid stable-boy; now, with deliberation, it drove
in a nail on which to hang a self-twined garland. Grips had learnt
something during his campaigns.
The village was stirring too. Old and young wanted to do their part
toward making the eighth of September a day to be remembered in the
annals of Grunzenow. For weeks beforehand the women and girls were
busy, for weeks the sexton, who was teaching the children the wedding
cantata, slept badly with inward excitement and too vivid dreams of
success and glory, of failure, disgrace and shame.
Pastor Josias Tillenius composed his wedding address and as he gave to
it the most beautiful although the saddest memories of his own life,
and all of his good, full, old heart, it turned out admirably without
being written down or learnt by heart.
On the seventh of September all the preparations were ended: meat and
drink were not lacking in the Grunzenow house; the columns and pillars
were festooned, the doors stood open to let the wedding joy in and the
bride out.
"Soft veils of azure
Sank down from above.
A magic circle
Of heavenly love
Now is my life,"
these were the words that the bridegroom had written on the bescribbled
page in his study in the vicarage. Everything was ready and Fränzchen
softly laid her hand on Hans' shoulder, glanced smilingly at the paper
in front of him and led him out of the house to her favorite spot on
the seashore.
It was a height where, between stones and the shifting sands of the
dunes, low bushes and a few taller trees, curiously torn by the wind,
struggled with laborious persistency to wring their existence from the
hard soil, to defend it against the drifting sand and the storms. It
was a lonely spot where one could hold communion with land and sea,
with the clouds and gulls, with one's own thoughts. There Grips had
built Fränzchen a simple seat and there, on the eve of the wedding, sat
Hans Unwirrsch and Franziska Götz and spoke of their own fate and of
Kleophea and watched the sun go down.
They spoke much of Kleophea while they looked at the sea above which
the fog had closed in after the beautiful brilliant day. Poor Kleophea
had entirely disappeared; no answer had come to any of the letters that
Fränzchen had written in the course of the year. They knew nothing of
her--it was so strange that just on this evening her image should keep
ever rising before them anew, that their thoughts would not remain
centred on their own happiness. Hans and Franziska did not know that
the ship that bore Kleophea Stein was gliding along behind the gray
fog that was rising on the waves. They did not know that Kleophea was
at sea when, on the following day Pastor Josias Tillenius joined their
hands for time and eternity!
On the eighth of September the sun would not come out from behind the
clouds all day. On the evening before it had gone down, as the sea-folk
say, "in a bag" and that meant dull weather for the next few days. It
was a sultry day on which not a breath of air stirred, on which the
same sad gray covered heaven and earth, on which one might have wished
for a heavy shower if it had not been a wedding day.
It did not rain on Fränzchen's bridal wreath, it did not rain on Pastor
Tillenius's excellent words, it did not rain on the grim emotion of
Uncle Rudolf and Colonel von Bullau, it did not rain on the jubilance
of the mansion and the village of Grunzenow. Johannes Unwirrsch and
Franziska Götz gave each other their hands as they had already given
each other their hearts; after the pastor's address Lieutenant Götz
made a speech at the table and, following the peal of the organ and the
sexton's cantata, came the musicians from Freudenstadt whom Colonel
von Bullau had had fetched in a farm wagon to play merry dance music.
The Colonel entertained the whole village in his castle and as _Major
domus_ and _arbiter elegantiarum_ Grips did not show himself as he was
but as what he could be: amiable, obliging, tender toward the fair,
courteous toward the strong sex.
They danced in the great hall and there was endless applause when the
Colonel opened the ball with the young bride. It was a pleasure to look
into the Lieutenant's radiant eyes; it was a pleasure to watch Pastor
Josias Tillenius talking to Mother Jörenson; and it was a particular
pleasure to see how the Assistant Pastor and bridegroom Hans Unwirrsch
fell a victim to the dizzy goddess Terpsichore and to use an expression
of the experienced seamen who were present, "lurched and pitched"
through the room. The oldest people, even the great-grandmother
Margarethe Jörenson could not remember another such day; the enjoyment
rose from moment to moment and carried old and young with it; half
confused the bridal couple that with difficulty had found refuge in a
quiet corner, looked at the tumult.
