A LOVE-CHAPTER IN THE LIFE OF MASTER FINK.
The village in which I was born lies fifty miles from this spot, and
is one of those places hidden in odd nooks and corners which the
busy world seems either to have forgotten or to regard as of too
slight importance to take any notice of. It moves neither backward
nor forward; it is the same to-day as it was a hundred years ago. Its
houses, its roads, its little shops, its bits of garden, its church,
are the same now as then, and, unless something startling occurs, will
be the same at the end of another hundred years. There are families
living there at this moment whose great-great-grandfathers lived
there--in the self-same cottages, grown now so old that their walls are
rotting and crumbling away. The people, with scarcely an exception, are
all of them poor, and live a life of contentment. As I should have done
perhaps--my family for five generations having done so before me--had
it not happened that I fell in love with Louisa Wagner.
I have spoken of the beauty of Katrine Loebeg. Louisa Wagner was
even more beautiful. Do not think I say so because I loved her; it
was universally acknowledged; and just in the way Katrine was sought
after here so was Louisa sought after in the village in which I was
born. I may say, without running the risk of being thought vain,
that I was a well-looking lad. It is undoubtedly a fact that I was
industrious, and not given to tippling. From my father I learned the
mysteries of the art of watchmaking. Our family had been the village
watch and clock menders for generations. There was, however, not
enough business in that line to be picked up among the scanty and poor
population to support us, so my grandfather, and my father after him,
took to cobbling boots and shoes to eke out a living. I also learned
to cobble, and was no mean hand at it. We were, therefore, the village
watch-menders and cobblers, and managed to rub on, chiefly, it must be
owned, by the patching of leather, which is a degree or two lower in
the social scale than the art which teaches you how to put together the
delicate works of a watch.
Louisa Wagner was the only child of a laborer on the private estate of
the owner of the village lands, and in falling in love with her I fell
in love with a girl in my own station in life.
Heavens! how beautiful she was! Her cheeks were handsomer than the
handsomest peach, her eyes were as bright as the brightest stars,
her skin was as soft as the softest velvet. To me what a vision of
brightness! Where on this earth was to be found her equal? In my
belief, nowhere. That is the way of lovers for a time. No feeling
so potent as that which agitates the heart of a young man as he
contemplates the being upon whom he has set his affections. Gradually
the change comes, as we all live to learn. The heavenly light fades
slowly away, and life's hard lessons, no less than the strange workings
of the human heart, recall us to a sterner reality. Happy those who
find themselves cast upon a peaceful shore, where they can enjoy
the calmer and more enduring affection which sometimes follows the
subsidence of love's delirium!
For weeks and weeks I nursed my passion, fed on it, was made happy by
it. Louisa Wagner did not appear to look on me with coldness; nay,
she seemed flattered by my ardent glances, and, as I believed, had a
feeling stronger for me than that of ordinary friendship. That she
should love me with such devotion as I loved her was not to be thought
of. This love of a young man when it is pure, as mine was, ennobles
him, and beautifies all surrounding things. I sang at my work, though
it was even so mean as the patching of boots. Louisa had two pairs of
boots, and I soled and heeled them, one after the other, and my heart
went into the stitches. I held them in my hands and kissed them--yes,
I am not ashamed to confess it, I kissed them in a kind of rapture.
I took them to bed with me. By the side of my bed hung a cage with a
linnet in it. I told the bird in a whisper that the boots belonged to
Louisa--ah, what foolish, foolish things we do when the fever is upon
us!--and the linnet trilled out its joyfullest notes. I laughed, I
chirruped, I shed tears, and when I knelt at my bedside and repeated
my prayers, I pressed Louisa's boots to my heart. Upon the soling and
heeling of those boots I would have liked to challenge the world.
Surely such excellent workmanship could not have been produced by other
hands than mine. Louisa Wagner thought so, and said so, as she took
them from me and examined them.
"You will see," I said, "they will last for years."
"They are beautifully done," she said, and I fancied she gave me an
admiring glance; "such fine stitches! You are really clever."
"I can earn a living," I said, and my voice trembled because of the
meaning I wished to convey in the words.
"But," she said, "I cannot pay you for them for a long, long while. You
will have to wait."
"In money," I said, "you can never pay me."
"Oh yes, I can, Gustave Fink," she replied.
"No," I insisted, "indeed you never can."
"Why?" she asked.
"I did not do them for money. I wish you to accept them from me; it
will make me very proud."
She thanked me quite readily, saying, "Well, if you will have it so,
Gustave Fink," and gave me the sweetest smile.
I ran home in a tremor of delight, carrying her smile with me. It is a
fact. Her smiling face was before me all the way.
Of course I told my linnet the news--how that Louisa had accepted my
work, and paid me for it with the sweetest smile--and the bird sang
gayly, and the rhythm and the tenderness of the song found an echo in
my heart. Up to this point the linnet was my sole confidant. Not to
another creature did I breathe my secret. None the less did I look upon
myself as Louisa Wagner's accepted lover. After what had passed--which,
as you see, I magnified into the most ridiculous importance--how could
it be otherwise? I was satisfied, I was happy. That when I could find
courage to speak plainly to her she would place her hand in mine, and
permit me to touch her lips with mine, I entertained not the slightest
doubt.
