OVER MOUNTAIN AND VALLEY.
There is no living an equal, uniform life. Night and day, rest and
motion, wild tumult and stagnant repose, and all the changes of the
season; thus it is in the life of nature; thus it is in the human
heart, and it is well for that heart, if in all its changes, it does
not wander from its true path.
It was broad daylight when the lovers reached the town. A long time
before, when they first met a person walking, they both dismounted;
they felt that their appearance was singular, and that first man, a
messenger from memory, reminded them that they must come out of Eden
and assume again the order of humanity and custom. John led the horse
in one hand, and gave the other to Amrie, and thus they silently
entered the town. When they looked at each other, their faces shone
like those of children just awaked from sleep, but when they looked
away, or down upon themselves, they were anxious about what should next
occur.
As though she had already talked with John, and he had prudently
reflected upon the subject, Amrie said,--
“Indeed, it would have been wiser if we had calmly arranged matters
beforehand. If you had gone home, and I, in the mean time, had remained
somewhere,--if nowhere else, with Mathew the coal-burner in the
forest,--and you had come for me with your mother, or written to me,
and I could have followed with my Dami. But do you know what I think?”
“Not quite all that you think.”
“I think regret is the stupidest thing one can allow to come over him.
Do what we may, we cannot make yesterday to-day. What we did in the
jubilee of our hearts was right, and must remain right; we must not,
now that we are a little more sober, reproach ourselves for it; we must
now reflect how we can make the future good and useful to us. You are a
sensible man, and you will see that it is best to consider and tell me
every thing freely. Say what you may, you will not distress me; but if
you conceal any thing from me, it will distress me sorely. Say, do you
repent what we have done?”
“Can you guess a riddle?” asked John.
“Yes, as a child, I could.”
“Well, now tell me this, it is a simple word. Take away the first
letter and you might as well lose your head; put it back again, and it
is all right.”
“That is too easy,” said Barefoot. “It is childish; it is rue and
true,” and as the larks began to sing, they also sang riddle-songs with
them. Then John sang:
“Now love! I will give thee to guess,
But if not, I will marry thee, no less.
What is whiter than snow?
What is greener than grass?
What is black as the sloe?
Dost thou guess it? Ah, love,
Will you marry me?”
Amrie:
“The cherry bloom is whiter than snow,
But when it falls off, the green bud’s below.
The fruit’s like the sloe; in beauty it glows,
And I’ll be thy wife, as thou so well knows.”
John:
“What king has no sway?
What servant has no pay?”
Amrie:
“The king of clubs has no sway;
The dumb waiter has no pay.”
John:
“There is a fire that has no heat,
There is a knife that has no point.”
Amrie:
“A painted fire has no heat;
A broken knife has no point.”
Suddenly, John snapped his fingers. “Now I have one,” and he sang,--
“What has no head and yet has feet?
What without sugar, still tastes sweet?”
Amrie could not guess, and John sang:
“Without head, the yard measure has feet;
And the kiss of thy lips is always sweet.”
They entered the door of the first inn they came to, and as John called
for coffee, Amrie said:
“How beautifully is every thing ordered in this world! Here are people
who have furnished a house with chairs and tables and benches; in
the kitchen burns the fire, and there is coffee and milk and sugar,
and a beautiful service for the table, and all for us, as though we
had ordered it; then, as we go further we shall find the same; it is
exactly as in a fairy tale,--‘Table be covered.’”
“But this belongs to it,” said John, taking a handful of money from his
pocket. “Without this we could get nothing.”
“Ah, yes,” said Amrie, “upon these little wheels one can roll through
the world. But tell me, John, did you ever in your life taste such good
coffee: and this fresh, white bread! But you have ordered too much
of it; what can we do with it? I can take the bread with me, but the
coffee! Oh! what a good breakfast it would give many poor persons. We
must leave it, and you must pay for it!”
“That cannot be helped,” said John. “One cannot calculate so exactly in
the world.”
“Yes, yes, you are right. But I am not accustomed to the world; you
must not take it ill if I say things that are not clever and sensible.”
“You can easily say that, but you know that you are clever.”
Amrie rose soon from the table, and as she stood before the glass, she
cried,--
“Oh, dear Heavens! do I look like that? I do not know myself!”
