stop at a spot where we shall be comfortable all day long. And don't
let us hurry. Towards evening we shall easily be able to find a dance
going on."
"Good," answered Vreni. "Thus we shall be together the whole day, and
go where we like. But above all, I feel quite faint. Let us stop in the
next village and get some coffee."
"Of course," said the young man. "But let us first get away from here."
Soon they were in the open, fields of ripe, waving corn or else of
fresh stubble around them, and went along, quietly and full of deep
contentment, close to each other, breathing the pure air as though
freed from prison walls. It was a delicious Sunday morning in
September. There was not a cloud to be seen in the sky of deep azure,
and in the distance the hills and woods were enwrapped in a delicate
haze, so that the whole landscape looked more solemn and mysterious.
From everywhere the tolling of the church bells was heard, the
harmonious deep tones of a big swinging bell belonging to a wealthy
congregation, or the talkative two small bells of a poor village that
made fast time to create any impression at all. The lovers forgot
completely as to what was to become of them at the end of this rare
day, forgot the disturbing uncertainties of their young lives, and gave
themselves up completely to the intoxicating delights of the moment,
sank their very souls in a calm joy that knew no words and no fears.
Neatly clothed, free to come or go, like two happy ones who before God
and men belong to each other by all rights, they went forth into the
still Sunday country side. Each slight sound or call, reverberating and
finally losing itself in the general silence, shook their hearts as
though the strings of a harp had been touched by divine fingers. For
Love is a musical instrument which makes resound the farthest and the
most indifferent subjects and changes them into a music all its own.
Though both were hungry and faint, the half hour's walk to the next
village seemed to them but a step, and they entered slowly the little
inn that stood at the entrance to the place.
Sali ordered a substantial and appetizing breakfast, and while it was
being prepared they observed, quiet as two mice, the interior of this
homely place of entertainment, everything in it being scrupulously
clean and orderly, from the walls and tables and napkins to the hearth
and floor. The guest room itself was large and airy, and the window
panes glittered in the furtive rays of the sun. The host of the inn was
at the same time a baker, and his last baking, just out of the oven,
spread a delicious odor through the whole house. Stacks of fresh loaves
were carried past them in clean baskets, since after church service the
members of the congregation were in the habit of getting here their
white bread or to drink their noon shoppen. The hostess, a rather
handsome and neat woman, dressed in their Sunday finery all her little
brood of children, leisurely and pleasantly, and as she was done with
one more of the little ones, the latter, proud and glad, would come
running to Vreni, showing her all their finery, and innocently boasting
and bragging of their belongings and of all else they held precious.
When at last the fragrant coffee was brought and served for them,
together with other good things, at a convenient table, the two young
people sat down somewhat embarrassed, just as if they had been invited
as honored guests to do so. But they got over this mood, and whispered
to each other modestly but happily, feeling the joy of each other's
presence. And oh, how Vreni enjoyed her breakfast, the strong coffee,
the cream, the fresh rolls still warm from the oven, the rich butter
and the honey, the omelet, and all the other splendid things dished up
for them. Delicious it all tasted, not only because she had been really
hungry, but because she could look all the while at Sali, and she ate
and ate, as if she had been fasting for a whole year.
With that she also took pleasure in the pretty service, the fine cups
and saucers and dishes, the dainty silver spoons, and the snowy linen.
For the hostess seemed to have made up her mind about these two, and
she evidently regarded them as young people of good family, who were to
be waited upon in proper style, and several times she came and sat down
by them, chatting most agreeably, and both Sali and Vreni answered her
sensibly, whereat the woman became still more affable. And Vreni felt
the wholesome influence of all this so strongly, and a sense of snug
comfort coursed so pleasantly through her veins that she in her mind
found it hard to choose between the delights of wandering about in the
woods and fields, hand in hand with her lover, or remaining for some
time longer here in this inn, in this haven of rest and creature
comfort, honored and respected and dreaming herself into the illusion
of owning such a nice home as this herself.
