place, could I conquer my uneasiness. I had been a homeless and joyless
man for nearly two years, and had advanced to the limits of the
thirties. I had tried occasionally, from a sense of duty, to interest
myself in business. I scarcely need to say that I had replied with a
mere shrug of the shoulders whenever solicitous friends, especially
women, urged me to a second marriage.
"It happened one autumn day that, much against my will, I was obliged
to stop in Switzerland and look after one of my estates which was to
have a new tenant. After staying for several weeks in Engelberg, I came
down the road to Stansstad on a most beautiful, sunshiny day, to cross
the lake to Luzerne.
"About half way down there is a pleasant spot under magnificent
walnut-trees, where the wagons coming up from the valley usually stop
for a quarter of an hour to breathe their horses. As I reached the
first houses I saw a carriage stop in front of the inn, and two ladies
presently alight from it. One of them, dressed entirely in black,
attracted my attention by her graceful bearing. She had already
vanished into the house, when I suddenly remembered who it was that had
carried herself so. A slight depression fell upon me. But I at once
determined to pass on without attempting to confirm my suspicions.
"As my light open wagon was rolling by the inn, a face only too well
known to me looked from an upper window. She recognized me at once; I
saw it by the startled way in which she drew back, as if a phantom from
some long-buried past had suddenly risen before her. In the next
instant she controlled herself sufficiently to bow to me. There was
nothing else to do. I stopped and hastened to her.
"She met me perfectly unchanged; her beauty was only heightened by an
additional fulness; her cheeks, with their ivory color, were slightly
flushed from the excitement of this meeting.
"She took my hand in both of hers and pressed it warmly, as if I were
an old friend.
"'I know everything about you,' she said; 'I sorrowed with you, and how
deeply! Although you did not know. I tried several times to write--but
the words always failed me.'
"At first I could say nothing in reply. I felt with too much
consternation that her power over me was as strong as in those first
days. The tones of her voice; her dark, often passionately burning
eyes; the beautiful lips that seemed to have forgotten to smile; the
whole witchery of long ago was again active. We walked up and down the
empty room; her companion did not appear. I could hardly preserve a
tolerable composure.
"Instead of personal things, I spoke about her journey, and learned
that she was to remain a week or two in Engelberg. Her nerves were
unstrung; she suffered from insomnia. Then her brother was to come for
her, as she had decided to accompany him to his embassy at Madrid.
"'And your husband?' I asked carelessly. She looked at me distantly,
almost reproachfully. 'He has not been among the living for some
years,' she said in a monotone; 'I thought you knew it. Were not the
sad circumstances of his suicide at Monaco in all the papers?'
"'Certainly,' I replied; 'but I read of a new marriage--'
"'It was a foolish rumor,' she said, staring gloomily at the ground; 'I
would never have left my brother to play a _role_ in the farce of the
Second Empire. Could you really believe that of me?'
"I was unable to answer. A storm was raging in me which swept away all
power of thought. She was free, and I? Was I still bound? How was it
that her power over me died in the very moment when I might have
yielded without hesitation? I saw the beautiful, once-loved woman near
me; it seemed as if I had but to hold out my arms and take her, and--my
arms hung heavily at my sides. Did a sword lie between us then, as
before between my beloved wife and me? While we were standing silently
side by side near the window, gazing down into the glorious valley, my
mind became calm and clear. I realized distinctly and sadly that if I
now offered her half of my heart I should act immorally. Strangely
enough, these words sounded always in my ears, 'She sleeps, that we may
be happy;' and even while I felt all the magic of her warm, breathing
life, a cold shudder ran through me, as if a corpse were standing near,
a past far mightier than the most warm-blooded present.
"Out of sight is indeed _in_ mind.
"She must have perceived my feeling. She too was silent, and I saw her
bosom heaving painfully. She asked about my daughter, but evidently did
not hear my answer. An intense pity seized me as I looked at her--the
beautiful, noble, unhappy woman, with so long a life before her still
and so little hope of happiness. Was it a foolish, unreal fear that
prevented me from taking her in my arms? Do you believe that I could
possibly have been happy with her? Who can know how the years will
change one! But at that time it would have been a lie and a crime.
