"Well, that's the explanation," he laughs. "But I was then already tall
and--and--full grown," she answers eagerly. "It wouldn't have hurt you
to have whirled me round the room a few times."
"Well, we can make up for it in a fortnight at the rifle fete."
"Yes, can we?" she asks with beaming eyes.
"Martin is one of the patrons of the shooters' company. That is in
itself a reason for his being present."
Trude gives vent loudly to her delight; then in sudden perplexity she
says: "But I have no dancing shoes."
"Have some made for yourself."
"Oh, our village cobbler is such a clumsy worker."
"Then I will order you a pair from town. You need only give me your
measure."
"Will you really? Oh, you dear, darling Hans!" And then she suddenly
withdraws her arm, runs forward a few steps, calls out "catch me," and
whisks away. Johannes starts in pursuit,--but he is tired--he cannot
overtake her. Across the drawbridge of the weir the chase proceeds
across on to the vast grass plain, stretching as far as the distant
pine wood. Trude dodges him cleverly,--runs past him--and before he can
follow, she is once more on this side of the river. Breathlessly she
makes a dash for the chain by which the drawbridge is regulated; from
on shore--she tears at it with all her might; the wood-work moves
creaking on its hinges--and jerks upwards--at the very moment when
Johannes springs on to the foot-plank. He staggers, he cries out,--and
clutching hold of the main beam, he manages by sheer force to stem its
movement just as the gap is opening. Trude has turned as white as a
sheet, she stares speechlessly at him, as, gasping for breath, he gazes
down into the dark abyss.
"I didn't--think of that, Hans," she stammers with a look which very
eloquently pleads forgiveness.
He laughs out loud. A wild, devil-may-care feeling of happiness has
come over him.
"Oh you--you!" he cries, opening out his arms. "I shall have you yet."
And with a fool-hardy leap he jumps on to the narrow main-beam, which,
with its two slanting, roof-shaped sides, spans the river.
"Hans--for God's sake--Hans!"
He does not hear--beneath him is the foaming abyss--he has hard work to
keep his balance--he moves forward--he trembles he sways--three
more--two more steps only one more daring leap--he is over.
"Now run!" he cries, with a wild shout of glee.
But Trude does not stir. She stares in his direction, paralyzed with
terror. Like a tiger he springs towards her--he encircles her with
his arms--he presses her to him--she closes her eyes and breathes
heavily--then he bends down and lays his hot and thirsting lips upon
hers. She gives a loud moan--her body trembles feverishly in his
embrace. Then he lets her glide down--his affrighted gaze travels
around--has no one seen it? "No, no one!" And what if they have? May
Martin's brother not kiss Martin's wife? Did not he himself once
require it of him?
She opens her eyes as though awakening from a deep dream. Her eyes
avoid his.
"That was not nice of you, Hans," she says softly, "you must never do
that to me again!"
He does not answer and stoops to pick up the rose which has fallen from
her bosom.
"Let me go home," she says, casting a frightened look around.
They walk along side by side for a while in silence; she gazes into
space; he smells the rose he has found.
"Do you like roses?" he continues. She looks at him. "As if you did not
know that," her look says.
"By the bye," he goes on gaily, "why do you no longer put flowers at my
bed-side now?"
"He has forbidden me," she stammers.
"That alters the case," he replies, crestfallen. Then their
conversation comes to a standstill altogether.
On the veranda Martin receives them with a good-natured scolding. He
declares he is ravenously hungry, and supper is not yet served.
Trude hurries to the kitchen to give a helping hand herself.... The
meal is consumed in silence. The two do not raise their eyes from their
plates. An atmosphere of unbearable sultriness oppresses the earth. The
hot wind whirls up small dust clouds and bluish grey veils of mist
settle down slowly.
Johannes leans his head against the glass of the veranda window, but
that is as hot as if it had been all day in a fiery furnace. Then Trude
suddenly jumps up.
"Where are you going to?" asks Martin.
"Into the garden," she replies.
After a while they hear her mounting the stairs that lead to the turret
room. When she comes out again she gives Johannes a quick, timid look,
then takes her seat with downcast eyes.
From the village green come sounds of merry-making and screams of
enjoyment, mingled with the squeak of the fiddle and the drone of the
double-bass.
