"I am glad," I say, "that I do not repel thee. It cannot be denied that
I belong to those monsters who walk on two legs. But all bipeds are not
dangerous. I, not at all. A short time ago I composed a few verses,
which I should like to recite to thee."
At this the creature, startled, leaps to one side.
"They would not have been long," I say, sorry to have frightened the
deer.
"It is not crafty of thee to hurt my feelings. The poem is written for
my sweetheart. Somewhere lives one whom I love from the depths of my
soul, but no one suspects it, nor does she herself. So I have composed
these verses for her. But they must be forgotten again. How dost thou
manage in such affairs?"
The animal, stepping two paces nearer to me, again begins to sniff. I
now become quite bold.
"Beloved deer!" I continue, holding out my arms, "I cannot say how
interesting thou art to me. If I had a rifle, I might shoot thee down.
No, fear nothing from me, for thou breathest the same air as I, thy
little eye beholds the same sunshine as mine--thy blood is as warm and
as red as my own--why should I kill thee? But if I were hungry and had
a rifle, then I should shoot thee after all, then nothing would help
thee."
In spite of all this, the little deer is coming nearer. I stand there
motionless, and ten paces away is the creature looking at me. My
sensations are most uncomfortable. There must be something wrong with a
man with whom wild game associates.
"Thou art curious," I say, "to see how I look near by. Well, observe me
closely. These rags of linen and woollen stuff do not belong to me.
This is only the outer covering. And if thou shouldst see us bare and
naked as thyself, then all anxiety and fear of us would disappear. In
the beginning we cannot shoot, cannot run as thou dost, cannot nourish
ourselves from weeds, cannot dwell in the thicket. So pitiable are we.
We--so it is said--would have been able to do it once, but in the same
degree in which our reason has grown, have our bodies degenerated,
become tender and sensitive, effeminate and weak. And if it continues
in this way, all mankind will dissolve in spirit, which must also
perish, as the flame dies when wick and oil are gone,--and you will take
our place.
"I do not know," I say, "whether thou art unconsciously searching for
something which, when acquired, still does not satisfy. I do not know
if it be hatred which animates thee, ambition which hunts and urges thee
on, love which makes thee unhappy, pleasure which kills thee. With us
it is so. Do I pity thee or dost thou pity me? Whatever thou hast,
thou art able to enjoy in full measure, while with us the sweet
pleasures of the heart become embittered by the hardness and
pitilessness of reason and prejudice. Our feeling degenerates into
thought, and that is our misfortune. But after all, thou wouldst
willingly exchange places? No, thou art not advanced enough to be
discontented. Thy fear is the hunter, as ours is man. Our own kind
threaten us with the greatest dangers. Hast thou already seen the
latest weekly journal? Ah, thou dost not read leaves, thou eatest them,
which is far more wholesome, only beware of newspaper leaves, they are
poisonous. They should not be so, but they suck the venom from the
ground upon which they stand, from the air that blows around them, from
the times which they serve. Thank God, they do not grow in the Winkel
forest. There grows the sorrel, and that is something for thee, and the
mushroom, which is something for me. For the rest, my little deer, how
long shall we stand here? How goes eating from the hand?"
I pull some grass from the ground, an occupation which the deer follows
with the eye of a connoisseur.
A shot is fired. A short whizzing through the air, the deer makes one
high bound--and with the utmost display of its speed, runs across the
meadow straight into the thicket.
In the near branches the sulphurous smoke slowly disappears. I hasten
to look for the poacher, to deliver him up to justice because he has
fired, and to beg mercy for him because he has not hit. Seeing neither
the poacher nor the deer, I am furious with the thought that the
creature might take me for the guilty one, for the betrayer, or even for
the assassin, and in his eyes I wish to be neither a bad friend nor a
bad protector.
But what does it all amount to? Such enthusiasm is not enduring; in the
late autumn, when, as I hope, the roast venison will appear upon my
table, the friendly feelings will surely reawaken, however they will not
come from the heart, but from the stomach.
The triumphant roaring of a bull or the bells and bleating of a goat is
now heard. The shepherd-boy comes skipping by. He will have nothing to
do with the juniper-bushes; the thorns prick, the blueberries are
bitter. He picks strawberries into his cap, or, what he likes better,
into his mouth. Then, plucking the narrow pointed leaf of the
goat-majoram he carries it to his lips, and through it brings forth a
whistle which re-echoes far away on the slopes and which other
shepherd-lads in the distance give back to him. To the little folks of
the woods this is the sign of brotherhood. Through the raspberry-bushes
wriggles the ant-grubber, searching for the resinous kernels in the
ant-hills from which to prepare the incense, that wonderful grain whose
smoky veil enchants the eye of mortals, so that they fall before the
sacrificial bread and see the Lord.
On the ridge beside the purple erica, under the blackberry leaves,
flourishes the sweet-root; that is a toothsome spice for the
shepherd-boy, and the herdswoman also likes to nibble it, that she may
have a ringing voice for yodling on the Alm. The herdswoman, I notice,
is often affected in a singular manner; surely she has many, yes, a
great many words upon her tongue, but the right one for her heart's
desire is not among them; she therefore expresses it in another way and
sings a song _without_ words which in this region, as far as it is
heard, is called the _Jodel_.
I proceed down through a defile torn away by the wild torrents of the
Kar. Trees and bushes arch over it, forming an arbour. A cool breeze
fans me as I stand upon the shady bank of a forest lake, enclosed by
dark walls and slender brown trunks of the primeval forest. A perfect
stillness rests upon the water. The stray leaf of a beech or an oak
rustles toward me. I hear that eternal murmuring of deepest silence. A
little bell somewhere in space, we know not if on the earth below or in
the starry heaven above, is constantly calling us. And in a quiet hour
our soul catches the familiar sound and longs,--and longs.
Peace of the primeval forest, thou still, thou holy refuge of the
orphaned, the deserted, the pursued and world-weary; thou only Eden
which remains for the unhappy!
Listen, Andreas! Dost thou hear the sound and echo of the song without
words? That is the shepherd's hymn. Dost thou also hear the distant
hammering and reverberating? That is the woodsman with the axe--the
angel with the sword.
*WITH THE HERDSMEN*
The earliest people were the herdsmen. They are the most harmless that
one meets in these wooded hills. So I have begun with them.
