A BEGGAR, AND MONEY SAVED.
We are in a country where no thaw comes for many months when once the
frost fairly sets in. The Morgenhalde is the only exception to this;
there the sun usually shone with such power, that there were drops from
the roof, while elsewhere heavy icicles were suspended motionless from
the houses. This winter, however, the sun in the sky seemed less benign
towards the Morgenhalde than in old times. There was no sign of any
thaw outside the house nor inside. It was not only colder than it had
ever been before--this was no doubt caused by the wood on the side of
the hill being cut down; the trunks were all lying about, only waiting
for the spring floods to be floated down into the valley--but those who
lived in the Morgenhalde seemed frozen also. Annele seemed no longer
able to wake up to life and activity; there seemed something congealed
within her, which a warm breath could scarcely have thawed, and that
warm breath never came. She who had lived so long with her parents at
home, now when they had left the place, felt their loss sadly. She said
nothing to any one, but a worm gnawed at her heart, in the thought that
she was the only poor one of the family. She could do nothing for her
parents, nor assist in supporting them; indeed--who knows?--perhaps she
must one day go begging to her own sisters, and entreat of them to give
the cast off clothes of their children to hers.
Annele went through the house silently, and she, who was once so
talkative, scarcely ever spoke. She answered at once when she was asked
any question, but not a word more. She scarcely ever left the house,
and her former restlessness seemed to have been transferred to Lenz. He
despaired of ever again making anything of his work; and, therefore,
the tools he handled, and the chair on which he sat, seemed burning.
He had besides constantly small creditors to pacify, and was obliged to
be civil to every one. He who once upon a time said, simply, "So and so
is the case," and was believed, must now give the most strong and
sacred assurances, that he would eventually pay the claimants. The
greater was his anxiety, therefore, to redeem his pledged word, and he
despaired of saving his honour, more than was at all necessary. His
thoughts were constantly occupied by this and that person, waiting
anxiously for their money, and his gloom and uneasiness daily
increased. Annele saw well enough that he tormented himself needlessly,
and she was often on the point of dispatching these unfortunate duns,
with sharp words, and saying to Lenz that he should not be so humble to
them, for the more meek people are in this world, the more are they
trampled on. But she kept this to herself, for his anxiety would assist
in accomplishing the project she had never given up. An inn must be
bought, and then the world would have a very different aspect.
In his solicitude and despair, Lenz felt all the desolation of his
heart, and often he stole a glance at Annele, and though he did not say
it, he thought: "You are right, you told me once I was good for
nothing--it is true now, for I am no longer good for anything; care
gnaws at my heart, and our discord crushes me to the earth. I am like a
candle lighted at both ends. Oh! if this were only soon at an end for
ever!"
Watches and clocks were brought to him to be repaired, and in this way
he cleared off some of his smaller debts; but it was sad to work now
only to efface the past, when all his labour was required for the
current expenses of the day, and no prospect for the future.
Many remained sitting with him till he had finished the work they had
brought him to do, thus keeping him a prisoner in his own house, and
yet he could not venture to send them away. Others took home their
unfinished goods with hard and cruel words. "This can no longer go on,
some substantial succour must be found," said Lenz to Annele; "I must
again feel solid ground under my feet." She nodded slightly, but
already the strong will within him inspired him with new strength.
Early next morning Lenz resolved to visit his mother's relatives, who
lived on the other side of the valley; they would certainly help him,
they had always been so proud of him, that they could not let him be
entirely swamped.
Just as he arrived on the mountain ridge, day dawned, the stars in the
sky grew pale, and Lenz gazed at the spacious snow covered region.
Nowhere a symptom of life. Why should I live either? An expression
taken from his sleepless nights, to signify total want of sleep,
recurred to his memory--a _white sleep_--here it is! This feverish mood
of his dreams made his cheeks burn, and an icy blast rushed over the
heights.
