BURIED ALIVE.
"Strike a light, Lenz; strike a light! If there is any danger, I must
see it. What makes you stand there crying in the dark. I feel your
tears on my hand. What is the matter? Let me go; I will get up myself
and light a lamp."
"Be quiet, Annele," said Lenz, his teeth chattering so he could hardly
speak. "Annele, I had meant to kill myself here before your eyes."
"Better kill me; I should be too glad to die."
"Did you not understand me, Annele? We are blocked up by the snow;
buried alive with our child."
"If death had had to wait for you to bring it, it never would have
come."
Still that hard, cutting tone; those biting, stinging words! Lenz felt
his breath come hard.
"Let me get up, let me get up!" continued Annele; "I am not like you,
to let my arms hang down at my side. I don't care what becomes of me;
but I choose to see the danger. You would like to wait till some one
came to dig you out or till the snow went away of itself; that is not
my way. Defend yourself, is our family motto."
"Stay where you are; I will strike a light," answered Lenz; but hardly
had he reached the next room before Annele stood beside him with the
child in her arms. On attempting to go to the garret a new misfortune
disclosed itself; the roof had been broken in. "The snow alone could
not have done the damage," he said; "it has brought trunks of trees
down with it, and that was what made such a crash."
"I don't care what made it; only let us find some help, some way of
escape."
She ran hither and thither trying all the windows and doors. Not till
she found that all were firmly walled up and yielded nothing under her
fiercest efforts, did she admit the full extent of the catastrophe, and
setting the child down upon the table, broke out into screams and
tears. Lenz took the child in his arms, and with difficulty persuaded
Annele to be quiet. "The hand of death is upon our house," he said;
"all struggle is unavailing. Did you keep William too at home? Is he
concealed anywhere here?"
"No; he went with the maid. I kept only the baby."
"Thank God! we are not all lost; one of us at least is saved. Poor
little child! I sent the boy away, Annele, that he might not see his
father kill himself; but now all is changed. God summons us all. Poor
child, to have to perish for your parents' sins!"
"I have not sinned; I have nothing to reproach myself with."
"Good; hold to that to the last. Do you not know that you have murdered
me, poisoned the very heart in my body, disgraced me in my own eyes,
trodden me under foot, taken all strength from me?"
"A man who allows his strength to be taken from him deserves nothing
better."
"An hour more and we may be standing before another judgment-seat. Look
into your heart, Annele."
"Keep your preaching to yourself; I don't want it."
An instant afterwards her screams summoned Lenz to the kitchen, whither
she had gone to light the fire, and where he found her gazing in terror
at the rats and mice congregated on the hearth, while a raven flew
round and round the kitchen, knocking down plates and pots in his
course.
"Kill them! kill them!" shrieked Annele, and fled into the adjoining
room.
The rats and mice were soon disposed of, but the raven it would have
been impossible to catch without breaking every article of crockery in
the kitchen. The lamp made the bird frantic, and without a light
it was impossible to find him. "I might shoot the raven with my pistol
which I have here, ready loaded," he said, returning to Annele in the
sitting-room; "but the jar would hasten the fall of the house. The best
thing I can do is to make this room safe."
He drew a heavy press into the middle of the room directly under the
main beam, piled a smaller one above it, and filled in the space so
tightly with clothes as to prop up the roof against a considerable
pressure from without.
"We must bring all the eatables we have in here." That too he did
quickly and handily, while Annele sat like one paralyzed, and could
only look on in wonder.
Lenz brought his own prayer-book and Annele's, opened them both at the
same place,--the preparation for death,--and laying his wife's open
before her, began to read aloud. Seeing she did not follow him, he
looked up presently and said: "You are right not to read; there is
nothing there for us. Never were any two like us, who should have lived
together in peace, each doubling the other's life; but who instead of
that pulled away from each other, and are now both imprisoned at the
gates of death, and must die together, since they could not live
together. Hark! Do you not hear cries? I thought there was a growling
sound."
"I hear nothing."
"We cannot light a fire," continued Lenz; "for there is no way for the
smoke to escape, and we should be stifled. Thank God, there is the
spirit-lamp that my mother bought. You help even in death, mother," he
said, looking up at the picture. "Light it, Annele; only economize the
spirit; we cannot tell how long we shall have to make it last."
Annele watched his movements in blank amazement. She was often tempted
to ask whether this were really that Lenz who had been so incapable of
helping himself. But no words came from her stiffened lips. She was
like a person in a deathly trance who tries to speak and cannot.
Her first swallow of warm milk revived her. "What if the mice should
come in here?" was her first question.
"I will kill them here too, and bury them in the snow to get rid of the
stench. By the way, I must bury those I killed in the kitchen."
Again Annele looked at him in amazement. Was this man, so bold in the
face of death, the old, sensitive, shiftless Lenz? A kind word rose to
her lips, but did not get spoken.