And I have already learned something of pastoral life. With the
exception of the couple up in the Miesenbach hut, none of them live at
home; the herdsmen really have no homes, they are wanderers. They spend
the winter in the lower, outlying districts, dwelling in the farmyards
to which the herds belong. They eat with the people and sleep with the
cows and goats. In the spring-time, when the freshets are over and the
maple blossoms are peeping forth from their green sheaves toward heaven
to see if the swallows are not already there, the cattle are taken from
the stalls and led by the herdsman to the Alm. The cows are bedecked
with tinkling bells, the calves and steers with green wreaths, such as
the people wear at the feast of Corpus Christi. In the procession to
the Alm, when the young people and cattle walk together, the ceremony of
crowning with wreaths is conducted with great propriety; but when, after
many honeymoons upon the airy heights, the cattle return to the valley
in the late autumn with fresh wreaths, the garland of the herdswoman
does not always remain green in her hair. On the Alm there is much sun
and little shade, and the Alm-boy must bring the fresh water a long
distance--then nothing withers more easily than such a tender nosegay in
the curly locks.
In the lovely summer-time these people lead a good and happy life upon
the hills and I--truly and by my faith, I am good and happy with them.
Sorrow and woe are like hot-house plants, they will not flourish in the
fresh Alpine air. Even the old keeper of oxen, usually so surly, is
constantly heard singing and piping his flute.
Within the herdsman's hut everything is well arranged and conveniently
near at hand. By the hearth sits Domesticity in front of the fire and
the brown jugs, and before the shaky table kneels Religion at the
crudely ornamented _Hausaltar_. And where the bedstead stands, the Lord
Himself would have been unable to put anything better. The bed is made
from rough boards, upholstered with moss and rushes--it must be like
that if the young woman of the Alm is to dream happily therein. In the
next room are the buckets and pitchers, and here the milk and butter
business is carried on, the profits of which are honestly delivered to
the owner of the herd.
The whole household is shut in by four wooden walls, on which the Alm
woman hears at night the little gold man knocking; this is the token of
the fulfilment of her most secret heart's desire. I did not like to
tell the credulous Aga that I thought the little gold man might be an
industrious wood-worm. What in heaven's name would a wood-worm have to
do with her heart's desires? But these will be fulfilled all the same:
the simple folk about here wish for nothing which cannot be attained.
And the maid in the hut, as well as the shepherd-boy and the herd in the
stall, sleep with an easy conscience.
In the morning the bright sun peeps through the window, calling, "Time
to be up!" Now the herdswoman goes with the bucket into the stall,
where between four legs flow the little white fountains of milk and
butter. The fire on the hearth is ready for the milk and the herdsman
is waiting for the soup. He yodles and shouts, and so the time passes.
But Berthold manages in the simplest way; he lays himself under the
belly of the cow and drinks his breakfast directly from the udder.
It was with Berthold and Aga in the Miesenbach hut that I made my
observations. After the morning soup Aga takes the basket on her back
and descends toward the grazing meadows of the Thalmulde, that like a
careful mistress she may prepare the table for her four-footed menials.
The herd's meal lasts the whole day; for in the early morning Berthold
has already led them down to the pastures wet with dew.
Once in such an hour I listened to Aga. She was trilling and singing,
and these are the things I like to record.
"If the Winkel brook were milk,
And the Winkel vale were beef as well,
And the hills were all of butter,
That were a feast, my lad, to tell."
Berthold hearing it does not reflect long; a song so grossly material
calls for one still more material. Standing upon the wall, he sings to
the maid:
"If thy red hair were gold,
Of thalers full thy throat,
Thy bodice stuffed with diamonds,
Upon thee I would dote."
And then she:
"Thy fingers would burn for the thalers,
The jewels thou wouldst embrace,
But the golden hair were much too fine
For thy rough and bearded face."
Oh, they do not remain in one another's debt; they know how to tease.
But how does it happen that in the forest-land grow fewer and less
appropriate expressions for love and tenderness than for jesting and
fun? If love down in the valleys is not exactly communicative, up here
with the firs and little cabbage-roses it is as dumb as fish in water.
The kiss is not as customary here as in other places. It is, I should
say, as if the warm blood did not take the time to mount to the lips,
when there is so much to do elsewhere. Everything expresses itself in
the arms, and when a love-sick lad knows no other way of showing his
feelings, he seizes his maiden, as the miller does a sack of grain, and
swings her high in the air, at the same time giving a shout that verily
tears the clouds asunder.
Berthold does it not a whit differently. They are two poor young
people, left to themselves on the lonely Alpine heights. What is there
to do? Alas! alas! nothing, I think, for me as yet.
*WITH THE WOOD-DEVILS*
In this wilderness there are trades of which I had no idea. The people
literally dig their bread out of the earth and stones. They scrape it
from the trees, and by the many-sided resources of their wit force it
out of inedible fruits. How strange that man should know so well how to
utilise everything! But has he already done so? And was the necessity
there before the means were discovered, or was it the result of the
things obtained? If the latter were the case, I should consider the
thousand acquisitions as no gain.
The starved or daring wood-devils hold closer communication with the
mass of mankind outside than one would suppose, and than they themselves
perhaps imagine. Yet after all they know it well enough. For example,
there is the root-digger. His fustian jacket reaches to the calves of
his legs; his hat is a veritable family roof, but in places it is
already breaking and full of holes. One knows him at once from afar.
He climbs around among the rocks and digs out the aromatic roots with
his crooked iron puncheon. He then sometimes sings the little song:
"When I uproot the spikenard here,
That grows upon the Alm,
I like to think of the women-folk.--
Canst thou guess where the spices go?
To Turkey land, that the women-folk,
A sweeter perfume may receive.
In Turkey land, the women-folk."
I do not yet know if it be true that spikenard travels from here over to
Turkey. But these people believe it and so it is truth to them. The
proud assertion of the root-digger, that he is sending a sweeter perfume
to the woman's world in the Orient, is contested.
Yonder upon the cliff stands an old comrade, who, hearing the song,
unfastens the brass clasp of his jacket, and retorts:
"That thou 'rt always thinking
Of the Turkish women-folk,
O Lota, is well-known!
Go rather and perfume thyself
With spikenard on the Alm,
It might not do thee any harm."
Thus they tease one another, and that is their harmless side. But the
wood-devil has his cloven foot. The genuine man of the woods has a
double-barrelled shot-gun; one barrel is called _Gemsennoth_ (Danger to
the chamois), the other _Jaegertod_ (Death to the hunter). If he could
write, he would engrave these names upon the steel with his crooked
knife; but he keeps it in his mind, that about _Gemsennoth_ and
_Jaegertod_.
He would have given up the digging long ago, to lead solely a poacher's
life, but he imagines that sometime he is going to find a buried
treasure under the stones. Digging for treasures, gold and diamonds
under the ground, that he has heard in fairy-tales and can never forget.
Gold and diamonds under the ground! Treasure-digging! The fairy-tale is
right; the root-digger is right; the ploughman is right; the miner is
right. But the treasure-digger is not right.