"Fire at sea!" Who shouted that? Where had that cry come from?
"Fire at sea! Fire at sea!"--the words went through the festive throng
like an electric shock. The music broke off, the dancers stopped as if
spellbound; those who were at the refreshment tables sprang from their
chairs and the Malayan song that the old one-armed first boatswain
Stephen Groote was singing to a small appreciative circle, was
smothered in his throat.
Hans and Fränzchen too had jumped up although at first they did not
grasp the reason of the panic-like fear. The Colonel pushed his way
through the room towards the door followed by the majority of his male
guests. Those who remained behind ran about excitedly or to the windows
that looked out on the sea. Franziska seized Pastor Tillenius's arm.
"Oh, for God's sake, what is it? What has happened?"
"There, there! Truly! Oh God have mercy on them!" cried the old man who
had thrown open the window and was pointing to the water. "A ship on
fire--there, there!"
The young couple's eyes followed the trembling hand; their hearts stood
still with terrible fear--
"There! There!"
It had grown to be half dusk and the transition from the gray light of
the day had been so unnoticeable that not one of the joyful wedding
guests had thought of it. There was still no breeze to stir the haze
that hung above land and sea and completely veiled the horizon; only
those who lived on the shore could know what the red glow out there
meant; the hearts of the two children of the inland only beat the
harder because of the unknown terror.
A burning ship! Hundreds of people in the most horrible danger of
death! Their senses swam at the thought, at the hundred fearful scenes
that passed through their minds.
The Grunzenow mansion was emptied of its guests; even the women rushed
through the corridors and hurried down to the shore. When Pastor Josias
Tillenius, Hans and Fränzchen arrived at the boat landing they found
the fishermen as well as Colonel von Bullau, the Lieutenant and the
farm hands hard at work getting ready to start, while the women ran
hither and thither in feverish excitement pointing and gesticulating
toward the glow in the northwest and screaming. Hans Unwirrsch took
his place among the men and pulled and pushed with the others; the old
pastor sought to bring the women to reason or at least to calm them,
and his assistant's bride helped him to the best of her ability. In a
happy moment the wind from the south, a true angel of God, unfolded its
wings and filled the sails of the boats of Grunzenow; only the oldest
men, the women and the children remained behind on the shore while the
younger men sailed out to bring help. In the first boat to leave the
shore were the Colonel and the Assistant Pastor; Lieutenant Rudolf
Götz had sunk down completely exhausted and his niece knelt beside him
and held his white head in her lap;--but the fearful brilliance in the
distance grew more and more distinct.
"It's a steamer, or they couldn't make such headway against the wind,"
cried one of the old seamen who had had to stay behind.
"They are trying to run her ashore!" said another.
All sorts of guesses as to the course of the vessel were made. Some
thought she was from Stettin on her way to Stockholm but there were
many who were sure that was not so. Others thought it was the St.
Petersburg packet on her trip from Lübeck to Kronstadt. This view was
shared by the majority, among them Pastor Tillenius.
The boats of Grunzenow had long disappeared in the increasing darkness.
Fuel was gathered on the shore and a tremendous fire kindled and on
the shore itself as well as in the cottages preparations were made in
case the people from the burning ship should be brought home by the men
of Grunzenow.
"God bless you, my child, courageous little heart," said Pastor Josias
pressing Fränzchen's hand. "Your wedding day is having a bad end but
you are just made for the wife of a pastor of fishermen. You are
fulfilling your first duties with honor; God bless you and give you a
long, helpful, brave life!"
Lieutenant Götz was sitting on a boat that was turned upside down; his
old enemy was at him again, he held his foot in both hands and clenched
his teeth with pain.
"Yes, yes, old chap," he cried. "Here we cripples sit in the sand and
gape. Take me in your cloak, Fränzchen, carry me home and give me some
bread and sop! Sapperment, and Bullau is two years older than I!"
