THE YOUNG VINTNER
The Black Eagle (_Zum Schwartzen Adler_) in the Adlergasse was a
prosperous tavern of the second rate. The house was two hundred years
old and had been in the Bauer family all that time.
Had Fräu Bauer, or Fräu-Wirtin, as she was familiarly called, been
masculine, she would have been lightly dubbed Bauer VII. She was a
widow, and therefore uncrowned. She had been a widow for many a day, for
the novelty of being her own manager had not yet worn off. She was
thirty-eight, plump, pretty in a free-hand manner, and wise. It was
useless to loll about the English bar where she kept the cash-drawer; it
was useless to whisper sweet nothings into her ear; it was more than
useless, it was foolish.
"Go along with you, Herr; I wouldn't marry the best man living. I can
add the accounts, I can manage. Why should I marry?"
"But marriage is the natural state!"
"Herr, I crossed the frontier long ago, but having recrossed it, never
again shall I go back. One crown-forty, if you please. Thank you."
This retort had become almost a habit with the Fräu-Wirtin; and when a
day went by without a proposal, she went to bed with the sense that the
day had not been wholly successful.
To-night the main room of the tavern swam in a blue haze of smoke, which
rose to the blackened rafters, hung with many and various sausages,
cheeses, and dried vegetables. Dishes clattered, there was a buzzing of
voices, a scraping of feet and chairs, a banging of tankards, altogether
noisy and cheerful. The Fräu-Wirtin preferred waitresses, and this
preference was shared by her patrons. They were quicker, cleaner; they
remembered an order better; they were not always surreptitiously
emptying the dregs of tankards on the way to the bar, as men invariably
did. Besides, the barmaid was an English institution, and the
Fräu-Wirtin greatly admired that race, though no one knew why. The girls
fully able to defend themselves, and were not at all diffident in boxing
a smart fellow's ears. They had a rough wit and could give and take. If
a man thought this an invitation and tried to take a kiss, he generally
had his face slapped for his pains, and the Fräu-Wirtin was always on
the side of her girls.
The smoke was so thick one could scarcely see two tables away, and if
any foreigner chanced to open a window there was a hubbub; windows were
made for light, not air. There were soldiers, non-commissioned
officers--for the fall maneuvers brought many to Dreiberg--farmers and
their families, and the men of the locality who made the Black Eagle a
kind of socialist club. Socialism was just taking hold in those days,
and the men were tremendously serious and secretive regarding it, as it
wasn't strong enough to be popular with governments which ruled by
hereditary might and right.
Gretchen came in, a little better dressed than in the daytime, the
change consisting of coarse stockings and shoes of leather, of which she
was correspondingly proud.
"Will you want me, Fräu-Wirtin, for a little while to-night?" she asked.
"Till nine. Half a crown as usual."
Gretchen sought the kitchen and found an apron and cap. These
half-crowns were fine things to pick up occasionally, for it was only
upon occasions that she worked at the Black Eagle.
In an obscure corner sat the young vintner. He had finished his supper
and was watching and scrutinizing all who came in. His face brightened
as he saw the goose-girl; he would have known that head anywhere,
whether he saw the face or not. He wanted to go to her at once, but knew
this action would not be wise.
In the very corner itself, his back to the vintner's, and nothing but
the wall to look at, was the old man in tatters and patches, the
mountaineer who possessed a Swiss watch and gave golden coins to
goose-girls. He was busily engaged in gnawing the leg of a chicken.
Between times he sipped his beer, listening.
Carmichael had forgotten some papers that day. He had dined early at the
hotel and returned at once to the consulate. He was often a visitor at
the Black Eagle. The beer was sweet and cool. So, having pocketed his
papers, he was of a mind to carry on a bit of badinage with Fräu Bauer.
As he stepped into the big hall, in his evening clothes, he was as
conspicuous as a passing ship at sea.
"Good evening, Fräu-Wirtin."
"Good evening, your Excellency." She was quite fluttered when this fine
young man spoke to her. He was the only person who ever caused her
embarrassment, even though temporary. There was always a whimsical smile
on his lips and in his eyes, and Fräu Bauer never knew exactly how to
take him. "What is on your mind?" brightly.
"Many things. You haven't aged the least since last I saw you."
"Which was day before yesterday!"
"Not any further back than that?"
"Not an hour."
She turned to make change, while Carmichael's eyes roved in search of a
vacant chair. He saw but one.
"The goose-girl?" he murmured suddenly. "Is Gretchen one of your
waitresses?"
"She comes in once in a while. She's a good girl and I'm glad to help
her," Fräu Bauer replied.
