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Berthold Auerbach
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Title: Joseph in the Snow, and The Clockmaker
In Three Volumes. Vol. III.
Author: Berthold Auerbach
Translator: Lady Wallace
Release Date: July 15, 2010 [EBook #33164]
Language: English
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JOSEPH IN THE SNOW ***
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JOSEPH IN THE SNOW,
AND
THE CLOCKMAKER.
BY AUERBACH.
TRANSLATED BY LADY WALLACE.
IN THREE VOLUMES.
VOL. III.
LONDON:
SAUNDERS, OTLEY, AND CO.,
66, BROOK STREET, HANOVER SQUARE.
1861.
LONDON: PRINTED BY W. CLOWES AND SONS, STAMFORD STREET,
AND 14, CHARING CROSS.
THE CLOCKMAKER
(_Continued_).
CONTENTS OF VOL. III.
CHAPTER XXIII.
The first Nail knocked in, Peace in the House, and the first Sunday
Guest
CHAPTER XXIV.
Ancient Heirlooms are dismissed, and a new Tone prevails in the
Morgenhalde
CHAPTER XXV.
The Pendulums swing together, but the Stress on the Mainspring is
severe
CHAPTER XXVI.
The Axe is put to the Root of Life, and Tears are shed
CHAPTER XXVII.
Everything gone
CHAPTER XXVIII.
A Beggar, and Money saved
CHAPTER XXIX.
Another World
CHAPTER XXX.
The Thaw extends even to Petrowitsch, but he freezes again
CHAPTER XXXI.
Annele thaws also, but freezes again
CHAPTER XXXII.
A Stormy Night
CHAPTER XXXIII.
A Friend in Need
CHAPTER XXXIV.
Buried Alive
CHAPTER XXXV.
A Heart touched
CHAPTER XXXVI.
Voices from the Dead
CHAPTER XXXVII.
A Phalanx
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
A Plant grows under the Snow
CHAPTER XXXIX.
Saved
CHAPTER XL.
All's well
THE CLOCKMAKER
OF
THE BLACK FOREST.
CHAPTER XXIII.
THE FIRST NAIL KNOCKED IN, PEACE IN THE HOUSE,
AND THE FIRST SUNDAY GUEST.
Next day Annele seemed quite satisfied again with Franzl--she was such
a capital servant, and Annele said: "I have not yet given you any
thing, Franzl; do you prefer a gown or money?"
"I should like money best."
"There are two crown dollars for you."
Lenz was very much pleased when Franzl told him this--she is a spoiled,
hasty, dear, good child, thought he--and Franzl's idea was: "She is
like our young bailiff's wife at home, of whom the balancemaker's wife
once said: She has always seven visitors in her head, but only six
chairs, so one must always stand, or walk about, while the others are
sitting down." Lenz laughed, and Franzl continued: "We Kunslingers are
sharp enough, but see how nicely your wife has already put every thing
into order; any one else would have taken three days to complete it,
and stumbled at least seventeen times, and broken half the things into
the bargain. Your wife is not left-handed."
Lenz told Annele that Franzl declared she had two right hands, and
Annele was delighted with this praise. Annele now displayed a new
qualification. Lenz begged her to put in a nail in the wall above his
father's file. She hit the nail straight on the head, and Lenz hung up
his mother's picture on the first nail that Annele had knocked in at
home. "So far well," said Lenz. "Even if it is not quite her own face,
still these are her own eyes, which, please God, shall look down on a
peaceful, good, and happy life in this house. Let us always live, so
that my mother can gaze at us with satisfaction."
Annele was on the point of saying: "Oh! pray don't make a pattern saint
of the good woman;" but she gulped it down.
The whole week--it was now only Wednesday--was kept like a half
holiday; Lenz worked for a couple of hours, but, apparently, only to
remind him of his calling; and he was always in better spirits after he
had been busy at work. The various events, during the marriage
festivities, were naturally recalled and commented on. It was certainly
not a little amusing to hear the way in which Annele could imitate and
quiz them all. The landladies of the "Bear," the "Lamb" and the
"Eagle," were to the very life; Faller in particular she could take
off exactly, in the way in which he constantly stroked his moustaches,
till one could almost have believed that there were the same appendages
on Annele's pretty mocking face. She intended no malice in these
tricks--but she enjoyed any kind of fun, and was always well amused at
the Carnival merry making, and now nothing but good humour shone forth,
and she exclaimed: "Oh! how agreeable it is here in the hills, and how
still and quiet! I had no idea that there could be such perfect peace.
When I am seated here, and see and hear nothing of the world, and have
no one to give an answer to, I almost feel as if I were sleeping with
my eyes open--and sleeping pleasantly too; below there, it is like
being constantly in a busy mill; up here, it is like another existence:
I think I could actually hear my heart beat. I will not go down into
the village for the next fortnight; I will accustom myself by degrees
to give up going there, and it will be no hardship to me; they have no
idea below there what enjoyment there is in being out of the bustle,
and strife, and tumult of life. Oh Lenz, I don't think you know how
fortunate you have been all your life!"
Annele was seated one morning beside Lenz, uttering all these
exclamations of happiness and contentment, and the husband replied,
with a glad face: "This is just as it should be; I knew you would like
this house; and, believe me, I feel thankful to God, and to my parents,
that I have been permitted to pass my life hitherto here. But, my dear
little wife, we must not remain here for fourteen days, cut off from
everybody. At all events, we must go to church together next Sunday;
indeed, I think that we ought to go to see your parents for a little
today."
"Just as you like; and, fortunately, we don't take with us the
delightful peace we enjoy here, but we find it awaiting us when we come
home again. I cannot realize that I have been here so short a time, it
seems to me as if I had lived up here all my life; indeed, such quiet,
happy hours count for as much as years elsewhere."
"You explain everything so well, you are so clever. Recall this
feeling, if the day comes when you find it dull up here. Those people,
who would not believe that you could be happy in solitude, will be
surprised."
"Who refused to believe that? No doubt it was Pilgrim, that great
artist: a pretty fellow he is; if he does not find angels, he
immediately fancies them devils; but, I tell you fairly, he shall never
come under this roof."
"Pilgrim said nothing of the sort. Why will you persist in having some
particular person to hate? My mother said a hundred times over, the
only way to have peace of mind, is to think well of your fellow
creatures. I wish she had lived even a year longer, that you might have
profited by her wisdom. Was it not well said? You understand
everything. When we hate a man, or know that we have an enemy--I never
knew the feeling but once in my life and it was terrible indeed--we
feel, no matter where we go, or where we are, that an invisible pistol
is aimed at our heads. My greatest happiness is, that I hate no one,
and no one so far as I know, hates me."
Annele had not listened very attentively to this speech; she only
asked: "Who said it then, pray, if it was not Pilgrim?"
"No one, in fact, but I often thought so myself, I own."
"I don't believe that: some one must have put it into your head; but it
was very silly in you to tell me of it. I could repeat to you equally,
what people said about you; people whom you would little suspect! You
have your detractors also, just like other people; but I know better
than to irritate you by detailing such foolish talk."
"You only say this to pay me off. Well, I deserve it, and now we are
quits, so let us be cheerful again. The whole world is nothing to us
now; you and I form our whole world."
And both were indeed as happy as possible, and Franzl, in the kitchen,
was often seen moving her lips, which was her habit when she was
thinking of any particular subject, and on this occasion she thought
thus: "God be praised! it is all as it should be, and this is just the
way in which Anton and I would have lived together, if he had not
proved false, and married a black woman."
On Sunday morning, Lenz said: "I quite forgot to tell you, that I had
invited a guest to dinner today--I suppose you have no objection."
"No; who is it?"
"My worthy friend, Pilgrim."
"You ought to invite your uncle also, it is only proper to do so."
"I thought of it repeatedly, but it is better not; I know his ways."
The church bells in the valley began to ring out, and Lenz said: "Is
not that pleasant? My mother said a thousand times, that as we cannot
hear the bells themselves, but only the echo from the wood behind our
house, it is as if the melody came direct from heaven."
"Quite so," said Annele, "but it is time for us to set off." On the way
she began: "Lenz, I do not ask through curiosity, but I am your wife,
so you ought to tell me everything, and I promise you faithfully, by
that solemn peal we are listening to, that I will never divulge it."
"You need make no vows--never do so, for I have a great objection to
strong asseverations. What do you wish to know?"
"Well then, your uncle and you spoke in so obscure a manner on our
wedding-day: what did you settle together about your inheritance?"
"Nothing at all: we never spoke one word together on the subject."
"And yet it seemed from your manner that it was all signed and sealed."
"I only said that my uncle and I understood each other; and so we
do--we never speak about such things--he can do as he likes with his
own."
"And you helped him out of his dilemma; for he was fairly beset and
could not have escaped--such an occasion will never come again. He
ought to have settled on us, I mean on you, a handsome sum."
"I cannot bear strangers interfering in family matters. I am in no
difficulty, and even if he leaves me nothing I can earn what I require
myself."
Annele was silent; but it was not a melody like that of the bells, now
resounding in clear tones through hill and dale, that filled her heart.
They went on together in comparative silence to church, and afterwards,
before going home, they paid a visit to Annele's parents.
Not far from their own meadow. Pilgrim shouted out behind
them:--"Include a poor soul in your Paradise." Both laughed and turned
round. Pilgrim was very merry on the road, and still more so at table.
It was strange that Pilgrim, who had spoken so severely of Annele, now
seized every opportunity of praising her. He was anxious to make Lenz
forget what he had once said of her, and to make him feel his happiness
now secure. After he was gone, Lenz said:--
"I never enjoyed my dinner more than today. What can be better in the
world, than to be occupied with your work, and to have plenty to eat
and drink, and a dear wife, and a dear friend to keep you company?"
"Pilgrim is certainly very amusing," replied Annele.
"I am also so glad," continued Lenz, "that you have fairly converted
him. He was not very fond of you, but he is very different now; you are
a witch; you can do what you will with every one."
Annele made no answer, and Lenz repented having told her this as there
was no need to do so; but honesty never does harm. He therefore
repeated that Annele must feel particular pleasure, in having so
entirely changed one who had formerly undervalued her.
Still Annele did not say a word; but she had many a triumph yet in
store for her, as she never missed an opportunity, either now or
hereafter, of showing Lenz how bad, and wicked, and cunning, and false
all men are.
"I never knew that the world was so bad. I have lived like a child,"
said Lenz, modestly; and Annele continued:--
"But, Lenz, I have seen the world in your place, and become acquainted
with hundreds of men in the course of our traffic, I have seen and
heard how they talk, as soon as any one turns his back whom they have
made a great fuss with, and how they laugh at him for placing any faith
in the existence of cordial words, and honest speech. I can tell you
more than if you had travelled for ten years yourself."
"But of what use is it?" asked Lenz. "I don't see that such knowledge
can do any good. If we go on our straight path, the world round us may
be bad enough, but it can do us no harm; besides there are a great many
good and upright men:--but you are right, the daughter of a landlord is
at home among strangers--you know that, and told me so on that evening
when we were first engaged. It must be a relief to you to have now a
real home, where no one has a right to come in, and be as free and easy
as he pleases, by ordering a pint of wine, and be as disagreeable as
possible to other people."
"Oh! no doubt," answered Annele, but no longer so well pleased, for she
felt annoyed again that Lenz should not consider her past life a happy
one. He might consequently imagine that it was through him she first
knew happiness.
CHAPTER XXIV.
ANCIENT HEIRLOOMS ARE DISMISSED, AND A NEW
TONE PREVAILS IN THE MORGENHALDE.
The bridal week, and many other weeks and months have passed away,
about which there is not much to relate. Annele laughed at Lenz almost
every morning, for he could never reconcile himself to the Landlady of
the "Lion" sending up fresh baked white bread to his house from the
village. It was not so much the luxury itself; but that people should
accustom themselves to such indulgences, filled him with astonishment.
In many other things too it was evident, that Annele had wants and
habits which, to Lenz, seemed only suited to holidays and festivals. On
this account she, of course, thought herself very superior to him, and
blamed the inexperience that did not understand how to make life twice
as agreeable at the same cost; and, in truth, everything in the
household was now far better of its kind, without the expense being
increased. From the very same flour, she baked far better bread than
was formerly in the house. But along with her good management she was
often petulant, and during the spring months she was constantly
complaining and saying:--
"Good heavens! the wind up on the hill is so high, I often think it
will blow down the house about our ears."
"But, my dear Annele, I can't prevent it blowing. Besides, that is the
reason the air here is so pure and healthy. All men live to a good old
age here, and you need have no fears about our house; it will endure
for generations yet to come, for it is constructed of entire trunks of
trees which will last for our great-grandchildren."
When the snow melted, and rushing streams filled the usually dry
channels, and Lenz rejoiced in it, she complained that the deafening
and incessant noise prevented her sleeping.
"You often, however, during the winter, used to say how much you
disliked the deathlike stillness up here; that you never heard the
sound of a carriage, or saw either horsemen or pedestrians going
past--now you have noise enough."
Annele looked at Lenz with no very pleasant expression, and went out to
Franzl in the kitchen and wept. Franzl went to Lenz and exhorted him
not to contradict his wife, as it was neither good for her, in her
present situation, nor for himself.
Lenz led a quiet yet busy life, and when he succeeded in producing a
good tone in his instruments, he would say:--
"Just listen, Annele, how pure that note is; it is just like a bell;"
and she answered:--
"What care I? it's no affair of mine. I fear, I sadly fear, that you
make a mistake about your work; you spend too much time over it; it can
never pay you. To succeed, a man must be quick, and sharp, and not
fritter away his time."
"Annele, I must understand that best."
"If you do, then, don't talk to me on the subject. I can only speak as
I understand the thing to be. If you want to have a milliner's doll to
listen to you, go to the doctor's, and borrow one of his daughters;
they have pretty red lips, and never speak a word."
The days passed quietly, and Spring, that now burst forth with such
gladness on the earth, seemed to bring fresh life with its pure
breezes, to the Morgenhalde also. The Landlady often came up to visit
them, and enjoyed the bright sunshine on the hill. The Landlord was
scarcely ever visible. He had become more gruff than ever. Annele
evidently cared less to be with her parents, and clung with greater
affection than ever to Lenz; indeed, she often went with him on Sunday
mornings, and holiday evenings, to the wood, where her husband had put
up a bench on his father-in-law's property, and there they used to sit
happily together, and Lenz said:--
"Listen to that bird! that is a genuine musician; he does not ask if
anyone is listening to him, but he warbles his song for himself and his
wife, and so do I also."
Lenz sung sweetly in the echoing wood, and Annele replied:--
"You are quite right, and you ought to leave the Choral Society; it is
no longer a fitting place for you: as a bachelor, Faller and the rest
of them might quite well be your companions, but now that you are
married, it won't do any longer, and you are too old to sing now."
"I too old? Each spring I am born afresh in the world. At this moment I
feel as if I were a child once more. This is the spot where I built a
little boat with my brother who died. How happy we were!"
"You always speak as if every trifle in your life were something
marvellous. What is there remarkable in that?"
"You are right, I must learn to grow old; I am almost as old as the
wood in fact, for I remember that when I was a child, there were very
few large trees, but all young plantation. Now the wood, which is grown
far, far above our heads, is ours."
"How do you mean ours? Has my father made it over to you?"
"No, it still belongs to your father--that is--on certain conditions.
He never had the power entirely to cut down the wood, because it is our
protection against the weather, a safeguard against the snow, or a
landslip of the hill itself, falling on our house and burying it."
"Why do you talk to me about such things? What are they to me?"
"I don't understand you."
"Nor I you. In my situation you should not imagine such dreadful
possibilities."
"Very well, then I will sing you something, and if anyone hears us, so
much the better."
Lenz and Annele went homewards, singing, and soon a visitor arrived: it
was the Landlord himself. He took his son-in-law aside into another
room, and said:--
"Lenz, I can do you a service."
"I am glad to hear it. I shall be glad to learn what it is."
"Has the bailiff still got your money?"
"He paid me four hundred gulden, but I spent part of it in furnishing."
"Hard cash is now the thing; you can make a good profit by it."
"I will call it up from the bailiff."
"That would take too long. Give me a bill for the sum, I will invest it
for you and you will gain five-and-twenty per cent."
"Then we must share it."
"I wish you had not said that. I intended that you should have had all
the gain yourself, but I must say you are an honest man."
"Thank you, father-in-law, I do my best. I don't like to accept
presents."
"Perhaps it would be better still if you left the money in my business,
and whatever I make by it shall be yours."
"I don't understand your business; I prefer taking my steady
percentage."
When her father returned into the sitting-room, Annele brought in
refreshments, but the Landlord wished to decline them and to go away
immediately. Annele however pressed him to remain, saying:--
"It is your own wine, father. Do sit down for a little; we see you so
seldom now."
No chair in the Morgenhalde seemed substantial enough to bear the
weight of the Landlord's dignity, so he drank a glass of wine standing,
and then went down the hill, holding his hand on the breast pocket of
his coat.
"How strange my father is today," said Annele.
"He has important business on hand,--I have just given him my two
thousand six hundred gulden that I had placed with the bailiff."
"And what did he give you in return?"
"I don't know what you mean--nothing; I will ask him for a receipt some
day, when I have an opportunity, because this is customary."
"If you had asked my advice, I should have told you not to have given
the money."
"What do you mean, Annele? I shall never take anything amiss in future,
when I see that you distrust even your own father; but Franzl is right;
she is quite patient with all your whims, for at this moment every one
must give way to your wishes."
"So!" said Annele, "but I don't wish anyone to give way to me. What I
said about my father was mere idle talk;--I don't myself know what put
it into my head; but Franzl shall leave the house! So she complains of
me to you, does she?"
Lenz tried hard to deny this, and to excuse Franzl, saying that her
intentions were very different--but all was in vain: before fourteen
days had passed, Franzl must leave the house, Lenz tried to console
her, as he best could, by saying that no doubt she would come back
soon, and that he would pay her wages as long as she lived. Franzl
shook her head, and said, with tears:--
"The good Lord will provide for me, no doubt I never thought I should
have left this house, till I was carried out of it in my coffin. I have
been eight-and-twenty years here,--but I can't help it. Oh, dear! to
look at all my pots and pans, and my copper kettle and my pails! how
many thousand times have I had them in my hand, and cleaned them. No
one can say, when I am gone, that I was not tidy and orderly; there
stand my witnesses; if they could speak, every handle and spout must
say how I have been, and what I have been; but God knows all things; He
can see not only into houses, but into hearts;--that is my comfort,
consolation, and solace,--but I say no more. To tell the truth I am not
sorry to leave, for I would rather spin thorns than stay here. I don't
wish to vex your heart, Lenz;--I would rather you killed me at once
like a rat, than be the cause of strife in your home: no, no, that
shall never be. Have no anxiety on my account; you have enough without
that; and if I could take your troubles with me, I would not care if I
sank down on the way from the burden. Don't think of me;--I mean to go
to my brother in Kunslingen; I was born there, and there I mean to stay
till I die; and when I join your mother in paradise, I will wait on her
just as I used to do. The good Lord will admit me for her sake, and for
her sake I feel sure you will prosper in the world. Now, farewell; and
forgive me if I ever offended you. Good bye, and good bye a thousand
times over!"
Lenz was silent and gloomy for a long time after Franzl went away, but
Annele was more cheerful than ever. She was indeed a sorceress, for she
could influence him as she chose; her voice seemed to have some magic
power, when she wished to please, that no one could resist. Pilgrim
succeeded in pacifying Lenz entirely. He tried to persuade him that
Annele could only now, for the first time, feel herself really mistress
of the house, since the old maid took her departure, who had acquired a
certain mastery in the family. Annele had certainly been accustomed to
much greater activity in the house, and was much better pleased when
there was a great deal to do; she declared to Lenz that she would never
hire another maid, as so small a household was scarcely half sufficient
work for herself alone. The apprentice was to assist her; it was not
till Lenz brought in the aid of his mother-in-law that a new maid was
engaged.
