OPEN THE DOOR.
All Souls’ Day, it was dark and foggy. The children were among the
people collected in the churchyard. Krappenzacher had led little Dami
by the hand, but Amrie had come alone without Brown Mariann. Many of
the people scolded at the hard-hearted woman, and some touched upon the
truth, when they said, “Mariann could gain nothing by a visit to the
churchyard, for she knew not where her husband was buried.”
Amrie was quiet, and shed no tears; while Dami, through the pitying
speeches of the people, wept freely, and especially because
Krappenzacher secretly scolded and cuffed him.
Amrie stood a long time dreamily forgetting herself, looking fixedly at
the lights at the head of the graves, how the flame consumed the wax,
the wick burnt to coal, till at last the light was wholly burnt down.
Among the people, there moved around a man in a respectable city dress,
with a ribbon in his button-hole. It was Severin, the Inspector of
Buildings--upon a journey, who had come to visit the graves of his
father and mother. His sister and her family surrounded him continually
with a certain reverence, and indeed the attention of every one was
directed towards this respectable visitor.
Amrie observed him, and asked Krappenzacher, “If he were a bridegroom?”
“Why?”
“Because he has a ribbon in his button-hole.”
Instead of answering the child, Krappenzacher hastened towards a group
to say what a stupid speech the child had made. And around among the
graves echoed loud laughter at such silliness.
But the wife of Farmer Rodel said, “I find it not so very foolish.
If Severin wears it as an honorable distinction, it is yet strange
that he should wear it in the churchyard; here where all are equal,
whether in life they have been dressed in silk or fustian. It had
already displeased me that he wore it in the church. We must lay
aside something before we go into the church; how much more in the
churchyard!”
The question of little Amrie must at length have reached the ear of
Severin, for he was seen hastily to button his overcoat, and nod
towards the child. He asked who she was, and scarcely had he heard the
answer, than he hastened towards the children at the fresh graves, and
said to Amrie, “Come, child, open thy hand. Here, I give thee a ducat;
buy thyself whatever you want.”
The child stared at him, and did not answer. But when Severin had
turned away, she said half aloud, “I take no presents,” and threw the
ducat after him. Many of the people who saw this came up to Amrie
and scolded her, and were on the point of ill treating her, had not
Madame Rodel, who had already protected her with words, now saved her
from their rough hands. She, also, desired that Amrie should at least
hasten after Severin and thank him; but Amrie was silent, and remained
obstinate, so that her protectress left her. After much search, the
ducat was found. The Mayor took it immediately into his possession, to
give it over to the guardian of the child.
These incidents brought the little Amrie a strange reputation in the
village. They said she had been only a few days with Brown Mariann, and
had already acquired her manners and her character. It was unheard of,
they repeated, that a child of such poverty should have so much pride;
and while they reproached her whole bearing on account of this pride,
it was the more apparent that this principle of independence in the
young childish soul was there to protect her. Brown Mariann did all
she could to strengthen this disposition. She said, “No greater good
fortune can happen to the poor than that they should be called proud.
It is the only safeguard; for every one would trample upon them, and
then expect that they should thank them for doing it.”
In the winter, Amrie was often at the fireside with Krappenzacher,
listening eagerly to his violin. Yes, Krappenzacher once gave her great
praise. He said, “Child, you are not stupid;” for after listening a
long time Amrie had said, “It is wonderful how a fiddle can hold its
breath so long. I cannot do it.” And at home in the quiet winter nights
when Brown Mariann related exciting or horrible tales, or magical
histories, Amrie, drawing a long breath when they were ended, would
say, “Oh, Mariann, I must now take breath, for as long as you are
speaking I cannot breathe; I must hold my breath.”
Was not that a sign of deep devotion to what was present, and yet a
remarkable free observation of the same, and of her own relation to it?