"I suppose you'd like to go there, children?" They are both silent and
he takes their silence for consent. "Well, then come along," he says,
getting up. Trude stretches out her arms in silent anguish, looks
across wistfully at Johannes, then with a shake of her head she says,
"Don't care about it!"
"Why, what's up?" cried Martin, quite taken aback. "Since when do you
get out of the way of dance music? I suppose you two have been
squabbling again, eh?"
Johannes laughs curtly and Trude turns away. Suddenly she gets up, says
laconically, "Good-night," and disappears.
A little later the brothers, too, part company.
With heavy limbs Johannes mounts the stairs--he opens the door of his
room--an intoxicating fragrance of flowers wells towards him. He draws
a deep breath and utters a sigh of satisfaction. Then this was the
reason for going at such a late hour into the garden! By the side of
his pillow stands a huge bunch of rose and jasmine. He drops into bed
as if he would like to bury himself beneath this mass of blossoms. For
a while he lies a-dreaming quietly to himself, but his breathing
becomes more and more labored, his senses grow dim,--at every pulsation
a poignant pain darts through his temples,--he feels as though he must
succumb beneath this overpowering fragrance.
Exerting all his force of will, he pulls himself up and pushes open a
window. But even this brings no calm, no relief. A very chaos of
fragrance wafts up to him from the garden--the wind breathes hotly upon
him, lukewarm, tingling drops of rain beat upon his face. Down in the
village the fires from the tar-barrels shoot fitfully through the
nebulous clouds of mist veiling the distance.
Johannes looks down. He is waiting. His heart is beating audibly. His
longing appears to him almighty--he will force that window below to
open and ... hark! Softly the latch is pushed back, one sash is thrown
open, and there, leaning far out, framed by waving unbound tresses,
Trude's face appears, straining upwards to him with mute yearning.
One moment--then it has vanished. He knows not--shall he exult, or
shall he weep?--Now he may sink into sweet unconsciousness--What can
the fragrance harm him now?
He undresses and goes to bed; but before he drops to sleep he once more
raises himself up, gropes with a trembling hand for the vase, and
buries his face in the flowers.
How like it all is to that first evening, and yet how different! Then
he was peaceful and happy; now ...
A suddenly awakened memory makes him start; his fingers clutch the
handle of the vase more tightly--he listens and listens--he feels as if
that merry laugh which then so softly sounded through the floor, must
at this moment again greet his ears--he listens with increasing fear
till his whole brain is humming and buzzing--an ugly feeling of hatred
and jealousy suddenly uprises within him; and, bursting into a wild
laugh, he hurls the vase far away into the middle of the room, where it
shatters with a crash.
Next morning Johannes is ashamed of himself. It all seems as if it had
been a bad dream. He collects the fragments of the vase, fits them
together and resolves to get some cement from the chemist and mend it.
Much as he considers the matter, he cannot explain the feeling which
prompted him to this act of apparent school-boy folly; he only knows
that it was something wicked and loathsome.
He presses his brother's hand more heartily than at other times and
gazes silently into his eyes as if to plead forgiveness for some grave
crime.
Trude looks pale and as if she had not slept. Her eyes avoid his, and
the cup of coffee which she hands him rattles in her trembling hand.
As he can find no better subject, he begins to talk about the dancing
shoes, wishing at the same time to sound Martin. He is quite agreeable.
Trude is to have her measure taken at once and when she objects to
taking off her shoes in Johannes' presence, he angrily calls her an
"affected little prude," She is offended, begins to cry and leaves the
room. Then towards evening she bashfully appears with her measure and
Johannes sends off his letter. The broken vase still weighs heavily on
his conscience. When he is alone with her he confesses.
"I say, I've done a clumsy thing."
"What?"
"I have smashed a vase."
"Indeed! was that simply clumsiness?"
"What else should it be?"
"I thought you had done it on purpose," she says, with apparent utter
indifference. He gives no answer, and she quietly nods a few times to
herself as much as to say, "It seems I was right after all!"
The days pass by. Relations between Johannes and Trude are cooler than
they were. They do not avoid each other, they even talk together, but
their former happy-go-lucky mode of intercourse is irretrievably lost.
"She is offended because I kissed her," thinks Johannes, but it does
not strike him that he too has changed his behavior towards her.
"Children, what's up with you?" says Martin one evening grumblingly.
"Have your throats grown rusty, as you never sing now?"