“But I know you,” said John, “you are Amrie, and Barefoot, and Salt
Duchess, and that is not all; you will soon have another name;
Landfried is not bad.”
“Oh! can that be? I think sometimes it cannot be possible.”
“There are some hard boards to bore through,” said John, “but they do
not frighten me. Now lie down and sleep a little, while I look about
for a Berner wagon; we cannot in the day-time ride on one horse; beside
we need a wagon.”
“I could not sleep, and I must write a letter to Holdenbrunn; I am
strong; and I have enjoyed much good there; I have also some directions
to give.”
“Oh, well! get it over when I come back.” John went, and Amrie looked
after him with somewhat troubled thoughts. “There he goes, and yet he
belongs to me. Is it possible? is it true? is he mine? He does not look
back. How proudly he goes, and the dog goes with him!”
Amrie made a sign to the dog; he came running back and jumped upon her.
As they went into the house together, she said, “Yes, it was good, it
was right of thee to remain with me, that I might not be alone; but
come in, I must write.”
She wrote a long letter to the Mayor of Holdenbrunn, thanking the
whole parish for what they had done for her, and promising to take an
orphan child from thence, when she was able. She besought the Mayor
that Mariann’s hymn-book might be placed beneath her head. When she had
sealed her letter, she pressed her lips upon it, and said, “Now I have
done with all the living in Holdenbrunn.” But she tore her letter open
again, for she thought it her duty to show John what she had written.
He was a long time gone, and Amrie blushed painfully when the landlady
said to her,--
“Your husband has probably business in the town.” To hear John for the
first time called her husband, sank deeply into her heart; she could
not answer, and the hostess looked at her with astonishment. To escape
her curious glances, Amrie went out and sat down upon a pile of boards;
the dog sat opposite, waiting for John; she caressed him and looked
deeply into his honest eyes. No animal seeks and bears the steady,
penetrating eye of man, like the dog, but he also at last turns away.
How full of riddles, and yet also how manifest is the world!
Amrie went with the dog into the stable, where the horse was eating.
“Yes, dear Silver Trot,” she said, “enjoy thy breakfast and bring us
well home, and God grant that all may be well!”
It was a long time before John came back; when at last she saw him, she
ran to meet him, and said,--
“Promise me that if you have business again on the road, you will take
me with you?”
“What! were you afraid? Did you think I had left you? Ah! what if I had
left you sitting there, and had ridden off?”
Amrie trembled from head to foot. Then she said very seriously, “You
are not witty, and if you intended by that a joke, it was dreadfully
stupid. I pity you if you said it seriously. You would have done
something very wicked if you would have ridden away and thought to have
left me--you thought, perhaps, as you had a horse and money, that you
were the master. No! your horse brought us here together; I consented
to come with you; what would you think if I made such a joke, and said,
‘What if I left you sitting there!’ I pity you, that you could say it.”
“Yes, yes, you are right!” John answered,--“but say no more about it.”
“No! when I am offended I must say all that is in my mind. I know best
when to be silent, for it is you who have offended me. If another had
said any thing that was unjust, I should have turned from it; but
in you I dare not leave a single shadow unobserved. To joke of our
relation to each other seems to me as profane as to play with the
crucifix as if it were a doll.”
“Oh, ho! not so bad as that; but it seems you do not understand a joke.”
“I understand it well, as you will soon learn; but now no more of this;
I have done; it is all well!”
This little difference showed both of them early, that with all their
loving devotion, they must each respect the other. Amrie felt that she
had been a little too warm, and John learnt that Amrie’s dependent
condition, and her unbounded confidence and trust in him, must be no
subjects of sport.
The few morning clouds soon were scattered by the penetrating beams of
the sun, and Amrie was as gay as a child, when a pretty, green Berner
wagon came to the door, with a round, cushioned seat. Before the horse
was harnessed, she jumped in, and clapping her hands for joy, she said
to John,--
“Now you must make me fly; I have ridden with you, I am going to drive
with you, and nothing remains but to fly.”
It was a beautiful morning, and a well-built road. The horse found easy
work, and the dog ran before them, barking for joy. After some time,
Amrie said,--
“Only think, John, the hostess took me for your wife.”