No one took much notice of Amrie, and she was left to dream of whatever
came into her mind. The school-teacher once said, in the sitting of
the Parish Council, “That he had never met with such a child; that she
was proud, but gentle and submissive; dreamy, and yet wide-awake; and
in fact she had already, with all her childish self-forgetfulness,
a feeling of self-reliance; a certain self-defence in opposition to
the world, its favor and its wickedness.” Dami, on the contrary, at
every little occasion, came weeping and complaining to his sister. He
always had great pity for himself; and when, in the rough play of his
companions, he was thrown down, he would say, “Yes, because I am an
orphan, they hurt me. Oh, if only my father or my mother knew it!”
Dami would take presents of food from anybody who offered them, and was
therefore always eating, while Amrie was satisfied with very little,
and accustomed herself to be very moderate in every thing. Even the
rudest and wildest boy feared Amrie without knowing why; while Dami
ran from the youngest. In the school, Dami was always uneasy, moving
his hands and his feet, and the corners of his book were dog’s-eared.
Amrie, on the contrary, was always neat, active, and diligent. She wept
often in the school, not because she was punished, for that was very
rare, but because Dami often received correction.
Amrie could please her brother best when she told him riddles. Both
children sat often near the house of their rich guardian; sometimes by
the wagon, sometimes by the oven at the back of the house, where they
warmed themselves, especially in the autumn. And Amrie asked, “What is
the best thing about the oven?”
“You know that I can’t guess,” said Dami, complainingly.
“Then I will tell you. The best of the oven is, that it does not eat
the bread that is put into its mouth;” and, pointing to the wagon
before the house, she said, “What is nothing but holes, and yet holds
fast?” Without waiting for the answer, she said, “That is a chain.”
“Now you have given me two riddles?” said Dami. And Amrie answered,
“Yes, but you give them up. See, there come the sheep; now, I know
another.”
“No,” cried Dami. “No! I can’t hold three; I have enough with two.”
“No, you must hear this, else I take the others back;” and Dami
repeated anxiously to himself, “chain,” “self-eating,” while Amrie
asked, “Upon which side have the sheep the most wool?”
“Baa, baa! upon the outside,” she added, gayly singing, while Dami
sprang away to tell the riddles to his comrades. When he reached them,
he had forgotten all but the chain, and Rodel’s eldest boy, whom he did
not ask, immediately cried out the solution. Then Dami came weeping
back to his sister.
The little Amrie’s knowledge of riddles could not long remain concealed
from the village; and even the rich, serious farmers, who scarcely
spoke with any one, especially not with a poor child, often stopped
from their work, and asked the little Amrie to give them a riddle. That
she knew a great number which she might have heard from Mariann, was
easy to believe, but that she could always answer new ones, excited
universal wonder. She could not cross the street or the field without
being stopped. She made it a rule that she would give no man the
solution of her riddles, and they were ashamed at once to give them
up. She knew how to turn from them, so that they were banished, as it
were. Yet never in a village was a poor child so much respected as the
little Amrie. But as she grew to womanhood, she excited less attention;
for men observe the blossom and the fruit with a sympathizing eye, but
not the long ripening process from one stage to the other. Before Amrie
left school, destiny gave her a riddle to guess whose solution was very
difficult.
The children had an uncle who lived about seven hours’ journey from
Holdenbrunn, a wood-hewer in Fluorn. They had seen him once, at the
funeral of their parents; he walked behind the Mayor, who led the
children by the hand. Since then the children had often dreamed of
their uncle in Fluorn. They were often told that he looked like their
father, and since they had given up the hope that father and mother
would come back again, they were more curious to see their uncle. But
as years passed, and they every year strewed the mountain-ash berries
on their graves, and they had learned to read the names of their
parents upon the same dark cross, they forgot the uncle in Fluorn.
In all these years they had heard nothing of him. Both children were
called one day into the house of their guardian. There sat a man large
and tall, with a brown complexion.
“Come here, children,” cried the man, at their entrance. He had a
rough, harsh voice. “Do you not know me?”
The children looked at him with open eyes. Did there awake in them the
recollection of their father’s voice? The man continued, “I am your
father’s brother. Come here, Lisbeth! And you, also, Dami.”
“I am not Lisbeth; my name is Amrie,” said the young girl, and wept.