But Sali himself rendered the choice easier, for in a perfectly proper
and rather husbandlike manner he urged departure, just as though they
had duties to fulfil elsewhere. Both host and hostess saw the young
couple to the door, and bade them good-by in the most orthodox and
well-meaning way, and Vreni, too, showed her manners and reciprocated
their courtesy like one to the manner born, then following Sali in most
decent and moral style. But even after reaching the open country once
more and entering an oak forest a couple of miles long, both of them
were still under the influence of the spell, and they went along in a
dreamy mood, just as though they both did not come from homes destroyed
and filled with hatred and discord, but from happy and harmonious
homes, expecting from life the near fulfilment of all their rosy hopes.
Vreni bent her pretty head down on her flower-bedecked bosom, deep in
thought, and went along the smooth, damp woodpath with hands carefully
held along her sides, while Sali stepped along elastic and upright,
quick and thoughtful, his eyes fastened to the oak trunks ahead of him,
like a well-to-do peasant reflecting on the problem which of these
trees it would best pay to cut down and which to leave. But at last
they awoke from these vain dreams, glanced at each other and discovered
that they were still maintaining the attitude with which they had left
the inn. Then they both blushed and their heads drooped in melancholy
fashion. Youth, however, soon reasserted itself. The woods were green,
the sky overhead faultlessly blue, and they were alone by themselves in
the world, and thus they soon drifted back into that train of thought.
But they did not long remain by themselves, since this attractive
forest road began to be alive with groups and couples out for a bracing
walk in the cool shade, most of them returning from service in church,
and nearly all of these were singing gay worldly tunes, trifling and
joking with each other. For in these parts it so happens that the
rustics have their customary walks and promenades as well as the city
dwellers, to which they resort at leisure, only with this great
difference that their pleasure grounds cost nothing to maintain and
that these are finer in every way, since Nature alone has made them.
Not alone do they stroll about on Sundays through fields and meadows
and woods with a peculiar sense of freedom and recreation, taking stock
of their ripening crops and the prospects of the harvest to come, but
they also choose with unerring taste excursions along the edge of
forest or meadow, hill or dale, sit down for a brief rest on the summit
of a height, whence they enjoy a fine view, or sing in chorus at
another suitable spot, and certainly obtain fully as much, if not more,
pleasure out of all this as town folk do. And since they do all this,
not as labor but diversion, one must conclude that these rustics,
despite of what has often been claimed to the contrary, are lovers of
nature, aside from the strictly utilitarian view of it. And always they
break off something green and living, young and old, even weak and
decrepit women, when they revisit the scenes of long ago, and the same
spirit is seen in the habit that these country people have, including
sedate men of business, of cutting for themselves a slender rod of
hazel, or a snappy cane, whenever they walk through woods or forest,
and these they will peel all but a small bunch of green leaves at the
point. Such rods or twigs they will bear as though it were a sceptre,
and when they enter an office or public place they will put them in a
corner of the room, and never forget to get them again, even after the
most serious and important matters have been discussed, and to take
them along with them home. And it is then only the privilege of the
youngest of their boys to seize it, break it, play with it, in fine,
destroy it.
When Sali and Vreni noticed these many couples out for a holiday
stroll, they laughed to themselves, and rejoiced that they, too, were
such a happy pair; they lost themselves on side paths that led away
from every noise, and there they felt protected by the green solitude.