All continued now cheerful and peaceful in the house, far into the
summer. Annele urged her mother to see that her father soon paid back
Lenz his money, and the latter came one day and offered Lenz the wood
behind his house instead of payment, but demanded another thousand
gulden. Lenz replied that he did not want to buy the wood, he wished to
have current money, so the affair was set at rest, and the worthy
landlord gave Lenz his acknowledgment in due form, and properly
executed.
Late in the summer there were great doings in the village. The
Techniker married Bertha, the doctor's second daughter,--the eldest was
resolved to remain single,--and the doctor's son, who made
chronometers, returned from his travels. It was said that he intended
to erect, near his father's house, a large establishment for the
fabrication of clocks and watches, with all kinds of new machinery. In
the whole country there were lamentations, for it was feared everyone
would be ruined, and that now clocks would be made here, as they were
in America, without a single stroke of a file, and entirely by the
pressure of machinery. Lenz was one of those in no manner disturbed; he
said that hitherto they had been able to compete with the American
clockmakers, and he saw no reason why they should not do the same with
regard to the Doctor's case; moreover, no machinery could place the
mechanism properly together,--man's intelligence was required for that.
It would be rather an advantage to many parts of the clocks, if they
could be made quicker by machinery.
Lenz and the schoolmaster were, in the mean time, much occupied in
trying to effect a project they had long cherished. The principal
traders were to enter into an association, to render themselves
independent of retail dealers, and merchants. But instead of any
effectual support, they found only grumbling and complaints, and
Annele, when she heard of the plan, said:--
"For goodness' sake give it up; I wonder you don't tire of always
rolling the balls for others to play."
Annele, however, repeatedly urged Lenz to undertake an establishment of
this kind along with her father, and if it was necessary, he might
travel for a year in the interests of the firm, while she would stay
with her parents. Lenz, however, declared,--
"I am not suited to that kind of thing, and I shall certainly not leave
home as a married man, when I never did so as a bachelor."
He therefore entirely gave up all idea of an Association, and pacified
Annele by assuring her that they would have quite as good an income;
that she need have no fears on that account, and Pilgrim quite agreed
with Lenz's views.
Annele consequently regarded Pilgrim as the chief obstacle to Lenz's
advancement in life.
"He is a man," said she, "who never in all his life succeeded in
anything, and he never will."
She tried, in every possible way, to sow discord between Pilgrim and
Lenz, but she entirely failed.
Annele brooded over various plans, and was constantly reckoning and
calculating in her head. She knew that Lenz had become security for
Faller when he bought his house, and now she constantly pressed on him
the propriety of recalling this security. He was obliged to consent to
her wish, but just as he arrived at Faller's house his friend came out
to meet him, laughing, and saying--
"My wife has just presented me, for the second time, with twins."
Lenz of course could not, at such a moment, plague Faller by depriving
him of the security; and when Annele inquired what he had done, he gave
her an evasive answer.
The night before the Techniker's marriage with the Doctor's daughter,
Annele had a son. When Lenz was standing by her bedside, full of joy,
she said:--
"Lenz, promise me one thing; promise me that you will give up Pilgrim,
or that you will try for three months to do so."
"I can make no such promise," said Lenz, and a bitter drop fell into
the cup of his joy.
Annele was painfully excited when the sounds of the wedding music in
the valley reached her ears, and both her mother and her husband were
alarmed for her life from such agitation; but she fell into a sound
sleep at noon, and Lenz closed every door carefully to exclude all
noise. She became now more composed, and was gentle and loveable, and
Lenz felt truly grateful for his happiness, both as a husband and a
father. Annele was so unusually amiable that she even said:--
"We promised Pilgrim that he should be godfather to our child, and this
is a promise we must keep."
It was strange to see how variable her moods were. Lenz wished
Petrowitsch to be the other godfather, but he refused.
Pilgrim brought the infant a large parchment, with a great many
signatures and flourishes, painted by himself, which he laid on the
cradle: it was a diploma from the Choral Society, in which the newly
born child, on account of the fine voice he had no doubt inherited, was
named an honorary member of the society.
"Do you know," said Lenz, "what is the sweetest sound in the world? The
first cry of your child. Do you see how he can clutch a thing already?"
and he gave the infant his father's file into his little hand. Annele
flung it away, exclaiming:--
"The child might kill himself with the sharp point," but in flinging it
on the floor the point was broken.
"My father's honourable tool, consecrated by his memory, is now
destroyed," said Lenz, distressed.
Pilgrim tried to console him by laughingly saying, that there must
always be new men, and new tools, in the world.
Annele did not say a syllable.
CHAPTER XXV.
THE PENDULUMS SWING TOGETHER, BUT THE
STRESS ON THE MAINSPRING IS SEVERE.
"Annele, come here, I have something to show you."
"I have no time."
"Only look, for it will please you. See, I set agoing two pendulums, on
both these clocks, the one from right to left, and the other the
reverse way. If you will observe, you will see that in the course of a
few days they will both swing in the same direction, from right to
left, or both the reverse way. That is owing to the power of attraction
they mutually exercise; they approximate to each other by degrees."
"I don't believe that."
"You can see it with your own eyes; and so it will be with us. The one
starts from the right, and the other from the left, and we must
gradually balance each other. To be sure the pendulums never tick quite
together, so as to make but one sound; a Spanish king tried to
accomplish this, and it fairly turned his brain."
"Such nonsense only plagues me; you seem to have time for it, however,
but I have not."
In the course of a few days the pendulums vibrated in unison, but the
hearts of the married couple obstinately pursued their separate course.
Sometimes it almost seemed as if that miracle were to be accomplished,
that was never yet attained by any work of human hands--identical
vibration; but it was only delusion, and then the consciousness of
having been deceived, was all the more sad.
Lenz thought that his disposition was very yielding, but it was not so
in reality. Annele had no wish to be pliant or submissive; she thought
that she knew everything best, she had experience in the ways of the
world; men of every country, old and young, rich and poor, had all told
her in the Inn, from the time she was a child, that she was as clever
as the day.
Annele's nature was what is called superficial, but she was also easy
to live with, lively, and active. She liked to talk much and often, but
when the conversation was over, she never thought again either of what
she had heard, or what she had said.
Lenz's disposition was more profound and solid; he was rather
apprehensive by nature, as if habitually impressed with the transitory
nature of everything in the world; he treated every subject, even the
most insignificant, with the same subtle precision that he bestowed on
his work--or as he liked to hear it called--his art.
If Annele had not recently seen people, she had nothing to talk about,
but the more quiet their life was, the more Lenz had to say. When Lenz
spoke, he always stopped working; Annele continued to speak, while
finishing the work she had on hand.
Annele liked to relate her dreams, and strangely enough she always
dreamt that she had been driving in a fine carriage with fine horses,
in beautiful scenery, and a merry party; and "how we did laugh to be
sure!" was always the burden of her narration; or else she dreamt that
she was a landlady, and that kings and princes drew up to her door, and
she made them such appropriate answers; whereas Lenz attached no
importance to dreams, and disliked her repeating them.
Lenz could scarcely say a word early in the morning; his thoughts
seemed to awake by degrees; he continued to dream long with his eyes
open, and even while he was working. Annele on the contrary, the
instant she opened her eyes, was like a soldier at his post, armed and
ready; she commenced the day zealously, and all half-waking thoughts
were hateful to her; she was and continued to be the smart, lively,
landlord's daughter, owing to whose activity, the guests find
everything in order at the earliest hour of the morning, and she
herself ready to have a pleasant talk.
In the midst of the household bustle, Lenz often looked up at his
mother's picture, as if saying to her: "Don't let your rest be
disturbed; her great delight is noise and tumult."
When Annele sat by him and watched his work, her restlessness seemed to
infect him. He was in the habit of looking intently at anything he had
finished, or was about to finish; and then he felt as if her eyes
followed each movement of his impatiently, and her thoughts were
involuntarily reproaching him for his slowness, and so he became
himself impatient and irritable,--so her vicinity did more harm than
good.
Little Wilhelm throve well on the Morgenhalde, and when a little sister
also came, the constant commotion in the house, was as if the spectre
huntsman and his followers were always passing through it. When Lenz
often complained of the incessant noise, Annele disdainfully replied,
"Those who want to have a quiet house should be rich and live in a
palace, where the princes each inhabit a separate wing."
"I am not rich," answered Lenz. He smiled at the taunt, and yet it
vexed him.
Two pendulums can only vibrate simultaneously, and with the same number
of strokes, when they are in a similar atmosphere, or at the same
distance from the centre of the earth.
Lenz became daily more quiet and reserved, and when he spoke to his
wife, he could not help being astonished that she found so much to say
on every point. If he chanced to say in the morning, "What a thick fog
we have to day!" she snapped him up instantly, saying: "Yes, and so
early in the autumn too, but we may have bright weather yet: we in the
hills can never depend on weather, and who knows which of us wants
rain, and which fine weather, just as it may suit best what we have to
do. If our good Lord were to suit the weather to the taste of
everybody," &c. &c.
There was a long discussion about every trifle,--how a waggoner had
been spoken to while his horses were getting a feed outside,--or a
passing stranger who wanted something to eat, and who, in spite of the
cover being quickly laid, had to wait a long time for dinner.
Lenz shrugged his shoulders, and was silent after such reproofs, indeed
he often scarcely spoke during the whole day, and his wife said
sometimes good-humouredly, and sometimes angrily: "You are a tiresome,
silent creature."
He smiled at the reproach, but it hurt his feelings all the same.
The apprehensions entertained about the manufactory for clocks proved
quite unfounded, for, on the contrary, the business for private hands
never had been so flourishing. Lenz was very proud of having prophesied
this. He received much praise on this account, but Annele saw nothing
remarkable in such a proof of his foresight: of course it is but
natural that each should understand his own business, but one thing was
quite certain, that the Techniker and the Doctor's son were fast making
money, while the original clockmakers were thankful and content to
remain in the old beaten path.
Annele frequently praised Pröbler now, who at least tried to make new
discoveries.
Lenz, however, was quite engrossed with his work, and said to Annele:
"When I think each morning I rise--you may work honestly to day, and
your work will prosper and be completed,--I feel as if I had a sun in
my heart that never set."
"You have a talent for preaching, you ought to have been a pastor,"
said Annele, leaving the room and privately thinking---"There, that's a
hit at you; we are all to listen to him, but what any one else says is
of no consequence at all; that was a capital hit at him."
It was not revenge, but pure forgetfulness, that made Lenz often, when
Annele was relating some anecdote, start and say, as if just waking up,
"Don't be angry, but I have not heard one word you have been saying,
that beautiful melody is running in my head. I wish I could make it
sound as it ought! How clever the way in which the key changes from
sharps to flats!"
Annele smiled, but she did not soon forgive such absence of mind.
The pendulums continued to diverge still further.
Formerly, when Lenz used to come home from the brassfounder or the
locksmith, or from any expedition, his mother used to sit by him while
he was at dinner, and was interested in all he related; he enjoyed over
again with her the very glass of wine he had drunk away from her, and
the friendly greetings of those he had met during his absence. All that
Lenz detailed seemed of consequence to his mother, because it had
happened to her son. Now, when he came home, Annele had seldom time to
sit down beside him, and when she did so, and he began to tell her his
news, she would interrupt him, saying: "Oh! what does that signify to
me? I don't care at all about it. Other people may live just as they
please; they are not likely to give me any share of their good luck,
and I'm sure I don't want to have anything to do with their
misfortunes. Men impose on you famously by their pretensions to
goodness; they have only to wind you up, and then you play a tune to
each, just like your musical clocks."
Lenz laughed, for Pilgrim had once called him an eight day clock,
because he was always so carefully dressed on Sundays.
He had no rest during the whole week, therefore the Sundays were even
more precious to him than ever, and when the sun shone bright, he often
exclaimed: "Thousands of men, God be praised, are enjoying this fine
Sunday."
"You speak as if you were some guardian angel, and must think of all
the world," said Annele, pettishly.
Lenz soon learned never to utter such thoughts aloud, and became quite
perplexed as to what he should, and should not think. Once he proposed
to go with Annele on a Sunday to a meeting of the Choral Society in a
neighbouring village, or to take no one with them but Faller and his
wife down the valley; but she said, angrily:--"You can go where you
please, it does not signify to a man in what company he finds himself,
but I am not going with you, I consider myself too good for such
people. Faller and his wife are not the kind of society that suits
me--but you can go yourself, I shall not try to prevent you."
Of course Lenz stayed away also, and was more morose than he ought to
have been at home, or in the Lion.
Lenz never in his life had a card in his hand, or played a game at
bowls; other men drive away their ill humour by these resources, and
pass away their time. "I wish I took any pleasure in cards and bowls,"
said he; but he was not prepared for Annele's peevish answer:--
"A man has a good right to play at either, if he only returns with
fresh vigour to his work; at all events that is better than to play
with his work."
The pendulums were getting further apart than ever. Lenz sold the
greater part of his store of clocks at good prices. The only work that
made no great progress, was the one he had undertaken at the request of
his father-in-law, and when Lenz could not resist sometimes complaining
to his wife, that he failed in this or that, she tried to persuade him
that he did not think enough of making money; people like to have their
orders quickly attended to, so you ought to lose no time in getting the
work out of hand, but you are so over particular. "You are a dreamer,
but a dreamer in broad daylight. Wake up, for Heaven's sake, wake up!"
"God knows! I live anything but a peaceful life; my sleep can be no
longer called sleep! Oh! if I could only sleep well and soundly for one
single night again! I always feel nervous and excited now; it seems to
me as if I were incessantly awake, and as if I never took off my
clothes day or night."
Instead of bestowing sympathy on Lenz, and striving in his depressed
mood to inspire him with fresh self-confidence, Annele endeavoured to
prove to Lenz, that though he failed, she could show him how to
succeed. If he accomplished a thing and could not resist calling out to
her, "Do you hear what a pure bell-like tone that is?" she would reply:
"I must tell you fairly, once for all, that I detest every kind of
musical clock. I heard that piece played in Baden-Baden, it sounded
very different there."
Lenz knew this already, and had even told Pilgrim so, but he felt much
hurt at the way in which Annele said it, for in this manner she
paralyzed all his powers for his business.
Annele, however, had a private fixed plan of her own in her head, and
she considered herself quite justified in trying to carry it through.
She felt that her best faculties were lying dormant, for she could not
employ them in her small household. She wanted to earn something, and
an Inn of her own was best adapted for that purpose.
She had formerly endeavoured to estrange Lenz from Pilgrim. Now she
made Pilgrim her confederate; he had said it was a pity that she was
not a landlady, for she would give a fresh impulse to the Lion, and
every one thought the same. Her object was, that Pilgrim should assist
in persuading Lenz to undertake the Lion inn; he might still pursue his
art--when she wished to be amiable she called it an art, but when in
bad humour a trade--either in the Lion, or on the Morgenhalde; indeed
the latter would be best, for he would be quieter there, and many a one
had his workshop further from his home, than the Morgenhalde was from
the Lion.
When Pilgrim came now, Annele said to him, graciously:--"Pray light
your pipe, I rather like the smell; I seem at home when people are
smoking around me."
"You are certainly not at home here," thought Pilgrim, but he took care
not to say so. Though Annele attacked Pilgrim on every side, she could
not obtain his co-operation, and Lenz was obstinate and impervious to
all flattery, and proof even against bursts of rage, in a way she never
could have expected from him.
"You first wished to make me a pedlar, to sell watches," said he; "and
then a manufacturer, and now landlord of the Lion; if I am to become so
entirely different from my former self, what did you see in me to
induce you to marry me?"
Annele evaded any reply, but she said, bitterly:--"You are as soft as
butter to the whole world, but to me as hard as a pebble."
Lenz thought he was an experienced man, but Annele wished to make him
one. She neither said to him, nor admitted to herself, that she thought
herself the best fitted of the two to gain a livelihood, but she wept
and complained that she was of no use, and pitied herself on that
account. She said she only wished to act for the best; and what is it
she wishes? to work, to increase their means, but Lenz will not hear of
it.
Lenz told her that the garden was formerly very productive, she had
better cultivate it; but she had no taste for gardening:--"Every plant
grows just where it is placed, in peace and quiet, and requires no
pressing or driving forwards. Make haste! it is far too slow an affair
to watch what is growing and blossoming in time: three visits to the
kitchen, and three to the cellar, and I have gained more profit than I
would get from such a garden the whole summer; and an old woman, to
whom we pay a trifle, is quite good enough to work in the garden."
Now there was no end to the worry, and complaints, and lamentations,
that they must live so sparingly at home, Lenz was often in despair,
and sometimes so incensed, that he seemed to have become quite another
man. Then he was seized with a fit of repentance, and he took up a
different position, and said he was ashamed of all this discord before
his workmen and apprentices, and if Annele allowed him no peace, he was
resolved to send them away.
Annele laughed in his face. He proved to her, however, that he was in
earnest, for he dismissed the young men. So long as Lenz had preserved
his calm, unmoved nature, he possessed a kind of power over Annele, but
now, by constantly upbraiding him, and deploring his certain ruin,
Annele mastered him entirely; daily telling him he was good for
nothing, that he had sent away his workmen from idleness, and that his
good nature was only idleness in disguise.
Instead of laughing at such nonsense--for who had worked harder than
Lenz from his childhood, or who could be less disposed to boast of
it?--Lenz could not resist brooding over these reproaches for days,
when he was at his work; and then one thought followed another, till a
regular edifice was formed, while Annele had long forgotten all she had
said. This kind of life, so entirely isolated, seemed to her like a
rainy summer Sunday; when you have a right to anticipate that you are
to amuse yourself, and enjoy the society of your neighbours; you are
dressed in your Sunday clothes, but the roads are deep, the rain
incessant, and staying in the house is like being in prison; but this
state Annele resolved should not continue; changed it must and shall
be, said she inwardly, and she became more irritable, and easily
provoked by every trivial occurrence, though she never admitted to
Lenz, or even to herself, the real cause of her ill-tempers.
Lenz sought peace out of the house, but she was not so displeased and
impatient at his absence, as at the mode in which he effected it. He
loitered about, and even when he was fairly out of the house, he would
often return to the door two or three times, as if he had forgotten
something. He could not say what pain it caused him, to go away in a
mood which made him entirely a changed man. He hoped that Annele might
detain him, or say some kind words, that he might be once more his
former self.
In former days, when he went on any expedition, his mother always gave
him some bread out of her cupboard, for bread is a great safeguard from
unseen dangers, especially if you chance to step upon trefoil; and a
better safeguard than the bread, was his mother's kind words. Now he
went on his way, as if the house were not his own, nor himself either.
This was the reason that he lounged about and wasted so much time, and
yet could not say what he wanted.
It must come of itself, for it is no superstition to think, that a true
blessing is only bestowed on what is given and accepted, without being
demanded. Long before evening, Lenz was sitting with Pilgrim, and
Annele with her parents. The whole household seemed unhinged. Lenz
never breathed a hint before Pilgrim of what was inwardly consuming
him, and when Annele complained to her parents, they refused to listen
to her, and seemed to have other matters in their head.
Lenz often went to Faller's also, where he was at his ease, even more
than with Pilgrim, for here he was received with joy and respect when
he came. The Lenz of former days was honoured as highly as ever in this
house--at home he was nobody.
Faller and his wife lived happily together, they were mutually
convinced that they were the most excellent people in the world; if
they were only free from debt, and had a little money to spare, they
would astonish everybody. They saved and toiled, but were always in
good humour. Faller was not a particularly skilful workman, so he
chiefly confined himself to the largest sized clocks--for the larger
the work, the easier it is to complete--and he amused himself and his
wife, by telling her of all the various theatrical pieces in which he
had acted, during his garrison life, in different costumes. His wife
was always a grateful public, and the royal mantle, crown, and
diamonds, which Faller described, were all before her eyes.