She gave her uncle no hand; a feeling of estrangement made her tremble,
because her uncle had called her by a false name. How could there be
any true dependence on him, when he had forgotten her name?
“If you are my uncle, why did you not know my name?” she asked many
times.
“Thou art a stupid child; go immediately and give him thy hand,”
ordered Farmer Rodel; then he added half aloud to the stranger, “She is
a strange child; Brown Mariann has put wonderful things into her head,
and you know that all is not right with her.”
Amrie looked deeply wounded, and tremblingly gave the uncle her hand.
Dami had already done it, and now asked, “Uncle, have you brought us
any thing?”
“I had not much to bring. I bring myself--and you will go home with me.
Do you know, Amrie, it is not right that you will not know your uncle.
You have no one else in the whole world. Whom have you beside? Come,
think better of it; sit near me--still nearer; do you see that Dami is
much more sensible? He looks more like our family--but you belong to us
also.”
A maid came and brought in some garments. “These are thy brother’s
clothes,” said Rodel to the stranger; and turning to Amrie he
said,--“Do you see, these are thy father’s clothes; we will take them,
and you also, will go first to Fluorn, and then over the brook.”
Amrie touched, tenderly and tremblingly, first the coat of her father,
and then his blue striped waistcoat. The uncle held the clothes up, and
pointing to the worn elbows, said to Farmer Rodel,--“They are not worth
much; I don’t know whether I could wear them over there in America
without being laughed at.”
Amrie seized convulsively the sleeve of the coat. That they should
say the dress of her father was of little value; that, which she had
thought of inestimable worth; and that this dress should be worn in
America, and there laughed at, confused and confounded all her ideas,
especially those about America.
It was soon made clear to her, for Madame Rodel came in, and with her
Brown Mariann. Madame said,--
“Listen, for once, husband; this I think must not go on so quickly. The
children must not be sent in such haste with this man to America.”
“He is their only living relation, the brother of Josenhans.”
“Yes indeed, but he has not till now shown that he is a relation, and
I think they cannot do this without leave of the Parish Council. The
children have in the Parish a right of home, and they cannot take it
away in their sleep; the children cannot say themselves what they will
do, and that I call taking them in their sleep.”
“My Amrie is wide-awake enough. She is just thirteen, but as wise as
another of thirty years,” said Mariann.
“You both should be counsellors,” said Rodel.
“But I also am of opinion that children should not be taken away
like calves with a halter. Good! Let the man speak with them alone;
afterwards, let them decide what they will do. He is their natural
guardian, and has the right to take the father’s place. Listen; go with
thy brother’s children a little out of the village while the women
remain here--there speak to them alone.”
The wood-hewer took both children by the hand and left the house with
them.
“Where shall we go?” he asked the children in the street.
“If thou wouldst be our father, go home with us. There is our house,”
said Dami.
“Is it open?”
“No! but Mathew has the key. He has never let us go in. I will spring
before and fetch the key;” and Dami withdrew his hand and sprang
before. Amrie followed, as though fettered to the hand of the uncle,
who now spoke with more confidence and interest. He told her as an
excuse that he had an expensive family; that he and his wife with
difficulty supported five children. But now, he informed her, a man
who possessed large forests in America had offered him a free passage,
and after the forest was felled, a good number of acres from the best
land as a free possession. In gratitude to God, who had thus provided
for him and his children, he had immediately thought it would be a good
deed to take his brother’s children with him. He would not constrain
them, and would take them only with the condition that they could look
upon him as their second father.
Amrie, after these words, looked earnestly at him. If she only could
make out to love this man! But she feared him, and knew not what to
do. That he had fallen, as it were, out of the clouds so suddenly, and
desired her love, only excited her opposition to him.
“Where then is thy wife?” asked Amrie. She might well feel that a woman
had been milder and more suitable for this business.
“I will tell thee, honestly,” answered the uncle, “that my wife will
have nothing to do in this affair. She says, ‘she will say nothing for
nor against it.’ She is a little harsh, but only at first; and if you
are amiable towards her, you are so sensible that you can wind her
round your finger. If any thing should occur that you do not like,
think that you are with your father’s brother, and tell me alone, and
I will do all I can to help you. But you will see that now you begin
first to live.”
