THE MOURNER AND HIS COMPANION.
Narrow footpath leads from the village to a solitary thatched
cottage, only a small part of whose roof, just about the chimney, is
covered with tiles. The house does not come in sight till you have
climbed a good half-mile up the mountain. The path leads behind the
church,--between hedges at first, then across open fields, where you
hear the murmur of the pine-woods that cover the steep mountain-side.
Behind this mountain, the Spannreute, rise still other peaks; but even
this front slope is so steep that the harvest gathered on the upland
meadows has to be brought down to the valley on sledges.
Along the footpath between the hedges two men were now walking, one
behind the other. The one in front was a little old man, whose dress
showed him to be a person of property. He carried a cane in his hand,
with the tasselled string twisted about his wrist by way of precaution.
His step was still firm; his face, a perfect mass of wrinkles, moved up
and down as he mumbled lumps of white sugar, which he produced from
time to time from his pocket. His sandy eyebrows were brushed out till
they stood almost at right angles with his face, and from under them
peered a pair of shrewd, light blue eyes. The young man who walked
behind was tall and slender, with crape on his hat and on the sleeve of
his long blue coat. He kept his face turned to the ground, and shook
his head sadly as he walked. At last he stopped, and straightened
himself up, bringing to view a fresh face, with light beard and blue
eyes, whose lids were red with weeping.
"Uncle," he said, hoarsely. The sugar-eater turned round. "Uncle, you
have gone far enough. Thank you heartily; but the way is long, and I
would rather go home alone."
"Why?"
"I don't know why; but I feel it were better so."
"No, no; turn back with me."
"I am sorry not to oblige you, uncle; but I cannot,--I really cannot go
to the inn just now. I am neither hungry nor thirsty; I don't know when
I shall ever eat and drink again. It is a pity you should take this
long walk for me."
"No, no; I will go home with you. I am not so hard-hearted as your
mother tried to make you believe."
"My mother tried to make me believe no evil of you. She spoke nothing
but good of any one, and especially against her relations she would
hear no tales. 'To speak evil of a brother is to slander yourself,' she
used to say."
"Yes, yes; she had plenty of proverbs. 'Marie Lenz used to say so and
so,' is in every one's mouth. Nothing but good should be spoken of the
dead, and in fact there can no evil be said of her."
The young man cast a sad glance at his uncle. He always managed to put
a sting even into his kindliest words.
"How often she has said to me lately," continued the young man, "and
how it pained me to hear her, 'Lenz, I have lived six years too long
for you. You ought to have married at five-and-twenty; it will come
harder now. You have grown too much used to my ways, and they cannot
last.' I could not persuade her out of the idea. It imbittered her
death-bed."
"She was right," said the sugar-eater. "She was too good-natured;
self-willed she was also, but that was no matter. Her good-nature
spoiled you. I did not mean to tell you so now, though; another time
would be better. Come, do as I bid you, and don't be such a baby. You
act as if you did not know which way to turn. It is all in the course
of nature that your mother should die before you, and you have nothing
to reproach yourself with in your treatment of her."
"No, thank God!"
"Show yourself a man, then, and stop crying and bawling. I never saw
anybody cry in all my life as you did in the churchyard."
"I cannot tell you how I felt, uncle. I wept for my mother, but also
for myself. When the Liederkranz sang the songs that I had always sung
with them, and I had to stand there dumb and dead, I felt as if I were
really dead, and they were singing at my grave and I could not join
in."
"You are--" said the old man. He was about to add something, but choked
it down and walked on. The little dog that was running in front looked
up wonderingly in his master's face, as if he hardly recognized the
look he saw there.
Presently the old man stopped. "I am going back," he said. "Only one
word more with you. Take into your house none of your mother's
relations whom afterwards you will have to send away. They will forget
all your kindness, and only be vexed that it cannot continue. Neither
give anything away, no matter who asks. If you are tempted to, go off
somewhere for a week or so, and, when you come home, keep the keys to
yourself. Now good by, and be a man!"
"Good by, uncle," said the young man, and went on towards his home. He
kept his eyes fixed on the ground, but knew at every step where he was.
Every stone on the path was familiar to him. When at last he reached
the house, he could hardly bring himself to cross the threshold.
How much had happened there! and what was to come next? He must learn
to bear.
The old serving-woman sat in the kitchen with her apron over her head.
"Is that you, Lenz?" she sobbed, as the young man passed her.
The room looked empty, yet everything was there. The work-bench with
its five divisions for the five workmen stood before the unbroken row
of windows; the tools hung on straps and nails round the wall; the
clocks ticked; the doves cooed; yet all was so empty, so desolate and
dead! The arm-chair stood with outspread arms, waiting. Lenz leaned on
the back of it and wept bitterly. Then he got up and tried to go to her
chamber. "It is impossible you are not there," he said, half aloud. The
sound of his own voice startled him. He sank exhausted into the chair
where his mother had so often rested.
At last he took courage and entered the deserted chamber.
"Have you not forgotten something that I ought to have sent after you?"
he said again. With an inward shudder he opened his mother's chest,
into which he had never looked. It seemed almost a sacrilege to look
now, but he did. Perhaps she had left a word or a token for him. He
found the christening presents of his dead brothers and sisters tied up
in separate parcels and marked with their names; his own lay among
them. There were some old coins, his mother's confirmation dress, her
bridal wreath,--dried, but carefully preserved,--her garnet ornaments,
and in a little box by itself, wrapped in five thicknesses of fine
paper, a little white, velvety plant, labelled in his mother's
handwriting. The son read at first under his breath, then half aloud,
as if wishing to hear his mother's words, "This is a little plant
Edelweiss--"
"Here is something to eat," suddenly cried a voice through the open
door.
It was only old Franzl calling, but it startled Lenz like the voice of
a spirit.
"Coming," he answered, shut the door hastily, bolted it, and restored
everything carefully to its former place before going into the
sitting-room, where old Franzl was indulging in many a solemn shake of
the head at this mystery which she was not permitted to share.