How different from all this was Lenz's "home!" darker and darker became
the shadows that obscured his soul; everything that passed seemed full
of bitterness and woe.
When he could not escape being present at the practisings and meetings
of the Choral Society, and was forced to sing songs of love,
tenderness, and delight, his soul was sad within him. Is it really so?
is it possible? Have men ever existed, so full of love and joy? and yet
once on a time you too.... He often insisted on singing mournful
melodies, and his companions were astonished at the heartrending tones
of his voice, which sounded like the most touching lament; but while
formerly he could never sing enough, he now soon gave over, and
complained of fatigue, and was quickly displeased by any casual word,
and then, as quickly offering his hand, and asking forgiveness, where
there really was nothing to forgive.
Lenz tried to check such gloomy feelings, and said to himself that his
irritable, nervous state proceeded from not being sufficiently
industrious. He, therefore, now eagerly resumed his labours, but there
seemed no blessing on his toil; he was often obliged to take out and
throw aside what he had worked hard at half the night. His hand often
trembled when he tried to guide the file, and even his father's file
that he had sharpened afresh, and that had never failed in soothing
him, had lost its influence. Angry with himself, he forced himself to
be quiet and attentive to his work. "If you lose that too," said he,
"then you have lost all--once on a time, you were happy alone with your
art, now you must be the same. Just as one may hear a piece of music,
in the midst of a noise from other causes, and you can perfectly
distinguish the melody--so you must again become absorbed in your
calling, and determine not to heed the tumult around you. If you
resolve not to listen to it, you will not hear it. Be strong in your
will."
Lenz succeeded in again working in a quiet and orderly manner--there
was only wanting one little word from Annele. If she only had said:--"I
am so glad to see you once more in your old place." He thought he could
have done without this word, but yet he could not. Annele had these
very words often on her lips, but she never uttered them, for at the
swing-door her pride said again: "Why should you praise him, when he is
only doing his duty? and now what a blessing it would be if we had only
an inn; he works best when he is alone, when no one takes any notice of
him; and then I should be in the public room and he in his workshop,
and all would go well."
His work now cost Lenz double toil, and he was fairly exhausted at
night, which had never before been the case; till now, he had never
found his work knock him up; he allowed himself, however, no
recreation, he feared losing everything, and no longer to find a single
resource, if he once left his house and his workshop.
For weeks he never went into the village, and Annele was often with her
parents.
A particular occurrence at last caused him to leave his house. Pilgrim
was dangerously ill. Lenz sat up with him night after night, and it
was a great effort of friendship to do so, for Annele had said to
him:--"Your good deeds towards Pilgrim are only a cloak for your
laziness, and for your slovenly, indolent nature. You fancy that you
have played a good part in the world, whereas you have done nothing,
and succeed in nothing. What are you good for?" He breathed more
hurriedly when he heard these insulting words; he felt as if a stone
had fallen on his heart and crushed it, and the stone was not to be
moved.
"Now," said he, "there is nothing more that you can say to me, except
that I behaved badly to my mother."
"Yes! and so you did--so you did! Hörger Toni, your cousin, who is now
in America, often said before us, that a greater hypocrite than you did
not exist, and that he was called in a thousand times to make up your
quarrels with your mother."
"You say that simply because you would like to see me in a rage again,
but you shall not succeed; it does not distress me in the least. Why do
you quote a person in America? Why not some one here? But you only wish
to sting me--good night!"
He went to Pilgrim, who was now convalescent, and stayed all night with
him. As Pilgrim was getting better, he was naturally in good spirits,
and Lenz was unwilling to destroy his cheerfulness; on the contrary, he
listened patiently when Pilgrim related to him:--"During my illness, I
learned to comprehend how it is that a bird all his life long only
twitters a couple of notes. In the half life of a dreamy state, even
one tone is sufficient. During four long weeks, my soul was haunted by
this solitary notion. Man has no wings, but he has got lungs, and even
with one lung left, I may still live to eat potatoes for seventy seven
years, and if I had been a bird I would have incessantly whistled, like
a silly bird, 'one lung, two lungs, two lungs, one lung,' just like a
grasshopper."
The words that haunted Lenz were also few but sad. No one should hear
them.
"A reference to the Bible," continued Pilgrim cheerfully, "quite
confirmed my fixed resolution to remain a bachelor and alone, for it is
clearly written there, that man was at first alone in the world,--the
woman never was alone,--and that it is good that man _can_ live alone.
Only I change one little word, and say it is good that man _should_ be
alone."
Lenz smiled, but he felt the application.
Next morning Lenz, having sat up all night, went home weary and as pale
as death to his work, and when he saw his children, he said:--
"I scarcely knew that I had children."
"No doubt you forget them utterly," said Annele.
Lenz again felt a stab in his heart, but he did not feel it so acutely
as formerly, and when he looked up at his mother's picture, he
exclaimed:--
"Mother! mother! She has slandered you too! can you not speak? Do not
punish her, intercede with God not to visit her with a judgment for her
sin. If he punishes her, my poor children and I must suffer also. Help
me, dear mother, and influence her no longer to crush my heart. You
know me--you alone--beloved mother!"
"I can't listen to such mummery," said Annele, and went with the two
children to the kitchen.
The stress on the mainspring was severe.
CHAPTER XXVI.
THE AXE IS PUT TO THE ROOT OF LIFE, AND
TEARS ARE SHED.
It had been a sultry day, and was still a close, sultry evening, when
the Landlord of the Lion, who had driven to the town in an open calèche
with his pair of chesnuts, returned home. When he was driving through
the village, he looked round in a strange manner to the right and to
the left, and greeted every one with unusual politeness. Gregor, who
had driven him, was in his postilion's dress, but had no horn, got down
and unharnessed the horses, and yet the Landlord still sat motionless
in the calèche. He was gazing thoughtfully at his Inn, and then again
at the carriage and horses. When, at last, he alighted and stood on the
ground, he sighed deeply, for he knew it was the last time he should
ever drive in an equipage of his own. All seems just as usual, and only
one single man, besides himself, knows what will soon be. He went
upstairs with a heavy step; his wife was on the landingplace above, and
whispered to him:--
"How is it settled?"
"All will be arranged," answered the Landlord, pushing quickly past his
wife to the public room, and not going first into the back parlour, as
he usually did when he came home. He gave the maid his hat and stick,
and joined the guests present. His dinner was brought to him at the
guests' table by his own desire, but he did not seem to relish it.
The guests stayed till late at night, and he stayed with them; he spoke
little, but even his sitting with them was considered a great attention
and pleasure.
The wife had gone to bed, and after she had been long asleep, the
Landlord also retired to rest--but rest he found none, for an invisible
power drew away the pillow from under his head: this bed, this house,
all here will be no longer yours tomorrow! His thoughts chiefly turned
on the calèche and the chesnut horses. He hastily rubbed his eyes, for
he suddenly thought that the two horses were in his room, stretching
out their heads over his bed, breathing hard, and staring at him with
their great eyes. He tried to compose his nerves, especially dwelling
on the fact, that he had borne his sorrows like a man. He had said
nothing to his wife, she should sleep soundly this night at least; it
will be time enough for her to hear the bad news in the morning, and
then not till after breakfast. When we have had a good night's rest,
and are thus strengthened and refreshed, and bright day is shining on
us, we can bear even the worst tidings with more fortitude.
Day dawned at last, and the landlord, who was quite worn out, begged
his wife, for once, to breakfast alone. At last he came downstairs, ate
a good breakfast, and, as his wife urged him to tell her what
arrangements had been made, he said:--
"Wife, I let you enjoy a peaceful night and morning, so now show some
strength of mind, and hear my tidings with composure and resignation.
At this very hour, my lawyer is announcing my bankruptcy in the next
town."
The Landlady sat for a time dumb and motionless; at last she said:--
"And pray why did you not tell me this last night?"
"From the wish to spare you, and to let you pass the night in peace and
quiet."
"Spare me? You? A greater simpleton does not live! If you had told me
all this last night, I might have contrived to put out of the way a
vast deal of property, that would have stood us in good stead for years
to come, but now the thing is impossible. Help! Help! Oh Heavens!"
screamed the landlady, suddenly, in the midst of their calm
conversation, sinking back into a chair, apparently fainting.
The maids from the kitchen, and Gregor the postilion, rushed into the
room. The Landlady started up and said, sobbing and turning to her
husband:--
"You hid it from me, you never told me a word about it, or that you are
now a bankrupt. All the shame, and all the disgrace rest on you; I am
innocent, wretched creature that I am!"
It would now have been the Landlord's turn to faint away, if his
determined will had not supported him; his spectacles fell down from
his forehead over his eyes of their own accord, to let him see plainly
if what was passing here was really true: this woman, who had never
rested till he, the experienced baker and brewer, went into partnership
with her brother in a large concern for selling clocks, and when his
brother-in-law died, almost forced him to continue the business alone,
although he understood very little of such a traffic;--this woman, who
had always urged him on to fresh speculations, and knew his
involvements even better than he did himself;--this woman had now
summoned the rabble as witnesses, in order to devolve the whole shame
and blame on him.
It was not till this minute that the Landlord of the Lion fully
realized the extent of his misery; they had lived together thirty-five
years, on looking back,--and on looking forwards, who knows how many
more were to come?--and in order to save herself, and expose him to all
the blame, his wife could carry her hypocrisy to such an extent as
this.
His spectacles were dimmed, so that he could no longer see through
them; he first quietly wiped his glasses with his handkerchief, and
then his eyes.
At this moment he felt a degree of resentment and rancour that was
never afterwards effaced; but the proud Landlady soon resumed her
wonted calmness and composure.
When the maids and the postilion had left the room, the Landlord
said:--
"You know best why you have done this; I have no idea what good it can
do, but I shall not say one word more on the subject."
He persisted in this resolution and maintained entire silence, and let
his wife lament and complain as she thought fit. It had always rather
amused him to see how placid and amiable his wife affected to be in the
world. He almost became now, in reality, the wise man he had hitherto
been considered, for during all the violent speeches of his wife, he
thought--
"It is marvellous what people can arrive at! practice makes
perfection."
The unwise world, however, did not take the sudden downfall of the
Landlord of the Lion so coolly. It rolled like a thunderclap over hill
and valley--the Landlord of the Lion is bankrupt!
It cannot be! it is impossible! who can be sure to stand fast, if the
Landlord of the Lion falls? Even the very Golden Lion itself, on the
sign, seemed to fight against such an idea, and the hooks, by which the
painting was suspended, creaked loudly; but the commissioners of
bankruptcy tame even lions, and do not, in the least, pay respect to
them because they are golden ones. The sign was taken down. The lion
looked very melancholy, one eye being hid by the wall, and the other
seemed dim and sad, as if it wished to be also closed for ever, from
feelings of grief and shame.
There was a great commotion in the village, and a great commotion in
the Morgenhalde also.
Lenz ran down into the village, and then up the hill again to the Lion.
The Landlord was still pacing the public room, looking very grave, and
saying, with an air of dignity:--
"I must bear it like a man."
He very nearly said--"like a man of honour."
The Landlady bewailed and lamented; she had known nothing of it, and
vowed that she would put an end to herself.
"Father-in-law," said Lenz, "may I ask if my money is all lost too?"
"In such a vast heap of money, it is not easy to distinguish to whom
such or such a sum belongs," answered the Landlord, in a sententious
voice. "I intend to arrange my affairs presently. If my creditors grant
me three years, I will pay fifty per cent. Sit down, it's no use
brandishing your hands in that way. Lisabeth," called he into the
kitchen, "my dinner."
The cook brought in a capital dinner, the Landlord quickly pulled off
his cap, said grace, and sinking comfortably into his easy chair, he
helped himself plentifully, and ate with the calm of a true sage. When
the second dish arrived, he looked up at his wife, and said:--
"You should also sit down; the best pair of horses to help you up a
steep hill, is a slice of good solid meat. Have they sealed up all our
wine, or can you get me some?"
"It is all sealed up."
"Then make me presently some good coffee, to refresh me."
Lenz seized his hair with his hands. Is he insane? How is it possible
that the man, owing to whom hundreds are at this minute in despair as
to how they are to live, can be comfortably enjoying his dinner? The
landlord was condescending and talkative, and praised Annele for not
also rushing into the house, and adding to all these useless
lamentations:--
"You have, indeed, a clever, industrious wife, the most sensible of all
my children. It is a pity she is not a man, for she has an enterprising
spirit; all would have been very different had she been a man. It is
much to be regretted that Annele is not at the head of some extensive
business; a large hotel would suit her exactly."
Lenz was indignant at his boasting, and his whole demeanour, at such an
hour as this; but he strove to suppress this feeling, and, after an
inward struggle, he said in a timid, almost humble tone:--
"Father-in-law, be sure above all things to take care that the wood
behind my house is not cut down. I have heard people felling trees
there all this morning,--this must not be."
The more mildly Lenz said this, the more vociferously the Landlord
exclaimed:--
"Why not? he who has bought the wood can do as he pleases with it."
"Father-in-law, you promised me that wood."
"But you did not accept it. The wood is sold to a wood merchant at
Trenzlingen."
"But I say you have no power to sell it; that wood is the sole shelter
of my roof. Some of the single trees may be cut down, but the whole
wood must not be levelled. This is the same state in which it has been
preserved for hundreds of years. My grandfather himself told me so."
"That is nothing to me. I have other things to think about just now."
"Oh Heavens!" cried Lenz, with emotion, "what have you done? You have
deprived me of what I value most on earth."
"Really! is money everything? I did not before know that even your
heart, too, was buried in money bags."
"Oh no! you have caused me to seek afresh for parents."
"You are old enough to live as an orphan; but I know you are one of
those, who, even when they are grandfathers themselves, go whining
about, and saying, 'Mother! mother! your precious child is injured!'"
Thus spoke the Landlord, and no one could have believed that he could
be so spiteful. Lenz chanced to be the only one of his creditors who
came within his reach, so he vented the whole burden of his wrath on
his head.
Lenz was alternately pale and flushed, his lips trembled, and he
said:--
"You are the grandfather of my children, and you know what you have
robbed them of. I would not have your conscience for the world. But the
wood shall not be cut down. I will try the question at law."
"Very well; do just as you please about it," said the Landlord, pouring
out his coffee.
Lenz could no longer bear to stay in the room.
On the stone bench before the Lion sat a careworn figure; it was
Pröbler. He told every one who passed by, that he was waiting here for
the commissioners to arrive, for he had pawned his best work to the
Landlord upstairs, and it was one in which he had combined all his
discoveries; it must on no account be included in the inventory of
sale, that other people might see it and imitate it, and thus he would
have no profit after all his trouble. The commission of bankruptcy must
first secure him a patent from government, which would make him both
rich and famous. Lenz took a great deal of trouble to soothe the old
man, but he clung fast to his idea, and would not be persuaded to move
from the spot.
Lenz went on his way, for he had enough to do for himself. He hurried
to his uncle Petrowitsch, who said with an air of great triumph:--
"There now! did I not say so? in this very room on the day when you
wished me to go with you to propose for Annele, did I not distinctly
tell you that the Landlord of the Lion had not paid for the velvet cap
on his head, or the boots on his feet? and even his portly person he
acquired from devouring the substance of others."
"Yes, yes, uncle, you were right. You are a sensible man, but help me
now."
"You don't require to be helped."
Lenz related the circumstance about the wood.
"Perhaps we may manage to do some good there," said Petrowitsch.
"Heaven be praised! If I could only get the wood!"
"Not the most remote chance of such a thing; the wood is already sold;
but they have only a right to cut down one half of it. The wood is the
only safeguard for your house, no one living has a right to cut it down
altogether. We will soon show this famous wood merchant from
Trenzlingen that we are the masters on that point."
"But my house! my home!" exclaimed Lenz; he felt as if it was about to
fall down, and he must rush home to save it.
"Your home! you certainly are not very much at home in this matter,"
said Petrowitsch, laughing at his own wit. "Go to the mayor and put in
your claim. Only one thing more, Lenz; I never will again place faith
in any man living; I told you on a former occasion, that your wife was
the only good one of the family. You see I was not deceived about the
two others. I now tell you that your wife knew it long ago, ay, for
years past she knew beyond a doubt how her father's affairs stood, and
you were the cat's paw, because the doctor's son-in-law, the Techniker,
would have nothing to do with her, and he was quite right too."
"Uncle, why do you tell me that just now?"
"Why? because it is true. I can bring forward witnesses to prove it."
"But why now?"
"Is there any time when we ought not to tell the truth? I always
thought that you and your Pilgrim had been two such heroic persons. I
will tell you what you are. No man could be poorer than you, even
before you lost your money, for you were always fretting and grumbling,
and nothing can be more despicable than such a man; his sack must
always have a hole in it. Yes, you are a regular grumbler, always
regretting what you did the day before, and thinking, 'Oh! how
unfortunate I am, and yet I meant well!'"
"You are very hard on me, uncle."
"Because you are too soft and yielding in your ways. Pray be firm and
manly for once, and don't let your wife suffer; treat her kindly, for
she is now far more miserable than you."
"You think so?"
"Yes. Annele of the Lion, once so proud, will feel it a sad blow, when
she can no longer think that every one is proud of her saying good
morning to them."
"She is no longer Annele of the Lion, she is my wife."
"Yes, before God and man; she was your own free choice; I did my best
to dissuade you!"
Lenz hurried to the doctor, who was also the chief magistrate, but did
not find him at home; his way seemed to lie through thorns that tore
and lacerated him; good friends were not at home, and malicious people
now freely uttered the malevolence they had secretly felt, and jeered
at him and tormented him, now that he was helpless. He went homewards,
but ran past his house to the wood, and ordered the woodcutters
instantly to desist, saying: "You have no right to cut trees here."
"Will you pay us our day's work?"
"Yes."
"Very well," They took their axes and went home.
In his own house Lenz found Annele pressing her children to her heart,
and crying out: "Oh! my poor children, you must beg! my poor infants!"
"Not so long as I have life and health," said Lenz; "remember I am your
husband, only be calm and good-tempered."
"Good-tempered! I never in my life did harm to any one; and you are
mistaken if you think now that you can make me your slave, and that I
shall creep at your feet, on account of my poor father's misfortunes.
Just the reverse! I won't give way in the smallest thing. It is now
your turn to show some of that benevolence you are so proud of. Show me
how you can stand by your wife."
"I will do so, undoubtedly; but unless a hand is opened, how can
anything be placed in it?"
"Had you only followed my advice, and bought the Lion, we should have
been provided for, and the house would not have been transferred to
strangers; above all, don't say one word to me about your money! On the
very spot where you are now sitting, you sat on that day; and here I
stood, and here your glass stood so close to the edge of the table,
that I pushed it farther on the table; do you remember? then and there,
I told you plainly and fairly--a prudent man does not part with his
money, not even to my father, nor to any one."
"Did you know of his difficulties at that time?"
"I knew nothing, absolutely nothing; but I did know what prudence
meant, and so leave me in peace."
"Will you not go to your mother? she is in such bitter grief."
"What good could I do? to set her off again in floods of tears at sight
of me? Why should I go down to be stared at, and pitied by all the
people? Am I to hear the Doctor's fine daughters strumming at their
music, and laughing as I pass by? I am quite contented to stay up here
by myself; I don't wish to see anybody."
"No doubt it is all for the best," said Lenz, kindly; "perhaps you will
in future be both better and happier here alone with me. The time may
return, indeed it must surely return, to what it once was, when you
said: 'Up here we are in Paradise, and we will let the world below
drive and rush about here and there, as they please; we can be happy
without that.' We once were happy, and we shall be so again; if you are
only kind to me, I can do as much work as three men, and you need have
no regret on my account, for I did not marry you for your money."