Amrie stood with tears in her eyes, and yet she could say nothing. She
felt this man was wholly strange to her. His voice, like her father’s,
moved her; but when she looked at him, she would willingly have fled
from him.
Dami came with the key. Amrie would have taken it from him, but he
would not give it up. With the peculiar pedantic conscientiousness
of a child, he said he had sacredly promised Mathew’s wife that he
would give the key only to his uncle. He received it, and to Amrie it
appeared as though a magical secret was to open when the key, for the
first time, rattled and then turned in the lock. The bolt bent back
and the door opened. A peculiar tomb-like coldness breathed from the
dark room that had formerly served as a kitchen. Upon the hearth lay
the cold heaped ashes, and upon the door were written the first letters
of “Caspar Melchior Balthes.” Underneath, the date of the death of the
parents written with chalk. Amrie read it aloud. “Father wrote it,”
said Dami. “Look, the 8’s are made just as you make them; such as the
teacher will not suffer. Look, from right to left.” Amrie winked at him
to be quiet. To her it was fearful and sinful that Dami should talk so
lightly here where it seemed to her like a church; yes, as though they
were in eternity; quite out of the world, and yet in it. She opened
the door. The little room was dark and gloomy; for the shutters were
closed, and only a trembling sunbeam pressed through a crack, and fell
upon an angel’s head upon the door of the stove, so that the angel
appeared to laugh. Amrie, frightened, could scarcely stand, but when
she looked again, her uncle had opened one of the windows, and the
warm air from without pressed into the room. There was no furniture in
the apartment, except a bench nailed to the wall. There had the mother
spun, and there had she pressed the little hands of Amrie together, and
taught her to knit.
“So, children, now we will go,” said the uncle. “There is nothing good
here. Come with me to the baker’s. I will buy for both a white loaf; or
would you rather have a cracknel?”
“No, no, stay a little longer,” said Amrie, always stroking the place
where her mother had sat. Then pointing to a white spot on the wall she
said in a low voice, “There hung our cuckoo clock, and the soldier’s
reward of our father; and there is the place where the skeins of yarn
hung, that our mother spun. She could spin finer than Brown Mariann.
Yes, Mariann said so herself; always quicker, and more out of a pound
of wool than any other; and all so even, there was not a single knot in
it; and see there is the ring there upon the wall. That was beautiful
when she had finished a skein. If I, at that time, had been old enough,
I would never have consented that they should sell my mother’s distaff;
it was my inheritance. But there was nobody to care for us. Oh, dear
mother! oh, dear father! if you only knew how we are thrust about, it
would make you sorry even in your blessedness!”
Amrie began to weep aloud, and Dami wept with her. Even the uncle
dried a tear, and pressed them to go now. It seemed to him that this
unnecessary heart-rending did neither himself nor the children any
good. But Amrie said decidedly, “If you go now, I will not go with you.”
“How do you mean that? You will not go with me?”
Amrie was frightened. She now thought of what she had said. And indeed
it might be taken as consenting; but she immediately answered,--
“No, of other things I know nothing now. I only meant that I would not
go out of this house till I had seen every thing again. Come, Dami,
thou art my brother. Come with me to the garret; you know where we used
to play hide, behind the chimney. And then we will look out of the
window where we dried the mushrooms. Don’t you remember the beautiful
gold piece father received for them?”
Something shook and rolled over the ceiling. All three were frightened.
But the uncle quickly said, “Stay here, Dami; and you also, Amrie. Why
would you go up there? Do you not hear how the mice rattle?”
“Come with me,” urged Amrie; “they will not eat us.” But Dami declared
he would not go, and though Amrie was secretly afraid, she took heart
and went up alone to the garret. She soon came back as pale as death,
and had nothing in her hand but a basket of straw.
“Dami will go with me to America,” said the uncle, as she entered
again. She was breaking up the straw in her hand. “I have nothing
against it. I do not know what I shall do; but he can go alone,” she
said.