They remained where they liked, went on or rested again for a spell,
and in unison with the sky overhead which was cloudless, no carking
care came to disturb their serenity. This state of perfect, unalloyed
bliss lasted for them for hours, and they for the time forgot wholly
whence they came and whither they were going, and behaved with such a
degree of decorum that Vreni's little posy actually remained as fresh
and intact as it had been early in the morning, and her plain Sunday
dress showed neither crease nor stain. As to Sali, he behaved all this
time not like a youthful rustic of less than twenty, nor like the son
of a broken-down tavern keeper, but rather like a youth a couple of
years younger and quite innocent, withal of the best education. It was
almost comical to observe his conduct towards his merry Vreni, looking
at her with a touching mixture of tenderness, respect and care. For
these two lovers, so unsophisticated and so entirely without guile,
somehow understood how to run in the course of this one day of perfect
joy vouchsafed them through all the gamut of love, and to make up not
alone for the earlier and more poetic stages of it but also to taste
its bitter and ultimate end with its passionate sacrifice of life
itself.
Thus they thoroughly tired themselves running about part of the day,
and hunger had come a second time that day when, from the crest of a
shady mountain, they at last perceived, far down at their feet, a
village of some size lying there in the glow of the westering sun.
Rapidly they made the descent, and entered the village just as
decorously as they had done the other earlier in the day. Nobody was
about that knew them even by sight, for Vreni particularly had scarcely
at all mingled with people during the last few years, nor had she been
off on visits to other villages. Therefore they presented entirely the
appearance of a decent young couple out on an errand of importance.
They went to the best inn of the place, and there Sali at once ordered
a good and substantial meal. A table was specially reserved for them,
and everything needful was there laid out and they sat down again
demurely in the corner and eyed the trappings and furniture of the
handsome room, with its wainscoted walls of polished walnut, the
well-appointed sideboard of the same wood, and the filmy window
curtains of white lace. The hostess stepped up to them in a sociable
manner, and set a vase full of fresh flowers on the table.
"Until the soup is ready," she said pleasantly, "you may like to feast
your eyes on these flowers from our garden. From all appearance, if you
don't mind my curiosity, you are a young couple on their way to town to
get married to-morrow?"
Vreni blushed furiously, and did not dare raise her head. Nor did Sali
say anything in reply, and the hostess continued: "Well, of course, you
are both still very young. But young love, long life, as the saying is,
and at least you are both good-looking enough and need not hide
yourselves from people. If you will but work and strive together like
sensible folk, you may succeed in life before you know it, for youth is
a good thing, and so are diligence and faith in one another. But that,
of course, is necessary, for there will come also days you will not
like, many days, many days. But after all, life is pleasant enough, if
one but understands how to make a proper use of it. And don't mind my
chatter, you young people, but it does me good to look at you two, so
handsome and young."
Just then the waitress brought in the soup, and since she had overheard
the concluding phrases, and would herself have liked to get married,
she regarded Vreni with envious eyes, for she begrudged her what she
assumed was so soon in store for this young girl. She retired
precipitately into the adjoining room, and there she let her tongue go
clacking. To the hostess who was busy there with some household task,
she said, so loud as to be distinctly heard by the young people: "Yes,
these are indeed the right kind of people to go to town and hurry up
marrying, without a penny, without friends, without dowry, and with
nothing in view but misery and beggary! What in the world is to become
of such people if the girl is still so young that she does not even
know how to put on her frock or jacket, nor how to cook a plate of
soup! Oh, what fools! But I feel sorry for the young fellow, such a
good-looking fellow he is, and then to get a little ignorant doll like
that!"
"Sh-sh--will you keep your mouth shut, you evil-mouthed slut," broke in
the indignant hostess. "Don't you dare say anything against them. I am
pretty sure that is a deserving young couple, and I will not hear them
wronged. Probably they are from the mountains where the factories are,
and while they are not dressed richly they look neat and cleanly, and
if only they are fond of each other and not afraid of work, they will
get along better than you with your bitter tongue. And that I will tell
you--you'll have to wait a long while before anybody will take you,
unless you change considerably, you vinegary old thing!"