Of one thing I am careful, that is, not to offend the root-digger, the
pitch-scraper, or the ant-grubber. These are the people who are said to
cause the bad weather, which is all devils' work, and since they live in
the forests, thence the many hard storms in the wooded and Alpine
regions. But how they manage that the atoms of dew condense into water,
that the drops freeze into bits of ice, that the bits of ice become
heavy hail-stones, that flaming darts of lightning hiss through the
night, and that the mighty thunder rolls, until at last it all bursts
upon the trembling men and beasts of the earth--how they manage that,
must be a profound secret of these wild fellows which I have not been
able to discover.
It is a fearful delusion of these people, when they think themselves
able to perform deeds which are beyond human power, while neglecting
that by which they might accomplish something great.--However, in the
world outside, other mistakes occur, still more harmful because made by
men of superior wisdom and with greater resources than here. Glorious,
O mankind, is thy progress, but with thy monstrous prejudices art thou
still very incomplete!
Up among the hills is a glen called the Wolfsgrube. I recently visited
this place, arriving there just in time to witness the burial of a man,
who had been neither root-digger, ant-grubber, pitch-scraper,
brandy-distiller, nor poacher, but the most extraordinary wood-devil.
He had never worked, but had earned his bread by eating. He was called
"the Gormand"; I think he had no other name. He was a human wreck,
although physically very strong. His hair had become a hopelessly
tangled mat with sweat and resin; so he had no need of a hat. His beard
resembled dried pine-needles. His broad and powerful chest was as
though spun over with a tenfold spider's web, thus saving a doublet. An
entire horny skin had formed itself upon his bulky feet, making shoes
superfluous. Almost a terrible sight! I met him a few days ago in the
Winkel. Seeing me, he snatched a handful of sand from the ground,
offering to swallow it for a small remuneration. He often went to the
surrounding villages on church-festival days to exhibit his tricks
before the people. He did not consume tow and ribbons and that sort of
thing, as jugglers usually do, but cloth, leather, and bits of glass.
He has even been known to swallow rusty shoe-nails. His favourite
repast was an old boot or felt hat, torn into bits and prepared with oil
and vinegar. That paid him well, and his purse, like his stomach, had a
good digestion. "For us such food would not be good," said
Rhyme-Ruepel, "though a little drink of _Schnapps_ or wine might cut the
pebbles very fine." Day in, day out, he performed this feat; but
everything has an end, Easter Sunday as well as Good Friday. He was
sitting before his glass of toddy in Kranabethannes' hut, saying in his
arrogant way, "Eat your black bread yourself, Hannes; I 'll drink the
brandy and take a bite of the glass with it." Just then an old
root-digger crawled out from a dark corner of the hearth: "Despise the
black bread, do you? You!" At which the Gormand retorted: "Get out,
root-digger; I 'll eat you and the yoke on your back!" The old man then
drew forth a small root, saying, "Here 's something, you rascal, that's
a little stronger than you are." "Bring it on!" screamed the Gormand,
seizing the root and thrusting it down his throat. "You 're done for!"
chuckled the old man, and he disappeared into the forest. Suddenly
springing up, the Gormand staggered out of the house and fell upon the
grass, stone-dead. The meaning of it all was now plain. No one knew the
old root-digger--he was the devil.
Half-fact, half-legend, so the superstitious people interpreted and
related it to me. And they would not bury the man in the Holdenschlag
churchyard. In the marshy ground of the Wolfsgrube, where only the
rushes grow and wave their little woolly flags, they made the grave.
Winding the body in thick fir-boughs, they shoved it with a pole, until
it rolled into its final resting-place.
At the same time a little troop of worshippers came over the heath
through the Wolfsgrube. They had been in a defile in the high mountains
where a cross is said to be standing among the rocks. The little
company paused before the grave, repeating the Lord's prayer for the
dead man. Then suddenly a swarthy woman, a charcoal-burner, cried out:
"You miserable wretches, your pious prayers will be as useful to that
man as dry clothes to a fish in water. He 's already yonder in torment,
for he 's the eater of broken glass!"
"The holy Lord's prayer will serve afterwards for our live-stock at
home!" murmured the worshippers as they walked away.
A pale, black-haired man, with a melancholy face though restless
bearing, still remained standing beside the grave. Gazing into it, with
a trembling hand he threw a clump of earth upon the form wrapped in the
green travelling-dress and, looking about him, said: "We will cover him
with earth nevertheless. The devil has not taken him because of his
good appetite; and his heart may have been no worse than his stomach."
This was the funeral sermon. And then a few men came and shovelled
earth into the grave.
Later I again met the sad, pale man, whom they call the _Einspanig_.
"Can you tell me something," I asked, "about the eater of broken glass?
It is really a strange, weird tale."
"Strange and weird is the whole woodland," he answered; "a better
digestion than ours, such a son of the wilderness may have. And
superstition is the intellectual life of these people." With these
words he turned and quickly stumbled away.
What, old man, art thou not thyself a son of the wilderness? Thou art
truly strange and weird enough. The _Einspanig_, "The Lone One," they
call him; of his history they know nothing.
I have also made the acquaintance of the pitch-maker. He is a very
peculiar fellow. One can scent him from afar and see him glistening
through the thicket. The hatchet glistens with which he scrapes the
resin from the trees, and the grappling-iron glistens, by means of which
he climbs like a wild-cat up the smooth trunks to reap a harvest from
their tops, or to make an incision for the resin to flow out later on.
And the leather trousers glisten, and the fustian jacket, covered with
pitch, and the blade of the long knife at his side--and finally one sees
his black, glistening eye. If a blossom or a falling pine-needle grazes
him, it sticks to his arm, to his hair, to his beard. If a fly or a
butterfly is flitting about, or a spider, swinging from its web, the
little insect remains clinging to him; and his dress is gaily decorated
with tiny creatures from the plant and animal kingdom when in the
darkness of the forest or at evening he returns home to his hermitage.
The pitch-maker wounds the trees seriously, at last killing them, and
the primeval forest has succumbed to the destruction. He has crippled
the old pines and firs, and they now stretch out their long arms after
him, as if desiring to strike down their deadly enemy.
By a process of evaporation, the pitch-maker prepares turpentine and
other oils such as are used in the forest regions for every conceivable
malady. I often visit these distilleries, watching the black mass boil
and bubble, until it is put into closed earthen receptacles, from which
the valuable contents are drawn through slender tubes into kegs and
bottles. Packing these in a large basket, the man peddles them from
house to house. The wood-cutter buys pitch-oil for every injury which
he may receive in his battle with the forest. The charcoal-burner buys
it for burns; the brandy-distiller for his casks. The root-digger buys
for sprains and colic, the last of which he contracts from so much
uncooked food. The small peasant farther out buys pitch-oil for his
whole household and cattle, as a remedy against every ill.
