A VISIT TO GARRET AND CELLAR.
The first congratulations Annele received were from Faller. She quite
looked down on the poor fellow, but was gratified by his deference. He
could not make too many apologies for coming so early. His fondness for
Lenz would not let him rest till he had paid his respects to her. Lenz
had grown to be a part of his very self. He would pour out every drop
of blood in his veins to serve him.
"I am glad my bridegroom has such good friends. There is no one,
however small, but may be of some service."
Faller did not or would not understand this last thrust, but began to
describe in glowing colors Lenz's noble qualities. "Annele," he said in
conclusion, with tears in his eyes, "his heart is as pure as an
angel's, as a new-born child's. For Heaven's sake never be harsh with
him, it would be sinning against the Highest. Remember that every quick
word will wound him like the thrust of a dagger. His temper is not
hasty, but he lays every little thing too much to heart. Don't be
offended with me for speaking so to you; it is for your good. I would
so gladly serve him in some way, if I only might. You are favored of
Heaven in having such a husband. He is a man whose presence and word
all respect. No one can reproach him with a single wrong action in his
whole life. Be gentle with him,--kind and gentle."
"Have you done?" asked Annele, her eyes flashing, "or have you more to
say?"
"No."
"Then I have something to say to you. You have been most insolent. You
deserve to be turned out of the house this moment. What do you mean by
taking such a liberty? Who asked you to be mediator between us? What
business have you to suppose I shall be unkind? But I am glad to have
found you out in season. I see now what a set of beggarly hangers-on my
Lenz has. I shall make a clean sweep of them every one. You shall have
no more chance to drain his substance with your pretty speeches. I make
you a present of the wine you have drunk. Now you may go. But I shall
let my Lenz know of your impertinence. It shall be recorded against
you. Good by!"
Faller's protestations, asseverations, prayers, entreaties, were all in
vain. Annele showed him the door, and he had to go; nor did she
vouchsafe to cast a glance after him.
Soon after Faller came Franzl, radiant with happiness, and was taken at
once by the mother into the private sitting-room. Franzl was full of
self-congratulations at having brought about this happy result, and
assured the landlady that now she could die content. But she injured
her cause by claiming more credit than was her due, and so got none.
She was soon made conscious of her mistake. "What are you talking of,
Franzl? You had nothing at all to do with the matter, nor I either. The
young people were too sharp for us. Only a few days ago we were
discussing the possibility of the match, and they had settled it behind
our backs long before. I might have suspected my Annele of such doings,
but never Lenz. However, it is better so. It is the work of Heaven, and
we will be thankful."
Franzl stood open-mouthed and open-eyed; but no more did she get to put
into her mouth than she could have held in her eye. Empty she had to go
home, and with scarcely a word from Annele, for, just as she was
leaving, Pilgrim entered.
Annele did not venture to treat Pilgrim in the same way she had Faller.
She knew he did not like her, and therefore, without giving him a
chance to speak, at once began thanking him for his kindly interest. He
treated the matter in his usual good-natured, joking way, at the same
time protesting that no one was to be trusted, for Lenz had not
confided a syllable to him beforehand. Thus he satisfied his
conscience, and yet said nothing to disturb what he could not prevent.
There was one more tough knot to saw in Petrovitsch, which had to be
left to the father to deal with. Petrovitsch took his place at table as
if nothing had happened. The landlord officially announced the
engagement to him, adding that Lenz would appear in a minute, as he was
coming to dinner. Annele was extremely childlike and respectful to the
old man. She almost went so far as to kneel, and ask his blessing. He
shook hands with her kindly. The landlady, too, insisted on shaking
hands with him, but received only his two left hand fingers. Most happy
was Lenz, when he came, to find everything so amicably settled. The one
drawback to his pleasure was having Pilgrim at table, after the
language he had used the night before. But even that feeling passed off
at last, under the influence of Pilgrim's perfect self-possession.
The skies frowned upon Lenz's betrothal. It rained incessantly for
days. An ugly drizzle kept on all the time, like a monstrous talker,
who never comes to a period. Lenz naturally spent much of his time at
the Lion, which was so comfortably arranged that he could either be as
retired as in a private house, or could sit in a "market-place with a
fire in it," as he once called the large public room, with its sixteen
tables. "That is capital," said Annele; "I must repeat that to my
father. He enjoys a good joke."
"It is not worth while. If I say it to you, that is quite enough. Don't
let it go further."
Lenz went up and down the long, and now almost impassable, footway
between the Morgenhalde and the Lion as if he were only stepping from
one room into another. All who met him, men and women, stopped and
congratulated. "You look as if you had grown taller since your
engagement," some would say. Lenz's bearing had, in fact, been more
erect and proud of late than ever before. He smiled when persons said
to him, "You stand high in the market, for the sort of wife a man gets
is the test of his worth." "Without meaning to intrude upon others'
concerns, I must say I never supposed Annele would remain in the
village. It was always said she would marry a hotel-keeper in
Baden-Baden, or the engineer. You may laugh, for you are a precious
lucky fellow."