Thus it was that Vreni tasted all the delights of a bride on her
wedding trip: the well-meaning conversation of an experienced and
sensible woman, the jealousy of a wicked and man-crazy person, one who
from anger at the bride praises and sympathizes with the lover, and an
appetizing meal at the side of this same lover. She glowed in the face
like a carnation, her heart beat like a trip hammer, but she ate and
drank nevertheless with a perfectly normal appetite, and was all the
more amiable with the waitress who served them, but could not help on
such occasions looking tenderly at Sali, and whispering to him, so that
he also began to feel rather amorous. However, they sat a long time
over their meal, delaying its end, as though they were both unwilling
to destroy the lovely deception. The hostess came and brought them for
dessert all sorts of sweet cakes and other dainties, and Sali ordered
rarer and more fiery wine, so that the choice liquor ran through
Vreni's veins like a flame, albeit she was cautious and sipped it but
sparingly and kept up the semblance of a chaste and prudent young
bride. Half of this was natural cunning on her part; but as for the
other half, she felt indeed as if the role were reality, and what with
anxiety and what with ardent love for Sali she thought her little heart
would burst, so that the walls seemed to her too narrow, and she begged
him to go. And they went off. It was now as if they were afraid to turn
aside from the main road and into side paths, where they would be by
themselves, for they continued on the highway, right through the throng
of pleasure seekers, not looking to right or left. But when they had
left the village behind them and were on their way towards the next,
where kermess was being celebrated, Vreni linked her arm in his and
whispered: "Sali, why not belong altogether one to the other and be
happy!"
And Sali answered, fastening his dreamy eyes upon the sun-flooded
valley below where the meadows showed like a purple carpet of
wildflowers, "Ah, why not?"
And they instantly stopped in the road, and wanted to kiss each other.
But suddenly a group of passers-by broke out of the near woods, and
then they felt shy and desisted. On they went towards the big village
in which the bustle of kermess was already noticeable from afar. The
lanes were crowded, and before the most considerable tavern of the
place a multitude of noisy, shouting people were assembled. From inside
the tavern the strains of a lively, gay tune were heard. For the young
villagers had begun dancing shortly after the noon hour, and on an open
square in front of the tavern a market had been established where all
sorts of sweets were for sale, and in another couple of booths could be
seen flimsy bits of finery, ornaments, silk kerchiefs and the like, and
around these were to be seen children and some others who for the
moment were content to be mere observers.
Sali and Vreni also stepped up to these booths, and they let their eyes
travel over all these things. For both had instantly put their hands in
their pockets and each wanted to present the other with a little gift,
since that was the first and only time they had been together at a
fair. Sali, therefore, bought a big house of gingerbread, the walls of
which were calsomined with a mixture of butter and melted sugar, and on
the green roof of which were perching snow-white pigeons, while from
the chimney a small cupid was peeping forth clad as a chimney sweep. At
the open windows of this wonderful house plump-cheeked persons with
diminutive red mouths were embracing each other most affectionately,
the kissing process being represented by the gingerbread artist by a
sort of double mouth, or twins, one melting into the other. Black
points meant eyes, and on the pinky-red housedoor there could be read
the following touching stanzas:
Enter my house, beloved,
Yet do not thou forget
That all the coin accepted
Is kisses sweet, you bet.
His sweetheart said: "Oh, dear one,
This threat does not deter!
My love for thee is greater
Than any kind of fare.
"And come to think it over,
'Twas kisses I did seek."
Well, then, step in, my lady,
And let thy lips now speak.
A gentleman in a blue frock coat and a lady with an expansive bosom
thus complimented each other by these rhymes into the house; both were
painted to right and left of the wall. Vreni on her part presented Sali
with a gingerbread heart, on which on either side these verses were
pasted:
A sweet, sweet almond pierces my heart, as you see,
But sweeter far than almonds is my love for thee.
When thou my heart hast eaten,
Oh, let me not disguise
That sooner than my love can break
Will break my nutbrown eyes.
Both of them eagerly read these verses, and never had rhymes, never had
any kind of poetry, been more deeply felt and appreciated than were
these gingerbread stanzas. They could not help fancying that they had
been specially written for them, for they fitted so marvelously their
requirements.