O thou pitch-oil man! A tiny worm has been gnawing long at my
heart--might it not be destroyed with thy gall-bitter oil?
In the pitch-maker's hut it is unsafe to sit down, for one would stick
fast. And then the little unwashed, tousled children would come and
clamber upon one's neck until there would be no escape.
The pitch-maker's dwelling is simple enough. Underneath is the bare
earth; above, the bark-shingled roof; while the walls are of rough logs,
stopped up with moss. The uneven hearth serves at the same time as a
table. Under the bedstead is the storehouse for potatoes, mushrooms,
and wild pears. The worm-eaten wardrobe is the revered object in the
house; it guards the sacred souvenirs of the forefathers, the baptismal
gifts of the children, and the rain-coat of the pitch-maker when not in
use. The windows have hardly enough glass to have satisfied the
appetite of the Gormand. "Besides," as the pitch-maker says, "rags and
straw paper are as good as glass panes, if one cannot show a clean face
through them." Behind the wardrobe hangs the gun. If my lord, the
hunter, on one of his visits, should happen to discover it, it is all
right--a gun is a necessity, for there are wolves in the woods. If he
does not see it, so much the better. It is the same with the
pitch-maker's housekeeper; seeing her, one is compelled to acknowledge
that the spring-time of life will return no more to one in the fortieth
year; that, as the proverb says, a wen on the throat is better than a
hole; that one-eyed is not blind, and that a little crookedness in the
legs is neither to be ashamed nor boasted of. If one does not see her,
so much the better.
But as I have often noticed, to many a pitch-maker clings a young wife.
Country wenches are sometimes very different from city maids. The
latter are usually well pleased when their lovers are white and
delicate, slender, docile, and amorous as doves. The country lass on
the contrary prefers one who is hard, rough, and bristly, angular and
wild. If a girl has a choice between one who cheerfully darns stockings
for her and one who thunders at her with every word--then she takes the
thunderer. For after all she has him in her power. How does the song
go which the pitch-maker likes so well to sing?
"For the pitch I have my axe,
For the hare I 've gun and ball,
For the hunter two stout fists,
For the wench I 've nothing at all.
'That,' she says, 'is far too little.'
So she drives me out the door;
Then I go and flog the hunter
Till he troubles me no more."
It may not be poetical,--however, the man who occasionally sings such a
song does not harm the hunter. He who goes about with gloomy thoughts
sings no merry song.
Among the wood-devils, the most cordial and, according to my judgment,
the most dangerous, is the brandy-distiller. He wears finer cloth than
the others and shaves his beard every week. He always carries about
with him a little flask, affably treating each person who comes in his
way. Whoever drinks is ruined, and follows him to the tavern.
The brandy-distiller reaps a double harvest; first the red berries from
the mountain-ash, from the hop, from the sweet-broom, from everything
that here produces fruit. He believes in the Spirit of Nature, that
lives in all created things, and conjures it out of the fruits of the
forest and, like the magician in the fairy-tale, into the bottle and,
putting the stopple in quickly, imprisons it there. His distillery is a
magic circle under a high, gloomy pine, a circle like that which the
spider draws and weaves. Soon a few flies are there, wriggling in the
net. The woods-people, as they go about, or to and from their work, are
at last enticed into the tavern--these are the flies of the two-legged
spider, and from them the brandy-distiller now reaps his second harvest.
Each man is advised by his wife to avoid the road by "the Pine," it is
so dark and rough, as well as being longer than any other. The man
appears to be convinced, and besides he has nothing to call him
there,--but health is such an uncertain thing, and as he walks along he
is suddenly attacked by a pressure in the throat, followed by a most
distressing colic. Having no pitch-oil with him, he knows but one
remedy and--he takes the road by "the Pine." "The first little glass,"
says Ruepel, "soothes the smart; the second glass makes warm the heart;
the third glass makes it still more warm; one's purse by the fourth will
receive no harm; at the fifth, the man wishes to stretch his limbs; at
the sixth, the pines sway and his poor head swims; at the seventh, his
body is all aglow; at the eighth, to his wife he longs to go."
But stumbling homewards, the good man swears at the "bad" wife who is
coming to meet him without a light through this ghastly fog; and when
finally, his hat awry and jammed low on his forehead, he tumbles into
the hut, the woman knows what beatings she has already borne and may
receive again, if she does not hasten and escape into the garret or some
safe place.
My voyages of discovery have cheered me more than I should have thought
possible. A sad fate hangs over this little people, but this fate
sometimes makes an unspeakably droll face. Besides I do not consider
these foresters so utterly depraved and wretched. They are neglected
and uncouth. Perhaps something might be made of them; but first the
leaven must be added.
The race will not die out so easily. Right here in the damp, dark
forest-land the little ones flourish like mushrooms. The youngsters
follow the path of their elders and carry the grappling-iron for roots,
or the herdsman's staff, or the hatchet for pitch, or the axe for wood.
But, according to the reports made to the priest in Holdenschlag, the
forest children are all girls. The boys are mostly christened with the
water of the woods; they are recorded in no parish-register, that they
may remain unnoticed outside by the bailiffs and omitted from the
military list. The men here say that the government and whatever
belongs to it costs them more than it would be worth to them, and they
will renounce it. That may be all true, but the government does not
renounce the healthy Winkelstegers.
The girls also, when they are somewhat fledged, soon take up ant- and
root-digging, gathering herbs, and they know of a market for everything;
they pick strawberries and hops and the fruit of the juniper for the
brandy-distillers. And the little boys, still too young to look after
themselves, already help with the brandy-drinking.
A short time ago I watched a troop of children. They are playing under a
larch-tree. The fallen larch-cones are their stags and roes, which they
are pretending to feed with green brushwood. Others run about playing
"Hide and Seek" behind the bushes, "Holding Salt," "Driving out Hawks,"
"Going to Heaven and Hell," and whatever all the tricks and games are
called. It is pleasant to watch them; to be sure they are all half
naked, but they have well-formed and healthy limbs, and their games are
more childishly gay than any which I have ever seen other children play.
This is the vulnerable spot of the horny Siegfried, who is here called
_Waldteufel_.
Smiling at the little ones under the larch-tree, I try after a while to
mingle with them in their games, but they draw back shyly, only a few
keeping near me; but when I attempt to get the better of them in a race
or game of tag, then they all join in. And soon I am a good and welcome
friend in the mad, whirling circle of these young people. I prattle
many things to them, but more often I let them talk to me. I go to
school to the children to learn the schoolmaster's art.
The forest people do not allow themselves to be drawn up by force; he
who would win them for higher things must descend quite to them, must
lead them up arm in arm and indeed by a long, circuitous route.