"Nor did I marry you for yours; indeed, I don't think it would have
been worth while; if I had wanted to be rich, I might have got many a
wealthy husband."
"We have been too long together to talk of the marriages we might have
made," said Lenz, interrupting her; "let us go to dinner."
After dinner, Lenz mentioned the affair about the wood, and Annele
said, "Do you know what will be the result?"
"What?"
"Nothing, but that you will be obliged to pay the woodcutters for their
day's work."
"We shall see about that," said Lenz, and went again in the afternoon
to the Doctor's, whom he had not found at home in the morning. On his
way there, he was joined by a very sorrowful companion. Faller came up
to him as pale as death, and exclaiming: "Oh! it is dreadful, too
dreadful! a flash of forked lightning in a calm bright sky!"
Lenz tried to cheer him, saying: "That certainly between three and
four hundred gulden were a heavy loss, but he had no doubt of being
able to bear up against it," and thanked his faithful comrade for his
sympathy. All at once Faller stood still, as if rooted to the spot.
"What! has he involved you too? He owes me thirty-one gulden for
clocks, by which I made very little profit, but I let him keep them as
if they had been in a savings' bank, to pay for a paling to go round my
house; now I am thrown back at least two years."
Lenz wrung his hands, but said he could not stay another moment, as he
must go to the magistrate instantly.
Faller looked after him sadly, and almost forgot his own misery in that
of his friend.
The Doctor was much depressed by the stroke that had ruined the
Landlord of the Lion. The sum that he lost himself was not great, but
the bankruptcy was a misfortune not only to the village, but to the
whole adjacent country.
When Lenz related that he had also suffered, the Doctor exclaimed, in
horror: "So he has involved you too! nothing can surprise me now. How
could he be so wicked? How had he the heart to do it?" but after a time
he said: "How does your wife bear it?"
"She does not bear it at all, she places it all on my shoulders."
Lenz detailed the history of the wood, and urged instant help, that his
house might not be exposed to all the violence of the weather and snow
storms, and to prevent the hill crumbling down on his head. The Doctor
in his magisterial capacity declared: "To level the wood to the ground,
would be a disgrace to the whole country, and would probably destroy
the best well; the one beside the church, which is fed by the wood. At
all events, they must be obliged to leave sufficient timber on the side
of the hill, to be a protection to your dwelling, but we have no power
over them. It is a shame and an iniquity, that the owners of woods may
cut them all down as they please. There is a law against it in
progress, but I fear that if it ever passes, it will be, as it too
often is, a case of shutting the stable door when the steed is stolen."
"But Herr Doctor, this iniquity will affect me first of all; can
nothing be done?"
"I scarcely think so. When the burdens were taken off land, I was not a
magistrate, your father-in-law was then the man. It was omitted to
guard the rights of the community, yours included. To be sure, at that
period no one would have built a house where yours now stands, if it
had been supposed that the wood might be entirely felled some day, but
you have no legal right to protection from the wood; make an
application, however, to the commissioners; I will give you a letter to
them, perhaps they may be able to assist you."
Lenz felt sadly dejected; he could scarcely stir from the spot, but he
dared not make any delay, or think of the law expenses. He took a
carriage, and drove to the next town.
In the meanwhile an almost forgotten person appeared at the
Morgenhalde, and in the gayest attire too. It was cousin Ernestine, the
grocer's wife, from the next town, who had so excited Annele's spite
the first time she drove out with Lenz. She came to visit Annele in a
new silk dress, and a handsome gold watch hanging at her side. She said
she had been in the village, having some money to place in the savings'
bank; they were, thank God! doing well; her husband carried on a
flourishing business, as a house and land agent, and also a pretty
brisk trade in rags; he was also agent for a Fire and Hail Insurance
Office, and on the lives of men and animals, the finely printed cards
of which, were hanging in every shop; that brought a considerable sum,
without incurring any risk, and having come in this direction to
collect arrears, she could not be so near without calling to see
Annele.
Annele thanked her politely, and apologized for not offering her
dinner; Ernestine assured her that she did not come on that account.
"I believe you did not," said Annele; "but these words have a double
interpretation." Annele felt convinced that Ernestine had come on
purpose to have her revenge, in order that Annele, who had always
looked down on her, should now be filled with spite and envy; but
Annele had too long played the part of a landlord's daughter, not to be
able to receive her visitor with the most polite and cordial speeches;
in this manner she did not sacrifice her pride--for she was, after all,
the daughter of the Landlord of the Golden Lion, and the other only a
poor cousin, who had once been a maid in their service; and she hinted
to Ernestine, that the various branches of industry she mentioned,
though very suitable for people of a certain class, would be wholly
unsuitable to those of a higher order.
Ernestine, in truth, was not totally devoid of malice when she went to
the Morgenhalde, although she had brought in the bag on her arm, a
pound of roasted coffee and some white sugar, as an offering to Annele.
When, however, she saw her, these spiteful feelings were changed into
sincere pity, and when Annele treated her so haughtily, she quickly
subsided into her usual meek submissiveness, and totally forgot her new
silk gown and her gold watch. The present she had intended for Annele,
she now converted into a mere sample of her goods, which, she said, she
offered to her, in the hope of getting her custom, and she shed very
heartfelt tears, when she said:--"That if all the persons who had
received benefits from the Golden Lion, would now repay them in kind,
Annele's parents would have wherewithal to live on for a hundred years
to come; and she added, in all sincerity, that if Annele had only
remained in the Lion after her marriage, the inn would now have been as
flourishing as in good old times."
This tempting bait made Annele forget old discord, and all the odious
new finery of her cousin. Now there began an exchange of reminiscences
of old days, intermingled with lamentations over the present, and false
ungrateful people; and they agreed so perfectly, that Annele and
Ernestine parted as if they had been the dearest friends from time
immemorial, and had always lived together like sisters. Annele escorted
Ernestine part of the way, and commissioned her to tell her husband to
look out for a respectable inn, which might be bought and made
profitable, especially where there was a brisk traffic in changing
horses, and then she and Lenz would sell their house on the
Morgenhalde.
Ernestine promised every attention to her wishes, and repeatedly begged
Annele not to send to any one but her for groceries.
When Annele returned home, many were the thoughts that passed through
her head: "Our inn provided for so many people in its day, and ensured
their success in life, and now we are to sink into nothing! Even the
simple Ernestine had her wits sharpened up with us, so that she can now
actually conduct a shop, and has made a man of her shabby, ruined
tailor. Once on a time, she was only too glad to wear my old clothes,
and now, how she is dressed out!--like a steward's wife, rustling in
silk, and rattling the gold in her purse: and I am not to get on in
life, but to remain vegetating and fading away here, and even accepting
benefits from Ernestine! for her heart failed her to offer me the
coffee and sugar as a gift, so she pretended they were merely samples
of her wares.--No, no, my good clockmaker! I intend to wind you up, and
set you going in a strain of music you never heard before!"
She was very much satisfied at having given Ernestine orders, to find
out a profitable inn for them. When any step is once taken, a line of
conduct is quickly settled accordingly.
In the mean time she tried to be calm and quiet. Not till late at
night, did Lenz return from the town with an adverse decision. There
was no legal right on this property to the shelter of the wood; and
when Lenz awoke in the morning, and heard the strokes of the axe on the
hill behind his house, every stroke seemed to cut into his flesh.
"I might as well die at once," said he to himself, despondingly, as he
went to his work. The whole day he never said a word, and not till
night, when he put out the light in his room, did he say aloud:--"I
wish I could extinguish my life like this."
Annele pretended not to hear him.
Annele had as yet shed no tear, either for her own misfortunes, or the
misery of her parents. With the exception of bewailing the fate of her
children, when she first heard what had occurred, she was calm and
composed. When, however, morning after morning, no more newly baked
white bread came from the village, when she placed the loaf on the
table beside the coffee, bitter tears rolled down her cheeks and
dropped on the bread: she cut it off before Lenz saw it, and swallowed
the bread steeped in her tears.
CHAPTER XXVII.
EVERYTHING GONE.
The Commissioners of Bankruptcy dragged everything into open day, and
then came to light all the "Lion's" secret doings. The Landlord then
appeared in all his iniquity.
In order to give security to people who, being strangers, were cautious
in their dealings with him, he had deliberately deceived those who were
connected with him, and dependent on him. Even his own postilions had
lost their hardly earned savings. Poor clockmakers went up and down the
village, complaining that the Landlord had robbed them of months and
years of their lives, and they would all have been ready to swear that
he was the most upright man in the whole country, far or near. The
Landlady fared no better, in spite of her affectation of entire
innocence. She had always made a great show in her house, and talked so
big, and been so condescending to everybody! The Landlord had only
deceived by his silence, and gloried in being called an honest man
right and left, and correct and accurate into the bargain.
Many of the creditors came to Lenz at the Morgenhalde; they were not
deterred by the distance; being in the village, at all events they
thought they had a right to see the whole extent of the misfortune. It
was from a mixture of compassion, and the wish to console him for his
still greater losses, that they all deplored that Lenz should have been
so shamefully taken in. Many comforted him by saying that perhaps he
would inherit from his uncle, and assured him that if he one day became
rich, they would ask no compensation from him,--indeed they had no
right to do so. Wherever Lenz was seen, he was pitied and condoled with
on the wickedness of his father-in-law, who had robbed his own son.
There was only one solitary individual who still spoke a good word for
the Landlord of the "Lion," and that was Pilgrim, and he did so
cordially; always maintaining, in Lenz's house, that the Landlord had
only been deceived in his calculations, that he had placed entire faith
in the success of his Brazilian speculation, which had failed, and that
he was not a bad man: this entirely won Annele's heart, for she had
always been very fond of her father. She did not hesitate openly to
admit that her mother was a hypocrite; and yet they were constantly
closeted together; and it was reported in the village that the Landlady
was anxious to dispose of all the things she had secreted, by conveying
them to Lenz's house. A poor clockmaker came straight to Lenz one day,
and declared he would not say a word of these secret doings if he was
only paid his own deposit. Lenz summoned his wife, and told her that he
would never forgive her, if she received into the house one single
article that ought to have been given up to the creditors. Annele swore
on the head of her child, that such a thing had never occurred and
never should. Lenz removed her hand from the head of the child, for he
disliked all oaths. Annele told the truth, for the house on the
Morgenhalde harboured no forfeited property. The mother-in-law was,
however, often there. Lenz seldom spoke to her, and it proved very
convenient that Franzl was no longer one of the family, for the new
maid--a near relation of Annele's--conveyed repeatedly at night to the
adjacent village, heavy baskets from the "Lion," and the grocer's wife,
Ernestine, managed to turn all their contents into money.
People had pitied Lenz, because his father-in-law's ruin would probably
be fatal to him also. He had answered confidently that he would stand
firm; now, however, there was an incessant coming and going. Wherever
Lenz owed a few kreuzers they were demanded from him, and he no longer
got credit from anyone. Lenz did not know which way to turn, and he
dared not confess to Annele the most severe blow of all, for she had
warned him against it,--in the midst of all these troubles, Faller's
creditors called up the sum due on his house; Lenz's security being no
longer valid in their eyes. Faller was in an agony of distress when he
was forced to tell this to Lenz, bewailing that, being a married man,
he did not know where to lay his head.
Lenz unhesitatingly promised him speedy help; his former good name, and
that of his parents, would still be remembered. The world cannot be so
hard as to forget the well known integrity of his family.
Annele only knew of the smaller debts, and said:--"Go to your uncle, he
must assist you."
Yes, to his uncle! Petrowitsch made a point of invariably leaving the
village when a funeral took place there--not from compassion--but it
was a disagreeable sight--and the very day after the ruin of the
Landlord, Petrowitsch left home, yielding up on this occasion the
unripe cherries in his avenue, as a harvest to the passers by, and he
did not return till winter had fairly set in, and a new landlord
settled in the "Golden Lion," the old proprietors having gone to live
in a house adjoining that of their son-in-law, the wood merchant, in a
neighbouring town. The old Landlord of the "Lion" had borne his fate
with almost admirable equanimity; once only, at a little distance from
the village, when the Techniker drove past him in his calèche, with his
two chesnuts, the Landlord lost his usual phlegmatic composure, but no
one saw him stagger and stumble into a ditch, where he lay for a long
time, till at last he managed to scramble out.
Petrowitsch walked now in a different direction. He no longer passed
Lenz's house, nor went to the wood, which was, indeed, by this time
nearly cut down.
Lenz used to sit up late calculating; he could devise nothing, and soon
a sum was offered to him, but it seemed to him as burning as if it had
been coined in the Devil's workshop.
Ernestine's husband came one day with a stranger to the Morgenhalde,
and said:--"Lenz, here is a person who will buy your house."
"What do you mean? my house?"
"Yes, you said so yourself; it is of much less value now that it
formerly was, for since the wood has been felled, its situation is very
dangerous, but still proper precautions may be taken."
"Who, pray, said I wished to sell my house?"
"Your wife."
"What? my wife? Come in: Annele, did you say I would sell my house?"
"Not exactly; I only said to Ernestine, that if her husband knew of a
respectable inn in a good situation, we would buy it, and then sell our
house here."
"But it is more prudent," said the Grocer, "to dispose of your house
first; with ready money in hand, you will easily get a suitable inn."
Lenz looked pale and agitated, but simply said:--"I have no intention
whatever of selling my house."
The Grocer and his friend were angry and displeased at such capricious
people, who would take no advice, and caused so much trouble for
nothing.
Lenz nearly got into a rage with them, but he had sufficient command
over himself to say nothing in reply. When he was at last left alone
with Annele, she did not speak a word, though he looked at her several
times; he at length said:--"Why did you do this to me?"
"To you? I did nothing to you; but it must be so--we shall have no
peace till we leave this place. I won't stay here any longer, and I am
determined to keep an inn, and you shall see that I will make more by
it in a single year, ay, three times as much as you, with all your
worry about your pegs and wheels."
"And do you really think you can force me to take such a step?"
"You will thank me one day for insisting on it; it is not easy to force
you to give up your old ways, and to leave this house."
"I am leaving it now, this minute," said Lenz in a low voice; and,
hastily drawing on his coat, he left the house.
Annele ran after him a few steps.
"Where are you going to, Lenz?"
He made no answer, but proceeded to climb the hill.
When he reached the crest of the hill, he looked round once. There lay
his paternal house; no longer sheltered by trees, it looked bleak and
naked, and he felt as if his whole life had been also laid bare. He
turned again, and rushed on further. His idea was to go far, far away,
and when he returned he might be different, and the world also. He
plodded on further and further, and yet an irresistible impulse urged
him to turn back. At last he sat down on the stump of a tree, and
covered his face with both his hands. It was a still, mild, autumnal
afternoon, the sun had kindly intentions towards the earth, and more
especially to the Morgenhalde; he still shed warm rays on the felled
trees which he had shone on, and renovated, for so many long years. The
magpies were chattering fluently on the chesnut trees below, and the
woodpecker sometimes put in his word. All was night and death within
Lenz's soul. A child suddenly said: "Man! come, and help me with this."
Lenz rose and helped Faller's eldest little girl, who had been
collecting chips, to place her basket on her shoulder. The child
started when she recognized Lenz, and ran down the hill. Lenz gazed
long after her.
It was quite night when he came home. He did not say a word, and sat
for more than an hour looking down fixedly. He then glanced up at his
tools hanging on the wall, with a singular, earnest expression, as if
he were trying to remember what they were, and what purpose they were
meant to serve.
The child in the next room began to cry; Annele went to it, and the
only way she could pacify it was by singing.
A mother will sing for the sake of her child, even if her heart is
crushed by a burden of sorrow. Lenz then rose and went into the next
room, and said:--
"Annele, I was on the point of leaving the country for ever--yes, you
may laugh: I knew that you would laugh."
"I am not laughing; it already occurred to me, that perhaps it would be
a good thing if you could travel for a year, and try to retrieve our
fortunes; possibly you might return with some sense, and things would
go on more smoothly."
It cut Lenz to the heart that Annele should be eager for him to leave
her, but he only said--"I could not make up my mind to go, when
everything went well with me, still less can I do so now, when I am so
miserable at heart. I am nothing, and good for nothing, if I have not a
single happy thought in my soul."
"Now I must laugh at you," said Annele, "you could not travel, either
when you were happy, or unhappy."
"I don't understand you; I never did understand you, or you me."
"The worst of all is, that there is not only misery without, but misery
within."
"Put an end to it then, and be kind and good."
"Don't speak so loud, you will wake the child again," said Annele; as
soon as this subject engaged her thoughts, she would not utter a
syllable.
Lenz returned to the next room; and when Annele came in, leaving the
door ajar, he said:--"Now that we are in sorrow, we should love and
cherish each other more than ever; it is the only comfort left to us,
and yet you will not--why will you not?"
"Love cannot be forced."
"Then I must go away."
"And I will stay at home," said Annele, in a desponding voice, "I will
stay with my children."
"They are as much mine as yours."
"No doubt;" said Annele, in a hard tone.
"There is the clock beginning to play its old melodies," said Lenz,
hurriedly, "I cannot bear to hear a single tone--never again! If one of
them could dash out my brains, it would be best, for I cannot get a
single thought out of them. Can't you say a kind word to me, Annele?"
"I don't know any."
"Then I will say one--Let us make peace, and all will be well."
"I am quite content to do so."
"Can't you throw your arms round my neck, and rejoice that I am here
again?"
"Not tonight; perhaps tomorrow I may."
"And if I were to die this very night?"
"Then I should be a widow."
"And marry another?"
"If any one would have me."
"You wish to drive me mad."
"I need not do much for that."
"Oh! Annele, what will be the end of all this?"
"God knows!"
"Annele! was there not a time when we loved each other dearly?"
"Yes; I suppose we once did."
"And cannot it be so again?"
"I don't know."
"Why do you give me such answers?"
"Because you ask me such questions."
Lenz hid his face with his hands, and sat thus half the night; he tried
to reflect on his position, and why, in addition to the wreck of his
fortune, there should also be the wreck of his happiness--it was,
indeed, horrible! He could not discover the cause, though he thought
over all that had occurred from his wedding day to the present
time:--"I cannot find it out," cried he; "if a voice from Heaven would
only tell me!"--but no voice came from Heaven, all was still and silent
in the house; the clocks alone continued to tick together. Lenz looked
long out at the window.
The night was calm; nothing stirred, but snow laden clouds were
hurrying along, high up in the sky.
Far off yonder on the hill, a light is burning at the blacksmith's
house; it burned the whole night the blacksmith died today.
"Why did he die instead of me? I would so gladly have died." Life and
death chased each other in wild confusion through Lenz's soul; the
living seemed to him no longer to live, nor the dead to die--the whole
of life is only one long calamity--no bird ever sung, no man ever
uplifted his voice in melody.
Lenz's forehead fell on the window sill, he started up in terror, and
to escape such horrible waking dreams, he sought repose and
forgetfulness in sleep.
Annele had been long asleep: he gazed intently at her. If he could only
read her dreams; if he could only succour her--her and himself too.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
A BEGGAR, AND MONEY SAVED.
We are in a country where no thaw comes for many months when once the
frost fairly sets in. The Morgenhalde is the only exception to this;
there the sun usually shone with such power, that there were drops from
the roof, while elsewhere heavy icicles were suspended motionless from
the houses. This winter, however, the sun in the sky seemed less benign
towards the Morgenhalde than in old times. There was no sign of any
thaw outside the house nor inside. It was not only colder than it had
ever been before--this was no doubt caused by the wood on the side of
the hill being cut down; the trunks were all lying about, only waiting
for the spring floods to be floated down into the valley--but those who
lived in the Morgenhalde seemed frozen also. Annele seemed no longer
able to wake up to life and activity; there seemed something congealed
within her, which a warm breath could scarcely have thawed, and that
warm breath never came. She who had lived so long with her parents at
home, now when they had left the place, felt their loss sadly. She said
nothing to any one, but a worm gnawed at her heart, in the thought that
she was the only poor one of the family. She could do nothing for her
parents, nor assist in supporting them; indeed--who knows?--perhaps she
must one day go begging to her own sisters, and entreat of them to give
the cast off clothes of their children to hers.