"The companion came with a glass of milk. Lucile drank a little and
returned the glass with a gesture of aversion. 'I am no longer
thirsty,' she said; 'is the carriage ready?'
"I offered my arm to escort her down. On the stairs she stopped an
instant.
"'Do you play much now?' she asked.
"'I have not touched the violin since I became a widower,' I replied.
'Music is a pleasure only when one is cheerful and sociable. In
solitude it revives all buried sorrows.'
"'Yes,' she said, 'it does, and one is grateful for it. There are
people so poor that their only possessions consist of old griefs,
without which they could not live. They remind one that there was once
a time when the heart was living, for only a living heart can feel
misery. You have the advantage of me in not feeling this truth.'
"I felt her hand trembling on my arm. 'Lucile!' I cried, pressing her
arm to me. Who knows what might have happened then if, her pride being
suddenly roused, she had not drawn away from me and hastened down the
remaining steps alone. Before I could reach her she was seated in the
carriage.
"'Farewell! Remember me to your daughter. And--no! I was about to say
_Au revoir!_ But we shall probably never meet again.'
"She extended her hand to me from the carriage with a look that hurt
me, for it seemed to ask whether I had either hope or desire to see her
again. I bent over the small, white hand, and kissed it. Then the
horses started, and I stood alone in the sunny street, until her veil,
fluttering in the fresh mountain breeze, vanished from my sight."
MINKA
MINKA.
It was a few years after the French war. The fall review had
incidentally brought together again a number of young officers who had
earned their iron crosses in the array of the Loire, and they had
invited good comrades from other regiments to join them and celebrate
the reunion from an inexhaustible bowl. Midnight was past. The talk,
which for some time had concerned personal recollections and
experiences, had taken a thoughtful turn and was becoming profound. It
was impossible to realize how many were absent without touching on the
everlasting riddle of human life. Besides, the horrible death of a
popular young hero, who had fallen into the hands of the Franc-tireurs,
and been killed in the most revolting manner, and the consequent
destruction of a treasure of brilliant gifts and talents, hopes and
promises--had brought again to the front the old problem, whether
universal destiny and the fate of the individual will be according to
our idea of justice; or whether the individual's weal or woe will be
quietly subordinated to the vast, mysterious design of the universe.
All the well-known reasons for and against a providence ruling morally
and judging righteously, as human beings conceive it, were discussed
again and again; and at length the oldest and most distinguished
of the young soldiers formulated, from the animated argument, this
result:--that even the most enthusiastic optimist, in face of the
crying horrors to which poor humanity is exposed, cannot prove the
existence of a compensating justice on earth; indeed, can only save his
belief in a righteous God by hoping for a world to come.
"But will donkeys go to heaven, too?" suddenly asked a calm, rich voice
from a quiet corner.
For a moment all were silent. Then followed an outburst of gay
laughter, agreeably enlivening to the majority, who were tired of the
philosophical talk.
"Hear! hear!" cried some.
"One will not be able to understand his own speech at doomsday if all
the resurrected donkeys bray to one another," said a lively young
captain. "Although, Eugene, if the sainted Antonius's pig is in
heaven--"
"And so many pious sheep!" another broke in.
"You forget that the question is long since decided," said a third;
"one has only to read Voltaire's 'Pucelle' in so many cantos!"
"Were you merely joking, Eugene?" then asked the senior president, who
had not joined in the laugh, "or was the question seriously meant,
because it is certainly not yet decided whether or no an immortal soul
lives in animals also?"
The person thus addressed was a young man about thirty years of age,
the only one at the banquet who wore civilian's dress. A severe wound
had forced him to give up a military career. Since then he had lived on
his small estate, more occupied with the study of military science than
with the tilling of his fields. He had come to the city on the occasion
of the review in order to see his old friends.
"The question," he now said very earnestly, "is really not my own, but
is a quotation, whose brusque simplicity embarrassed me myself not long
ago. A strange little story, certainly not a cheerful one, depends on
it. But since we have again soared into speculations which are beyond
jesting, it may perhaps be fitting if I tell where the quotation
originated. I can hardly maintain that the story is calculated to throw
any light on the dark problem."