A scream from the crowd interrupted the Lieutenant's lamentations. The
reflection of the fire on the sea lost its brilliance rather rapidly
and suddenly went out altogether. A deep silence followed the cry
of fright; all remarks that were made now were spoken in the lowest
whisper. It was as if no one dared to breathe aloud any more.
"They are saved or--lost!" said the old pastor at length, took off his
cap and folded his hands. He repeated the prayer for the shipwrecked,
and men, women and children prayed fervently with him; and yet the
fathers of these old men who were now praying had claimed the right of
salvage in all its abominableness and had practised it.
An hour of deathly anxiety passed, then lights appeared again in the
darkness on the sea. They were the torches of the returning boats and
now everyone who still had any voice left cried out again. After half
an hour of the most painful expectation the first boat, filled to
overflowing, slid up to the landing.
"Saved! Saved! Sauvé! Sauvé!" rang the shout in German and French.
In half-mad ecstasy the first of those saved sank down and laughing
and crying convulsively, they kissed the earth, embraced and kissed
the people of Grunzenow who came up to them busily offering them all
possible refreshment and help.
Colonel von Bullau and the Assistant Pastor were not in this first
boat; but it was now learnt that the burnt vessel was the "Adelaide"
from Havre de Grâce bound for St. Petersburg with a cargo of French
wines and a few passengers. The excitement was still too great,
however, for details of the fire to be asked and given.
The men of Grunzenow had brought sixty-four unfortunate people ashore,
some of them injured; only the last fishing boat was still to come with
the Colonel and Hans Unwirrsch.
"They are bringing the captain and the women" was the answer Fränzchen
received to her anxious questions. "They must be here soon now, nothing
has happened to them."
Franziska Unwirrsch pressed her hand to her heart and turned back to
her duties. She had to act as interpreter for the French crew and the
village of Grunzenow. She moved about in the confused, wild tumult like
an angel bringing help and comfort; Uncle Rudolf, who had also not
quite forgotten his French, had lost his head to a much greater extent
than had his niece.
She was just kneeling beside a bearded, half-naked Provençal sailor who
had broken both legs when renewed shouting announced the arrival of the
last boat. In his pain the Provençal held her hands so tightly that she
could not have freed herself even if she had tried. She could not even
turn round to look at her husband; but between the words of comfort
that she was speaking to the poor injured man all her thoughts turned
to the landing where it had suddenly grown perfectly quiet.
She was listening with all her soul when a stir went through the
people. The high voice of a woman cried with a foreign accent:
"Where is she? _O ciel_, where is she?"
The Provençal let go of the gentle, merciful hand that he had held so
tightly till now; a woman threw herself on her knees beside Fränzchen,
seized her wildly with her arms, kissed her gown, her hand, sobbed
and screamed. The burning pile of wood and the torches threw their
flickering light on the excited stranger; Hans, too, bent down to his
wife,--it was a dream, only a dream! How did Henriette Trublet come to
be on the shore of Grunzenow?
"It's she! It's she! Oh, all Saints! Oh, Mademoiselle! Oh, Madame!
_ma mignonne_, blessings on your sweet face! Praise God! Oh, what a
miracle! It is she!"
"Henriette! Henriette Trublet!" murmured Fränzchen, looking at the
French girl with fixed, doubting eyes.
"Yes, yes, _la pauvre_ Henriette! And the other! The other!"
Hans Unwirrsch held his wife in his arms and drew her head to his
breast.
"Oh, love, love, whom do you think we have brought ashore out of the
fire and the raging sea?"
He led her gently down to the shore; she trembled violently;
speechless, she swayed between her husband and the French girl as she
walked through the crowd of natives and foreigners who respectfully
made way for her.
The captain of the "Adelaide" was sitting on a stone with his head in
his hands. Beside him stood Colonel von Bullau as if he were again on
one of his battlefields. Lieutenant Rudolf Götz was on his knees in the
sand and in his lap he held the head of an unconscious woman--
"Kleophea! Kleophea!" cried Franziska, sinking down with folded hands
beside the unconscious form.
"Yes, Kleophea!" said the Lieutenant, and gnashing his teeth he added:
"And she is alone! Praise God!"