I was a proud young fellow the following Sunday when I saw her walking
in the boots I had repaired for her, and which looked like new. She
wore a new cotton dress, and a bit of new ribbon round her white
throat, and I settled it in my mind that they were worn for me. No man
has ever tasted a greater happiness than I did on that day. But I could
not find courage to speak to Louisa of the love which made my heart
like a garden of sweet flowers. I walked by her side and was contented.
Ah, how it all comes back to me! The meeting at the church door,
the walk through the churchyard and the village till we came to her
father's cottage, the stupid talk about the boots!
"I never felt so comfortable in my life," she said; "they are as easy
as if I had worn them for years. And they do not make my feet look
large."
Her feet look large! In my eyes they were the feet of a princess. Now,
as she put out her foot, and I was gazing at it in a sort of rapture,
who should come up to us but a neighbor of mine, a wheelwright, Steven
Wolf by name.
I can see the picture as plainly as if it were bodily before me in
the room. I turn towards the fire, and I see the picture there in the
glowing coals.
"The prettiest foot in all the village," cried Steven Wolf, "and the
prettiest mouth, and the loveliest eyes!"
His voice jarred upon me. It was like the voice of a brawler calling
out in the church and interrupting the service. No wonder, I thought,
that Louisa should blush as he gazed boldly at her. His look was a
profanation. To save the girl I loved from further indignity I bade her
good-bye and left her. Turning my head for a moment as I walked away,
it pierced my heart like the thrust of a needle to see that Steven Wolf
had followed her into her father's cottage.
I have called Steven Wolf a wheelwright. Well, he might be that for
two days in the week; for the other five an indolent sot. He bore
a bad character in the village, and there was much suspicious talk
concerning him. How could Louisa's father encourage such a character at
his hearth? But I could not forget that old Wagner and Steven Wolf were
by no means on unfriendly terms. They were often seen together. "When
Louisa is mine," I thought, "and I have the right to protect her, she
shall have nothing to say to this vagabond." When Louisa was mine! Ah,
fraught with happiness was the future I mapped out! I resolved to speak
to her soon--before the end of the week, if I could find an opportunity.
On the Monday Steven Wolf thrust his head into my little shop, where I
sat working.
"What a fine pair of soles you put on Louisa Wagner's boots!" he cried.
"Here--mend mine at the same price." And he flung down a pair.
I threw them back at him with passionate words. He picked them up and
walked off, laughing heartily. In the evening of the same day I saw
him and Louisa walking together, and I made the acquaintance of that
torturer, jealousy. There was no sleep for me that night. When I came
upon them Louisa did not see me, but he, looking me full in the face,
gave me a malicious, triumphant smile to feed upon. I did feed upon it
for days and days till I could bear it no longer, and determined to
know the best or the worst that could befall me.
I spoke to Louisa; I declared my love for her; I told her I was able
to support her, and I asked her to be my wife. She answered me in the
kindest manner, and I learned that she had already promised to become
the wife of Steven Wolf. I stood transfixed; my life seemed most
suddenly and horribly to have come to an end.
"Do not hate me," she said. "I am very, very sorry!"
"I cannot hate you," I replied. My voice was so strange in my ears that
I could scarcely believe it was I who was speaking. "I shall love you
all my days."
"We are still friends," she said, holding out her hand.
"Yes," I said, sadly, "we are still friends. It is not possible I could
ever be your enemy."
I took her hand, and held it in mine. Tears gushed from my eyes as I
felt the sympathetic pressure of her fingers.
"You will see some other girl whom you will love," she said. "You are a
good man; every one speaks well of you; your wife will be proud of you."
"I shall never marry," I said, "I love only one."
Our conversation was interrupted by Steven Wolf, who stole abruptly
upon us.
"No poaching!" he cried. "Respect the rights of property."
"It is not in that way," I said, and I confess that at that moment I
felt a deadly hatred towards him, "I should speak of the girl I was
going to marry."
"You choose your way," he retorted, "and I will choose mine. Not a bad
way, is it?"
And he put his arm round Louisa's waist. Her eyes were cast down; she
never looked at me.
"Words are wasted between us," I said. "Farewell, Louisa Wagner. May
you be happy."
He sent a shout of mocking laughter after me.
"Truly," I could not help thinking, "in good feeling I have the
advantage of you."
I suffered terribly, and for some time my mind was plunged into such
darkness that I could see no gleam of goodness in all the wide world.
That is the selfish view we take of things when sorrow comes to our
door. "Why," I asked myself, "does Louisa Wagner marry that brute and
gambler instead of an honest, hard-working youngster who not only
loves but respects her? For what reason does she prefer him to me?"
If I could have answered those questions I might be able to tell you
more than I know of the workings of a woman's heart. It is beyond me,
and beyond you, and therefore I have kept myself free from woman's
power from that day to this. I recovered my peace of mind, and so that
it might not again be disturbed by the sight of the woman I loved,
I left my native village with my knapsack on my shoulders, and came
here, where I set up in business for myself as a watch-maker, and have
jogged on ever since, with a fair share of happiness and content.
There is no condition of life in which a man has not good reason to be
grateful. I have grown to know this, and it has been of value to me in
my reflections upon life's trials and disappointments. I have my work,
I have my connection, I owe no one a florin, I am at peace with the
world. That is happiness enough.