"Only tell it," cried one after another.
"Who knows whether the donkey that you will ride before us may not
finally open his mouth, like Balaam's prophetic ass, and teach us the
system of the world."
Eugene shook his head with a peculiar smile, and began. "You know that
I suffered from my wound during the entire winter of '71 and '72, and
could only limp around with a cane. When spring came, I surrendered
myself to the care of my married sister. My brother-in-law's manor is
surrounded by endless pine forests, in which I was to take air baths.
Whatever I gained in physical strength, as I wandered about each day in
those lonely thickets, or lay lazily buried in cushions of deep,
luxuriant moss, I lost again in my moral condition. Even in the
hospital I had not seemed to myself such a miserable cripple as here.
Everything about me was overflowing with life and strength; every old
knot bore countless bright-green shoots; even a rotten stump made
itself useful as barracks for a swarming army of ants--and I, condemned
to detestable idleness at twenty-four--enough! I moped about half the
time, and was on very bad terms with God and the world.
"About this time, too, I lived through a sickness which might have
ended my brooding. The neighborhood is thinly populated; the people are
very poor; the women frightfully ugly,--Bohemian types degenerated by
crossing with the Saxons, pinched and rendered half savage through
privation and suffering. But I was perfectly contented that nothing
charming crossed my path. It would have made the consciousness of my
invalidism still more painful. You know, indeed, how long it takes for
the last trace of the typhoid poison, so paralyzing to all energy, to
disappear from one's system. The North Sea was to do me this service.
"Well, for several weeks, like mad Roland, though somewhat more
mildly, I roamed through pine and fir-covered ravines without making a
shot, although a hunting-piece was slung at my back. It was truly, in
spite of all world-griefs, a heavenly time; never have I had such
intimate acquaintance with nature, never felt so vividly what is meant
by 'our mother earth' and 'our father air.' But that does not belong
here. I will come to the point.
"One afternoon I allowed myself to be lured farther than usual from the
house by a most beautiful path winding among young woods, whose slender
trees, scarcely taller than I, allowed the May sunlight to stream
through unchecked. When I found myself entirely astray, I decided to
strike through to the edge of the forest, in order to regain an open
view. A gentle slope, sparsely covered with birches and berry-bushes,
led upwards. Beyond, through the tall firs which enclosed the clearing
like a fence, I could see blue mountain-tops shimmering in the
distance, and knew that I might thence easily find my way. But as I
came out of the forest, I realized for the first time how far I had
wandered. From the forest edge the land sank by a tolerably steep slope
to a plain; and far below lay a small town, well known to me on the
map, but so distant from our estate, that in all my reconnoitring I had
never seen it till now. I was startled when I realized where I was,
for, with my lame leg, I could not possibly undertake to return on
foot. But I thought I might obtain a team in the village.
"I seated myself on a newly-fallen trunk to rest a little before
descending to the town. The land beneath me lay in the deep calm of
afternoon; thin clouds of smoke drifting up from the chimneys of the
old houses announced that the good housewives were making their coffee.
The broad, level plain, gayly checkered with fields of promising, green
crops, stretched beyond; while almost exactly half way between the
forest-edge and the first houses, and bordered by a few bushes and
elders, lay a great fish-pond, peculiarly dark in color, although the
purest spring-heaven was mirrored therein. The ground about it was
marshy, and it seemed as though all the water of the neighborhood
flowed into the depression as into some monstrous cistern. I do not
know why the black basin appeared so uncanny to me, for the birds
nesting in the shrubbery on its banks flew over it continually with
cheerful twitterings. But my gloomy humor drew nourishment just then
from the most innocent sources.
"When I finally raised my eyes to look about for some smooth,
gradually-descending path, I noticed at the right, scarcely a stone's
throw from my seat, a forlorn, mean little house standing in shadow
close by the roots of the foremost trees. The old, tumbled-down fence
surrounding a bit of ground; the dove-cot, in which no living thing was
stirring; the tiled roof, whose damages had been poorly repaired with
shingles and stones from the fields--all looked desolate and
dilapidated, but since a path must surely lead thence to the town, I
arose and dragged myself slowly towards the hut.