Lenz was startled out of his reverie, by the wind carrying away his hat
down a steep precipice. Lenz was hurrying after it, but he suddenly saw
that he was rushing to certain death. It crossed his mind that it would
be a good thing if he were to lose his life by an accident; but he
shuddered at such cowardly thoughts.
The hail and snow continued incessantly, almost blinding him; even the
crows in the air could scarcely guide their flight, being first hurled
upwards, and then again dashed down, and those birds, usually flying
along so steadily, fluttered their wings in wild terror and dismay.
Lenz struggled manfully along against snow and wind, and at last he
breathed freer. There the smoke from houses is rising.
Lenz entered the first farmhouse.
"Oh! Lenz! welcome! how glad I am that you have not forgotten me!" said
a tall, stout woman, as he came in; she was standing at the hearth, and
had just broken up a thick branch of a tree; "what have you done with
your hat?"
"Oh! now I recognize you--so it is you, Kathrine? You are grown stout.
I come to you as a beggar."
"Oh! Lenz, not so bad as that I hope?"
"But it is indeed," said Lenz, smiling bitterly. He can even jest on
such a subject. "You must lend me, or give me, an old hat, for the wind
has carried off mine."
"Come into the next room with me. My husband will be so sorry not to
see you; he is gone to superintend timber being carted down the hill
from the wood."
Kathrine--for it was the Bailiff's daughter Kathrine--threw open the
door of the adjoining room, and begged Lenz politely to go in first.
The room was warm and comfortable. Kathrine was not offended by Lenz
frankly owning that he had not come on purpose to see her, for he did
not even know that she lived here; but he was heartily glad that chance
had brought him to her house.
"All your life long you were a truly good and honest man, and I am
thankful to see that you are still the same," said Kathrine. She
fetched an old grey hat, and a military cap of her husband's, and
begged Lenz to take the cap, as the hat was too shabby, and not fit for
him to wear; but Lenz chose the hat, though it was much crushed, and
had no hatband. As Lenz was so positive, Kathrine brought her Sunday's
cap with broad black ribbons, and cutting off one of the strings, she
put it on the hat. In the meanwhile she spoke of her former home, and
forgot no one.
Lenz looked in surprise at the active, energetic woman, who was so
ready to oblige him, and who spoke in such a kind and straightforward
manner; she insisted on Lenz taking a cup of coffee, which she made
ready in a few minutes, and while he was drinking it, Kathrine said,
probably recalling the many memories connected with old times:--"Franzl
often comes to see me, we have always remained the best of friends."
"You look indeed, as if you were prosperous," said Lenz.
"I am thankful to say that I have no cause to complain; I am always
well and healthy, and we have enough for ourselves, and something to
spare for others; besides my husband is honest and industrious. We are
not so merry here, to be sure, as we used to be at home; they can't
sing here, but I should be as happy as the day is long, if we only had
a child; but my husband and I have agreed, that if we have not one by
the time our fifth wedding day arrives, we are to adopt one--Faller, we
think, might spare us one of his, we hope you will help us in this."
"I will, gladly."
"You are sadly altered; you look so wasted away--Is it then really true
that Annele is become so cross, and bad tempered?"
Lenz's face became as red as fire, and Kathrine exclaimed:--"Oh! dear,
how stupid I am! don't take it amiss; I beg your pardon a thousand
times over, I had no intention to offend you, and no doubt there is not
a word of truth in the report: when the days are long, people talk for
ever, and when they are short, they chatter all night too. I beg and
pray you will think no more of it, and forget what I said; I was so
glad to see you again, and now all my gladness is gone, and I shall be
quite unhappy for weeks to come--you were right, and the Landlady of
the 'Lion' too, in saying to Franzl that I was too stupid to be your
wife. Pray, pray, give me back my officious words."
She stretched out her hand to him, as if he could really place her
words in it again.
Lenz grasped her hand cordially, and assured her that so far from being
angry with her, he was most grateful for her kind welcome. He wished to
go away immediately, but Kathrine detained him, talking on at a great
rate, in the hope of making him forget her unlucky question, and when
at last he left the house, she called after him:--"Give my love to
Annele, and come together soon to see me."