For a few seconds both are silent, then Trude says, half turning
towards Johannes, "Will you?" He nods; but as she has not been looking
at him she thinks she has had no answer and says, turning towards
Martin, "You see, he doesn't want to!"
"Don't I though!" laughs Johannes.
"Then why can't you say so at once?" she answers with a timid attempt
at responding to his cheerful tone.
Then she puts herself in position, folds her hands in her lap as she is
wont to do when singing, and fixes her eyes on the pigeon-house yonder.
"What shall we sing?" she asks.
"Must we part, beloved maid?"--he suggests.
She shakes her head. "Nothing about love," she says rather pointedly,
"that's all so stupid."
He looks at her astonished and after some deliberation she starts a
hunting song. He joins in lustily and their voices blend and unite like
two waves in the ocean. They themselves marvel at such harmony; they
have never sung so well. But they soon come to an end. The Germans have
not many folk-songs which are not at the same time love ditties. And
finally she has to submit.
"Rose-bush and elder-tree,
When my love comes to me!"
she begins, tacking on a "Jodler." He smiles and looks at her, she
blushes and turns away.--She has let herself be caught now.
The two voices grow full of wonderful animation, as though their
hearts' pulsation were throbbing through the notes. They swell
heavenwards as though impelled by waves of passion, they die down as
though the bourne of life were stagnant through intensity of hidden
woe.
"No words can e'er express my love,
In silent longing I adore.
Question my eyes, for they will speak;
I love thee now and evermore!"
Why do their eyes suddenly meet? What occasion is there for them both
to tremble as though an electric current were passing through their
bodies?...
"There is never an hour in my sleeping
When my thoughts are not waking.
Their flight to thee taking,
To thank thee for placing forever
Thy heart in my keeping!"
What intoxicating passion vibrates through the notes!
How the two voices seek each other as if to embrace!
"O'er the mill-stream bends the willow,
In the valley lies the snow,
Sweetest love, 'tis time we parted,
I must leave thee, broken-hearted.
Parting, love, is full of woe!"
The voices die away in tremulous whispers. It is over--longing and
hope, the pain of parting and the agony of death, all resounded in
these treacherous, swelling chords.
Trude's lips twitch as with suppressed weeping, but her eyes glitter,
and suddenly, standing bolt upright, she begins the old, sad
miller-song about the golden house that stands "over on yonder hill."
Johannes starts, and his voice falls in tremulously. They sing through
the first verse and begin the second:
"Down there in yonder valley,
The mill-wheel grinds away,
'Tis love that it is grinding
By night and all the day.
The mill-wheel now is broken--"
Suddenly--a scream--a fall--Trude has dropped down in front of the
bench and is sobbing convulsively in the corner with her head pressed
against the wood-work.
Both brothers jump up--Martin takes her head between both his hands,
and, quite upset, he stammers disconnected, confused words--but she
only sobs more violently. He stamps his foot on the ground in despair
and, turning towards Johannes, who is deathly pale, he cries; "What
ails the child?"
Then Trude flings both her arms around his neck, raises herself up by
him and hides her tear-stained face upon his breast, as if seeking
refuge. He strokes her dishevelled hair caressingly and tries to calm
her; but he does not understand the art of comforting, poor Martin;
each one of his half-mumbled words sounds like suppressed scoldings.
She lets her head sink back towards the wall of foliage, her lips move,
and, as if she were continuing the song, she murmurs, still half choked
with sobs:
"The mill-wheel--now--is broken!"
"No, my child, it is not broken," his eyes filling with tears, "it
will not be broken--not _ours_--it will go on turning--as long as we
live."--
She shakes her head passionately and closes her eyes, as though
beholding visions.
"And what makes such things enter your head?" he continues. "Has not
everything turned out better than we thought? Isn't Johannes with us
too?--Don't we live together in happiness and content?--and work from
morn till night?--and--and--aren't your people comfortable too? And
don't we take care that your father has a good income--and"--
He groans and wipes the perspiration from his brow. He can think of
nothing more--and now appeals to Johannes, who is standing with his
face turned away and his head resting against the pillar at the
entrance of the veranda.
"Why will you always sing such sad songs?" he growls at him. "I myself
got to feel quite--I don't know what--when you began with them--and
she--she is only a weak woman."
Trude shakes her head as if to say, "Don't scold!" Then she raises
herself, murmurs, without looking up, a soft "Good-night," and goes
into the house.
Martin follows her.