“And so you are, and I shall ask no one’s leave, and care not what
they say. Thou, Heaven, and ye larks, and you trees, and fields, and
hills,--look, this is my little wife! When she scolds she is just as
dear as when the most beautiful things drop out of her mouth. Oh! my
mother is a wise woman! Ah! she knows! She told me to observe how a
woman appeared when she was angry, for then, all that is within comes
out. That was a dear, sharp, cutting, beautiful, wicked little thing,
that came out to-day when you were angry. Now I know you, and all
the kindred, and I like them. Oh! thou wide, wide world, I thank you
all,--all in the world; and I ask you, if so long as you have stood,
you have ever seen such a dear little wife? Huzza! Huzza!”
When they met or passed anybody, John would cry, “See! this is my wife;
look at her!” till Amrie besought him not to do it--when he said, “He
could not for joy help it. I would call the whole world to rejoice with
me--and I cannot tell how the men who are at work in the fields, or who
are splitting wood, or doing any thing else, are not able to know how
blessed I am.”
A poor woman came limping after them, and Amrie seized quickly a
pair of her beloved shoes and threw them to her. The woman looked
astonished, and nodded her thanks. Amrie felt for the first time in
her life, that blessed emotion of giving away a thing which she valued
herself. She never thought how much she had done for Mariann, but that
she had given her shoes, appeared to her the first benevolence of her
heart. She was more pleased than the woman who had received the shoes;
she smiled at herself, as though she had a secret in her soul that made
her heart leap for joy, and when John asked, “What is the matter? why
do you smile like a child in its sleep?” she said, “Ah! it is all like
a dream. I can now make a present--and am going home in thought with
that old woman, and can see how happy she will be.”
“That is brave,” said John; “I like to see you generous.”
“Oh! how can you call it so, to give when one is happy? It is as though
a full glass should overflow. I would give every thing away. I feel as
you do, that I would call all men to be happy; I mean, I should like to
feast them all. I think I am sitting at a long table, alone with you,
but I cannot eat, I am satisfied.”
“Ah, that is well,” said John; “but do not throw away more of your
shoes. When I look at them, I think how many beautiful long years you
will wear them--how many beautiful long years you will run about in
them, till they are worn out.”
“How came you to think of that? How many hundred times have I had
the same thought, when I have looked at the shoes; but now tell me
something of your home, else I shall always chatter of myself.”
John did that willingly, and while he related, and Amrie listened with
wide-opened eyes, there always moved throughout it in her imagination,
the happy image of the old woman with the new shoes. After John had
described his family, above all, he praised the cattle--“They are all
so well fed, so healthy and round, that no drop of water will stand
upon them.”
“I cannot understand,” said Amrie, “how I can be so rich. When I think
of it, it seems as though I had slept all my life, and had just been
waked. No, no! It cannot be so; I am frightened when I think of the
responsibility I shall feel. Tell me, will not your mother help me;
she is active yet, I hope? I do not know how I shall help giving every
thing to the poor; but no--that must not be, for it is not mine.”
“Giving does not make one poor, is a proverb of my mother’s,” said John.
It is impossible to say with what joy the lovers went on. Every word
they uttered made them happier. Amrie asked, “Have you swallows at your
house?”
John answered, “Yes,” and added, “that they had also a stork’s nest
upon the housetop.” This made Amrie completely happy. She imitated the
chattering of the storks, and described, so as to make John laugh, the
grave and earnest expression of the stork, as he stood upon one leg
and looked down into his house.
Was it by agreement, or was it the inward power of these moments of
happiness, that they said nothing; that they did not appear to think
of what lay before them,--their entrance into the parental house, till
towards evening when they reached the district in which Zusmarshofen
lay. But now as John began to meet peeple who knew him, greeted him,
and looked at them curiously, he said to Amrie, “He had thought of two
plans, as to the best way of proceeding. Either he would take her to
his sister, who lived very near (they could see the church tower of
the village behind that hill), and he would go alone to the house and
make every thing known, or she should go immediately to his parents and
offer herself as a servant.”