"That plaguy raven has bitten me," said Lenz, returning with his hand
bleeding. "The fellow is wild with terror at having been swept away by
the force of the avalanche; there is no catching him. A whole pillar of
snow has fallen down the chimney. Hark! that is ten o'clock. People are
coming out of church now. We were buried just as the last bells were
ringing. It was our death-knell."
"I will not die yet; I am so young! And my child! I never knew, I never
imagined that I was going to my death when I condescended to live in
this desert with you clockmakers."
"It is your father's fault," answered Lenz. "My parents were three
times snowed up, so that for two and three days they could not go
outside the house, on account of the depth of snow that lay there; but
they were never buried. Your father disposed of the wood, and had it
cut down over my head. This is his work."
"You have no one but yourself to blame. He wanted to give you the
wood."
"That is true."
"Oh, if I and my child were but out of this place!" cried Annele,
beginning her lamentations afresh.
"And do you care nothing for me?"
Without appearing to hear him she cried again, "O God, why must I die
thus? What have I done?"
"What have you done? yet a little while and God himself will tell you.
My words are spent in vain."
Both were silent; a secret power seemed forcing Annele to speak, but
she could not.
"Good God!" began Lenz; "here we two stand at the gates of death and
with what feelings towards each other! If we should be saved, it would
be only to renew the old pain and torment. My parents were three times
snowed up. My mother always made provision against such an event, and
kept on hand a plentiful supply of salt and oil. Of the first two times
I know nothing, but the last is distinct in my memory to this day.
Dearly as my father and mother loved each other, I never before saw
them kiss. When my father said: 'Mary, we are once more alone in the
world, out of the world'; then for the first time I saw my mother kiss
him. For those three days it was like living in eternity, in paradise.
Morning, noon, and night my father and mother sang together out of the
hymn-book, and every word they spoke was more sweet and holy than
tongue can tell. I remember my mother's saying once: 'Would we might
die at such a moment as this; pass out of this earthly rest into the
eternal, neither one left behind to grieve for the other!' Then and
only then did I hear my father speak of my uncle. 'If I were to die
now,' he said, 'I should leave no enemy behind. I owe no man anything.
My one grief is that my brother Peter dislikes me.'"
Lenz suddenly paused in his story. There was a scratching at the
house-door, a whimpering and howling. "What is there? I must see what
it is," said Lenz.
"No, no; for Heaven's sake!" cried Annele, sending a thrill through him
by the touch of her hand on his shoulder. "Let it be, Lenz! It is a fox
howling, or a wolf. I heard the howl of a wolf once, and it sounded
just like that."
Whatever the creature was outside, it seemed to be roused to fresh
exertion by the sound of voices within; the scratching and barking grew
louder.
"That is no wolf; it is a dog. Hark! it is Hubby's bark. Great Heavens,
it is Bubby! and where his dog is my uncle must be too. He must be
buried in the snow."
"Let him lie there, if he is; it serves him right."
"Woman! are you mad? must you still spit out your poison?"
"I am full of poison up to my throat. For days and days I had nothing
else to drink; it has been my only food."
Lenz went to the kitchen and returned with an axe.
"What do you mean to do?" screamed Annele, holding the child as a
shield before her.
"Out of my way!" he cried, and raising the axe brought it down with all
his force against the door, which fell outward. It was indeed Bubby,
who now sprang in howling, but in an instant was back again scratching
in the snow, and uttering short, sharp barks.
Lenz began to shovel away the snow. A piece of fur soon came to view,
and laying shovel and pick aside, he set carefully to work, digging
with his hands, and bringing the snow into the house in order to clear
a space. When he found his uncle, the old man's consciousness was gone.
All Lenz's strength was required to drag his seemingly lifeless body
out of the snow. He bore him into the chamber, stripped off his
clothing, put him to bed, and began rubbing him with all his might,
till he at last drew a deep breath.
"Where am I?" groaned Petrovitsch; "where am I?"
"In my house, uncle."
"Who brought me here? who took off my clothes? where are my clothes?
where is my fur? where is my waistcoat? it has my keys in it. So you
have me at last, have you?"
"Be calm, uncle; I will find everything for you. See, here is your fur,
and here is your waistcoat."
"Let me have them. Are the keys in the pocket? yes, there they are. Ha,
Bubby, are you here too?"
"Yes, uncle, he saved your life."
"Ah, now I remember. We were buried by the snow. How long ago was it?
was it not yesterday?"
"Scarce an hour ago," said Lenz.
"Hear you no help coming?"
"I hear nothing. Keep quiet a few minutes while I go into the other
room, and get you something to drink."
"Leave me the light; bring me something warm."
"Serves me right," said Petrovitsch when he was left by himself;
"serves me exactly right. What business had I to go out of my
accustomed way?"
He seemed revived by the brandy Lenz brought him, and caressing his
dog, who had nestled close to his master's side, said: "Let me go to
sleep now. What is that noise? Is there not a raven crying?"
"Yes, one was swept down the kitchen chimney by the snow."
"Very well; let me sleep now."