Johannes buries his head in his arms and dreams to himself. He sees
her again as she raises herself to her full height with her eyes all
a-gleam,--then suddenly sank down as if struck by lightning. Then he
reproaches himself that he did not hasten to her side sooner, to
prevent her from falling, for he was nearest to her, and not only as
regards space!
Not only as regards space! As by a lurid flame--horrible,
bloody-red--his brain is suddenly illumined! Now he understands what
feelings inspired him on that midsummer night--why he flung the vase to
the ground--he makes a movement as if he would shatter it a second
time!--It is only for one moment--a moment of hellish torture--then the
flame is suddenly extinguished, there is darkness once more--intense,
pain-penetrated darkness!--He passes his hand over his brow, as if to
fire the flame anew, but all remains dark,--and dark and mysterious
remains to him what he has just experienced. He feels as though he must
cry out, as if he must confide to the night this unintelligible agony
in which he is wrestling. He drops on to his knees, on the very same
spot where Trude sank down, rests his head on the edge of the bench and
moans softly to himself.
Suddenly a door in the house slams. His brother's steps resound in the
entrance.
He jumps up and sits down on the bench. Martin's figure, darkly
outlined, appears on the veranda.
"Brother, brother!" Johannes calls out to him.
"Are you there, my boy?" the latter answers and throws himself with a
deep sigh on to the bench. "Well, things are nearly all right again
now--she has cried herself to sleep and now she is lying there quite
calmly and her breath too comes quietly and regularly. I stood for a
while at her bedside and looked at her. I am quite at a loss! Her
child-like mind used to lie before me as clear as a mirror--and now all
at once--what can it be? However much I think about it, I don't seem to
get on to the right track. Perhaps she troubles because as yet there is
no prospect of--of--yes, probably that's it. But I have always kept my
longing quite to myself--didn't want to hurt her feelings--for of
course, she can't alter the matter. And really, if one thinks about it,
she is but a child herself and much too young to fulfil maternal
duties. Why, one must have patience!" Thus he tries to talk away his
soul's secret sorrow. Johannes remains silent. His heart is so full, so
full. He wants to give his brother some proof of his affection and
knows not how? He too has his own pain which he wants to work off, and,
grasping Martin's hand, he says from the depths of his soul: "Oh,
everything, everything will come right again!"
"Of course, why shouldn't it?" Martin stammers in consternation. He
shakes his head, looks down thoughtfully for a while, then says, with
an uneasy laugh: "Go to bed, Johannes.--That broken mill-wheel is
haunting your imagination."
Next day Trude is lying ill in bed. She will see no one--even Martin as
little as possible. Johannes slinks about unable to settle down to
anything. Their meals are taken in monotonous silence. The shadows
close down more and more round the Rockhammer mill.
But the sun breaks forth once more. On the fourth day Trude is half-way
convalescent again, and Johannes may go into her room for a talk with
her.
He finds her sitting at the window, with a white dress lying across her
lap. She is pale and weak yet, but her features are glorified by an
expression of peaceful melancholy such as convalescents are apt to
wear.
Smiling, she puts out her hand to Johannes.
"How are you now?" he asks softly.
"Well--as you see," she replies, pointing to the white dress; "my
thoughts are already occupied with the ball."
"What ball?" he asks, astonished.
"What a bad memory you have!" she says with an attempt at a joke. "Why,
next Sunday is the rifle-fete."
"Yes, so it is."
"Perhaps you're not even looking forward to dancing with me?"
"Indeed I am!"
"Very much?--Tell me! Very much?"
"Very much!"
A child-like smile of pleasure flits across her pale, delicate face;
she fingers the laces and frills, with undisguised delight at the
white, airy texture.
This physical exhaustion seems to have restored to her mind its former,
child-like harmlessness, and with a certain degree of anxiety she
begins to enquire about her dancing shoes. She is once more, to all
appearance, just the same girlishly thoughtless creature who once put
out her hand with such unconstrained simple-heartedness to bid Johannes
welcome.
He sits down opposite to her, lets the texture of the ball-dress glide
through his fingers, and listens to her prattling with a quiet smile.
And everything she tells him is replete with sunshine and the very joy
of existence. This had been her wedding dress which she had made and
trimmed herself, for she could do that as well as anybody. She would
have liked to wear silk, as befitted the bride of the rich miller
Rockhammer, but she could not scrape together sufficient money, and as
for letting her intended give her her wedding dress--well, her pride
would not permit that. To-day she felt almost sorry to undo the seams,
for how many foolish hopes and dreams were not sewn into them?--But
what else could she do?--she had got so much stouter since she was a
married woman.