Annele went through the house silently, and she, who was once so
talkative, scarcely ever spoke. She answered at once when she was asked
any question, but not a word more. She scarcely ever left the house,
and her former restlessness seemed to have been transferred to Lenz. He
despaired of ever again making anything of his work; and, therefore,
the tools he handled, and the chair on which he sat, seemed burning.
He had besides constantly small creditors to pacify, and was obliged to
be civil to every one. He who once upon a time said, simply, "So and so
is the case," and was believed, must now give the most strong and
sacred assurances, that he would eventually pay the claimants. The
greater was his anxiety, therefore, to redeem his pledged word, and he
despaired of saving his honour, more than was at all necessary. His
thoughts were constantly occupied by this and that person, waiting
anxiously for their money, and his gloom and uneasiness daily
increased. Annele saw well enough that he tormented himself needlessly,
and she was often on the point of dispatching these unfortunate duns,
with sharp words, and saying to Lenz that he should not be so humble to
them, for the more meek people are in this world, the more are they
trampled on. But she kept this to herself, for his anxiety would assist
in accomplishing the project she had never given up. An inn must be
bought, and then the world would have a very different aspect.
In his solicitude and despair, Lenz felt all the desolation of his
heart, and often he stole a glance at Annele, and though he did not say
it, he thought: "You are right, you told me once I was good for
nothing--it is true now, for I am no longer good for anything; care
gnaws at my heart, and our discord crushes me to the earth. I am like a
candle lighted at both ends. Oh! if this were only soon at an end for
ever!"
Watches and clocks were brought to him to be repaired, and in this way
he cleared off some of his smaller debts; but it was sad to work now
only to efface the past, when all his labour was required for the
current expenses of the day, and no prospect for the future.
Many remained sitting with him till he had finished the work they had
brought him to do, thus keeping him a prisoner in his own house, and
yet he could not venture to send them away. Others took home their
unfinished goods with hard and cruel words. "This can no longer go on,
some substantial succour must be found," said Lenz to Annele; "I must
again feel solid ground under my feet." She nodded slightly, but
already the strong will within him inspired him with new strength.
Early next morning Lenz resolved to visit his mother's relatives, who
lived on the other side of the valley; they would certainly help him,
they had always been so proud of him, that they could not let him be
entirely swamped.
Just as he arrived on the mountain ridge, day dawned, the stars in the
sky grew pale, and Lenz gazed at the spacious snow covered region.
Nowhere a symptom of life. Why should I live either? An expression
taken from his sleepless nights, to signify total want of sleep,
recurred to his memory--a _white sleep_--here it is! This feverish mood
of his dreams made his cheeks burn, and an icy blast rushed over the
heights.
Lenz was startled out of his reverie, by the wind carrying away his hat
down a steep precipice. Lenz was hurrying after it, but he suddenly saw
that he was rushing to certain death. It crossed his mind that it would
be a good thing if he were to lose his life by an accident; but he
shuddered at such cowardly thoughts.
The hail and snow continued incessantly, almost blinding him; even the
crows in the air could scarcely guide their flight, being first hurled
upwards, and then again dashed down, and those birds, usually flying
along so steadily, fluttered their wings in wild terror and dismay.
Lenz struggled manfully along against snow and wind, and at last he
breathed freer. There the smoke from houses is rising.
Lenz entered the first farmhouse.
"Oh! Lenz! welcome! how glad I am that you have not forgotten me!" said
a tall, stout woman, as he came in; she was standing at the hearth, and
had just broken up a thick branch of a tree; "what have you done with
your hat?"
"Oh! now I recognize you--so it is you, Kathrine? You are grown stout.
I come to you as a beggar."
"Oh! Lenz, not so bad as that I hope?"
"But it is indeed," said Lenz, smiling bitterly. He can even jest on
such a subject. "You must lend me, or give me, an old hat, for the wind
has carried off mine."
"Come into the next room with me. My husband will be so sorry not to
see you; he is gone to superintend timber being carted down the hill
from the wood."
Kathrine--for it was the Bailiff's daughter Kathrine--threw open the
door of the adjoining room, and begged Lenz politely to go in first.
The room was warm and comfortable. Kathrine was not offended by Lenz
frankly owning that he had not come on purpose to see her, for he did
not even know that she lived here; but he was heartily glad that chance
had brought him to her house.
"All your life long you were a truly good and honest man, and I am
thankful to see that you are still the same," said Kathrine. She
fetched an old grey hat, and a military cap of her husband's, and
begged Lenz to take the cap, as the hat was too shabby, and not fit for
him to wear; but Lenz chose the hat, though it was much crushed, and
had no hatband. As Lenz was so positive, Kathrine brought her Sunday's
cap with broad black ribbons, and cutting off one of the strings, she
put it on the hat. In the meanwhile she spoke of her former home, and
forgot no one.
Lenz looked in surprise at the active, energetic woman, who was so
ready to oblige him, and who spoke in such a kind and straightforward
manner; she insisted on Lenz taking a cup of coffee, which she made
ready in a few minutes, and while he was drinking it, Kathrine said,
probably recalling the many memories connected with old times:--"Franzl
often comes to see me, we have always remained the best of friends."
"You look indeed, as if you were prosperous," said Lenz.
"I am thankful to say that I have no cause to complain; I am always
well and healthy, and we have enough for ourselves, and something to
spare for others; besides my husband is honest and industrious. We are
not so merry here, to be sure, as we used to be at home; they can't
sing here, but I should be as happy as the day is long, if we only had
a child; but my husband and I have agreed, that if we have not one by
the time our fifth wedding day arrives, we are to adopt one--Faller, we
think, might spare us one of his, we hope you will help us in this."
"I will, gladly."
"You are sadly altered; you look so wasted away--Is it then really true
that Annele is become so cross, and bad tempered?"
Lenz's face became as red as fire, and Kathrine exclaimed:--"Oh! dear,
how stupid I am! don't take it amiss; I beg your pardon a thousand
times over, I had no intention to offend you, and no doubt there is not
a word of truth in the report: when the days are long, people talk for
ever, and when they are short, they chatter all night too. I beg and
pray you will think no more of it, and forget what I said; I was so
glad to see you again, and now all my gladness is gone, and I shall be
quite unhappy for weeks to come--you were right, and the Landlady of
the 'Lion' too, in saying to Franzl that I was too stupid to be your
wife. Pray, pray, give me back my officious words."
She stretched out her hand to him, as if he could really place her
words in it again.
Lenz grasped her hand cordially, and assured her that so far from being
angry with her, he was most grateful for her kind welcome. He wished to
go away immediately, but Kathrine detained him, talking on at a great
rate, in the hope of making him forget her unlucky question, and when
at last he left the house, she called after him:--"Give my love to
Annele, and come together soon to see me."
Lenz pursued his way, wearing the hat he had borrowed; "I have a
regular beggar's hat on now;" said he, with a sad smile.
Kathrine's incautious speech pursued him no doubt in many other houses
as well as here: he was now an object of compassion. This idea tended
to soften his heart, but he would not give way to this weakness, saying
to himself, that it was his own fault for not being more callous.
His stick fell out of his hand at least a hundred times, and each time
that he bent down to pick it up, he could scarcely stand upright again.
Thus it is when a man goes along lost in thought; if his hands were
loose, he would drop them by the way. Collect your thoughts, Lenz!
He made a violent effort, and walked on briskly. The sun was now
shining warm and bright, the icicles hanging from the rocks, glittered
and dropped; the gay song, "Wandern, wandern," that he had sung so
often with his friends, recurred to his mind, but he dismissed it at
once; the man who once sung that in gaiety of heart, must have been a
very different man then.
The relations whom he went to visit were rejoiced to see him on his
arrival, and he recounted the adventure of his hat repeatedly, in order
to account for the shabby appearance it gave him, but when he saw that
his hat never seemed to have been remarked, he made no further allusion
to the subject; and yet precisely where they said nothing they inwardly
thought--"He must be sunk low indeed, to wear such a hat!"
In some houses they were civil, in others rude: "How can you expect us
to help you? you are connected with so grand a family, such rich
connexions through your father-in-law, and an uncle wallowing in
wealth: they are the people who ought to assist you!"
Where people wished to be more kind, they said: "Unluckily we stand in
need of all our money ourselves--we must build, and we have just bought
some land;" or again: "If you had only come to us eight days ago, we
had money, but now we have lent it out on mortgage."
Lenz went on his way with a heavy heart, and when he thought of
returning home, a voice said within him: "Oh! if I might only never
see the Morgenhalde more! To lie down and die in a ditch, or in the
wood,--there are plenty of places to die in,--that would be best for
me!"
An irresistible impulse, however, urged him onwards. "There is
Knuslingen, where Franzl lives with her brother; there is still one
person in the world who will rejoice to see me."
No one in the world could, indeed, be more rejoiced than Franzl when
she saw Lenz. She was sitting at the window, spinning coarse yarn, but
when Lenz came in, she flung the spindle into the air. She carefully
dusted the chair twice over, on which she invited Lenz to sit down, and
kept lamenting that things did not look tidier; she only now remarked
how dull and smoky her room was. She wished to hear all Lenz's news,
and yet she never let him open his lips, she was so busy talking
herself, and saying:--
"When I first came here I thought the cold would have been my death;
for I had been so used to our fine bright sunshine on the Morgenhalde.
There is not a single ray of sun there of which we don't get our share.
Now, however, I have at last become accustomed to do without it; but
Lenz, you look very ill? There is something strange in your face that I
never saw there before--that is not natural to you--Oh! when you smile
like that, I see your old face again--your kindly face. I have prayed
every morning and every evening, since I left you, for you and your
family. I hope you got some good from it. I am no longer angry with
Annele--not in the least: she was quite right; I am regular old lumber.
How are your children? What are they like? What are they called? If I
am still alive next spring, I must see them, even if I creep on my
hands and feet the whole way." And then Franzl went on to say that she
had three hens of her own, and two geese, and a patch of potato land,
also her own. "We are poor," said she, crossing her hands on her
breast, "but, thank God! we have never yet had occasion to see how
other people live; we have always had enough for our own wants, and if
it be God's will, I mean to get a goat next spring." She praised her
geese highly, but still more her poultry. The hens, who had taken up
their winter quarters in a coop near the stove, cackled as if in
gratitude, and turning their red combs first to the right and then to
the left, looked sideways at the man who was hearing all their good
qualities detailed by Franzl. Indeed, the speckled golden Hamburg hen,
whose name was Goldammer, stretched out her wings from joy, and flapped
them cheerfully.
Lenz could not succeed in getting in a word, and Franzl thought she was
consoling him, when she attacked the former Landlady of the "Lion"
fiercely, and then branched off to tell how kind her old acquaintance
Kathrine had been towards her, and the good she did to all the poor
round her. "She gives me food for my hens, and they give me my food in
return."
Franzl could not help laughing at her own joke. At last Lenz managed to
say that he must leave her. Annele is right, he lets himself be
detained too long by anyone, or everyone; even when he is in an agony
to be off, he cannot cut short any person, especially if they are
telling him their sorrows. He felt the justice of Annele's reproaches
at this moment; she seemed to stand behind him to urge him away. He
looked round, as if he really expected to see her, and seized his hat
and his stick; then Franzl begged him to go up with her to her attic,
for she had something to say to him.
Lenz was inwardly troubled. Has Franzl also heard of the discord in his
house? and is she going to talk to him about it? She, however, made no
allusion whatever to such a thing, but she brought forth from the
centre of the straw mattress on her bed, a heavy, well filled shoe,
knotted together with many fastenings, and said:--
"You must do one thing for love of me--I can't sleep at my ease till
then--I implore you to take care of this for me, and to do with it
whatever you choose; there are a hundred gulden and three crown
dollars. I know you will do it, and let me get back my sound sleep."
Lenz would not be persuaded to take the money. Franzl cried bitterly
when he wished to say goodbye to her; she still detained him saying:--
"If you have anything particular to say to your mother, let me know;
for, please God, I shall soon go to her. I will give your message
faithfully, whatever it may be. You may rely on me."
Franzl kept fast hold of Lenz's hand repeating:--
"There was something I had to say to you; I have it on the tip of my
tongue, but I can't remember it, but I am sure to recall it the moment
you are fairly gone. I was to remind you of something--you don't know
what it could be?"
Lenz could make no guess, and at last went away quite reluctantly. He
turned into an alehouse on his way, and was greeted by a shout
of--"Hurrah! capital! it is famous to see you here!"
It was Pröbler who welcomed him so boisterously; he was sitting at a
table with two companions, and a large measure of wine before them.
Pröbler was the spokesman here, and wished to rise to receive Lenz, but
his feet evidently considered it better that he should sit still, and
so he called out in a loud voice:--
"Come and sit down here, Lenz, and let the world outside become
bankrupt, and turn into a mass of snow; it's not worth plaguing one's
self about it. Here let us sit till the last day. I want nothing more,
I care for nothing more, and when I have nothing more, I will sell the
coat off my back and spend the money in good liquor, and then go out
and lie down in the snow, and so save all funeral expenses. Look here,
my friends! You have in this man an example of the shabbiness of the
world. If a man is better conducted than others, he is sure to be
ruined. Drink away, Lenz! See! this was once the best and most honest
man in the world, and yet, how has it used him? His own father-in-law
plundered him, fleecing him in the most shameless way, and causing his
very house to be exposed and defenceless in the depth of winter. Oh!
Lenz, once on a time I was honest too, but I don't even try to be so
now--I am done with it for ever."
Lenz's heart sunk within him, at hearing himself quoted as the most
striking example of a man completely ruined; he little thought ever to
have won such a reputation as that. He strove to persuade Pröbler
that it was no use first to yield to evil courses, and then to
exclaim:--"See, world, what you have made me! Don't you repent it?" He
endeavoured to point out to Pröbler, that no one has any right to
expect the world to do for you, what you ought to do for yourself. A
man must preserve his self respect was the idea uppermost in Lenz at
this moment, but Pröbler would not listen to him; he took a knife from
his pocket, and another from the table, and thrust them both into
Lenz's hand, saying wildly:--
"There you have got both knives; I can do you no harm, I don't want to
do you any harm: say it out at once, if I am not now a wretched
ragamuffin, and if I should not have been good for something if I had a
helping hand in the world. Your father-in-law--may the devil weigh him
one day, fairly, ounce by ounce in his scale!--has smeared his
creaking boots with my life's blood, and a fine polish it made! Say it
out--what am I?"
Lenz, of course, acknowledged that Pröbler would have been a master
mind if he had kept the straight path. Pröbler struck the table with
his clenched fist from joy. Lenz had considerable difficulty in
preventing his embracing him.
"I don't want any other funeral sermon, Lenz has preached mine; and now
say no more, let us drink away as hard as we can."
Pröbler continued to talk wildly, though sometimes a clear thought
flashed through his wandering brain. It was not easy to ascertain
whether it was truth or a mere delusion, that he had lost his small
savings set aside against the evil day, through the Landlord's ruin, or
whether it was the sale of the mysterious work, for which he had
expected a patent, that had reduced him to this state of desperation.
Lenz felt quite faint and oppressed by the close atmosphere of the
room, and the clamour, and tumult, and his hair stood on end when he
saw before his eyes, a living example of the degradation to which a man
can sink, who has lost self respect, and whose only resource is to
forget himself if possible.
"Your mother had a good saying," said Pröbler--"Did I tell you that
this is Lenz of the Morgenhalde?--Yes! Your mother! 'It is better to go
barefooted than to wear torn boots,' she always said. Do you know what
that means? I have another saying however--'When the horse is taken to
the knacker's yard, his shoes are first pulled off.' A tavern--that is
an iron shoe! Wine here!" cried Pröbler, throwing a dollar on the
table.
This mention of his mother's name, and her being alluded to at all,
even in so strange a way, seemed a warning to Lenz, as if her eye had
been sternly fixed on him.
He rose, in spite of Pröbler clinging to his arm. He wished to take
Pröbler home with him, but he could not get him to move from the spot,
so Lenz requested the landlord not to allow the old man to leave the
house tonight, and to give him no more to drink.
When Lenz closed the door behind him, Pröbler threw his snuff box after
him, shouting out:--
"I shall never want it again."
Panting for breath, as if he had just escaped from a hot, stifling
covering, Lenz went on his way in the open air. Twilight was beginning
to fell, the kingfisher was singing on the frozen stream below, the
crows were flying towards the woods; a roedeer came out of the wood and
stood still, looking fixedly at Lenz till he came quite close, when he
sprang hurriedly back into the thicket, and his traces could be
followed a long way by the snow that fell from the branches of the
young firs.
Lenz stood still several times to listen, for he thought he heard his
name shouted out behind him; perhaps Pröbler was following him; he
answered in a loud voice, which was caught up by the echo; he retraced
his steps a considerable way, but he saw and heard nothing; then he
went straight forwards; the trees and the hills seemed to come to meet
him, and he saw a female figure on his path, which looked like his
mother. If she could see him as he now is!
The old woman who met him nodded kindly, and said he must take good
care to be out of the valley before nightfall, for there were black
channels visible in the snow, and avalanches were not unfrequent round
here, and people were swallowed up in a moment, before they could look
round.
The voice of the woman sounded strangely in his ears; it was as if his
mother had really spoken--and a good hearted warning it was.
Lenz made a solemn vow, deep, deep, in his heart. He was anxious not to
return home quite empty handed, so he went to the nearest town to his
brother-in-law, the timber merchant, and was so fortunate as to find
him at home. It was difficult for Lenz to explain his purpose, for his
brother-in-law either was angry, or affected to be so. He reproached
Lenz for not having advised his father-in-law better, and taken the
business out of his hands. Lenz was the chief cause of the old man's
ruin.
Whether the timber merchant were really displeased or pretended to be
so, there is no better mode, at all events, of refusing assistance.
Lenz implored him with uplifted hands to help him, or he must be
utterly ruined. The brother-in-law shrugged his shoulders, and said
Lenz had better apply to his rich uncle Petrowitsch.
CHAPTER XXIX.
ANOTHER WORLD.
"Good evening, Herr Lenz!" called out some one to the unhappy wanderer;
Lenz started--who could call him "Herr" Lenz?
A sledge stopped, the Techniker threw back the furs from his face, and
said:--
"There is plenty of room, let me give you a lift."
He got down, took off a fur cloak, and said:--
"Put this on, and wrap yourself well up in it, for you are heated from
walking; I will take the horse's blankets, which will be quite
sufficient for me."
Resistance was no use. Lenz took his place beside the Techniker,
enveloped in the fur cloak, and the horses stepped out merrily; it was
a most comfortable sledge, and the bells rung out cheerily; it was
almost like flying through the night air, and now, in his poverty and
abandonment, Lenz thought:--
"Annele was perfectly right I ought at this moment to have been driving
my own carriage."
The thought made him still more sad; it was as if some malicious spirit
had disposed every circumstance today, to place before Lenz's eyes the
fact that his life had failed in its aim, and thus to awaken evil
passions within him.
The Techniker was very conversable, and said especially what pleasure
it gave him that Pilgrim was so intimate with them. Pilgrim had a
remarkable sense of colour, but was deficient in correct drawing; he
had himself studied in the academy for a year, but he had seen very
soon that he had little real talent, and that a more practical
profession was better suited to him. Now he was resuming his drawing in
his leisure hours; Pilgrim helped him in the proper tone of colour, and
he repaid this by instructing the latter in drawing; they hoped
mutually to improve each other, and at this moment they were more
particularly occupied in making new patterns for joiners, turners, and
carvers in wood; they had also made various sketches for the dials of
clocks, which would, no doubt, be most welcome and useful to the
clockmakers. Pilgrim had considerable imagination, and seemed quite
delighted that his old favourite project was really likely to be
carried into effect.