*IN THE FELSENTHAL*
Below the slopes of the fore-alps and the cliffs of the Hochzahn with
its chain of glaciers, the wooded hills extend on and on toward the
west. Seen from above they lie there like a dark-blue sea, concealing
in their depths the everlasting shadows and the strange people.
A day's journey from the valley of the Winkel toward the west, far below
the last hut, is a place where, according to the legend, the world is
fastened in with boards.
It were better said, walled in with stones; deep fissured precipices
shut off the forest-land and here begin the Alps, where the rocky
boulders no longer lie or lean, but soar straight up into the sky. A
sea of snow and ice with crags, about which hover everlasting mists,
extends endlessly, it is said, over the giant strongholds above, which
in olden times guarded an Eden now turned to stone. Thus the legend.
Strange that this wonderful dream of a lost paradise yet to be regained
should dawn in the hearts of _all_ people and nations!
These foresters will not believe that on the other side of the Alps
there are again regions inhabited by man. Only one old, shy, blinking
charcoal-burner repeats the story told him by his grandfather, that over
there were human beings, who wore such high pointed hats that they could
not walk about on the mountains in the evening without knocking down the
stars. So the Lord God was obliged to carefully draw down the clouds
every night in order to keep a single star in heaven. The rogue meant
the pointed hats of the Tyrolese.
In this mountain glen are a number of places held in ill repute. Here
many a dead chamois-hunter has been found, shot through the breast by a
ball of lead. There is also a legend that a monster, which keeps watch
over an inexhaustible treasure of diamonds in the mountains, sometimes
bursts forth from one of the numerous rocky caverns. If the forest-land
endures a while longer, then a hero is expected to come and slay the
beast and recover the treasure. Up to the present such a one has not
appeared. Ah, if I could give this monster its true name!
The region is adapted to the gloomy myths. It is a dead valley in which
no little finch will sing, no wild pigeon coo, no woodpecker chatter, in
which loneliness itself has fallen asleep. Upon the grey moss-covered
ground piles of rock lie about, just as they have been broken from the
high cliff. Here and there a bold little fir-tree has climbed up on one
of these grey, weather-beaten boulders and proudly looks about, thinking
itself now more fortunate than the other half-dead trees on the sandy
soil below. It will not be long before it too will perish from hunger
and thirst, and will fall from the barren rock. Here the forest cannot
flourish, and if a straight and slender fir shoots up anywhere, its days
are numbered. A storm-wind suddenly comes rushing down from the rocky
defile and almost gently lays the young tree, together with its broken
roots, upon the ground.
The Scotch fir alone is still courageous; it climbs the steep sides
between the precipices to discover how it looks up there with the
_Edelweiss_, with the Alpine roses, with the chamois, and how far it is
yet to the snow. But the good Scotch fir is no daughter of the Alps;
soon a dizziness seizes it, and, frightened, it crouches down and crawls
painfully upon its knees, with its twisted, crippled arms always
reaching out and clutching something, the little heads of the cones
stretching themselves upward in curiosity, until finally it comes out
into the damp veil of mist and aimlessly wanders about among the stones.
Upon one of the fallen rocks of this remotest valley in the forest
stands a cross. It is very clumsily made out of two rough pieces of
wood; in places the bark is still clinging to it. Silent it stands
there in the barren waste; it is like the first message concerning the
Redeemer of the world, which in olden times the holy Boniface made from
the trees of the forest and set up in the German wilderness.
I have often asked the meaning of this cross. Since time immemorial it
has stood upon the rock, and no man can say who placed it there.
According to the legend it was never placed there. Every thousand years
a little bird flew into the forest, bringing a seed of grain from
unknown lands. Previously it was not known what had become of the
seeds, whether they had been lost, or whether the poisonous plant with
the blue berries, or the thorn-bush with the white rose, or something
else, evil or good, had sprung from them. But when the bird last
appeared it laid the seed upon the rock in the Felsenthal, and from it
sprang the cross. Sometimes one goes there to pray before it; the
prayer has often brought a blessing at once, but often a misfortune has
followed it. So it is uncertain whether the cross is for weal or woe.
The Einspanig is the most frequently seen in the Felsenthal, and here he
performs his devotions before the symbol; but it is also uncertain
whether the Einspanig is good or evil.
After many days of wandering I returned once more to my house in the
Winkel, much puzzled in my mind about the cross in the Felsenthal and
the Einspanig. I learned a little concerning the latter on reaching
home.
I was surprised to find my housekeeper, usually so good-natured, quite
irritable to-day. It appears that seeing the Einspanig passing, the
woman, who happened to look out at that moment, thought to herself, "Oh,
how I should like to gossip a little with this queer man, and find out
something about him." And as he accidentally turned his face toward the
door, she cordially invited him to enter and rest a little on the bench.
On his accepting her invitation, she hastily brought him bread and milk,
and in her own peculiar way asked, "Good man of God, where do you then
come from?"
"Down from the Felsenthal," was the answer.
"_Ihr Naerrchen!_" cried the woman, "you don't mean that horrible place!
Up there in the Felsenthal the world is fastened in with boards."
The Einspanig then replied quietly: "Nowhere is the world fastened in
with boards. The mountains stretch far, far back behind the Hochzahn,
then comes the hilly country, then the plains, then the water which
extends many thousand miles, then land again with mountains and valleys
and little hills, and again water, and again land and water and land and
land----"
Interrupting him here, the woman cried, "_Mein Gott_, Einspanig, how
much farther then?"
"As far as home, into our country, into our forest, into the Winkel,
into the Felsenthal. Worthy woman, if God should give you wings and you
should fly away toward the setting sun and on and always on, following
your nose and the sun, then one day you would come flying from where the
sun rises toward your peaceful house."
"Oh, you humbug!" cried the woman, "go tell your tales to someone else;
I am the Winkel-warden's wife. I 'll give you the milk and with it the
honest opinion of old people: Somewhere there is a place where the world
is fastened in with boards. That is the old faith, and therein will I
live and die."
"Woman, all honour to your old faith!" replied the Einspanig, "but I
have already travelled the road toward the setting sun and back here
from the rising sun."
These words seemed to have thoroughly embittered her. "_O Du
Fabelhans!_" she screamed, "the devil has set his mark upon you." And
then shaking his head the man walked away.
The good woman must have found it hard waiting for me to give further
vent to her feelings. As I approached the house she called to me over
the fence: "By my troth! By my troth! What kind of people there are
upon God's dear earth, to be sure! Now they do not even believe in the
end of the world! But I say: Our Lord God has made it all right, and I
'll stick to my old faith, and the world is fastened in with boards!"
"Of course, of course," I acknowledged, as I climbed over the board
fence. "Quite right--fastened in with boards!"
And so we will cling to the old faith.