Lenz took no offence at being thought the lesser of the two; but, on
the contrary, was proud of Annele's modesty in choosing him. He could
not help saying sometimes, when he was sitting with her and her mother
in their private room, the old man looking in occasionally, and
growling out some of his pithy sentences: "Thank Heaven for once more
giving me parents, and such parents! I have started life afresh. It
seems incredible that I should be actually at home in the Lion inn. How
grand it looked to my childish eyes when the upper story was added and
plate-glass put in all the windows! We children used to think the
castle at Karlsruhe could not be more magnificent. I remember seeing
the golden lion hung out too. What should I have thought then to be
told I should one day have a home in that castle? It is hard my mother
could not have lived to see this day."
His sincerity really touched the two women, though Annele had all the
while kept on counting the stitches of the embroidered slipper she was
working for her lover. They said nothing for some time. At last the
mother began: "What pleasant relatives you will find, too, in my other
sons-in-law! I have told you how fond I am of them, though they are not
the same to me that you are. I have known you since you were a baby.
You are almost as near to me as if I had nursed you at my own bosom.
But you know what refined, aristocratic gentlemen they are, and good
business men into the bargain. Many men would be lucky if their whole
property equalled what my sons-in-law make in a year."
"If this stupid rain would only stop!" said Annele, after a pause. "Do
you know, Lenz, we will have the horses harnessed the moment it does,
and take a drive together."
"I shall be glad to be with you once under God's broad heaven. The
house is too narrow to contain my happiness."
"We will drive to the city,--won't we?"
"Wherever you like. I am glad my Magic Flute is so well protected. It
would be a shame to have any harm come to it."
"You carry your feeling too far," remonstrated the mother. "The thing
is sold. The risk now is with the purchaser."
"No, mother, you don't understand my Lenz. He is right. What he has
made takes such deep hold of his heart that he would like always to
keep a protecting hand upon it. We cannot bear to have a thing injured
that we have cared for day and night for months."
"My own dear Annele!" cried Lenz, enchanted at this beautiful
expression of her quick, intelligent sympathy.
"There is no use talking with you lovers," replied the mother, with
pretended amiability; "unless one is in love himself, he can say
nothing to please you." She went to and fro about the house, for Lenz
had requested that Annele might be excused from attendance in the
public room, at least for a few days. "Not that I am at all jealous,"
he assured her, "but I begrudge every look you bestow on any one but
me. All are mine now."
One day towards noon the rain held up for about an hour, and Lenz
teased Annele to go up to his house with him. "Everything is waiting
for you there," he urged; "all the kettles and cupboards, and other
things, too, that you will take pleasure in."
Annele resisted long, but at last consented to go if her mother would.
Contrary to her expectation the mother was soon ready. Every person
they met on their way through the village saluted. Hardly, however, had
they gone a hundred steps before Annele began to complain: "O Lenz!
what a horrid path! I sink in at every step. You must have it put in
better order. And do you know you ought to have a road made up the
mountain, so that carriages can drive to the door. Sister Babette's
husband had a private road broken through the fields to his house."
"I could hardly do that," answered Lenz; "it would cost a great
deal of money, besides my having to buy the field. See, my meadow
does not begin till that hazel hedge, and our business requires no
carriage-road. You know I would do anything in my power to please you,
Annele,--don't you?--but that is impossible."
Annele plodded on, without returning any answer. "Why need you have
made such a talk about it?" whispered the mother in his ear. "If you
had only said, 'Very well, dear Annele, we will think of it,' or
something of that sort, you could have done as you pleased afterwards.
She is a child, and children must be treated to pretty words. You can
do what you will with her if you only set the right way to work. Don't
weigh every word she says and make a great matter of it; let a subject
rest over for a day or so, till you see the right moment is come for
settling it. She will think it out for herself, or else forget it. She
is only a child."
"Annele is not a child," contradicted Lenz, looking in displeased
surprise at her mother; "I can talk over everything with her. There is
nothing she does not understand."
The mother shrugged her shoulders. "As you please," she said, sulkily.
About half-way up the meadow Annele broke out again: "Good Heavens,
what a journey! I had no idea it was so far. It will be a perfect
eternity before we get up there."
"I cannot make the way any shorter," answered Lenz, sharply. Annele
turned and looked at him searchingly. "I am sure," he added, in some
confusion, "you will rejoice one day that the walk is so long, for it
shows what a good large meadow we own. I could pasture three cows here,
if it were worth while."
Annele gave a forced laugh. The house was reached at last, and she drew
a long breath, complaining of being so hot and tired.
"In God's name, welcome home!" said Lenz, grasping her hand on the
threshold. She stared at him as if he were speaking a foreign language,
then suddenly exclaimed, "You are a dear good fellow. You manage to
bring good out of everything."
Lenz was content, and Franzl's joy knew no bounds. First the mother
shook hands with her and then Annele, while both praised the neatness
of passage-way, kitchen, and sitting-room.
"I shall find it hard to get used to these low rooms," said Annele,
stretching up her hand till it nearly touched the ceiling.
"I cannot make the rooms higher. Besides, they are more easily warmed
than high ones."