Amrie showed her decision and good sense as they analyzed these
proceedings, and the objections to them. If she went first to the
sister, she would have to win over a person who could, after all, not
decide for them, and who, differing from them, might imbitter their
future intercourse. It would also leave a report in the neighborhood,
that she had not dared to venture into his house. The second plan was
better, but it went against her whole soul, to enter his father’s house
with a lie on her tongue. It was true, that his mother, many years
before, had promised to take her into service, but she could not now
be in service, and it would be as a thief, that she would thus steal
into her favor. Beside, in such a false position, under a mask, as it
were, she could do nothing well. If she were placing a chair for his
father, she should certainly throw it down, thinking she was deceiving
him. And even if this did not happen, how must she appear to the other
servants, when later they learnt that the mistress had smuggled herself
into the house as a servant; and worse than all, she would not be able
to speak a single word with him.
She concluded with these words,--“I have said all this, because you
wished to know my opinion. When we consider any thing together, I must
speak my mind openly and truly, but at the same time, whatever you
wish, if you say so firmly, I shall do it, whether I agree with you in
opinion or not. I shall follow you without contradiction whenever I
know your wishes.”
“Yes, yes, you are right,” said John. “Neither of those roads was the
true one. But we are now so near that we must decide upon something. Do
you see that opening in the forest upon the mountain, where there is a
little hut, and the cows as small as beetles? That is our early spring
dairy. There I will place our Dami.”
Amrie exclaimed, astonished, “Ah! where will not men venture? But that
must be good grassland.”
“Yes; but if my father should give the farm to me, I shall introduce
more stall-feeding. It is more profitable. But old people must remain
by old customs. Ah! what am I tattling about, when we are so near. Ah!
had we only thought sooner.”
“Keep only calm. We must calmly consider it,” said Amrie. “I have a
trace of what to do, but it is not yet wholly clear.”
“How? What is it?”
“No, you must consider also; perhaps you will hit upon something. It
belongs to you to settle it. We are both in such embarrassment now,
that we will pause, and perhaps we shall both think of something.”
“Something already occurs to me,” said John. “There, in the next house
but one, lives a pastor I am well acquainted with; he will advise us
for the best. Hold! This is better. I will remain in the valley, by the
mill, and you shall go alone up to the farm to my parents, and tell
them all, exactly, roundly, and fully, as it has happened. You will
immediately gain my mother, and you are so sensible and discreet, that
it will not be long before you will wind my father round your finger.
This is the best plan. We shall not have to wait, nor to ask a stranger
to come to our help. Do you agree to this, or will it be too much for
you?”
“This is exactly my thought. Now we have nothing more to consider. It
is settled as though it were written down and carried out. And now,
quick work proves the master. Oh, you do not know what a dear, good,
sensible, precious fellow you are!”
“No, you are the sensible one. But it is all settled, and we are both
but one brave fellow together. That will we remain. Here, give me your
hand. There! So! This meadow is our first field. Thank God, little
wife, now you are at home. And, huzza! there is our stork; he flies
home. Stork! stork! Say ‘thank God here is the new mistress!’ Later
I will tell you more. Now, Amrie, do not be too long up there, and
immediately send some one to the mill. If the stable-boy is at home,
send him; he can spring like a hare. Now, do you see the house with the
stork’s nest on the roof, and the two barns on the hill, at the left
from the wood? There is a linden before it. Do you see it?”
“Yes.”
“That is our house. Now step down. You cannot miss it now.”
John alighted and helped Amrie from the wagon. She held the necklace,
which she had put in her pocket, like a rosary, between her folded
hands, and prayed softly. John also took off his hat, and his lips
moved.
Neither spake another word. Amrie went on before, while John stood
a long time leaning against his horse, and looking after her. She
turned and tried to drive the dog back, who had followed her. He would
not go back, but ran aside into a field, and followed her again. John
whistled, and then first the animal ran back to him.
John went to the mill and waited there. They told him that his father
had been there about an hour before, to wait for him, and had again
returned home. John rejoiced that Amrie would meet both parents at
home. The people at the mill could not tell what troubled John, that he
should wait there and not say a word. He went into the house--then out
again. He went part of the way to the farm--then turned back again; was
full of anxiety, counting the steps Amrie had to take. Now she was at
this field, now at that. Now she had reached the beech-hedge--now she
was speaking with his parents. Thus he thought and trembled.
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