Then the conversation flies off at a tangent to the approaching
rifle-fete, touches on her new acquaintances in the village and
occasionally wanders off to the shoemaker's place in the town; but ever
and again she comes back to the time of her engagement and tarries over
the moods and events of those blissful days.
She seems to feel just like a young girl again. The smile that plays so
dreamily and full of presage about her lips, is like the smile of a
bride--as if the fete to which she is looking forward were her wedding.
All her thoughts henceforth tend towards the ball. While she is
entirely recovering, while her eyes grow clear, and the color returns
to her cheeks, she is meditating by day and by night how she shall
adorn herself; she is dreaming of the bliss which in those looked-for
hours is to dawn upon her, as though it were something totally new and
beyond all comprehension.
Trumpets sound; clarionets shriek; the big drum joins in with its dull,
droning thud.
Midst clinking and clanking, midst skipping and tripping, the guild
march along the street in solemn procession. On in front ride two
heralds on horseback--Franz Maas and Johannes Rockhammer, the two
Uhlans of the Guard. Nothing would induce them to give up their
privilege--even did it mean rack and ruin to the guild.
Franz's countenance is beaming, but Johannes looks serious--indifferent
almost; what does he care about all these people from whom he has
become estranged? He salutes no one, his gaze rests on none; but he is
searching, he is mustering the lines of people,--and now, suddenly--his
features glow with pride and happiness-he bows, he lowers his sword in
salute:--over there at the street corner, with rosy-red cheeks, with
beaming eyes, waving her handkerchief, stands she whom he seeks--his
brother's wife.
She is laughing--she is beckoning--she pulls herself up by the railing,
she jumps on to the curb-stone--she wants to watch him till he
disappears in the whirling clouds of dust. With all this she nearly,
very nearly, forgets Martin, who is walking along close to the banner.
But then, why does he go marching on so quietly and stiffly, why does
he stick his head so far into his collar?--Over there in the distance
Johannes is beckoning just once more with his sword.
The rifle-range, the goal of the procession, is situated close to the
fir-copse--which, seen from the weir, frames the meadow landscape,--and
hardly a thousand paces straight across from the Rockhammer mill, which
seems to beckon from over the alder bushes by the river. If those
stupid rifle people did not make such a deafening noise one might
easily hear the rushing of the waters....
"If only this hocus-pocus were already over," observed Johannes,
and casts a longing look towards the "ball-room," a huge square
tent-erection, whose canvas roof rises high above the mass of smaller
stalls and tents grouped around. Not till afternoon, when the "King"
has been solemnly proclaimed, may the members' friends enter the
festival ground. The hours pass by; shots resound at intervals along
the boundary of the wood. At noon comes Johannes' turn. He shoots--at
random--in spite of the flowers which Trude stuck into his gun.
"Flowers for luck," she had said, and Martin had stood by and smiled,
as one smiles at childish play. ... As soon as his duties as a rifleman
are fulfilled, he turns his back on the ranges and betakes himself into
the wood, where nothing is to be heard of all the shouting and
chattering and there is no sound but the echo of the shooting softly
dying away into the air.... He throws himself down upon the mossy
ground and stares up at the branches of the fir-trees, whose slender
needles glisten and gleam in the rays of the midday sun, like brightly
polished little knives. Then he closes his eyes and dreams. How strange
the whole world has become to him! And how far removed everything seems
which he ever lived through before! Not indeed that he has lived
through much--women and care have played no great part in his life
hitherto: and yet how rich, how full of glowing color it has always
appeared to him! Now an abyss has swallowed up everything, and over the
abyss rose-colored mists are undulating....
Two hours may have elapsed, when he hears distant trumpet blasts
proclaim the election of a new king. He jumps up. Only half an hour
more; then Trude will be coming.
At the shooting-stand he learns that the dignity of "king" has been
allotted to his friend Franz Maas. He hears it as if in a dream; what
does it concern him? His gaze wanders incessantly towards the highroad,
where, through the dust and the glaring sun, crowds of gaily dressed
female figures are approaching on foot and in carriages.
"Are you looking out for Trude?" asks Martin's voice suddenly, close
behind him.