Lenz listened to all this as if in a dream. How can this be? are there
still men in the world who can occupy themselves with such things, and
rejoice in mutually improving each other? Lenz said very little, but
the drive did him good. To be carried along so luxuriously, is
certainly better than plodding wearily along hill and valley.
For the first time in his life Lenz felt something like envy. He was
obliged to get out at the Doctor's house, but the kind family there
insisted on his coming into the house.
How comfortable it all seemed! Are there really then such pretty, quiet
houses in the world, where it is so warm and cheerful, and where
blooming hyacinths exhale their fragrance at the window? and the
inhabitants are so kind and peaceful, for it is evident that no
passionate or loud words are heard here; and to see them all sitting
together with their faithful, honest hearts, imparts more warmth than
the best stove.
Lenz must drink some tea. Amanda gave him a cup, and said:--"I am so
glad to have you among us again. How is Annele? If I thought your wife
would like to see me, I should be glad to pay her a visit."
"Since five o'clock this morning--it seems to me eight days--I have not
been at home; I believe Annele is quite well, and I will let you know
when to come to us." After Lenz had said this, he looked round the room
as if seeking some one. And who knows what thoughts passed through his
soul?
How different would it have been if he had married one of these girls!
Pilgrim had positively assured him that he would not have been
rejected. He would then have been sitting here as one of the family,
with a position in the world--and what a position! and his wife would
have honoured and esteemed him, and all the good people here would have
been his relations.
Lenz nearly choked on the first mouthful of tea he swallowed. The old
lady--the Doctor's mother--who was eating her gruel at the tea-table,
had always been very fond of Lenz. She made him sit down beside her,
and as she was deaf, he was obliged to speak loud. She had been the
companion of his mother, and liked to relate anecdotes of her, and how
gay they had been together in their youthful days, especially in their
sledging parties during the carnival, which are now quite out of date.
Marie in those days used to be full of fun and frolic. The old lady
inquired, too, after Franzl, and Lenz mentioned having seen her this
very day--of course he made no allusion to her offer of money--and also
of Kathrine's kindness to Franzl, and her wish to adopt a child. He
related all this very pleasantly. All present listened to him quietly
and attentively, and it seemed quite surprising to Lenz to relate
anything without either being flatly contradicted, or hearing at all
events, "What's all that to me?"
The good old grandmother begged him to come often, and to bring his
wife with him. "Your wife is a clever, good woman; remember me to her
and the children." Lenz felt it so strange to hear all this, and to be
obliged to accept it thankfully. The old lady spoke so cordially, that
there could be no doubt she meant what she said. It was evident that in
this family nothing but good was spoken of any one, and that was the
reason the old lady heard only pleasant things of her neighbours.
"Just as you came in," said the grandmother, "we were speaking of your
father, and also of my dear deceased husband. A clock merchant from
Prussia has just been here, and he said the clocks are not so neatly
finished, as in the days when your father and my husband worked
together; they don't keep time so exactly: but I replied on the
contrary, all honour to the dead! but the present clocks go certainly
quite as well as in the old time, but men were not so exact in those
days as they are now, that is the reason. Am I not right, Lenz? You are
an honest man: say, am I right or wrong?"
Lenz pronounced her to be perfectly right, and said how particularly
good and fair it was on her part, not to allow the good old times to be
praised at the cost of the new.
The Techniker attributed the extreme and strict accuracy of modern
days, to railroads and telegraphs.
Now that the conversation had become more general, the Doctor took Lenz
aside, and said: "Lenz, you will not, I hope, be offended with what I
am about to say." Lenz shrunk from him. Is the Doctor, too, going to
speak to him about the state of his family? He could scarcely stammer
forth: "What do you mean?"
"I only wished to say, if it was not disagreeable to you, and I think
you would perhaps not object to it--but what is the use of a long
preface? I wish you to enter the clock manufactory of my son and my
son-in-law, in the capacity of overseer. You will be of great use to
them, and in time they propose giving you a certain share in the
business, in addition to your salary."
This was like a hand from Heaven stretched forth to succour him. Lenz
replied in feverish haste: "Yes, indeed, I can and will gladly accept.
the offer. But, Herr Doctor, you are aware that I sought by every means
in thy power, to induce all the clockmakers in our district, to enter
into an association. So many things have occupied me lately, that the
affair has gone quite out of my head. I should not like to enter the
manufactory, unless both your sons were to agree that their
establishment should also belong to the association, perhaps one day
become its property."
"That is quite our own idea."
"Very well, then. I have only one favour to ask. Do not mention it till
I----" Lenz stopped short.
"Well! till when?"
"Till I have spoken to my wife about it; she has her peculiarities."
"I know her of old, but she is sensible, when her pride does not
interfere. But we ought to respect her proper pride."
Lenz looked down; the Doctor was giving him a deserved lesson, and with
a good motive as well as in a kind manner. That is the right way to
speak; then advice is useful and acceptable.
His thoughts, however, speedily returned to the manufactory, and he
said: "Herr Doctor, may I take the liberty of asking one more
question?"
"Certainly; don't be so ceremonious."
"Which of our masters, hereabouts, are also to be included?"
"We have not yet spoken to any one--but, by the bye, we wish Pröbler to
be one of our people, though, of course, in a subordinate situation,
not like you; for he has a considerable talent for invention, and has
made various discoveries, that may be made practically useful. It is to
be hoped that the poor old man may prosper in his old age, for he is
becoming most eccentric, indeed, almost crazy, since his secret, for
which he expected a patent, was sold by auction at the 'Lion.'"
Lenz was silent for a time, and then he related where he had found
Pröbler, and concluded by saying: "I have still another request to
make, Herr Doctor. I cannot speak to my uncle. You are the first man in
this country, and he who could refuse you anything can have no heart or
feeling. Herr Doctor, do speak to my uncle, and beg him to help me. I
scarcely think--the more I reflect on the matter--that my wife will
allow me to enter the manufactory, and you said yourself that we must
respect her proper pride."
"Certainly, I will go to your uncle forthwith; will you wait for me
here, or go with me into the village?"
"I will go with you."
They all wished Lenz cordially good night; shaking hands kindly with
him, and the old grandmother laid her left hand on his head as if
blessing him, when she gave him her right hand.
Lenz went along with the Doctor; as they passed Pilgrim's house they
heard him whistling, and playing on his guitar. This faithful friend
felt deep sympathy at heart for Lenz's misfortunes, but to sympathise
with any one, is after all a very different thing from being involved
yourself in difficulty; a man's own life claims its rights.
Where the path went up the hill, Lenz left the Doctor, who only said:
"Wait at home, I will come to you later. How wonderfully close it is
this evening! I am sure we are going to have a rapid thaw."
"I sought aid far away, and after all it seems I am to find it at home.
There are still good men in the world, far better than yourself," said
Lenz to himself, as he went up the hill towards home.
CHAPTER XXX.
THE THAW EXTENDS EVEN TO PETROWITSCH, BUT
HE FREEZES AGAIN.
"I know why you are come," said Petrowitsch, when the Doctor entered;
"but sit down." He drew in a chair for him near the stove, where in
front there was a bright fire blazing, and behind a well heated stove.
"Now, what do I want, prophet?" said the Doctor, summoning up all his
wits.
"Money! you want money for my nephew!"
"You are only half a prophet, for I want a kindly heart also."
"Money, money, is the chief object. I will, however, at once say, I am
not one of those who charitably lift up a drunken man lying on the
road, and if he has broken his leg tell him he has only himself to
blame. I say this to you, because you are one of the few people whom I
respect in the world."
"Thank you for your good opinion; but a skilful physician must try to
heal injuries, whether deserved or undeserved."
"You are a doctor, and yet you have the same malady as the whole
country, indeed every one of our race."
The Doctor expressed his surprise at seeing him under so novel an
aspect. He had always, hitherto, thought that his misanthropy proceeded
from mere love of ease and indolence, but now he saw it was grounded on
a system.
"Will you sit an hour with me? This is my seventieth birthday."
"I wish you joy!"
"Thank you."
Petrowitsch sent his maid to Ibrahim, to say that he could not join
him, to play their usual game, for an hour; then he sat down beside the
Doctor, and said: "I feel myself today in a humour to be communicative.
I care nothing at all for what the world thinks of me; this log of wood
that I am now laying on the fire, cannot care less who burns it."
"It would interest me very much, however, if you would relate to me how
you have hardened into such a block of petrified wood."
Petrowitsch laughed, and the Doctor, though he knew how anxiously Lenz
was expecting him, hoped, by seeing deeper into the rugged old man's
character, to be able to bend him to his wishes. His plan was, that
Petrowitsch should advance a certain sum, to enable Lenz to enter the
manufactory as a junior partner.
"You were eight years old when I left home to travel," began
Petrowitsch, "and so you know nothing of me."
"Oh, yes, I do! many wild pranks were related of the----"
"The little Goatherd? That name has been the plague of my life. I was
two and twenty years in foreign parts, at sea and on land, in every
possible degree of heat and cold that man or dog ever endured, and that
name followed me like a dog, and I was fool enough not to give it a
kick, and so get rid of it for ever.
"We were three brothers, and had no sisters. Our father was a proud man
when we three came, but in those days children were not so kindly
treated as now, and I think it was better; it made us independent, and
a single word, good or bad, made more impression than a hundred now. My
brother Lorenz, who was called by our family name Lenz at home, the
father of the present Lenz, was the eldest, and I the youngest. Our
second brother, Mathes, was a very handsome young man; he was carried
off by that great butcher of mankind, Napoleon, and was killed in
Spain. I have been on the battlefield where he fell. There is a high
hill, and a mass of soldiers lie buried there, so what chance of
finding out a brother among them! But what's the use of telling you
that? Not long after Mathes had become a soldier, my brother Lenz went
to Switzerland for a few months, and took me with him. Who so happy as
I? My brother was a quiet, thoughtful man; every one must admit that.
He was like a first-rate clock--exact and punctual,--but stern, very
stern. I was a wild, unruly lad, good for nothing, nor had I any notion
of sitting in a workshop. What did my brother do? He took me to a fair
for hiring servants at St. Gall, which took place every year. The great
Swiss farmers hire their shepherd lads from Swabia.
"As I was standing beside my brother in the marketplace, a stout, bluff
Appenzel farmer came up, and stood opposite us, his feet well apart,
leaning on a stick, and said to my brother, 'What is the price of the
lad?'
"I gave the saucy answer, 'A log of Swiss impudence, six feet broad,
and six feet high.'
"The stout farmer laughed, and said to my brother: 'The boy is no fool.
I like him, and we can arrange the terms together.'
"Lorenz and the farmer came to an agreement, and the only speech my
brother made me at parting was, 'If you come home before the winter you
shall be well flogged.'
"I was a goatherd for a whole summer. It was a pleasant enough life,
and I was constantly singing; but often the words rang in my ears 'What
is the price of the lad?' and I felt as if I had been sold like Joseph
in Egypt. Like him, my brother sold me, but I never became a great man.
"I returned home when winter came. I was not well used at home, but
then I did not deserve to be so. In the spring I said to my father,
'Give me a hundred gulden's worth of clocks, and I will take them about
the country to sell.' 'You are more likely to get a hundred boxes on
the ear,' said my brother Lorenz, on hearing this.
"At that time the whole business had devolved on him, and the household
also. Our father was in bad health, and our mother did not venture to
interfere. In those days women were not so much thought of as now, and
I think on that very account they were better off, and their husbands
too. I then contrived to persuade a pedlar to take me with him, to
carry his clocks. I was almost bent double with fatigue, and often
suffered miserably from hunger, and yet never could escape from my
tyrant. I was as much under the yoke as any carthorse, but the latter
is not allowed to starve, because its value would be gone. I sometimes
thought of robbing my master, and running away, but then again, as a
penance for my wicked thoughts, I would determine to stay with my
tormentor.
"In spite of all I remained both honest and healthy. I must relate one
circumstance here, because it is connected with my subsequent history,
and cost me dear. I went to Spain with Anton Striegler. We were in a
large village about twenty miles from Valencia; it was a fine summer
afternoon, and we were sitting outside a posada, as an inn is called in
Spain, chatting to each other. A handsome young man, with large black
eyes, was passing; but, on hearing us talking, he stood still all of a
sudden, and begun throwing up his arms as if he were mad. I gave
Striegler a push to look at him, when the lad rushed up to us, and
seized Striegler's hand. 'What were you speaking?' asked he, in
Spanish. 'That is no one's business,' said Striegler, also in Spanish.
'What language was it?' asked the Spaniard again. 'German,' said
Striegler. The young man grasped the holy effigy he wore round his
neck, and kissed it as if he would devour it, and at last he told us
that his father at home spoke that language, and begged us to come with
him. On our way he related to us, that his father came to this village
more than forty years ago, that he was a German, and had married here.
For some weeks past he had been lying dangerously ill, and for several
days he had been speaking in a language none of them understood, and
his father could no longer understand his wife, or children, or
grandchildren. It was quite heartbreaking. We went into the house,
where we found an old man, with snow white hair and long beard, calling
out, 'Get me a bunch of rosemary;' and then he sung, 'And plant it on
my grave!' I shuddered on seeing and hearing this, but Striegler went
up boldly to him, saying, 'How are you, fellow countryman?' Never, if I
live a hundred years, can I forget the expression of the old man's eyes
on hearing these words; they were wide open and fixed, and he first
stretched out his hands, and then crossed them over his breast, as if
he were pressing the precious words to his heart. Striegler spoke
again, and the old man gave very rational answers, sometimes rather
confused, but on the whole quite intelligible. He was originally from
Hesse, but had taken the name of Caballero, and was naturalised in
Spain. For fifty years he had spoken nothing but Spanish, and now at
the point of death, he could not speak a single word of Spanish--it all
seemed blown away into the air; and I believe, though I am not so sure
of this, that he no longer even understood a syllable of Spanish. The
whole family were most thankful that we could interpret what the old
man said.
"Striegler profited by being so much considered in the village, and did
a good turn of business there; and in the meanwhile I sat with the old
man, and the best time I ever had was when I travelled with Striegler.
I got plenty to eat and drink; the people fed me up as if it were to
benefit the old man. He did not die, after all, and we went away in
three days; but scarcely were we a couple of miles on our road, when
the son came riding after us, to say that his father was calling for us
in such distress that we must go back. We did so, and heard him talking
German, but we could not understand what he wanted, and exclaiming,
'Now I am going home!' he died."
Petrowitsch here made a pause, and then continued:--"The whole affair
made a considerable impression on my mind; I did not know how deep till
long after.
"Striegler subsequently returned to Spain, and, I heard, married one of
Caballero's daughters. When we were in France I met your father, Herr
Doctor, who soon saw that I was far from being the good for nothing
fellow I had been called. He furnished me with means to enable me to
trade on my own behalf. I had learned to save and to starve for the
benefit of others; now I did so to some purpose for my own benefit. I
repaid your father his money punctually, and he entrusted me with more
goods. I have been half round the world. I can speak five languages,
but whenever I heard a word of German, especially the Black Forest
dialect, it made my heart beat with joy. I had one great fault, I never
could overcome the love of home. It glided after me, and by my side, as
if it had been a spirit; and at many a jovial drinking-match in foreign
lands the wine tasted to me as if some one had spilt salt in it."
Petrowitsch again paused, and poked the fire till it crackled and
blazed up brightly; and, passing his hand over his wrinkled face, he
began again thus:--"I pass over ten years. By that time my fortune was
made, and I was living in Odessa. That is a splendid city; all nations
seem at home in it, and I have a friend still there whom I can never
forget. There are also villages in the vicinity, Lustdorf, and
Kleinliebenthal, and various others, where numbers of Germans live, not
from our country, but chiefly from Wurtemberg. I received proposals
from home on every side, but I remained with your father to the day of
his death. I had then realized a very pretty sum, and might have driven
in my carriage, but I preferred going on foot through all Russia. I
never knew what fatigue meant. Look at my arm even now! every muscle is
like steel; but thirty years ago!--it was very different then.
"I established myself in Moscow, where I stayed four years. I ought not
to say established myself, for I was never fairly settled or at rest in
one place, I never, even for an hour, made myself at home anywhere, and
that helped me to save and to make money. I met plenty of my
countrymen, and I helped many. More than one, who has since prospered
in the world, owes his fortune to me. I asked them what was going on at
home. My father was dead, my mother dead also, and my brother married.
I asked if any of them had ever enquired for me; the people, however,
could not give me much information on that point. My brother said I
would be sure to come home a beggar. And do you know what hurt my
feelings most of all?--to hear all my countrymen still call me the
Goatherd. My brother was to blame, for my being obliged to bear this
degrading nickname all my life. I had all sorts of ideas in my head,
and thought of sending him a couple of thousand gulden, and writing
along with the money--'The Goatherd sends you this for the hundred
boxes on the ear, for which he is still in your debt; and for all the
kindness you have shown him, and all the care you have taken of him.' I
often resolved to do this, but somehow I never did. I could no longer
remain in Moscow. I wished to go home; but instead of going home I went
to Tiflis, and stayed there eleven years; and as I began to grow older,
I thought--'You must now act quite differently: you must go home, and
take a whole sackful of gold with you; and all the people in the place
shall see it except your brother, and you will not say one word to
him.' And all this brooding over the matter, led me at last to be
firmly convinced that he had persecuted and neglected me, and that he
would have been glad if I had died. I was determined that he should be
punished for this. I almost hated him, and often thought many evil
things about him; and yet I could not get rid of his image, nor prevent
myself from dwelling on it. Besides, I had always a longing for home,
greater than I can describe. No water in the world was so good as that
of the well near the church at home; and on summer evenings, how sweet
the air was--quite like balsam! I would have given a thousand gulden to
any one who could have brought me a roomful of air from home. These
were ideas that passed through my brain thousands of times. And then I
rejoiced in the thought how all the men in the upper and lower villages
would flock together and say--'That is Peter,' or Petrowitsch, as they
used to call me; and they should all be feasted for three days, and eat
and drink as much as they liked. And in the large meadow before our
house I would place long tables, and all should come who chose to come;
all--all might have a place there except my brother. And yet, in the
midst of this rancour, I felt that he was the only man in the world I
really loved; but I was unwilling to own this to myself. Every
successive year I said--'At the very next settlement I will go.' But I
could never tear myself away; for in such a business as mine, where all
you touch turns to gold, you have not the heart to leave it. I became
old and grey by degrees--I scarcely know how. Then I was seized with
illness--very severe illness. I remember nothing of what occurred
during several weeks; but when I was recovering they told me that when
I was delirious, I spoke in a language that no one could understand,
except the doctor, who knew a word or two here and there, and said it
was German, but he scarcely comprehended me. I had often called out
'Cain!' and said, 'What is the price of the lad?' Then I thought of old
Caballero, whom I had seen in Valencia on his deathbed. Suppose you
were one day to lie and thirst for water, as he did, and no man to know
a word you were saying! Now my resolution was finally taken. Home,
home, home! I soon got well, for I have a good constitution: I had
settled my plans, and no obstacle should prevent my going home. If my
brother creeps to me humbly, and says, 'I have not behaved well to
you,' then I will stay with him till I die. How long may that be? What
is all the world to us, when we have not those near and dear to us? On
the journey--for at last I had actually started--I was just like a
child who runs gaily home after escaping into the wood. I was often
obliged to remember how old I was, and the hatred of my brother began
to plague me again, and such a feeling is like an ever open wound.