Lenz pursued his way, wearing the hat he had borrowed; "I have a
regular beggar's hat on now;" said he, with a sad smile.
Kathrine's incautious speech pursued him no doubt in many other houses
as well as here: he was now an object of compassion. This idea tended
to soften his heart, but he would not give way to this weakness, saying
to himself, that it was his own fault for not being more callous.
His stick fell out of his hand at least a hundred times, and each time
that he bent down to pick it up, he could scarcely stand upright again.
Thus it is when a man goes along lost in thought; if his hands were
loose, he would drop them by the way. Collect your thoughts, Lenz!
He made a violent effort, and walked on briskly. The sun was now
shining warm and bright, the icicles hanging from the rocks, glittered
and dropped; the gay song, "Wandern, wandern," that he had sung so
often with his friends, recurred to his mind, but he dismissed it at
once; the man who once sung that in gaiety of heart, must have been a
very different man then.
The relations whom he went to visit were rejoiced to see him on his
arrival, and he recounted the adventure of his hat repeatedly, in order
to account for the shabby appearance it gave him, but when he saw that
his hat never seemed to have been remarked, he made no further allusion
to the subject; and yet precisely where they said nothing they inwardly
thought--"He must be sunk low indeed, to wear such a hat!"
In some houses they were civil, in others rude: "How can you expect us
to help you? you are connected with so grand a family, such rich
connexions through your father-in-law, and an uncle wallowing in
wealth: they are the people who ought to assist you!"
Where people wished to be more kind, they said: "Unluckily we stand in
need of all our money ourselves--we must build, and we have just bought
some land;" or again: "If you had only come to us eight days ago, we
had money, but now we have lent it out on mortgage."
Lenz went on his way with a heavy heart, and when he thought of
returning home, a voice said within him: "Oh! if I might only never
see the Morgenhalde more! To lie down and die in a ditch, or in the
wood,--there are plenty of places to die in,--that would be best for
me!"
An irresistible impulse, however, urged him onwards. "There is
Knuslingen, where Franzl lives with her brother; there is still one
person in the world who will rejoice to see me."
No one in the world could, indeed, be more rejoiced than Franzl when
she saw Lenz. She was sitting at the window, spinning coarse yarn, but
when Lenz came in, she flung the spindle into the air. She carefully
dusted the chair twice over, on which she invited Lenz to sit down, and
kept lamenting that things did not look tidier; she only now remarked
how dull and smoky her room was. She wished to hear all Lenz's news,
and yet she never let him open his lips, she was so busy talking
herself, and saying:--
"When I first came here I thought the cold would have been my death;
for I had been so used to our fine bright sunshine on the Morgenhalde.
There is not a single ray of sun there of which we don't get our share.
Now, however, I have at last become accustomed to do without it; but
Lenz, you look very ill? There is something strange in your face that I
never saw there before--that is not natural to you--Oh! when you smile
like that, I see your old face again--your kindly face. I have prayed
every morning and every evening, since I left you, for you and your
family. I hope you got some good from it. I am no longer angry with
Annele--not in the least: she was quite right; I am regular old lumber.
How are your children? What are they like? What are they called? If I
am still alive next spring, I must see them, even if I creep on my
hands and feet the whole way." And then Franzl went on to say that she
had three hens of her own, and two geese, and a patch of potato land,
also her own. "We are poor," said she, crossing her hands on her
breast, "but, thank God! we have never yet had occasion to see how
other people live; we have always had enough for our own wants, and if
it be God's will, I mean to get a goat next spring." She praised her
geese highly, but still more her poultry. The hens, who had taken up
their winter quarters in a coop near the stove, cackled as if in
gratitude, and turning their red combs first to the right and then to
the left, looked sideways at the man who was hearing all their good
qualities detailed by Franzl. Indeed, the speckled golden Hamburg hen,
whose name was Goldammer, stretched out her wings from joy, and flapped
them cheerfully.