He looks up startled from his brooding. "Good gracious, boy, what's up
with you?" asks Martin laughingly. "Have you taken your bad shot so
much to heart, or are you sleeping in broad daylight?"
Martin has one of his good days to-day. Meeting all these people--he is
one of the chief dignitaries of the guild--has roused him from his
usual moodiness,--his eyes glisten and a jovial smile plays about his
broad mouth. If only he did not look so awkward in his Sunday clothes!
His hat sits right on his forehead, leaving full play to a bunch of
bristly hair sticking up curiously over the brim, and below that there
appear the white tapes of his shirt-front, which have worked out from
under his coat collar.
"There she comes, there she comes," he suddenly shouts, waving his hat.
The flashing carriage, drawn by a pair of splendid Lithuanian bays, is
the Rockhammer state coach, which Martin had had built for his wedding.
Sitting within it--that white figure reclining with such proud dignity
in one corner, and looking about with such distant seriousness--that is
she, "the rich mistress of Rockhammer," as the people all round are
whispering to each other.
"Look--Trude is giving herself airs," says Martin softly, pulling
Johannes' sleeve.
At the same moment she discovers the brothers, and, throwing her
affected bearing to the winds, she jumps up in the carriage, waves her
sunshade in one hand, her kerchief in the other, and laughs and gives
vent to her delight and prods the coachman with the point of her
parasol to make him drive faster. Then, when the carriage stops, she
gives herself no time to wait till the door is opened, but jumps onto
the splash-board and from there straight into Martin's arms. She is in
a state of feverish excitement; her breath comes hot; her lips move to
speak, but her voice fails her.
"Quietly, child, quietly," says Martin, and strokes her hair, which
to-day falls upon her bare neck in a mass of little ringlets. Johannes
stands motionless, lost in contemplation of her.
How lovely she is!
The white, gauzy dress floats round her exquisite figure like an airy
veil! And that white neck!--and those little dimples at her bosom!--and
those glorious plump arms on which there trembles a light, silvery
fluff!--and this plastic bust, which rises and falls like a marble
wave!... She appears unapproachably beautiful, every inch a woman yet
every inch majesty, for in his innocent mind the ideas "woman" and
"majesty" are synonymous, and mean for him an indefinable something
which fills him with bliss and with fear. His eyes are suddenly opened
and are dazzled as yet with gazing at this regal type of female
loveliness, beside which he has hitherto walked as one blind. How
lovely she is! How lovely is woman! And now a torrent of confused
words streams from her unfettered lips. She had nearly died of
impatience.--And that stupid big clock,--and her lonely dinner,--and
those silly dancing shoes which would not fit! They are too tight; they
pinch frightfully--"but they look lovely, don't they?"
And she lifts up the hem of her skirt a little to show the works of
art, light blue, high-heeled little shoes, tied across the instep with
blue silk bows.
"They seem too short!" Martin remarks, with a doubtful shake of his
head.
"That's just what they _are_," she laughs, "my toes burn as if they were
on fire! But I shall dance all the better for it--what do _you_ say,
Johannes?" And she closes her eyes for a moment as though to recall
vanished dreams. Then she hooks her arm in Martin's, and asks to be
taken to her tent. The most notable families of the district have
provided themselves with private dwellings--light huts or canvas tents
which afford them night shelter, for the fete commonly drags on till
early day. Trude had been herself the day before on the festival ground
to superintend the erection of her tent; she had also had furniture
brought in and wreathed the entrance gaily with leafy garlands. She may
well be proud of her handiwork, for the Rockhammer tent is the finest
of the whole collection.
While Martin seeks to wedge his way through the crowd, she turns to
Johannes and says quickly and softly:
"Are you satisfied, Hans? Am I to your liking?"
He nods.
"Very much. Tell me--very much?"
"Very much."
She draws a deep breath, then laughs to herself in silent satisfaction.
The miller's lovely wife makes a sensation among the crowd. The strange
farmers and land-proprietors stand and stare at her--the burghers'
wives secretly nudge each other with their elbows; the young fellows
from the village awkwardly pull off their hats; a whispering and
murmuring passes through the throng wherever she appears. With serious
mien and affecting a certain dignity, she walks along, leaning on
Martin's arm, from time to time shaking back the curls which wave over
her shoulders,--and when, in so doing, she throws back her head, she
looks like a queen, or rather like a spirited child which is playing
the part of a queen in a fairy tale, and hardly feels comfortable in
the role.