*WITH THE WOOD-CUTTERS*
Alas, that the forest also should have its enemies--the silent, unending
forest, as it stretches over hill and vale--lying there, boundless,
green and dark, and farther on, dimly blue in the sunny horizon.
What a beautiful rustling, murmuring, echoing, living wall, protecting
all within it from the wild discord without! But--the peace of the
woods is dead.
In the forest the wind roars, striking off the joyfully waving arm of
many a young pine, breaking the neck of many a daring giant. And in the
depths, rushing and foaming in white frothy flakes--like a gathering
storm--is the Wildbach, which washes, digs, and gnaws the earth away
from the roots, ever deeper and deeper, until at last the mighty tree is
almost standing in the air, only supporting itself above by resting its
strong arms upon its neighbours, and finally plunging into the grave,
which the water has mischievously been digging for it,--that water which
the tree has fed with its falling dew, protected with its thick branches
from the thirst of the wind and guarded with its shade from the
consuming kiss of the sun. And the woodpecker pecks the bark in the
airy tree-top, while the sharp-toothed wheel of time revolves
constantly, and the chips fly--in the spring as blossoms, in the autumn
as withered needles and leaves.
It is eternally ending and in the end are always the germs of beginning.
Then man comes for the first time with his rage for destruction. The
blows and strokes resound, the saw buzzes, the axe is heard upon the
iron wedge in the dark valley,--if you look from above over the silent
sea of trees, you do not dream which one it concerns.
But the axe and the wedge pierce deeper and deeper; then the tree, a
century old, shakes its lofty head, not in the least comprehending what
the little man below there wants, the droll, tiny creature--it cannot
understand and again shakes its head. Then comes the thrust through its
heart; it cracks, snaps, and now the giant totters and bends; whizzing
and whistling in an immense circle, it falls with a wild crash to the
earth. There is an empty space in the air, the forest has a gap. A
hundred spring-times have borne it up with their love and gentleness;
now it is dead, and the world exists and also remains intact without
it--the living tree.
Silent stand the two or three men, supporting themselves upon the
handles of their axes, and gaze upon their sacrifice. They do not
mourn, they do not exult, a cruel indifference rests upon their rough,
sunburnt features; their very faces and hands resemble the fir bark.
Filling their pipes, they sharpen the hatchets and return to work. They
chop the branches from the fallen trunk, they shave off the bark with a
broad knife, cutting it perhaps into cord-lengths, and now the proud
tree lies there transformed into bare logs.
These are converted into charcoal, which is forwarded to the foundries
in the outlying regions. The beeches and maples and other deciduous
trees are usually left standing until they inwardly decay and fall to
the ground. Upon the mouldering trunks appear fungous growths, and from
these the pitch-maker or the root-digger prepares the tinder, by
hammering them flat and steeping them in saltpetre.
The wood-cutter has no thought for the beauty of the wilderness. To him
the forest is nothing more than a hostile shelter from which he must
wrest bread and existence with the gleaming axe. And what a long day's
work it is from early morning until twilight, with but a single hour's
rest at noon! While the wood-devil is his own master, the woodcutter is
the slave of others. As for his food, the wood-cutter is a being who
nourishes himself from plants, unless he be a genuine poacher, who is
shrewd enough to avoid being captured. However, he luxuriates in
imagination and likes to name his flour-dumplings after the animals of
the forest. So for breakfast, dinner, and supper he always eats
venison, foxes, sparrows, or whatever he christens his meal-cakes. One
Friday a young man invited me to a "Venison." Ah, I think, he does not
keep Fast Day,--he is certainly one of the Evangelicals who was left in
the Alps after the peasant wars. But the "Venison" proved to be
harmless little meal-cakes.
Eighteen groschen wages for a day's work,--that is indeed prosperity;
from it many a woodsman has bought himself a little house and goat, and
supported a wife and troop of children. So at last he has his own
hearth, and in addition to the meal-cakes a rich soup of goat's milk.
However, the expenses of the forest cabin are not very great.
Fortunately not much is required of the good fathers of families.
"Man can live as he likes,
If lucky he be,--
For the children some bread,
Tobacco for me"
is the song of the forest householder.
But others, and indeed the most of them, drown their earnings in brandy,
thus forfeiting the few comforts which their unambitious natures demand.
Such spendthrifts live together by the dozen in a single hut, cooking
their dinner at a common hearth which is in the middle of the cabin.
Along the walls are spread the straw beds.
In each hut they have a _Goggen_ and a _Thomerl_; the first is a wooden
frame on the hearth, which holds the frying-pan over the fire--there are
often half a dozen set up around the flames. The second is a man, who,
however, may be called _Hansl_ or _Lippl_, or whatever he likes, but who
usually has a massive head, high shoulders, and short feet, hands
hanging down to his knees, and a vacant smile continually upon his face.
He is chambermaid, kitchen-boy, wood- and water-carrier, at the same
time goatherd, butt for empty jokes and--the honour of the house.
Furthermore, in each woodman's hut, in some one of the corners, or under
some board, rifles are always concealed.
The working-day garb of the wood-cutter has no striking characteristics;
it consists of a combination of tattered fustian, dull-coloured knitted
wool, and a horny leather hide, everything more or less sticky with
resin and almost entirely hiding the form beneath. But the badge is the
high, yellowish-green hat with the tuft of feathers. The feather tuft
is most important, for that is the mark of some poaching adventure, love
affair, or savage broil. Occasionally these people go outside to the
more distant places to celebrate the _Kirmess_--and this is a necessity
to them, as here there are no Sundays, indeed the very heart of
Sunday--the church itself--is missing.
At these feasts the rough woods-people wear dress-coats and tall
hats,--one would hardly believe it. But the coat is of coarse fustian
edged with green; miniature trees, cut out of the same green material,
decorate the sleeves and back above the coat-tails; large brass buttons
glisten in the distance, and a high standing collar reaches to the head,
which is covered by the tall hat, broad brimmed and with flaring crown.
This is made from rough hair, with a wide green band and shining brass
buckle.
Even into the wilderness of the Alps the foreign fashions have
penetrated!
For the most part they are good-hearted people; but if irritated they
can become savage past all belief. Their eyes, although deep-set, are
bright and sparkling. Kindness is clearly read there as well as
quickness of temper.
But they are pious, suspiciously pious. Each one has his flask of holy
water and tells his beads, with the parenthesis, "Bless all poor souls
in purgatory, and help us to find the money and goods so uselessly
buried in the ground." And each has seen at least one ghost in his
life.
According to my observation a bloody fight seems to be quite an ordinary
occurrence with these people, and a death-blow no rarity. On the other
hand, thefts are never committed.