"To be sure. You must remember, Lenz, what a big house I have always
lived in. The ceiling seems to be pressing on my head at first; but I
sha'n't mind it. Don't be afraid that will disturb me."
Lenz turned round the tool-receiver that hung like a chandelier from
the ceiling, and began to explain to Annele the various implements with
which it was covered,--the names of the different drills, and the
special purpose each was used for. "But you will soon get acquainted
with all these things that make up so much of my life. They are my
silent work-fellows. Now I will show you our house."
The mother stayed with Franzl in the kitchen, while Lenz took Annele
all over the house, showing her the seven beds already stuffed, besides
two great bags of feathers from which others could be filled, and
opening boxes and chests wherein were stored rich heaps of linen. "What
do you say to that, Annele? Aren't you surprised? Did you ever see
anything so splendid?"
"It is all very good and in nice order. But, dear me! I won't tell you
of all my sister Theresa has, for of course, where there are often
sixteen guests in a house, heaps of linen are necessary; they are part
of the business. But if you could only see the chests that Babette's
mother-in-law has! These are nothing to them."
Lenz turned as pale as death, and could hardly stammer out: "Annele,
don't talk in that way, don't be making fun now."
"I am not making fun. I am in sober earnest. Really I am not in the
least surprised, for I have seen finer and better linen, and more of
it. Do be reasonable, and not expect me to stand on my head at a thing
which is all very well, but no way remarkable. I have seen more of the
world than you have."
"Very likely," said Lenz, with white lips.
Annele passed her hand over his face, and said jestingly, "What does it
matter, dear Lenz, whether your stores astonish me or not? Your mother
has done bravely, very bravely, for one in her position; no one can
deny that. I do not marry you for your property, dear Lenz, but for
yourself. You yourself are what I love."
The apology was both bitter and sweet. Lenz tasted only the bitter. It
turned to gall in his mouth.
They returned to the sitting-room, where Franzl had laid out an
abundant repast for them.
Annele protested she had no appetite, but upon Lenz remonstrating that
it would never do not to eat something when she entered a house for the
first time, she consented to take a piece of a crust of bread and ate
it languidly.
Lenz had frequently to check Franzl in her lavish praises of himself.
"You must have done some good in the world to deserve such a husband,"
she said to Annele.
"He must have done some good too," said the mother. She cast a look at
her daughter as she spoke, and was checked by an angry frown. He must
have done some good, too, to deserve her, Annele thought her mother was
going to say.
"Come, Annele, sit here by me," begged Lenz; "you have often said you
should like to see how I set up a piece of music, so I have been
keeping this till you should be by me. When I have put it all in order,
it will play of itself. It is a beautiful piece of Spohr's. I can sing
it to you, but not so well as this will play it." He sang the air from
Faust, "Love, it is the tender blossom." Annele took a seat beside him,
and he began to hammer the pins into the barrel where he had already
marked their places from the printed notes. Every pin stood fast at the
first blow. Annele was full of admiration, and Lenz worked on in high
spirits. He was obliged to ask her not to speak, because the metronome
which he had set going required his closest attention.
The mother very well knew that sitting still and idly looking on was
hard work for Annele. She therefore rose presently, and said, with a
gracious smile, "We all know your great skill; but we must go home now,
for it is past noon, and we have visitors. It is quite enough that you
have begun the piece while we were here."
Annele rose also, and Lenz stopped his work.
Franzl kept her eyes fixed on Annele and the landlady, and when either
of them put her hand in her pocket, she started and hid hers behind her
back, as much as to say she wanted nothing, they would have to urge her
to accept any present. Now it is surely coming,--a gold chain, or a
jewelled ring, or a hundred shining dollars; such people give
handsomely.
But no present, great or small, did they give this time, hardly their
hand at parting. Franzl went back into the kitchen, seized one of her
biggest and oldest pots, and lifted it to throw after the mean,
ungrateful women. But she had compassion on the pot. Was such a thing
ever heard of? Not even to bring one an apron! Poor, poor Lenz! You
have fallen into evil hands. Thank Heaven I had nothing to do with it!
It is true I had not, they said so themselves. I want no pay from them,
thank Heaven! Every penny would burn into my soul.
Lenz accompanied his bride and her mother to the end of his meadow, and
then returned home. It was agreed, that, if the next day was fine, the
young people should drive across the country to Sister Babette's. Lenz
had many preparations to make, and directions to give his apprentice
and journeyman.
It was strange to him to be once more alone. At the end of a couple of
hours he wanted to go down to Annele again. There was a weight upon him
he could not explain. She could and would relieve him of it. He
resisted the temptation, however, and remained at home. Before going to
bed he closed the boxes and linen-presses that had been opened in the
morning, half expecting, as he did so, to hear some voice, though whose
he could not have told. There lay the yarn his mother had wet with her
lips and spun with her own hand. A spirit seemed following behind him,
and uttering lamentations from every box and press.
Franzl in her chamber was sitting upright in bed, muttering
imprecations against the landlady and Annele, and then praying God to
give her back the words she should not have spoken, for every ill that
befell Annele now fell on Lenz too.