When an hour later the first notes of the fiddles are heard, she calls
out with a cry of delight! "Hans, now I belong to you."
Martin warns her to beware of cold and other evils, but in the midst of
his speeches they are off and away. Then he resigns himself, pours
himself out a good glass of Hungarian wine, and stretches himself on
the sofa to take some rest.
All sorts of pleasant thoughts flit through his head. Hasn't everything
arranged itself happily and satisfactorily since Johannes came to live
at the mill? Have not even his own bad hours of tragic presentiment and
haunting terror become less and less frequent? Is he not visibly
reviving, infected by the harmless merriment of those two? Is
not this very day the best proof that his antipathy to strange
people has disappeared, that he has learnt to be merry when others are
merry-making?--And Trude--how happy she is at his side!--That evening
certainly!--Well, what of that! Women are frail creatures, subject to a
thousand varying moods! And how quickly things have come right again!
The words which Johannes spoke to him that night, come back to him; he
clinks his full glass against the two empty ones which the youngsters
have left behind them: "Good luck to you both! May our happy triple
alliance continue to our lives' end!"--Meanwhile Trude and Johannes
have squeezed themselves through the closely packed crowd, as far as
the entrance to the dancing-room. Sounding waves of music swell towards
them; like a hot human breath the air from within is wafted in their
direction. In the semi-obscurity of the tent the couples are whirling
along in one dense crowd, and flit past them like shadowy forms.
Johnannes walks as one a-dreaming. He hardly dares to let his gaze rest
upon Trude; for even yet that mysterious awe has complete possession of
him and seems to bind him round with iron fetters.
"You are so quiet to-day, Hans," she whispers, nestling with her face
against his sleeve. He is silent.
"Have I done anything to displease you!"
"Nothing--no indeed!" he stammers.
"Then come, let us dance!"
At the moment when he lays his hand upon her she gives a start; then
with a deep sigh she lets herself sink into his arms. And now they are
whirling along. She leans her face with a deep-drawn breath upon his
breast. Just in front of her left eye there flutters the rosette which
he wears to-day as a member of the rifle-guild; the white silk ribbon
trembles close to her eyelashes. She moves her head a little to one
side and looks up at him.
"Do you know how I feel?" she murmurs.
"Well?"
"As if you were carrying me through the clouds."
And then, when they have to stop, she says: "Come out quickly, so that
I need not dance with anyone else!"
She clutches hold of his hand, while he makes a passage for her through
the crowd of people. Outside, she takes his arm, and walks at his side
proudly and happily with glowing cheeks and dancing eyes. She laughs,
she chatters, she jests, and he keeps pace with her to the best of his
ability.--In the heat of the dance his bashfulness has entirely melted
away. A wild gladness fires his veins. To-day she is his with every
thought and feeling, his only, as he can feel by the trembling of her
arm, which rests upon his more firmly with secret, sweet pressure; he
can see it in the most gleaming glamour of her eyes as she raises them
to his.
After a time she asks, somewhat reluctantly: "I say, mustn't we have a
look what Martin is doing?"
"Yes, you are right," he replies eagerly. But nothing comes of this
good resolution. Every time they happen to pass the tent something
remarkable is sure to be taking place in the opposite direction, which
gives them an opportunity of forgetting their intention.
Then all of a sudden, Martin himself comes towards them, beaming with
pleasure and surrounded by a number of village inhabitants whom he is
taking along with him to stand them treat. "Hallo, children!" he says,
"I am just going to remove my general headquarters to the 'Crown'
Innkeeper's booth; if you want a drink, come along with me."
Trude and Johannes exchange a rapid glance of understanding and
simultaneously beg to be excused.
"Good-bye then, children, and enjoy yourselves thoroughly!" With that
he goes off.
"I have never seen him in such good spirits," remarks Trude, laughing.
"Indeed, no one could grudge them to him," says Johannes in a gentle
voice, looking affectionately after his brother. He wants to kill the
gnawing which has awakened within him at sight of Martin.
Evening has come on. The festive crowd is bathed in purple light. The
wood and the meadow are ruddy red.
In a lonely nook at the meadow's edge, Trude stops and looks with
dazzled gaze towards the faintly glowing sun.
"Ah, if only it would not set for us today!" she cries, stretching
forth her arms.
"Well, command it not to!" says Johannes.