The wood-cutter is born under the tree; his father places, one might
almost say, the axe-handle in his hand before the spoon, and instead of
the nursing-bottle the little one grasps after the tobacco-pouch. He who
is unable to buy tobacco makes it for himself from beech leaves.
A remarkable amiability is not a native trait of these people. They
scarcely know peaceful joy; they strive for noisy pleasure. They are
not even sensitive to pain. If one of them drives the sharp axe into
his leg he merely says it _tickles_ him a little. But in a few days all
is healed again. And if a man loses a finger, it is a misfortune only
because of the inconvenience in lighting his pipe.
An old setter of broken bones and an extractor of teeth form the entire
medical faculty, while pine-resin and pitch-oil are the only drugs used
in this shadowy wood-world.
When these people go away homesickness is their greatest woe. The
homeless ones homesick? Their real trouble is a longing for the forest
hills where they have once passed a portion of their lives.
*BLACK MATHES*
In the Hinter Winkel stands the haunted hut. A short time ago I was
there to see Mathes the fighter, a hard, rough-appearing man, although
small and thin. He was lying stretched upon a bed of moss, his arm and
head being bound in rags. He was badly hurt.
The windows of the hut were covered with bits of cloth; the sufferer
could not bear the light. His wife, young and amiable, but grieving
piteously, was kneeling beside him, moistening his forehead with apple
vinegar. His eyes stared at her almost lifelessly, but about his mouth
played a smile, showing the snow-white teeth. A strong odour of
pitch-oil filled the room.
As I entered, a pale, black-haired boy and a bright-eyed little maid
were cowering at his feet, playing with bits of moss.
"That is to be a garden," said the girl, "and there I am going to plant
roses!"
The boy was carving a cross out of a small piece of wood, and he cried:
"Father, now I know what I am making; it 's the Holdenschlag graveyard!"
The mother in alarm reproved the children for their noise; but Mathes
said: "Oh, never mind; I 'll soon be in the graveyard myself. But, one
thing, wife, don't let Lazarus's temper pass unheeded. For God's sake,
don't do that! Thou hast nothing to say? Thou wilt not follow my
advice? Dost thou perhaps know better than I? Oh, I tell thee,
wife!----"
Tearing the rags from his arm, he endeavoured to rise. The woman,
repeating loving words to him, pushed him gently back. Yielding to
weakness even more than to her efforts, he sank upon his bed. The
children were sent from the room and on the sunny grass-plot I stayed
with them awhile, entertaining them with games and fairy-tales.
A few days later I visited the family again. The sick man was feeling
much worse. He could no longer sit up, even when in a fit of rage.
"He is so exhausted," the sorrowing wife said to me.
First I was introduced by the children, and now I enjoy in Mathes's
house a certain amount of confidence. I go up there often; it is my
special desire to become acquainted with the misery of the forest.
Once, while Mathes was lying in a profound, peaceful sleep and I was
sitting beside the bed, the woman drew a long, hard breath, as if she
were carrying a burden. Then she spoke: "I can truly say that there is
no better soul in the world than Mathes. But when a man has once been
so tormented and oppressed by the people and painted so black, he would
indeed become a savage, if he had a single drop of blood left in his
veins."
And a little later she continued, "I ought to know; I have known him
from childhood."
"Speak then," I replied; "in me you see a man who never mistakes the
sorrow of the heart for something evil."
"He used to be as gay as a bird in the air; it was a joy to him simply
to be alive. And at that time he did n't know that he was to inherit
two large farms; nor would he have cared, for best of all he loved God's
earth, as it lies there in the bright sunshine. But you shall see, it
did not always go on in that way."
And after a long pause the woman continued: "It may have been in his
twentieth year, when one day he drove into the capital of the province,
with a load of corn. The team was brought back by a mounted patrol;
Mathes never came home again."
"O ho! I 'm already home!" interrupted the sick man, endeavouring to
rise. "There is nothing wrong about thy story, wife, but thou canst not
know it exactly; thou wast not there, Adelheid, when they caught me. I
'll tell it myself. When I had finished my business in town, I went
into the tavern to moisten my tongue a little. In the corn-market, you
must know, one's talking apparatus becomes very dry before the last sack
is shouted off from the waggon. As I entered the tavern, I found three
or four gentlemen sitting at a table, and they invited me to drink a
glass of wine with them. They were friendly and treated me."
The man stopped a moment to catch his breath; his wife begged him to
spare himself. He did not heed her and continued: "They were telling
stories about the French, who would never give us any rest, about the
war times and the gay soldier's life; and immediately afterwards they
asked me how the sale of corn had succeeded and what was the price of
sheep. I grew very lively, and was pleased to find that one could chat
so well on all sorts of subjects with perfect strangers. Then one of
them raised his glass, saying, 'Long live our King!' We touched glasses
until they almost broke; I cried out three times as loud as the others,
'Long live the King!'" The sick man stopped and his lips trembled.
After a while he murmured: "With this cry my misfortune began. As I was
about to leave, they sprang up and held me fast. 'O ho, boy, you are
ours!' I had fallen among the recruiting officers. They led me
away,---me, a mere boy; they concealed me among the soldiers and I was
sold."
Mathes rolled up bits of moss with his bony fingers.
"Don't grieve, wife," he muttered, "I 'm better now. I 'll expose the
whole crowd yet with my last words. But this I can say, upon the broad,
open field I have never been so savage as I was at that time. I longed
to go home; heavy, golden chains drew me thither. And once, in the
middle of a stormy winter night, I ran away. In Rainhausel I stopped
with an old aunt. And now my own people betrayed me. Soon the officers
were there to hunt for me. In an instant I was out of the house and,
slipping into the woods, I thought, 'If they have played a trick on me,
I will do the same by them.' Two huge hunting dogs were scenting
around, but I ran for quite a distance through the brook, until the
hounds lost track. And the officers rummaged through everything in the
hut; they thrust their knives into the straw bedding and hay, turning
the whole house quite upside down. But as they did n't find me, one of
them, placing the muzzle of his gun against the breast of my old aunt,
said: 'Tell me this instant where he is, or I 'll shoot you down like a
dog!' 'Yes, yes, he 's been here,' she answered, 'but where he is now I
don't know.' They dragged the woman out before the door, three muskets
were pointed at her breast, and threateningly they whispered to her:
'Call out quickly, as loud as you can: "Come here, Hiesel; the officers
have been gone a long time!" If you don't do it you will be buried
to-morrow.' Of course I knew nothing of all this; being concealed in the
thicket, and hearing no sound, I thought I was safe. Then I heard my
aunt call, 'Come here, Hiesel; the officers have been gone a long time!'