"I do not recollect having seen her here before."
"That is because you rarely come at night."
Gretchen carried a tray upon which steamed a vegetable stew. She saw
Carmichael and nodded.
"I shall be at yonder table," he said indicating the vacant chair. "Will
you bring me a tankard of brown Ehrensteiner?"
"At once, Herr."
Carmichael made his way to the table. Across the room he had not
recognized the vintner, but now he remembered. He had crowded him
against a wall two or three days before.
"This seat is not reserved, Herr?" he asked pleasantly, with his hand on
the back of the chair.
"No." There was no cordiality in the answer. The vintner turned back the
lid of his stein and drank slowly.
Carmichael sat down sidewise, viewing the scene with never-waning
interest. These German taverns were the delight of his soul. Everybody
was so kindly and orderly and hungry. They ate and drank like persons
whose consciences were not overburdened. From the corner of his eye he
observed that the vintner was studying him. Now this vintner's face was
something familiar. Carmichael stirred his memory. It was not in
Dreiberg that he had seen him before. But where?
Gretchen arrived with the tankard which she sat down at Carmichael's
elbow.
"Will you not join me, Herr?" he invited.
"Thank you," said the vintner, without hesitation.
He smiled at Gretchen and she smiled at him. Carmichael smiled at them
both tolerantly.
"What will you be drinking?"
"Brown," said the vintner.
Gretchen took up the empty tankard and made off. The eyes of the two men
followed her till she reached the dim bar, then their glances swung
round and met. Carmichael was first to speak, not because he was forced
to, but because it was his fancy at that moment to give the vintner the
best of it.
"She is a fine girl."
"Yes," tentatively.
"She is the handsomest peasant I ever saw or knew."
"You know her?" There was a spark in the vintner's eyes.
"Only for a few days. She interests me." Carmichael produced a pipe and
lighted it.
"Ah, yes, the pretty peasant girl always interests you gentlemen." There
was a note of bitterness. "Did you come here to seek her?"
"This is the first time I ever saw her here. And let me add," evenly,
"that my interest in her is not of the order you would infer. She is
good and patient and brave, and my interest in her is impersonal. It is
not necessary for me to make any explanations, but I do so."
"Pardon me!" The vintner was plainly abashed.
"Granted. But you, you seem to possess a peculiar interest."
The vintner flushed. "I have that right," with an air which rather
mystified Carmichael.
"That explains everything. I do not recollect seeing you before in the
Black Eagle."
"I am from the north; a vintner, and there is plenty of work here in
the valleys late in September."
"The grape," mused Carmichael. "You will never learn how to press it as
they do in France. It is wine there; it is vinegar this side of the
Rhine."
"France," said the vintner moodily. "Do you think there will be any
France in the future?"
Carmichael laughed. "France is an incurable cosmic malady; it will
always be. It may be beaten, devastated, throttled, but it will not
die."
"You are fond of France?"
"Very."
"Do you think it wise to say so here?"
"I am the American consul; nobody minds my opinions."
"The American consul," repeated the vintner.
Gretchen could now be seen, wending her return in and out among the
clustering tables. She set the tankards down, and Carmichael put out a
silver crown.
"And do not bother about the change."
"Are all Americans rich?" she asked soberly. "Do you never keep the
change yourselves?"
[Illustration: "Are all Americans rich?" she asked, soberly.]
"Not when we are in our Sunday clothes."
"Then it is vanity." Gretchen shook her head wisely.
"Mine is worth only four coppers to-night," he said.
The vintner laughed pleasantly. Gretchen looked into his eyes, and an
echo found haven in her own.
Carmichael thirstily drank his first tankard, thinking: "So this vintner
is in love with our goose-girl? Confound my memory! It never failed me
like this before. I would give twenty crowns to know where I have seen
him. It's only the time and place that bothers me, not the face. A fine
beer," he said aloud, holding up the second tankard.
The vintner raised his; there was an unconscious grace in the movement.
A covert glance at his hand satisfied Carmichael in regard to one thing.
He might be a vintner, but the hand was as soft and well-kept as a
woman's, for all that it was stained by wind and sunshine. A handsome
beggar, whoever and whatever he was. But a second thought disturbed him.
Could a man with hands like these mean well toward Gretchen? He was a
thorough man of the world; he knew innocence at first glance, and
Gretchen was both innocent and unworldly. To the right man she might be
easy prey. Never to a man like Colonel von Wallenstein, whose power and
high office were alike sinister to any girl of the peasantry; but a man
in the guise of her own class, of her own world and people, here was a
snare Gretchen might not be able to foresee. He would watch this fellow,
and at the first sign of an evil--Carmichael's muscular brown hands
opened and shut ominously. The vintner did not observe this peculiar
expression of the hands; and Carmichael's face was bland.