"As soon as I perceived the extreme desolation of the old barracks, I
gave up my conjecture that a lumberman dwelt there. All the mortar had
fallen away from the wall on the weather side, and the rain must have
had free entrance through the holes in the deeply sunken roof. The
piece of land behind the crumbling fence, which in times past might
have supported a little garden or a few vegetable beds, had become a
waste rubbish heap, upon which a single black hen tripped about,
excitedly scratching between the weeds and nettles for something
eatable. The north side, turned towards the slope, had two small
windows with broken panes; and in the middle, a door standing wide
open. I glanced into the unattractive entrance. No human being was to
be seen or heard. I was about to go back and follow a little foot-path
which seemed to wind down into the valley, when I was startled, indeed,
truly frightened, by a donkey's bray; for never in my life have I heard
that odd cry given so passionately, and with such peculiarly mournful
modulation, as at that moment.
"The cry of pain came from the other side of the house. As I turned the
corner, I saw in the meadow, close to the wall, an idyllic group
crouched in the young grass: an old woman, clothed in a torn jacket of
flowered calico and a coarse woollen petticoat, and wearing wound about
her head a gray handkerchief, from beneath which her black hair,
thickly sprinkled with gray, hung down in disorder; and near her,
stretched upon the ground, a young donkey with noticeably slender
limbs, dark-edged ears, and a coat of silver-gray, adorned on the back
with a black stripe extending to the head. It was a fine animal, an
honor to its race, and it would certainly have taken a prize at any
show. But I immediately perceived why the poor creature relieved its
oppressed heart in so particularly doleful a manner. A hand's-breadth
on its left shoulder-blade was disfigured by a foul wound; this the old
woman was attempting to cover with wet bandages, although the wounded
brute restively tried to prevent her merciful ministrations with kicks
and stampings of its forelegs. A shallow bowl by the woman's side held
some dark liquid, with which she saturated the rag in order to cool the
wound. She quietly continued this operation as I approached her.
"'Good-morning, dame!' said I. She merely nodded her head wearily.
Beginning to speak of the wound, I asked how it had been received, and
what remedy she was using. No answer. It occurred to me that she did
not understand German. But as I turned away, exclaiming half to myself,
'What a pity! Such a beautiful brute!' her gray eyes suddenly flashed
so powerfully upon me from under her bushy, black brows, that the whole
withered, leather-colored face seemed ten years younger.
"'Yes indeed, sir!' she said in notably pure German, with but a slight
Bohemian accent. 'It is truly a pity, and Minka is certainly beautiful.
If only you had seen her before she was hurt! She could jump about
almost like a young horse, and her coat was like silk and velvet. Now,
for seven months she has lain thus miserably on her belly, and if she
gets up on her legs, how her knees bend, poor creature! Besides, what
use is she? "Betty Lamitz," said the forest warder only yesterday, as
he passed and saw the trouble I had with the brute--for now one must
bring even its bit of fodder close to its muzzle--"you should have her
killed," said he; "the skinner will give you a thaler for the hide."
But no! said I; it's only a beast, but it shall have care like any
other Christian being, or like an honest servant fallen sick in
service! Yes, so I said. Whoa, whoa, Minka! don't roll about so! Look,
sir, she lies on her back and rubs her wound all the time, so no
plaster holds, and it spreads farther and farther. Whoa! Be still!'
"Then, fairly embracing the beast, she tried to quiet it, and keep it
in its bed. Suddenly she released it, ran to a wooden well standing in
shadow back of the house, and having filled a low pail from the old
stone trough into which the water was trickling down, she thrust it
under her charge's pink muzzle. Minka drank in long draughts, and her
feverish excitement visibly abated. The old woman sat near her, looking
on with great contentment, and seeming once more entirely oblivious to
my presence.
"At length I repeated my inquiry as to the origin of the bad wound
between the shoulder-blades. But the old woman again remained silent;
she merely sighed, and scratched her lean arms with her withered
lingers till white streaks stood up on the brown skin.