"Sun, I command thee to stay with us!"
And as the red ball sinks lower and lower, she suddenly shivers and
says: "Do you know what idea just came into my head? That we should
never see it rise again!" Then she laughs aloud. "I know it is all
nonsense! Come and dance."
And they return to the dancing-tent. A new dance has just commenced.
Fired by longing, entranced by contemplation of each other, they whirl
along and disappear in a dark little corner near the musicians'
platform, which they have chosen in order to avoid the searching gaze
of the other dancers, who are all dying to make the acquaintance of the
miller's lovely wife.
Trude's hair has loosed itself and is fluttering about unbound; in her
eyes is a faint glow, as of intoxication: her whole being seems
pervaded by the ecstasy of the moment.
"If only my foot did not burn like very hell-fire," she says once as
Johannes takes her back to her place.
"Then rest awhile."
She laughs aloud, and when at the same moment Franz Maas comes to claim
the dance of honor in his capacity of "rifle-king," she throws herself
into his arms and whirls away.
Johannes puts his hand to his burning brow, and looks after the couple,
but the lights and the figures melt away before his eyes into one
heaving chaos: everything seems to be turning round and round--he
staggers--he has to clutch hold of a pillar to prevent himself from
falling; and when at that moment Franz Maas returns with Trude, he begs
him to take charge of his sister-in-law for half an hour; he must go
out for a whiff of fresh air.
He steps out of the hot, close tent, in which two candelabra filled
with tallow candles diffuse an unbearable smoke--out into the clear,
cool night. But here too are noise and fiddling! In the shooting booths
the bolts of the air-guns are rattling, from the gaming tables comes
the hoarse screaming of their owners, trying to allure people, and the
merry-go-round spins along in the darkness, laden with all its
glittering tawdriness and accompanied by shouting and clanging.
In between everything sways the black, surging crowd.
Behind the crests of the pine wood, which silently and gloomily towers
above all the tumult, the sky is all aflame with glorious yellow light.
Half an hour more and the moon will be pouring its smiling beams over
the scene. Johannes walks along slowly between the tents.--In front of
the "Crown" host's booth he stops and looks in through the window. But
when he sees Martin sitting with a deeply flushed face amidst a swarm
of rollicking carousers, he creeps back into the darkness, as if he
were afraid to meet him.
From the adjacent tent comes the sound of noisy singing. He hesitates
for a moment, then enters, for his tongue cleaves to the roof of
his mouth. He is received with a loud shout of delight. At a long
beer-bedabbled table sits a host of his former schoolfellows, rowdy
fellows, some of them, whom as a rule he seeks to avoid. They surround
him; they drink to him; they press him to join their circle. "Why do
you make yourself so scarce, Johannes?" one of them screams from the
opposite end of the table, "and where do you stick of an evening?"
"He dangles at the apron-strings of his lovely sister-in-law," sneers
another. "Leave my sister-in-law out of the game," cries Johannes with
knitted brows. These proceedings sicken him; this hoarse screaming
offends his ear; these coarse jests hurt him. He pours down a few
glasses of cool beer and goes outside, with great difficulty succeeding
in shaking off the importunate fellows.
He saunters toward the boundary of the wood and stares into its
obscurity, already beginning to be animated by pale lunar reflections;
then he proceeds for some distance beneath the trees, deeply inhaling
the soft, aromatic fragrance of the pines. He is determined that by
main force he will master this mysterious intoxication which seems to
fever his whole being; but the further he betakes himself away from the
festival ground the more does his unrest increase. Just as he is about
to enter the dancing-room he sees Franz Maas hurrying towards him in
breathless excitement. A vague presentiment of disaster dawns within
him.
"What has happened?" he calls out to him.
"It's a good thing I've found you. Your sister-in-law has been taken
ill."
"For heaven's sake! Where have you taken her?"
"Martin led her to your tent."
"How did it happen? How did it happen?"
"Some time before, I noticed that she had become pale and quiet, and
when I asked her what was the matter, she said her foot hurt her. But
in spite of that she would not sit still, and, while I was dancing with
her, she suddenly broke down in the middle of the room."
"And then? What then?"
"I raised her up and drew her as quickly as possible to her chair,
while I sent some one off to fetch Martin."
"Why didn't you send for me, man?"
"Firstly I didn't know where you were, and then, of course, it was the
proper thing to send word first to her husband."