"I got home at last.
"When I entered the valley, I felt as if the hills rose to come to meet
me.
"I drove through several villages--so and so lived there. I no longer
knew the names of the places, but when I had passed them I remembered
the names. I came into our own village. It was a fine summer
evening--the people had been haymaking, and the bells were ringing:
it was as if I all of a sudden heard voices once more, that I no
longer believed to be in the world. I had heard many bells during the
forty-two years I had been in other lands, but no tones so sweet as
these. I took off my hat involuntarily; but when the air of my own home
blew round my head, it revived and refreshed me--there seemed a welcome
home in it. I can't tell you how I felt: I thought my grey hairs must
become young again. I recognised very few of the people I met on the
road; but I knew you, Doctor, at once, for you were so like your
father. Not a soul recognised me. I stopped at the 'Lion,' and
asked--'Is Lorenz of the Morgenhalde at home?' 'At home! What do you
mean? He has been dead for seven years.'"
"It was as if a flash of lightning had struck me to the earth. I
repressed my feelings, however; indeed no one ever did know at any time
what was really passing within me.
"I went to my room, and, late at night, out into the village, where
a hundred things renewed my home feelings. I went to my parents'
house--all was still there. I half resolved to leave the place again
before day dawned. What could I do here? and no one had known me. But I
did not go for all that.
"Soon people came from all quarters, holding out their hands in the
hope that I would enrich them. But here, Doctor, one day, when I had
nothing better to do, I fed the sparrows on my window sill; and after
that, the importunate beggars came, as if possessed of an evil spirit,
every morning to the same spot; and the noise they made drove me nearly
distracted, but I could no longer succeed in driving them away. It is
easy to encourage others, but not so easy to get rid of them. I gave up
asking after any one, for whenever I inquired I heard of nothing but
misfortunes and death. Those whom I met, I was happy to see--those whom
I did not meet, I made no mention of. All came crowding to see me,
except my sister-in-law and her young prince. My sister-in-law said:
'My brother-in-law knows where his parents' house stands--we shall not
run after him.' The first time I saw young Lenz I was not at all taken
with him, for he had no look of our family, but was the image of his
mother. Now when I looked round the village, and the whole country, I
could have torn out my grey hairs at ever having come home. Everything
seemed stunted, and dwarfed, and gone to ruin. And where are the old
jolly times--the old spirit and fan? All gone! The young people were a
worthless set. Was I not obliged to pull the unripe cherries from the
trees in my avenue that their young stems might not be destroyed? My
singing nephew was always sitting at home, while I had seen the world.
Nothing hurt me; but every rough breeze or rough word hurt him,
and made him ill. Once only I had a better opinion of him, and
thought--He will yet brighten your life.' If he had married your
daughter Amanda, I would either have gone to live with the young
people, or they might have lived with me. My property would have come
into your family; and that I should have liked, for to your father I
owe the foundation of my prosperity--if it be prosperity. That
confounded Pilgrim guessed my thoughts, and wished to make me the
medium to propose this scheme; but I refused at once. I never will do
anything for any one--never! I persuade no one to any course of action,
nor can any one persuade me. Each one must live for himself; and this
is the principal point I wish to impress upon you--that I never will
give away one single kreuzer. I would rather throw my money into the
sea. Now I have talked long enough. I am quite tired and overheated."
"How did the water taste from the well by the church, for which you had
longed so much?" asked the Doctor.
"Bad, very bad--so cold and hard that I could not drink it."
The Doctor laid hold of this admission to endeavour to show Petrowitsch
that the world, like the water in the well, had neither changed nor
become worse; but that his stomach was no longer young, and his eyes
and thoughts also had grown older. He said to Petrowitsch that it was
but natural, that so much in contact with the world and with strangers,
he should have become inured to all weathers, and indifferent to harsh
words; but that it was also indispensable for the establishment of
domestic industry and frugality, that some men should stay at home and
work assiduously; and especially those who made musical works, ought to
have a degree of acuteness of perception amounting to sensitiveness: at
the same time he showed him that he was, in reality, himself as
soft-hearted as his nephew.
He placed before him, in most emphatic language, that it was his duty
to help Lenz; but Petrowitsch was once more the hard, inflexible, old
man: and concluded by these words:--"I stick to what I said. I meddle
with no man, and wish no man to meddle with me. I will do nothing. Not
another word, Doctor, for I cannot stand it."
And so it ended. As a messenger now came from Ibrahim, Petrowitsch left
the house with the Doctor. When they parted the Doctor went on to the
Morgenhalde. He was obliged to draw his cloak round him, for there was
a strong, but singularly soft wind blowing.
CHAPTER XXXI.
ANNELE THAWS ALSO, BUT FREEZES AGAIN.
While Lenz was journeying through the country in the deepest
inward grief, Annele was alone at home with her thoughts. She was
alone,--sadly alone,--for Lenz had not even left her a kind farewell,
to keep her company. He had quitted her in silence, and with closed
lips. "Pooh! a couple of kind words will soon turn him," thought Annele
to herself; and yet she felt unusually nervous to-day, and her cheeks
were flushed. She was not accustomed to sit and think; she had passed
her life in bustle and excitement, and never once paused to reflect
calmly on any subject. Now she had no power to escape from the voice of
conscience. Let her occupy herself as she would, and go up and down the
house, something followed her close, and seemed to pull her dress, and
whisper, "Listen to me!"
She had hushed the little girl to sleep, and the boy was sitting beside
the maid, winding the yarn she had spun; and when the girl fell asleep,
Annele felt as if some one pressed her down on her chair, so that she
could not rise, and that a voice said, "Annele! what are you become
now?" The pretty, merry, much loved and praised Annele is sitting in a
dark room, in a desolate house, sighing, fretting, and complaining.
"I would gladly submit to all this if I were only liked at home; but
all I do, and all I say, is hateful to him; and I do no harm. Am I not
frugal and industrious, and ready to work still harder? But up here we
are as if in a grave." These thoughts made Annele start up, and as she
stood beside her child's cradle, she recalled a dream of the past
night. On this occasion she had not dreamt of agreeable drives, or of
visiting a pleasant inn; she thought she was standing beside her open
grave. She saw it quite distinctly, and the clods of earth from the
heap that had been dug out. "A bad omen," said she aloud, and stood
long immovable and trembling.
At last she shook off this feeling of depression, and thought, "I will
not die yet, I have not yet lived out my life, either at home or here."
She wept in pity for herself, and her thoughts wandered years back,
when she had imagined it would be so delightful to live with a husband
she loved in solitude, knowing nothing of the busy life of the world,
for she was sick of the constant tumult of an inn, where she could not
help suspecting, though she did not know it for a fact, that the whole
extravagant mode of going on rested on a very tottering foundation. It
was the fault of her husband, that she longed for a more profitable
business to employ her dormant talents.
"He is like his musical clocks; they play their own melodies, but are
incapable of listening to those of others."
In the midst of her depression, she could not resist smiling at this
comparison. Her thoughts strayed farther; she would gladly have been
submissive to a husband who showed the world that he had courage to be
master, but not to one who did nothing all day but stick in pegs.
"But you knew well what he was," whispered conscience.
"Yes; but not exactly," was her answer; "not exactly."
"But has he not a good heart?"
"Yes, towards men in general, but not towards me. No one has ever been
domesticated with him, so no one knows how full of odd humours he is,
and how wild and strange he can be. But this can go on no longer; as we
cannot gain a livelihood by clockmaking, we must by something else."
This was always Annele's grand conclusion, and her thoughts incessantly
revolved round this point. She wished to employ her experience as a
landlady in a well frequented inn, to which people would flock from far
and near; and then, when she had plenty to occupy her, and was daily
making money, and had other people to order about, quiet hours and
happy days would return.
She went into the next room, and looked at herself in the glass. She
dressed herself neatly, for she was no sloven; slippers she never wore,
whereas Lenz would often go from one Sunday to the other, without once
putting on his boots. While she arranged herself neatly, and for the
first time for many weeks past, plaited her long hair into a triple
coronet, her scornful looks seemed to say, "I am Annele of the Lion; I
will have no more pining and lamenting; I will begin a fresh life, and
he must follow my lead."
"Is your mistress at home?" asked some one outside.
"Yes."
There was a knock at the door. Annele looked up in surprise, and the
Pastor came in.
"Welcome, Herr Pastor," said Annele, curtseying. "Your visit is meant
for me, then, and not for my husband?"
"Yes, for you. I know that your husband is absent, I have never seen
you in the village since the misfortunes of your parents, and I thought
that perhaps it might be some relief to talk over matters with me."
Annele breathed more freely, for she was afraid the Pastor had been
sent by Lenz, or had come of his own accord, to speak to her about him.
Annele now lamented the unhappy fate of her parents, and said that she
much feared her mother would not long survive the blow.
The Pastor earnestly entreated her, whether her parents were innocent
or guilty, not to repine against the will of God, nor to withdraw
herself from the world, in anger and vexation. He reminded her of what
he had said on her wedding day, of the honour of husband and wife being
identical. He added, kindly, that the Landlord of the "Lion" had
probably miscalculated his resources, and, however heavily, yet without
any evil intentions. "I did not forget," said the Pastor, wishing to
give a different turn to the conversation, "that this is the
anniversary of your fifth wedding day, so I wished to come and say good
morning to you."
Annele thanked him cordially with a smile. But it flashed across her
mind, "And Lenz could go away without even saying good morning to me!"
She now told the Pastor, in fluent language, how pleased she was to
find that her Pastor should pay her such a compliment. She said much of
his goodness, and that the whole village ought daily to pray that God
might long spare him to them. Annele evidently wished, by her easy
volubility, to lead her visitor to other topics, in order to prevent
his discussing her affairs; she was resolved not to allow the Pastor,
even in the mildest form, to offer himself as a mediator in their
household discord. She screwed up her lips with the same energy that
Gregor the postilion displayed, when he was going to play one of his
well studied flourishes on the horn.
The Pastor saw this plainly enough. He began to praise Annele on points
where she really well deserved praise; that she was at all times so
stirring and orderly, and, with all her bantering ways, she had yet
invariably been strictly virtuous, and taken charge so admirably of her
father's house.
"I am so little accustomed to hear praise now," answered Annele, "that
the sound is quite strange to me, and I feel as if I never had been of
use during my life, or ever had been good for anything."
The Pastor nodded, though very slightly. The hook was fast in; and just
as a physician wins the confidence of an invalid by saying, "You
suffer from such and such a pain, you ache here, or you are oppressed
there,"--and the invalid looks up gladly, thinking, "This man knows my
complaint already, and is sure to cure me;" so did the Pastor contrive
to describe Annele's sorrows, as if he had experienced them himself.
Annele could no longer resist this sympathy, and Lenz came in for his
full share of reproach and blame. "Help us, Herr Pastor!" said she.
"Yes, I can and will; but some one else must help too, and that is
yourself."
The worthy man seemed suddenly to become taller, and his voice more
powerful, as he reminded Annele of her hardheartedness towards Franzl,
and of all the false pride she nourished in her heart. Annele listened
with flashing eyes, and when the Pastor reproached her with her
transgression against Franzl, she broke loose, as if on some prey for
which she had laid in wait.
"So now it is come out,--the sly old woman! the horrid hypocrite!--it
was she who had told all these things of her, and exasperated the
Pastor, and the whole world, against her." No cat devours a mouse with
greater satisfaction, than Annele now clawed and tore at old Franzl.
"If I had her only here this minute!" said she repeatedly.
The Pastor let her rage till she was tired, and at last said: "You have
exhibited no little temper just now, but I maintain, for all that, you
are not really badhearted--in fact, not bad at all."
Annele burst into tears, and deplored her being so altered for the
worse. She had become so passionate, which was not her natural
disposition; and it all proceeded from her being able to earn nothing.
She was not fitted to be the wife of a small clockmaker, and to look
after his household. She ought to be a landlady, and if the Pastor
would assist her in this project, she faithfully promised him, that she
would never again give way to either anger or malice.
The Pastor agreed with her that to be a landlady was her peculiar
vocation. She kissed his hand in gratitude. He promised to do what he
could to effect this, but exhorted her not to expect a transformation
of heart from any outward events. "You are not yet," said he,
"sufficiently humbled by grief and misery. Pride is your besetting sin,
and causes your unhappiness, and that of others also. God grant that
some irrevocable misfortune to your husband, or children, may not
eventually be the first thing to convert your heart!"
Annele was seated opposite the mirror, and unconsciously she saw her
face reflected in it; it looked as if it was covered with cobwebs, and
involuntarily she passed her hand across it, to brush them away.
The Pastor wished to go away, but Annele begged him to stay a little,
as she could collect her thoughts better when he was there; she only
wished him to remain a short time longer.
The two sat in silence, and nothing was heard but the ticking of the
clocks. Annele's lips moved, without uttering any sound.
When the Pastor at length took leave of her, she kissed his hand
reverently; and he said, "If you feel in your inmost soul what a
privilege it is, and if your heart is humbled--thoroughly humbled, then
come to the sacrament tomorrow. May God have you in his holy keeping!"
Annele wished to accompany the Pastor a little way, but he said: "No
politeness at present. Be good and humble at heart. 'Judge yourself,
that ye be not judged,' says the Apostle Paul. Judge yourself, and
search your heart. Accustom yourself to sit quiet sometimes, and to
meditate."
The Pastor was gone, and Annele sat in the same place. It was not easy
for her to sit idle, and reflection was quite contrary to her nature,
but she forced herself to think over what had passed. Her child woke
up, and began to scream.
"The Pastor has no children; I cannot sit still any longer, I must
pacify the child," said she, taking the little girl out of bed. Deep
repentance, however, and new love for Lenz, had awoke within her heart.
"We will settle our own affairs," said she, "without the help of either
the Pastor or any one else."
It was noon and the sun shone brightly. Annele wrapped up the child
well, and went with it before the house. Perhaps Lenz will soon be
home, and she will welcome him kindly, and call out the "good morning"
he forgot to say when he left her; and she would tell him that all was
to go well between them in future. This is the very hour of her wedding
five years ago, and this shall be another happy day.
A man was seen climbing the hill: he was not yet near enough to be
recognised, but Annele said to the child, "Call, Father!"
The child did so; but when the man came up, it was not Lenz, but
Faller. He wore a hat, but he had another in his hand; and, hurrying up
to Annele, he called out--"Is Lenz come home?"
"No."
"Good heavens! here is his hat. My brother-in-law found it in the
Igelswang, close by the spot where the wood is floated down. If Lenz
has made away with himself! In God's name! what has been going on
here?"
Annele trembled in every limb, and pressed the child so close to her
heart that it began to cry loudly. "You are out of your mind," said
she, "and will soon drive me mad also. What do you mean?"
"Is not this his hat?"
"It is," screamed Annele, sinking to the ground with the child. Faller
lifted them both up.
"Has he been found?--dead?" asked Annele.
"No, God be praised!--not that. Come into the house--I will carry the
child. Be composed--probably he only lost his hat."
Annele tottered into the house. A mist was before her eyes, and
she waved her hands vaguely, as if to drive it away. "Was it
possible?--Lenz dead? Now, just when her heart was turning again to
him? and he has been always faithful to her. It cannot be--it is not
so." She sat down in the room, and said--"Why should my Lenz make away
with himself? What do you mean by saying such a thing?"
Faller made no answer.
"Can you only speak when no one wishes to hear you?" asked Annele,
passionately. "Sit down--sit down," said she, striving to control her
feelings, "and tell me what has happened."
As if wishing to punish Annele, by paying no attention to her words,
Faller continued standing, though his knees trembled. He glanced at her
with a look, so full of sorrow and bitter reproach, that Annele cast
down her eyes. "Who could wish to sit down by you?" said he at length.
"Where you are, there can be neither rest nor peace."
"I don't want any of your admonitions; you ought to be aware of that by
this time. If you know anything of my husband, let me hear it."
Faller now repeated the universal report, that Lenz had been trying to
borrow money in all directions, and also to get a certain sum to make
good the security he had given, for the purchase of Faller's house.
This was, however, no longer necessary, as Don Bastian had paid the
purchase-money for him this very day.
When Annele heard that, she started up, and her gestures seemed to
say--"So, he has deceived me, and told me downright lies. He is alive:
he must be alive--for he must live to expiate his sin; for he declared
that he had recalled his security. Only come home, liar and hypocrite!"
Annele left the room, and did not return till Faller was gone. All
remorse--all contrition had vanished. Lenz had told her a falsehood,
and he should repent it. "These watergruel, goodnatured people are all
alike; because they have not the spirit to lay hold of a thing
manfully, when necessary, they wish, in their turn, to be handled as
tenderly as an egg without a shell; do nothing to me, and I do nothing
to any one--refuse me nothing, I refuse nothing to any one, though it
brings me to beggary. This is his doctrine! Only come home, pitiful
milksop!"
Annele had no food warm at the fire for Lenz when he did come home.
There was, however, a warm reception awaiting him!
CHAPTER XXXII.
A STORMY NIGHT.
When Lenz left the Doctor to mount the hill, he was full of happy
confidence. Two paths were open to him--his uncle or the manufactory.
When he saw lights shining in his house, he said to himself, "God be
praised! those I love are expecting me. All will soon be right again."
Suddenly, like a fiery dart, the thought cut him to the heart "You have
this day been wicked--downright wicked--doubly and trebly so. Both when
you were with Kathrine and at the Doctor's, the sinful thought arose in
your heart--how different your fate might have been! You have hitherto
boasted of your honest heart--you can do so no longer. You are the
father of two children, and have been five years married. Good heavens!
This is actually our fifth wedding day."
He stood still, and his conscience smote him. He said to himself:
"Annele, good Annele! I have sinned in thought today in every way. My
parents in heaven will not forgive me if that ever occurs again. But
from this day we shall commence a new union."
With this feeling of indignation against himself, and in the joyful
security that all would soon be on a more pleasant footing at home, he
entered the house. "Where is my wife?" said he, finding the children
sitting in the kitchen with the maid.
"She has just lain down."
"What? Is she ill?"
"She did not complain of anything."
Lenz hurried to his wife. "God be with you, Annele! I say good morning
and good evening together, for I forgot it when I left you so early
today; and I wish you all happiness, and myself too. Please God, from
this day forth, all will go well with us!"
"Thank you."
"What is the matter? Are you ill?"
"No; only tired--very tired. I will rise immediately, however."
"No; stay where you are, if it rests you. I have good news to give
you."
"I don't choose to lie here. Go away, and I will come to you
presently."
"But first listen to what I have got to say."
"Plenty of time for that; a few minutes can't make much difference."
All Lenz's lightness of heart seemed to vanish; but he controlled his
feelings, and went out and caressed the children. At last Annele came.
"Do you want anything to eat?" said she.
"No. How does my hat come here?"
"Faller brought it. I suppose you gave it to him to bring to me."
"Why should I do that? The wind carried it off my head." He related
briefly his interview with Kathrine. Annele was silent: she was
carefully hoarding up the arrow with the lie about Faller's
security--the time will soon come when she can send it flying at his
head. She can wait.
Lenz sent the maid into the kitchen, and taking his boy on his knee, he
told Annele honestly everything, with one exception--the faithless
thoughts he had entertained towards her. And Annele said: "Do you know
the only reality in all that?"
"What?"
"The hundred gulden and three crown dollars old Franzl offered you. All
the rest is stuff."
"Why so?"
"Because your uncle will never help you. I suppose you will own now,
that you should not have helped him to slip through our fingers as to
his intentions towards you, this day five years?"
"But the proposal about the manufactory?"
"Who is to enter it besides you?"
"I know of no one at this moment but Pröbler; and it is true he has
made many useful discoveries in his life."