"'Yes, yes!' she said absently, after a long while--'such a poor
female! What matters beauty against bad luck? And how she has worked,
always cheerfully and willingly! I could load her as much as I wished,
she never once kicked, or even shook her ears at me. To be sure, I have
brought her up from her tenth day. She was a twin. The forester at
Freithof had a she-ass that presented him one morning with Minka and
her sister. "Would you like to have a handsome nursling, Mother
Lamitz?" said he, just for a joke. Well, I held him to his word. He
owed me a little gold for a piece of linen that I had woven for him. A
couple of florins were still lacking, and for them I took the young
ass. I had trouble enough, first in getting it home, and then in
raising it, for milk was scarce with us. But we have never rued it. A
hard worker, sir, this Minka! We have had to drag many things from the
woods, berries and mushrooms down to market in summer, then our winter
wood, and whatsoever else was needful. I--good heavens! I can trace all
my bones, although I am barely fifty, and Hannah--well, she was still
too weak. And look you, such a faithful beast, a god-send, our only
help--to be so hurt and disgraced in its young years--oh!'
"'Dame,' said I, 'look at me! I too am still young, yet I limp through
the world, and my food must be brought to me because I can no longer
gain it by my own strength; and whoever gives a thaler for _my_ hide is
a fool and a spendthrift. Yet who knows, but that sometime we shall
both prance gayly about once more.'
"I chatted in this strain for some time to cheer her, but, without
heeding me, she stared fixedly at the wound. She had meanwhile covered
it with a firm plaster, since the brute would no longer suffer the
bathing.
"'Tell me once for all,' she suddenly commenced, and by the gleam
of her eyes I saw that when young she must have been far from
homely--'tell me once for all, sir, do you believe that donkeys go to
heaven?'
"I laughed.
"Why do you ask that, mother?
"'I once asked our parson about it. He said it was a foolish question;
that only Christian people go to heaven; and that animals have no
immortal souls. "But, parson," said I, "if the great God is just and
merciful, why doesn't He pity the beasts too, as human beings do if
they are not scoundrels? For instance, why does Minka's sister live
like a princess, have nothing to do but draw a little play-wagon in
which the young masters take an occasional pleasure drive, always
receive kind words and the best fodder, and even have a love-affair
with the valley-miller's donkey? And our Minka, who has just as good a
character, who wears herself out with work, and is often on her legs
with a load for ten hours together, now has all four struck from under
her, and if she should die to-morrow, what pleasure in life has she
had? Is that just, parson? And if it is not sometime paid back to her
there above--" But then he forbade me to speak, and said such blasphemy
led straight to hell. You tell me, sir, do you know anything about it?'
"You can imagine that I did not have the most spirited expression, when
the pistol was thus placed against my breast, and the explanation of
the world-secret demanded of me. Fortunately, however, just at that
moment a woman's clear voice began to sing within the house, and with
it one heard a child's feeble crying, which the song was evidently
intended to still.
"'Who is singing there, Mother Lamitz?' I asked.
"'Who should it be but Hannah?' she grumbled.
"'Your daughter? May I venture to look in at her?'
"The old woman did not reply; muttering to herself, she took the pail
and carried it back to the well; then she rolled forward a wheelbarrow
piled high with grass and weeds, and busied herself in giving handfuls
to the sick beast, almost shoving the food into its mouth. I did not
wait long for an expressed permission, but approached the house, and,
after knocking, entered by the door at the left.
"A suffocating steam greeted me, mixed with the smell of some drying
clothes, which hung across the room on a tightly stretched rope. I saw
immediately that there were only a few miserable swaddling-clothes and
baby-frocks, coarse and much patched.
"In one corner stood a great loom, thickly covered with dust; in the
other, upon a heap of straw, distinguishable from the bed of an animal
only by a woollen covering, sat a fair-haired young woman, holding a
half naked babe at her breast. She herself had nothing on her body but
a shirt, which had fallen far down on her shoulders, and a red woollen
petticoat, which left her white feet visible to the ankles.
"As I entered, she gazed at me searchingly, and for an instant ceased
her singing. She seemed to have expected someone else; but, seeing that
I was an entire stranger, she at once recommenced her cradle-song,
though somewhat more softly, apparently not at all disturbed because I
had surprised her in the performance of a mother's most sacred duty,
and in such incomplete attire.