"Ah, you give me a house," sighed Vreni. "But I have first made thee a
gift of one myself, and of the real one. For our hearts are now our
sole dwellings, and within them we live, and we carry our houses about
with us wherever we may go, just like the snail. Other abode we have
none left now."
"But then we are snails really, of which each carries the house of the
other," replied Sali.
"Then we must never leave each other, for fear that we lose the other's
house," answered Vreni.
They did not notice that they themselves were perpetrating the same
species of humor as was spread out on the printed pasters of the
gingerbread literature. So they continued to study the latter with deep
interest. The most pathetic sentiments, both agreed, were found on the
heartshaped cakes, whereof there was a great choice, both plain and
ornamental, small and large. All the verses they read seemed to them
wonderfully apt and appropriate to the occasion. When Vreni read on a
gilt heart which like a lyre bore strings:
My heart is like a fiddlestring,
Touch gently it and it will sing,
she could not refrain from remarking: "How true that is! Why, I can
hear my own heart making music!"
An image of Napoleon in gingerbread was also there, and even this,
instead of speaking in heroic measure, symbolized a love-smitten swain,
for it declared in wretched rhyme:
Terrific was Napoleon's might,
His sword of steel, his heart was light;
My love is sweet like any rose,
Yet is she faithful, goodness knows.
But while both seemed busy sounding all the depths of these appeals to
the muses, they secretly made a purchase. Sali bought for Vreni a small
gift ring, with a stone of green glass, and Vreni a ring fashioned out
of chamois horn, in which a gold forget-me-not was cleverly inlaid.
Probably both were moved with the same idea, that of a farewell gift.
However, while they thus were entirely engrossed with these things they
had not remarked that a wide ring was forming gradually around them
made up of people who watched them closely and curiously. For as quite
a number of lads and lasses from their own village had come to the
kermess, they had been recognized, and these all now stood at some
little distance away from them, regarding with astonishment this neatly
dressed couple that in their intense preoccupation had eyes for nothing
else in the world.
"Just look," the murmuring went round; "why, that is Vreni Marti and
Sali from town. They surely have met and made up. And what tenderness,
what friendship for one another! Only notice!"
The amazement of these onlookers was strangely mingled of pity with the
ill-fortune of the young couple, of disdain for the wickedness and
poverty of their parents, and of envy for the happiness and deep
affection of these two. For it struck these coarse materialistic
rustics that the couple were fond of each other in a manner most
unusual in their own circles, excited to an uncommon degree and so
taken up with one another and indifferent to all else, as to make them
almost appear to belong to a more aristocratic sphere, so that
altogether they seemed singular and strange to these gross villagers.
When therefore Sali and Vreni finally awoke from their dreams and threw
a glance around, they saw nothing but staring faces. Nobody greeted
them; and they themselves knew not whether to salute anyone of these
former acquaintances, whose show of unfriendliness was, just the same,
not so much design as astonishment. Vreni became afraid and blushed
from sheer embarrassment, but Sali took her hand and led her away. And
the poor girl followed him willingly, bearing in her hand the huge
gingerbread cottage, although the trumpets and horns from inside the
inn sounded so invitingly, and although she was most anxious and eager
to dance.
"We cannot dance here," said Sali, when they had been going some little
distance aside, "for there would not be any amusement in it under the
circumstances."
"You are right," Vreni said sadly, "and I really think now we had
better drop the whole idea and I will try and find a place for me to
stay overnight."
"No," Sali cried, "you must have a chance to dance for once. For that,
too, I brought you the shoes. Let us go where the poor folks are having
a good time, since we, too, belong to them. They will not look down on
us. At every kermess here there is also dancing at the Paradise Garden,
since it belongs to this parish, and we are going there, and you can,
if it comes to the worst, also find a bed to sleep there."