“No!” cried Dami, “that I will not. Thou didst not go with Madame
Landfried, when she would have thee; and so I will not go alone; but
with thee!”
“Now, then, think of it; you are sensible enough to do so,” concluded
the uncle, bolting again the window-shutters, so that they stood in
the darkness. He pressed the children to the door, and then out of the
house; locked the house door, and went to Mathew’s with the key, and
then with Dami alone, into the village. He called out from a distance
to Amrie, “You can have till the morning, early, to decide. Then I
shall go, whether you go with me or not.”
Amrie was alone. She looked after him as he went on, and it seemed
strange to her that one man could go away from another, if that other
belonged to him. There he goes, she thought, yet he belongs to thee,
and thou to him.
Strange! as it sometimes happens in dreams that come we know not how.
So it now seemed to Amrie in her waking dream. Wholly accidentally, had
Dami spoken of her meeting with Madame Landfried.
The meeting had almost faded out of her recollection, and now it awoke
clear and distinct as a picture from out of her past dreamed life.
Amrie said, indeed, aloud to herself, “Who knows whether she also does
not suddenly, she cannot say why, think of me; and perhaps now, just
at this minute, for there in that spot, she promised that she would
be my protector whenever I went to her. There by the willow-trees she
promised. Why do the trees remain standing so that we may always see
them, and why not also a word, like a tree, that stands firm so that
we can hold by it, and why not by a word? Yes, it comes only from
this, that they WILL; a word would be as good as a tree, and what
an honorable woman said must be as firm and as true. She also wept,
because she had left her home. But it was long before, that she was
married from this village, and now has children. One is called John.”
Amrie stood by the mountain-ash tree, and laid her hand upon its stem
and said,--
“Thou! why then dost thou not go forth? Why do not men call upon thee
to wander away? Perhaps it would be better for thee in another place?
But thou didst not place thyself here. Who knows whether thou didst not
come from another place. Stupid stuff! Yes, if he were my father I must
go with him. He would not ask me. He who asks much, goes often wrong.
Nobody can advise me--not even Mariann, and with our uncle it will be
thus. If he does thee good, thou must pay him again. If he should be
severe to me, and against Dami (because Dami is not sensible), after we
have gone with him--where should we turn in that wild strange world?
Here every man knows us. Every hedge, every tree, has a well-known
face. Ah, ha! thou knowest me,” she said again looking up at the
tree. “Oh, if thou couldst only speak! Thou wert created by God! Oh,
why canst thou not speak? Thou hast known my father and my mother so
well--why canst thou not tell me what they would advise? Oh, dear
father! Oh, dear mother! to me it is so sad that I should go away--yet
I have nothing here, and no one to care for me, and yet it would be as
though I must get out of a warm bed, into the cold snow. Is that, which
makes me so sorry to go, a sign that I should not go? Is it a right
conscience, or is it only a foolish anxiety? Oh, dear Heaven! I know
not. Oh, if only a voice from Heaven would come and tell me.”
The child trembled like a leaf, from the deepest anxiety; and from
this conflict of life, which now made its voice heard within her. Again
she half spoke, half thought--but now more resolved.
“If I were alone I know certainly that I would not go. I would remain
here. It is too hard to go; and I could, if alone, take care of
myself. Ah, let me remember that! With myself I am perfectly agreed.
I am one! Yes, but what a foolish thought. How can I think I am
one--alone--without Dami! I am not alone. Dami belongs to me and I
to him. For Dami were it better,--better for him if he were under a
father who would tell him, and teach him what is right. But canst thou
not care for him thyself, when it is necessary? I see plainly that
if he were once at home there, he would remain there his life long,
and be nothing but a servant, a dog for strange people to kick. Who
knows how the children of the uncle would treat us? As they are poor
people themselves, would they not play the master towards us? No, no,
they are certainly good, and it would be beautiful if they would say,
‘Good-morning cousin,’ or ‘good-day, aunt.’ If our uncle had only
brought one of the children with him, then I could have understood it
all much better, and spoken much easier. Oh, dear! How is it all at
once so difficult?”