A tankard, rapping a table near-by, called Gretchen to her duties. There
was something reluctant in her step, in the good-by glance, in the
sudden fall of the smiling lips.
"She will make some man a good wife," said Carmichael.
The vintner scowled at his tankard.
"He is not sure of her," thought Carmichael. Aloud he said: "What a
funny world it is!"
"How?"
"Gretchen is beautiful enough to be a queen, and yet she is merely a
Hebe in a tavern."
"Hebe?" suspiciously. The peasant is always suspicious of anything he
doesn't understand.
"Hebe was a cup-bearer to the mythological gods in olden times,"
Carmichael explained. He had set a trap, but the vintner had not fallen
into it.
"A fairy-story." The vintner nodded; he understood now.
Carmichael's glance once more rested on the vintner's hand. He would lay
another trap.
"What happened to her?"
"Oh," said Carmichael, "she spilled wine on a god one day, and they
banished her."
"It must have been a rare vintage."
"I suppose you are familiar with all valleys. Moselle?"
"Yes. That is a fine country."
The old man in tatters sat erect in his chair, but he did not turn his
head.
"You have served?"
"A little. If I could be an officer I should like the army." The vintner
reached for his pipe which lay on the table.
"Try this," urged Carmichael, offering his pouch.
"This will be good tobacco, I know." The vintner filled his pipe.
Carmichael followed this gift with many questions about wines and
vintages; and hidden in these questions were a dozen clever traps. But
the other walked over them, unhesitant, with a certainty of step which
chagrined the trapper.
By and by the vintner rose and bade his table-companion a good night. He
had not offered to buy anything, another sign puzzling to Carmichael.
This frugality was purely of the thrifty peasant. But the vintner was
not ungrateful, and he expressed many thanks. On his way to the door he
stopped, whispered into Gretchen's ear, and passed out into the black
street.
"Either he is a fine actor, or he is really what he says he is."
Carmichael was dissatisfied. "I'll stake my chances on being president
of the United States, which is safe enough as a wager, that this fellow
is not genuine. I'll watch him. I've stumbled upon a pretty romance of
some sort, but I fear that it is one-sided." He wrinkled his forehead,
but that part of his recollection he aimed to stir remained fallow, in
darkness.
The press in the room was thinning. There were vacant chairs here and
there now. A carter sauntered past and sat down unconcernedly at the
table occupied by the old man whose face Carmichael had not yet seen.
The two exchanged not even so much as a casual nod. A little later a
butcher approached the same table and seated himself after the manner of
the carter. It was only when the dusty baker came along and repeated
this procedure, preserving the same silence, that Carmichael's curiosity
was enlivened. This curiosity, however, was only of the evanescent
order. Undoubtedly they were socialists and this was a little conclave,
and the peculiar manner of their meeting, the silence and mystery, were
purely fictional. Socialism at that time revolved round the blowing up
of kings, of demolishing established order. Neither kings were blown up
nor order demolished, but it was a congenial topic over which to while
away an evening. This was in the German states; in Russia it was a
different matter.
Had Carmichael not fallen a-dreaming over his pipe he would have seen
the old man pass three slips of paper across the table; he would have
seen the carter, the butcher, and the baker pocket these slips
stolidly; he would have seen the mountaineer wave his hand sharply and
the trio rise and disperse. And perhaps it would have been well for him
to have noted these singular manifestations of conspiracy, since shortly
he was to become somewhat involved. It was growing late; so Carmichael
left the Black Eagle, nursing the sunken ember in his pipe and
surrendering no part of his dream.
Intermediately the mountaineer paid his score and started for the stairs
which led to the bedrooms above. But he stopped at the bar. A very old
man was having a pail filled with hot cabbage soup. It was the ancient
clock-mender across the way. The mountaineer was startled out of his
habitual reserve, but he recovered his composure almost instantly. The
clock-mender, his heavy glasses hanging crookedly on his nose, his whole
aspect that of a weary, broken man, took down his pail and shuffled
noiselessly out. The mountaineer followed him cautiously. Once in his
shop the clock-mender poured the steaming soup into a bowl, broke bread
in it, and began his evening meal. The other, his face pressed against
the dim pane, stared and stared.
"_Gott in Himmel!_ It is _he_!" he breathed, then stepped back into the
shadow, while the moisture from his breath slowly faded and disappeared
from the window-pane.