Lenz could not succeed in getting in a word, and Franzl thought she was
consoling him, when she attacked the former Landlady of the "Lion"
fiercely, and then branched off to tell how kind her old acquaintance
Kathrine had been towards her, and the good she did to all the poor
round her. "She gives me food for my hens, and they give me my food in
return."
Franzl could not help laughing at her own joke. At last Lenz managed to
say that he must leave her. Annele is right, he lets himself be
detained too long by anyone, or everyone; even when he is in an agony
to be off, he cannot cut short any person, especially if they are
telling him their sorrows. He felt the justice of Annele's reproaches
at this moment; she seemed to stand behind him to urge him away. He
looked round, as if he really expected to see her, and seized his hat
and his stick; then Franzl begged him to go up with her to her attic,
for she had something to say to him.
Lenz was inwardly troubled. Has Franzl also heard of the discord in his
house? and is she going to talk to him about it? She, however, made no
allusion whatever to such a thing, but she brought forth from the
centre of the straw mattress on her bed, a heavy, well filled shoe,
knotted together with many fastenings, and said:--
"You must do one thing for love of me--I can't sleep at my ease till
then--I implore you to take care of this for me, and to do with it
whatever you choose; there are a hundred gulden and three crown
dollars. I know you will do it, and let me get back my sound sleep."
Lenz would not be persuaded to take the money. Franzl cried bitterly
when he wished to say goodbye to her; she still detained him saying:--
"If you have anything particular to say to your mother, let me know;
for, please God, I shall soon go to her. I will give your message
faithfully, whatever it may be. You may rely on me."
Franzl kept fast hold of Lenz's hand repeating:--
"There was something I had to say to you; I have it on the tip of my
tongue, but I can't remember it, but I am sure to recall it the moment
you are fairly gone. I was to remind you of something--you don't know
what it could be?"
Lenz could make no guess, and at last went away quite reluctantly. He
turned into an alehouse on his way, and was greeted by a shout
of--"Hurrah! capital! it is famous to see you here!"
It was Proebler who welcomed him so boisterously; he was sitting at a
table with two companions, and a large measure of wine before them.
Proebler was the spokesman here, and wished to rise to receive Lenz, but
his feet evidently considered it better that he should sit still, and
so he called out in a loud voice:--
"Come and sit down here, Lenz, and let the world outside become
bankrupt, and turn into a mass of snow; it's not worth plaguing one's
self about it. Here let us sit till the last day. I want nothing more,
I care for nothing more, and when I have nothing more, I will sell the
coat off my back and spend the money in good liquor, and then go out
and lie down in the snow, and so save all funeral expenses. Look here,
my friends! You have in this man an example of the shabbiness of the
world. If a man is better conducted than others, he is sure to be
ruined. Drink away, Lenz! See! this was once the best and most honest
man in the world, and yet, how has it used him? His own father-in-law
plundered him, fleecing him in the most shameless way, and causing his
very house to be exposed and defenceless in the depth of winter. Oh!
Lenz, once on a time I was honest too, but I don't even try to be so
now--I am done with it for ever."
Lenz's heart sunk within him, at hearing himself quoted as the most
striking example of a man completely ruined; he little thought ever to
have won such a reputation as that. He strove to persuade Proebler
that it was no use first to yield to evil courses, and then to
exclaim:--"See, world, what you have made me! Don't you repent it?" He
endeavoured to point out to Proebler, that no one has any right to
expect the world to do for you, what you ought to do for yourself. A
man must preserve his self respect was the idea uppermost in Lenz at
this moment, but Proebler would not listen to him; he took a knife from
his pocket, and another from the table, and thrust them both into
Lenz's hand, saying wildly:--
"There you have got both knives; I can do you no harm, I don't want to
do you any harm: say it out at once, if I am not now a wretched
ragamuffin, and if I should not have been good for something if I had a
helping hand in the world. Your father-in-law--may the devil weigh him
one day, fairly, ounce by ounce in his scale!--has smeared his
creaking boots with my life's blood, and a fine polish it made! Say it
out--what am I?"