I sprang up and, running towards the hut, I saw the woman strike her
hands over her head, and I already heard laughing, and I was seized by
the officers. _Allmaechtiger Gott_! I tried to pull out my pocket
dagger; but one of the men hit my arm with a club, so that to this day I
cannot turn my left hand properly. They were much cleverer and stronger
than I, the poor, starved devil, Mathes. And a few days later they fell
upon me. _Mein Gott!_ if each whip-lash had been a stroke of lightning
which did not kill, I should have liked it a thousand times better than
to be beaten and treated like a dog by a man. The two hundred lashes
knocked the very devil into me. Since then, whenever my blood was up, I
have repaid them ten-fold, even to my comrades in the woods. But it was
meant for the others, meant for the rascals who gave me the whipping.
In those days I should have liked to be the Lord God Himself just for
once, by my soul!--I would have crushed the cursed earth into a thousand
million pieces! My wounded back was seasoned with vinegar and salt to
make it heal. Oh, there was great haste. The foreigner had descended
upon the country like the fiend incarnate. Then of course I became
excited and fired away like the evil one himself. When the enemy was
driven back I had just one charge of powder left; for this I might have
found some other victim, in our own regiment mounted on a high horse.
But not that, not that! I thought to myself. Face to face, to tear him
down from his white steed with my hands,--that might do,--but from
ambush, no, never! But I did something cleverer yet, I ran away from
the battle-field and gave my cloak to a peasant for taking me in his hay
waggon across country. My home I reached in safety."
"And if you loved your home so much, why did you not wish to fight for
it?" I interrupted him. "Why did you run away?"
"It may be that it was rascality," said Mathes, "it may be. Or
perhaps--maybe it was n't either."
"I know a man," I answered, "who not only did not fight for his country,
but against the same."
"I did not stay at home," continued Mathes, "I left everything behind me
and hid myself in this farthermost wilderness, so that they might never
find me. Hunted, hunted, good Lord! And it was not until I reached
here that I became a wild beast. My wife, thou knowest that."
The voice was shrill, but the words were the faltering utterances of the
dying. He then became silent and closed his eyes. It was as the last
flare of a flame before extinction.
"The people took him for a poor abandoned wretch, when he came back,"
continued the woman; "they threw groschen and pfennige into a hat and
tried to present him with hat and all. For that Mathes would have
killed a few of them; he wanted no alms. As the people were following
him by the dozen, he climbed up a large tree, and swung himself like a
wild-cat from one branch to another, until his pursuers finally saw that
they were mistaken. But in mockery they called him Hieselein. Later
on--yes, of course--he hunted up a wife for himself--"
"The most beautiful one in the forest!" the sick man interrupted her
again, "and there was such an insolent devil in him, that he--the
half-cripple--plighted his troth to this same maiden only on condition
that he should not find one still more beautiful. By the holy cross,
what a struggle there was over it! Others wanted the girl, too. But I
led my Adelheid right under the noses of the most aristocratic and the
finest of them to my home, and I would not wish to have a better girl
than she is."
Again he became silent and dropped into a half-slumber.
"He received terrible blows sometimes," said the woman, "but because he
never lost his footing or was thrown upon the ground, they called him
_Stehmandel_. We have both of us got on right well together," she
continued in a low tone, "but he never would give up his savage ways.
Every Saturday evening he used to sharpen his knife for cutting wood;
but I often begged him: '_Um Gotteswillen_, let the sharpening of the
knife be!' On Sundays he would go to Kranabethannes's and late at night
he would come home with a bleeding head. I always knew that some day
they would bring him home on a litter. But, when he was calm and sober,
there was n't a better, more industrious, or more helpful man in the
whole forest than Mathes. Then he could be gay and laugh and weep like
a child. Of course, as he was a deserter, he forfeited his farm outside
in the country; but he supported the children with his own hands, and
some other people as well, who could no longer earn anything. He
visited the sick and comforted them, just as a priest would do. On
account of his honesty and reliability, he was made master wood-cutter.
However, the innkeeper was always in despair on Sundays, when Hieselein
arrived, whom they had already begun to call Black Hieselein. No matter
how good-naturedly he may have stumbled in at the door, they swore that
he would not go away without a terrible fight. He would n't give it up.
He tried to drown his sorrow in brandy; but the brandy brought the two
hundred whip-lashes to life again. He would start quarrels until the
blood ran. They would throw him down, screaming, 'So, Hieselein, now
perhaps you won't begin any more disturbance!' He would soon be on his
feet. But it is a fact that when he became sober, he would beg pardon
of everyone. But at last, thou holy Mother of God, the begging pardon
did not work any more. All the wood-cutters came one night to
Kranabethannes's, to show the fighter that even though he was their
master at work, they were for once masters in the tavern. At first, as
they see that he is drinking brandy, one glass after another, they begin
to tease and mock him, until he becomes wild and attacks them. They are
all over him, throw him down, tearing his hair and beard. And in this
same hour his guardian angel deserts him; one hand free, he seizes his
knife and plunges it into the breast of Bastian, the charcoal-burner.
They then beat Mathes until he is thrown upon the ground. Two
root-diggers brought him home. Perhaps to-morrow I 'll be a widow, and
the poor children----"
The woman burst into sobs. Then Mathes raised himself once more: "The
Lord God has done well by thee. Perhaps I might have beaten thee in a
fit of anger. But I say this, I don't want to die so. I will get up
and go to court and confess that I have stabbed Bastian. From the
deceitful recruiting officers who took me from my peaceful youth and
delivered me over to the bloody world, where I was disgraced with
whip-lashes and hunted like a dog, and condemned for murder--to the
charcoal-burner Bastian, who with scorn and mockery himself enticed the
knife from its sheath--all of them I will call before the tribunal; they
must all be there when I am condemned to death."
The woman shrieked; the man sank choking, back on the moss.
Just then the children came skipping and shouting in at the door. They
were dragging by the ears a white rabbit which they let loose in the
room, the boy pursuing it. The little besieged animal hopped upon the
bed of moss and over the limbs of the sick man. It remained sitting in
the corner, sniffing and looking anxiously about with its great eyes.
The boy slipped up to it and seized it by its legs. The poor tormented
creature whined piteously and bit the finger of its pursuer.--"Stop!
stop! you rascal!" cried the enraged boy, becoming very red in the face,
while tears filled his eyes, his lips were drawn, and his fingers
convulsively clutched the throat of the animal and--before either his
mother or sister could interfere--the rabbit was dead.
Mathes beat his face with his hands, crying out so that my very heart
quaked: "Oh, horrible! Now the angry devil lives on in my children!
Must I endure that also?"
A few moments later the man fell into a terrible death struggle. He
died that same evening.
They buried Black Mathes in the forest, because he had stabbed Bastian.
The woman wept bitterly upon the mound, and when at last she was led
away from it, the Einspanig came and planted a little pine-tree upon the
grave.