Amrie sat down at the foot of the tree. A chaffinch came tripping
about, picked up a little seed here and there, looked around, and then
flew away. She felt something creeping over her face. She swept it off
with her hand. It was a little winged beetle. She suffered it to creep
around upon her hand, between the mountains and valleys of her fingers,
till it came upon the point of her finger, and flew away. “Perhaps he
would tell thee where he has been,” thought Amrie. “Ah, it is well with
such a little animal, wherever he flies, he is at home. And, listen!
how the larks sing. It is well with them also; they need not think what
they must say, and what they have to do. There drives the butcher,
with his dog, a calf, out of the village. The butcher’s dog has a very
different voice from the lark, but, indeed, they could not drive a calf
with the song of the lark.”
“Where are you going with the foal?” cried Mathew, out of his window,
to a young fellow who had a beautiful foal by a halter. “Farmer Rodel
has sold it,” sounded the answer, and soon they heard the foal neigh in
the valley beneath.
Amrie, as she heard this, must again think. “Yes, an animal is sold
away from its mother, and the mother scarcely knows it, or who has
taken it away. But they cannot sell a man; for him there is no halter.
There comes Farmer Rodel with his horses, and the great foal springs
after his mother. A man is not sold; he belongs to himself alone. An
animal receives for his work no other reward than eating and drinking,
and needs, indeed, nothing else; but a man gains money as a reward for
his work. Ah, yes! I can be a servant, and from my wages I can have
Dami taught, and he can be a mason. But if we were with our uncle, Dami
would be no longer mine as he is now. Listen! the starlings are flying
home--there, above, in the house father set up for them, and they sing
gayly. Father made the house out of old boards. I know now what he
said, ‘that a starling would not fly into a house made of new boards.’
So it is with me!--Thou, tree, now I know! If thou shouldst rustle
while I am sitting here by thee, I will remain here.”
Amrie listened breathless. Soon it seemed as though the tree rustled.
She looked up at the branches, but they were motionless. She could not
tell what she heard. A noisy cackling was heard on all sides; it came
nearer, preceded by a cloud of dust. It was the flocks of geese driven
home from the Holden Meadows. While the noise lasted, Amrie looked
after them.
Her eyes closed. She was slumbering. A whole spring of flowers opened
within this soul, with the blossoming trees in the valley that absorbed
the cooling night dew, sending their perfume over to the child, who was
sleeping upon the hearth of the home she could not leave.
It had long been night when she awoke as a voice cried, “Amrie,
where art thou?” She rose up, but did not answer. She looked round
astonished, and then at the stars, and it seemed to her that the voice
came from Heaven. As it was repeated, she knew it was the voice of
Mariann, and answered, “Here I am.” Now came Brown Mariann nearer and
said, “Oh, it is well that I have found thee. The whole village is, as
it were, gone mad! One said, ‘I have seen her in the woods;’ another,
‘I met her in the field;’ and to me it seemed as though thou hadst
thrown thyself into the fish-pond. Thou needst not fear, dear child!
thou needst not fly! No one can force thee to go with thy uncle!”
“Who has said that I will not go?” Suddenly a quick wind breathed
through the tree, so that the branches rustled powerfully. “But
certainly I will not,” said Amrie, and laid her hand upon the tree.
“Come home! a severe shower is rising, and we shall have a high wind
immediately; come home,” urged Brown Mariann.
Giddily Amrie went with Mariann into the village. The night was
pitch dark, and only by the sudden flashes of lightning could they
see the houses which shone as in clear daylight, so that their eyes
were blinded, and they stood still in the darkness when the lightning
vanished. In their own village home they seemed bewildered as in a
strange place, and stepped uncertain, and confusedly forwards. Bathed
in perspiration they toiled forwards, and came at last under heavy
drops of rain to their own door-stone. A gust of wind tore open the
door, as Amrie cried, “Open!” She might have thought of a fairy tale
where, at an enigmatical word, an enchanted castle opened.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]