GOOD WISHES, AND A FAIR START ON THE JOURNEY.
Now it is ready, said Lenz to himself, casting a last look upon his
work before taking it to pieces; God bless you! The various parts were
carried down separately into the valley; the great carved case in a
barrow, there being no carriage-road to Lenz's house.
The two enemies, Petrovitsch and Pilgrim, met at the wagon on which
Lenz was standing, packing together the detached pieces, each of which,
in its turn, was carefully wrapped in a stout covering.
On one side stood Petrovitsch. "I know the man and the house," he said,
"that your work is going to. One of my best friends lives in Odessa.
Your clock will be in capital hands. Why don't you go with it and set
it up yourself in Odessa? You would get half a dozen more orders."
"I have a new order already," answered Lenz.
"Lenz," said Pilgrim on the other side of the wagon; "let us go a
little way with The Magic Flute; we can be back in good season this
evening."
"I am willing. I could not work to-day, at any rate."
As the wagon, followed by the two friends, was passing the Lion inn,
Annele looked out of the window and cried, "Good luck to you!"
The young men thanked her.
A still pleasanter greeting awaited them at the doctor's. The
servant-maid ran out and laid a wreath of flowers on the wagon.
"Who sends it?" asked Pilgrim, for Lenz was mute with astonishment.
"My young mistress," answered the girl, and disappeared into the house.
The two friends looked up at the window and saluted, but saw no one. A
few minutes afterwards they heard The Magic Flute played from the
doctor's parlor.
"It is a grand family, that of the doctor's," said Pilgrim. "I never
know my own mind so little as when I ask myself which one of them all
is the best. My favorite is the old mayoress. The neighborhood ought to
sign a petition to God that she might live forever. Now that your
mother is gone, she is the last one left of that generation of
dignified, motherly old ladies. But the granddaughters are fine women
too. Amanda will make just such a grandmother as the old mayoress, one
of these days."
Lenz was silent, and remained so during the whole walk to the city. But
there, when the wagon had gone on, and the friends were sitting over
their wine, he recovered his spirits, and felt, as he said, that he was
beginning life anew.
"Now you must marry," was again Pilgrim's verdict. "There are
two choices open to you; one is to marry a woman of thorough
education,--one of the doctor's daughters, for instance. You can have
one, if you will, and I advise you to take Amanda. It is a pity she
cannot sing, like Bertha, but she is good and true. She will honor you,
if you honor her, and will appreciate your art." Lenz looked down into
his glass, and Pilgrim continued: "Or you will make your home
comfortable by marrying an honest peasant, the bailiff's daughter
Katharine. As Franzl says, the girl would jump to get you, and she
would make a good, economical housewife. You would have half a dozen
stout children tearing down the landlord's pine-trees behind your
house, and you would grow a rich man. But, in that case, you must
expect no sympathy from your wife in your art or in any of your great
plans. You can have which you like, but you must decide. If your mind
is made up, send me to which you will. I rejoice already in my dignity
as suitor. I will even put on a white neckcloth, if necessary. Can the
power of friendship go further?"
Lenz still looked down into his glass. Pilgrim's alternative excluded
Annele. After a long pause, he said: "I should like to be for once in a
great city, that I might hear such a piece of music as The Magic Flute
played by a full orchestra over and over again. I am sure my pieces
could be made to sound much better than they do. I am haunted by the
idea of a tone I cannot produce. People may praise me as much as they
like, but I know my pieces have not the right sound. I am sure of it,
and yet I cannot make them better. There is something squeaking, dry,
harsh about them, like the sounds made by a deaf and dumb person, which
are like words, but yet are not words. If I could only bring out the
right tone! I know it, I hear it, but I cannot produce it."
"I understand; I feel just so myself. I am conscious of a color, a
picture which I ought to be able to paint. I seem on the point of
seizing and fixing it, but I shall die without succeeding. That is our
fate, yours and mine. You will never produce your ideal. It cannot be
otherwise. Bellows and wheels cannot take the place of human breath and
human hands; they bring tones from a flute and a violin which your
machinery never can. It must be so. Come, let us empty our glasses and
be off."
They finished their wine, and went merrily homeward through the autumn
night, singing all sorts of songs, and, when they were tired of
singing, varying their music by whistling. At Pilgrim's house they
parted. Lenz's way led him past the Lion inn; and, as he saw it was
still lighted, and heard a sound of voices within, he entered.
"I am glad you are come," said Annele, giving him her hand; "I was
thinking you must be as lonely at home, now that your clock is gone, as
you were when your mother died."
"Not quite that, but something like it. Ah! Annele, people may praise
my work as much as they like, I know it is not what it should be. But
one thing I may say of myself without conceit,--I do know how to hear
music, and to hear music aright is something."
Annele stared at him. Know how to hear music! Indeed, what art is there
in that? Any one can hear music who has ears, and does not plug them
up! Still, she fancied that Lenz must have some hidden meaning.
Experience had taught her, that, when a man wants to bring out an idea
of which his mind is full, his first utterances are apt to be rather
disconnected; so she threw another wondering glance at Lenz, and said,
"To be sure, that is something."
"You know what I mean," cried Lenz, delighted.
"Yes, but I cannot express it."
"That is just it; neither can I. When I come to that I am a wretched
bungler. I never regularly learned music; I cannot play the violin or
piano; but when I see the notes, I hear exactly what the composer meant
to say. I cannot interpret music, but I can hear it."