Lenz, of course, acknowledged that Proebler would have been a master
mind if he had kept the straight path. Proebler struck the table with
his clenched fist from joy. Lenz had considerable difficulty in
preventing his embracing him.
"I don't want any other funeral sermon, Lenz has preached mine; and now
say no more, let us drink away as hard as we can."
Proebler continued to talk wildly, though sometimes a clear thought
flashed through his wandering brain. It was not easy to ascertain
whether it was truth or a mere delusion, that he had lost his small
savings set aside against the evil day, through the Landlord's ruin, or
whether it was the sale of the mysterious work, for which he had
expected a patent, that had reduced him to this state of desperation.
Lenz felt quite faint and oppressed by the close atmosphere of the
room, and the clamour, and tumult, and his hair stood on end when he
saw before his eyes, a living example of the degradation to which a man
can sink, who has lost self respect, and whose only resource is to
forget himself if possible.
"Your mother had a good saying," said Proebler--"Did I tell you that
this is Lenz of the Morgenhalde?--Yes! Your mother! 'It is better to go
barefooted than to wear torn boots,' she always said. Do you know what
that means? I have another saying however--'When the horse is taken to
the knacker's yard, his shoes are first pulled off.' A tavern--that is
an iron shoe! Wine here!" cried Proebler, throwing a dollar on the
table.
This mention of his mother's name, and her being alluded to at all,
even in so strange a way, seemed a warning to Lenz, as if her eye had
been sternly fixed on him.
He rose, in spite of Proebler clinging to his arm. He wished to take
Proebler home with him, but he could not get him to move from the spot,
so Lenz requested the landlord not to allow the old man to leave the
house tonight, and to give him no more to drink.
When Lenz closed the door behind him, Proebler threw his snuff box after
him, shouting out:--
"I shall never want it again."
Panting for breath, as if he had just escaped from a hot, stifling
covering, Lenz went on his way in the open air. Twilight was beginning
to fell, the kingfisher was singing on the frozen stream below, the
crows were flying towards the woods; a roedeer came out of the wood and
stood still, looking fixedly at Lenz till he came quite close, when he
sprang hurriedly back into the thicket, and his traces could be
followed a long way by the snow that fell from the branches of the
young firs.
Lenz stood still several times to listen, for he thought he heard his
name shouted out behind him; perhaps Proebler was following him; he
answered in a loud voice, which was caught up by the echo; he retraced
his steps a considerable way, but he saw and heard nothing; then he
went straight forwards; the trees and the hills seemed to come to meet
him, and he saw a female figure on his path, which looked like his
mother. If she could see him as he now is!
The old woman who met him nodded kindly, and said he must take good
care to be out of the valley before nightfall, for there were black
channels visible in the snow, and avalanches were not unfrequent round
here, and people were swallowed up in a moment, before they could look
round.
The voice of the woman sounded strangely in his ears; it was as if his
mother had really spoken--and a good hearted warning it was.
Lenz made a solemn vow, deep, deep, in his heart. He was anxious not to
return home quite empty handed, so he went to the nearest town to his
brother-in-law, the timber merchant, and was so fortunate as to find
him at home. It was difficult for Lenz to explain his purpose, for his
brother-in-law either was angry, or affected to be so. He reproached
Lenz for not having advised his father-in-law better, and taken the
business out of his hands. Lenz was the chief cause of the old man's
ruin.
Whether the timber merchant were really displeased or pretended to be
so, there is no better mode, at all events, of refusing assistance.
Lenz implored him with uplifted hands to help him, or he must be
utterly ruined. The brother-in-law shrugged his shoulders, and said
Lenz had better apply to his rich uncle Petrowitsch.