"That is well said," chimed in Annele. "I shall remember that as long
as I live. To interpret music and to hear it are two different things.
You show me so clearly what I have always felt, and yet never could
express."
Lenz drank in the good wine, the kind words, and the kind looks of
Annele, and went on: "Especially with Mozart; I hear him, and I think I
hear him right. If I could but once in my life have shaken hands with
him! If he had lived in my day, it seems to me I should have died of
grief at his death; but, now that he is in heaven, I should like to do
him some service. At other times, I think it is fortunate I cannot play
any instrument, for I never could have learned to render music as I
hear it. The hearing is a natural gift, for which I have to thank God.
My grandfather is said to have had a wonderful understanding of music.
If my playing were necessarily below my hearing and my conception, I
should want to tear my ears out."
"That is the way with me," said Annele. "I like to hear music, but am
too unskilful a performer. When one has to be busy about the house, and
cannot devote much time to practising, there is no use in trying to
play. I have given up the piano altogether, much to my father's
vexation, for he spared no pains to have all his children taught; but I
think what cannot be done thoroughly had better not be done at all.
Your musical clocks are meant for people like me, who like to hear
music, but cannot make it. If I were master here, I should never allow
your greatest work to go to Russia, but should buy it myself. It ought
to stand in the public room to entertain the guests. It would bring you
in ever so many orders there. Since I was up at your house, I have had
constantly running in my head that beautiful melody, 'Das klinget so
herrlich, das klinget so schoen!'"
Beautiful and brave were the melodies playing in Lenz's heart. He tried
to explain to Annele how the notes might be followed exactly, all the
pins be put in the right places, and even the time in certain passages
changed, and yet, unless the man himself felt the music, he would make
nothing but a hurdy-gurdy, after all. The piano passages must be taken
slower, the forte faster. A performer would naturally render them so;
he could hardly help being more subdued at the piano passages and more
animated at the forte. The same effect must be wrought by the pins; but
the hurrying and slackening needs to be very slight. In the forte
passages especial care is needed; for in them the works necessarily
labor and are retarded, so that they have to be, in some way, favored.
"I cannot tell you, Annele," he concluded, "how happy my art, my work,
makes me. As Pilgrim says, I sit there in my room, and set up pieces
lively or solemn, which play themselves, and make happy hundreds and
hundreds of people that I never saw."
Annele listened intelligently to the end. "You deserve to be happy,"
she said, when he had finished. "Your beautiful words show me how
beautiful your work is. Thank you very much for explaining it to me so
thoroughly. Some people would be jealous if they knew you talked so to
me."
Lenz passed his hand across his brow as she spoke, and said, "Annele,
may I ask you a question?"
"Yes, I will tell you anything."
"Don't be angry with me, but is it true that you are as good as engaged
to the engineer?"
"Thank you for asking me so plainly. There is my hand upon it, there is
no word of truth in the story; nothing has ever passed between us."
Lenz held her hand firmly, and said, "Permit me one question more."
"Ask what you will, you shall have an honest answer."
"Why is your manner towards me so different when Pilgrim is here? Has
anything ever passed between you and him?"
"May this wine be poison to me, if I do not speak the truth," replied
Annele, seizing Lenz's glass, and putting her lips to it, in spite of
his assuring her there was no need to swear; that he could not bear
oaths. "If all men were like you," she continued, "there would be no
need of oaths. Pilgrim and I are always teasing and bantering each
other, but he does not really understand me; and, when you are by, I
cannot endure his jesting and nonsense. But now I must ask you a favor.
If you want to know anything about me, no matter what, ask no one but
myself. Promise me; give me your hand on it!"
They grasped each other's hand.
"I am a landlord's daughter," continued Annele, sadly. "I am not so
fortunate as other girls, who do not have to receive every one that
comes, and laugh and talk with him. I carry the thing through as well
as I can, but am not always what I seem. I know I may say this to you.
I might often be depressed; but the only way is to put on a bold face,
and laugh sadness away."
"I should never have imagined you could have a sad thought pass through
your mind. I fancied you as merry as a bird the whole day long."
"I like better to be merry," answered Annele, with a sudden change of
tone and expression. "I like nothing sad, not even sad music. 'Das
klinget so herrlich, das klinget so schoen!' that is a merry tune to
jump and dance to."
The conversation returned to the subject of music, and the clock
that had been sent off that day. Lenz liked to tell of his having
accompanied The Magic Flute through part of its long journey, and how
he wanted to call out to every porter and driver and sailor on the way:
"Take care! pity you cannot hear what you have got packed up there."
Lenz had never before been the last guest in the inn. He could not make
up his mind to get up and go home. The great clock in the public room
struck the hour noisily and admonishingly, the weights rattled angrily,
but Lenz did not hear. The landlord was the only other person in the
room, his wife having long since gone to bed. He left his seat at the
adjoining table, where he had been reading the paper, and signed to
Annele to put up her work. She could not have understood him, for she
went on talking eagerly. He put out his light with a clatter, but even
that failed to rouse the pair. He walked up and down the room in his
creaking boots; Lenz paid no attention. Never before had the landlord's
presence been thus ignored. He struck his repeater; Lenz gave no heed.
At last--for mine host was not accustomed to put restraint upon himself
for any man--he spoke: "Lenz, if you mean to spend the night here, I
will show you a room."
Lenz roused himself, shook hands with Annele, and would have liked to
do the same with the landlord; but that was too great a liberty to take
unless invited. Revolving many thoughts in his mind, he left the house,
and silently took his way homeward.