"Ha! ha!--capital! Pröbler and you!--a famous match, certainly! Have
not I told you a hundred times that you would sink to his level? But he
is better than you, for at least he has not brought a wife and family
to beggary by his misconduct. To the deuce with such hypocrites and
milksops! Go in harness with Pröbler, by all means!" cried Annele.
And snatching the boy from his knee, she said passionately to the
child--"Your father is a scamp and an idler, and expects us to put
every morsel of bread into his mouth. It is a pity his mother is not
still living, to feed him with bread and milk. Oh! how low I am sunk!
But this I tell you, that so long as I live you shall not enter that
manufactory. I would rather drown both myself and my children; then,
perhaps, the Doctor's long-legged daughter, the young lady who is so
learned in herbs, might marry you."
Lenz sat still, entirely confounded. His hair stood on end. At last he
said--"Don't dare to call on my mother: leave her at peace in
eternity."
"I can do that easily enough. I didn't want anything from her, and I
never had anything from her."
"What?--have you thrown away the plant of Edelweiss that was hers?"
"Oh, stuff! I have it yet."
"Where? give it to me."
Annele opened a cupboard and showed him the plant. "I am thankful that
you still have it," said Lenz, "for it will bring a blessing on us
both."
"You seem pretty well out of your mind with your foolish
superstitions," answered Annele. "Must I submit to that, too? There!
fly away in the air, Edelweiss, along with the sacred inscription!"
She opened the window. A stormy wind was howling outside. "There,
wind!" called she, "come! Carry it all off with you--the whole precious
concern!" The writing and the plant were whirled away in a moment. The
wind shrieked and whistled, and deposited the writing on the bleak
hill.
"Annele, what have you done?" said Lenz with a groan.
"I am not superstitious like you; I am not so lost to common sense yet,
as to place any faith in the benefit of a spell."
"It is no superstition. My mother only meant, that so long as my wife
respected what came from her, it would bring us a blessing. But nothing
is sacred in your eyes."
"Certainly, neither you nor your mother are."
"Enough!--not another word," cried Lenz in a hoarse voice, dashing down
a chair. "Go with the boy out of the room. Not one word, or I shall go
out of my senses.--Hush! some one is coming."
Annele left the room with the child.
The Doctor came in.
"As I feared, so, alas, it is! Your uncle will do nothing--absolutely
nothing. He says that he tried to dissuade you from marrying, and takes
his ground on that point. I tried every persuasion, but all in vain. He
almost told me to leave the house."
"Is it possible?--and on my account too! The dreadful thing is, that
whoever is friendly to me, or wishes to do me good, is sure to come in
for a share of my misery. Forgive me, Herr Doctor--it was not my
fault."
"I know that well! how can you speak so? I have known many men in the
course of my life, but never yet such a man as your uncle. He opened
his heart to me, and he has the tender heart of your family, and I
thought I should be able to guide him with ease, and lead him to the
point I wished like a child; but, when it came to the grand climax,
money!"--the Doctor snapped his fingers;--"it was all up! no further
use talking! My belief is that he really has nothing of his own;
nothing but an annuity from some insurance office; but let us put him
aside altogether. I have talked to both my sons. If you don't wish to
enter the manufactory, you may have six or seven workpeople in your own
house here, as many as you can manage, and employ them for the benefit
of the manufactory."
"Do not speak so loud. My wife hears everything in the next room; and
just like you with my uncle, I unfortunately foresaw what she would
say. In my life I never saw her in such a state as she was, when I told
her about the manufactory. She won't hear of it."
"Think it over for a time. Won't you escort me a little way?"
"Pray excuse me, for I am so tired; I really can scarcely stand, for I
have not rested since four o'clock this morning; I am not much
accustomed to walk so far, and I almost think I am going to be ill."
"Your pulse is feverish; but that is natural enough. If you have a good
sleep tonight, you will soon be all right again; but be careful of
yourself for some time. You may have a very serious attack of illness
if you do not keep quiet, and spare yourself and nurse yourself. Tell
your wife from me," said the Doctor aloud, so that she might hear it in
the adjoining room, "that she should be very careful of the father of
her children"--here he made a pause on purpose--"and nurse him kindly,
and keep him at home; a clockmaker, from his constant sedentary habits,
is but a weakly creature. Good night, Lenz!"
The Doctor departed. He often stumbled by the way, and almost sunk down
into the snow drifts that were fast thawing in all directions, and on
the surface of which were many dangerous, loose, rolling stones. He was
forced to give his attention more closely to the path, and not to give
way to sad thoughts; for he recalled what Pilgrim had lately said to
him:--"Lenz lived, no doubt, tolerably enough with his wife, but a mere
formal intercourse with any one could not satisfy him; what he requires
is cheerfulness, happiness, and cordial love; and these he has not."
In the meanwhile Lenz was sitting alone. He was quite worn out with
fatigue, and yet he could find no rest. He walked up and down the room
restlessly, like a wild beast in his cage. He might justly have uttered
many more complaints to the Doctor, for he was really suffering
severely, and all at once he exclaimed in the bitterness of his
heart:--"Alas, alas! to be ill, with an unkind wife! not to be able to
go away--here must I be, and submit to her humours and to all her
bitter speeches. She will say that my invalid fancies proceed only from
folly, and my best friends dare not come to see me. To feel so ill, and
to be dependent on the kindness of a malignant woman! Death from my own
hand would be preferable!"
The wind extinguished the fire, and the house was filled with smoke.
Lenz opened the window and stood long looking out:--"There is no longer
a light at the blacksmith's; he is buried in the dark earth: happy the
man who can be at rest like him, and out of misery!"
The air was warm, singularly warm; water was dripping from the roof;
the wind was rushing and raging over hill and valley, and there were
crashes in the air, as if one blast of wind came in collision with
another, driving it forwards. On the hill behind the house there
sounded a constant rolling and rumbling; as if the storm were savage at
being deprived of the wood in which it was accustomed to career at
will; and now the blast wreaks its wrath on the old chesnut trees and
pines close to the house while they sway about wildly, and creak and
strain. It is most fortunate that the house is so strongly built; one
of the old fashioned kind, made of whole logs of timber laid crossways,
otherwise there would be good reason to fear that the hurricane would
sweep away the house and all in it.
"That would be famous!" Lenz laughed bitterly; but he often looked over
his shoulder in terror, for the old beams cracked today, as if the
house knew what was going on within its walls.
Such a night and such a mood, no inhabitant of this house had ever
known; neither Lenz's father, nor grandfather, nor great grandfather.
He went to fetch writing materials, and found himself, by chance, with
the light in his hand opposite the looking glass, staring at a human
face with wild, sunken eyes. At last he sat down and wrote; he paused
repeatedly, pressed his hand to his eyes, and then wrote on again
hurriedly. He rubbed his eyes but no tears came to his relief:--"You
can no longer weep; you have too much sorrow for one man to bear," said
he in a low voice. He wrote:--
"BROTHER OF MY HEART!
"It grieves me to write to you; but I must once more speak to you
freely. I think of the days, and the summer nights, when I roamed about
with you, dear friend. I cannot believe that it was I! it surely must
have been another man! God is my witness, and also my mother in heaven,
that I never willingly offended any one in my life; and if I ever
offended you, beloved friend, forgive me; I ask your pardon a thousand
times. I never did so intentionally. A man situated as I am, is not
worthy to live.
"And now, this is the point: I expect no deliverance but from death. I
know it is scandalous, but if I live the scandal will be greater. Each
day of my life I am a murderer. I can no longer bear this. I weep night
after night, and I despise myself for it. I may say that I might have
been a quiet, upright, honest man, if I could have kept in the straight
path. I am not equal to contend with others. Tears rush to my eyes when
I think of what I have become, and yet I was once so different. If I
continue to live, my life will disgrace my children; now it will only
be my death. In the course of a year it will be forgotten, and the
grass will be growing over my grave. I appeal to you by your good
heart, and by all the kindness you have shown me all your life long,
take a fatherly charge of my deserted children! My poor children! I
dare not think of them! I once thought I could be as kind a father as
any in the world--but I cannot--I cannot bring those to love me, who do
not do so of their own accord, and that is my chief misery, a misery I
am unable to conquer--it is like trying to climb a glass wall. My dear
mother was right; how often did she say--'We can sow and plant all
kinds of things, and by dint of culture make them flourish, but one
thing must grow voluntarily, and that is mutual affection.' It does not
grow in my case, where I would fain see it grow.
"Take my children out of the village when I am buried--I do not wish
them to be present. Beg the Pastor to let me lie beside my parents, and
my brother, and sisters. They were better off than me. Why was I alone
doomed to live, in order to die thus at last?
"You are my Wilhelm's godfather; pray adopt him. You always said he had
a talent for drawing, so take him under your care. If possible, be
reconciled to uncle Petrowitsch, perhaps he will do something for my
children when I am gone; and I tell you again, and certainly I tell you
the truth at such a moment as this, he likes you in reality, and you
may become good friends yet. He has a kind heart, far more so than he
wishes to have thought--my poor mother often and often said so. My
wife.... I will say nothing of her. If my children do well, then you
can say all kind of things to her from me, one day. I have been obliged
to hear, and to say, what I could never have believed possible. Oh!
world! what are you? I am in prison, and must make my escape. I have
lived through days and nights that seemed like years. I am weary; weary
to death; I can go no single step farther. For months past, when I
close my eyes and try to sleep, I see nothing but horrors, and they
pursue me by day also. As for the money I owe you, the watch I wear is
your property, it will beat on your faithful heart, after mine beats no
more--and when my things are sold, buy my father's file, and keep it
for my Wilhelm. I have nothing to leave him; but don't fail to tell him
often that his father was not a bad man. He inherits my unfortunate
disposition: try to drive it out of him, and make him strong and
energetic. And the little girl----
"It seems hard, hard indeed, that I must part with my life while I am
still so young, but it is best it should be so. The Doctor will see
that my body is not sent to the students at Freiburg. Greet him, and
all his family, in the kindest manner from me. He has long seen that I
was declining in health and happiness, but it was beyond the power of
any doctor to cure me. Say farewell from me to all my good comrades,
particularly to Faller, and the Schoolmaster. I fancy I have still much
to say, but my eyes are dim and dizzy. My beloved friend and brother,
good night! Farewell, for ever!
"Your faithful
"LENZ."
He folded up the letter, and wrote on the back "To my much loved
brother, Pilgrim."
Day was dawning. He extinguished the light, and still holding the
letter in his hand, Lenz looked out of the window, as his last greeting
to the wide world outside. The sun is rising over the hill; first a
pale yellow line, then a dark cloud stretches itself along, contrasting
with the clear, deep blue sky; the whole plain, covered with snow,
trembles in the pale, flickering light; a bright red glow steals
over the surface of the cloud, but the centre remains dark; when
suddenly--the cloud is rent asunder, in bright yellow shreds, the whole
sky is golden, till it gradually catches a rosy hue, and then all at
once the whole extent of the heavens becomes a mass of brilliant,
glittering crimson; this is the world--the world of light, of bright
existence; it will be seen but once more, before you leave it for ever!
Lenz concealed the letter, and went out round the house; he plunged
almost up to his knees in snow. He returned into the sitting room.
Annele had not yet risen, he therefore breakfasted alone with his
children; and when the bells began to ring, he desired the maid to take
Wilhelm to Pilgrim's. He first thought of giving the maid his letter
with her, but he took it again out of her hand and put it in the girl's
frock. When they undressed her at night, they would find it, and by
that time all would be over.
"Go to Pilgrim," said he to the maid again, "and wait in his house till
I come; and, if I don't come, stay there till night." He kissed the
boy, and then turned away, and laid his head on the table. He remained
thus a long time. Nothing stirred in the house. The bells in the valley
below were sounding for church; he waited till the last note had died
away, and then locked the house door, and came back into the room,
crying in despair of heart, "Heavenly Father! forgive me; but it must
be so!"
He sank on his knees, and tried to pray, but could not:--"Annele, too,
used to pray often; and yet scarcely was the last word of prayer
uttered by her lips, than strife and discord, scorn and mockery, broke
loose again; she has transgressed both against heaven and earth. And
yet I cannot die without seeing her once more."
He rushed into the next room, and drew aside the bed curtains.
"Father!" cried the little girl, who was sitting on her mother's bed;
and Lenz sunk down almost lifeless.
A hollow sound is heard. The earth is opening, surely, to swallow up
the house! It is like thunder--underground, and overhead. A violent
concussion makes the house shake. And suddenly all is pitch dark. The
blackest night reigns everywhere.
"In God's name, what is it?" screamed Annele.
Lenz raised himself with difficulty. "I don't know, I don't know."
"What has happened?" Annele and the child cried and screamed. And Lenz
called out, "Good God! what is it?" They were all stupefied. Lenz tried
to open a window, but could not succeed. He groped his way to the next
room, but all was dark there too. He stumbled over a chair, and ran
back into Annele's room, calling out, "Annele, we are buried alive!
buried in the snow!"Neither of them could utter a syllable, but the
child screamed loudly, and the poultry in their coops screeched wildly,
as if a weasel had come among them; then all was still, as still as
death.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
A FRIEND IN NEED.
At this very hour Pilgrim intended to have gone to church; but on the
way he turned, and went several times past Petrowitsch's house. At last
he stopped at the door, and pulled the bell.
Petrowitsch had long since observed him from his window, and when he
now rung, Petrowitsch said to himself, "So you are coming to me? You
shall not soon forget your reception."
Petrowitsch was in very bad humour, as cross as if he had been
suffering from the effects of intoxication, and it was very nearly the
same. He had been tempted to revel in old remembrances, and to entrust
another with his secret life. He was provoked with himself, for not
having been able to withstand the temptation of appearing good, in the
eyes of one man. He felt ashamed of ever facing the Doctor again in
broad daylight. His usual pride, which made him say he was quite
indifferent to what the world thought of him, was all gone. Now Pilgrim
was come, and on him should be discharged the whole vials of his wrath.
He will neither play the guitar, nor sing, nor whistle today.
Pilgrim came in, and said, "Good morning, Herr Lenz."
"The same to you, Herr Pilgrim."
"Herr Lenz, I come to you instead of going to church."
"I had no idea I was considered so holy."
"Herr Lenz, I come, not because I believe that it will do any good, but
still I shall have done my duty."
"It would be well if every one did their duty."
"You know your nephew Lenz--"
"There is no Lenz whom I care about, except the one I see there," said
Petrowitsch, looking at his wrinkled face in the glass.
"You know, however, that your brother's son is in distress."
"No, the distress is in him. This comes of giving way to the impulses
of a good heart, and having companions who encourage such weakness; and
whatever advice may be in opposition to this, is considered the mere
whims of a peevish, withered old man."
"You may be right; but wise speeches do no good now. The misery of Lenz
is greater than you think."
"I never tried to fathom its depth."
"In one word, I have the greatest fear that he may make away with
himself."
"That he did long since. A man who marries so stupidly makes away with
his life."
"I don't know what more to say. I thought I was prepared for
everything; but not for this. You are worse, and yet different, from
what I thought."
"Thanks for the compliment. It is a sad pity that I can't hang it round
my neck as an order of merit, like the Choral Society."
The good humoured, merry Pilgrim stood before the old man, looking as
foolish as a swordsman whose blade is made to fly out of his hand at
each attack.
Petrowitsch feasted on this spectacle, and crammed a large piece of
sugar into his mouth. Then he said, smacking his lips, "My brother's
son followed his own devices, and it would not be fair on my part, were
I to deprive him of the harvest he so richly deserves. He has
squandered his life and his money, and I have no power to restore
either."
"Indeed you have, Herr Lenz! His life, and that of his family, can yet
be saved. All discord in the house will cease when they are once more
at ease, and free from care and anxiety. The proverb says, 'Horses
quarrel over an empty manger.' Money is not happiness in itself, but it
can bring happiness."
"A very remarkable fact how free and easy young people are with other
people's money! but they object to earning it themselves! Once for all,
however, I am resolved to do nothing for the husband of Annele of the
'Lion,' whose affection is only to be bought with money."
"And if your nephew dies?"
"Then he will, probably, be buried."
"And what is to become of the children?"
"No one can tell what becomes of children."
"Did your nephew ever offend you in any way?"
"I don't know why he should."
"What can you, then, do better with your money than--"
"When I find that I require a guardian, I will apply to Herr Pilgrim."
"Herr Lenz, you are a vast deal too clever for me."
"You do me much honour," said Petrowitsch, kicking off his slippers.
"I have done all I could, at all events," rejoined Pilgrim.
"And at a cheap rate; words cost little--how much a bushel? for I
should like to buy some."
"This is the first and last time I ask you anything."
"And this is the first and last time I refuse you anything."
"Good morning, Herr Lenz."
"The same to you, Herr Pilgrim."
Pilgrim turned round once more at the door. His face was red, and his
eyes flashed, as he said, "Herr Lenz, do you know what you are doing?"
"I have hitherto always known pretty well what I was doing."
"You are, in fact, turning me out of your house."
"Really!" said Petrowitsch, with a sneer. He, however, cast down his
eyes when he saw the expression of Pilgrim's face--half rage, half
sorrow.
Pilgrim resumed: "Herr Lenz, I submit to a good deal from you. Of all
the men, far and near, who have seen trees and hedges growing, where
sticks are to be had, not one can come forward and say that those who
offended Pilgrim ever yet did so with impunity. You may do so, and do
you know why? Because I allow myself to be maltreated for the sake of
my friend. Alas! it is all I can do for him. I don't say one angry word
to you--not one. You shall never have it in your power to say, 'Pilgrim
behaved so rudely to me, that it prevents my doing anything for his
dear friend Lenz.' For my friend's sake I submit to your insults. You
may tell every one you turned me out of doors."
"I shall not gain much credit by that."
Pilgrim drew a deep breath, his lips quivered, and he left the room in
silence.
Petrowitsch looked after him, with pretty much the same satisfied air
that a fox displays when it sucks the blood of a leveret, and then lets
it run away, as it best can.
He paced his room in high good humour, playing with the tassels of his
dressing-gown. His satisfaction seemed positively to inflate him, for
he stroked himself down with his hands, as if to say, "Now you are once
more yourself; yesterday evening you were a soft hearted fool, and had
no right to abuse this weak, wayward world."
In the mean time Pilgrim went homewards in a dejected mood, and,
passing his own door, went far out into the fields, till at last he
turned, and went home. There, to his great joy, he found his friend's
child. "Thus it is when friends are really attached; my good Lenz was
thinking of me, at the very same moment when I was thinking of him.
Perhaps he knew, or at least had a presentiment, that I meant to go to
Petrowitsch, and sent the child to me to assist my petition. But it
would have done no good; to such a man as Petrowitsch, men and angels
would speak equally in vain."
Pilgrim was unwearied in the games he thought of to amuse the boy, and
in the drawings he did for him; and then, with the aid of a white
handkerchief, and his black neckcloth, he could make with his fingers
hares, and hounds chasing them. Little Wilhelm shouted with joy, and
made Pilgrim tell him the same story at least three times over. Pilgrim
had a very pretty knack of story telling, especially about a certain
chesnut brown Turk, Kulikali, with a huge nose, who could swallow
smoke. Pilgrim dressed himself up in a moment as the Turk Kulikali,
seated himself crosslegged on a strip of carpet on the floor, and did
all sorts of conjuring tricks. Pilgrim was on this occasion quite as
much a child as his young godson. Then they went down stairs, and dined
with Don Bastian. In the afternoon, in spite of drizzling rain and snow
showers, Pilgrim went to the riverside for an hour with Wilhelm. Was it
not a pretty sight! Great blocks of ice were swimming along, and crows
perched on them; they wished to see for once how they liked boating,
but when one of the masses of ice was shivered, they wisely flew away,
and settled on another. It was a giddy sight to look down on from
above. It seemed as if the earth were moving, and the ice standing
still. The boy clung timidly to Pilgrim. He took him home, and put a
mattress for his godson on his old well worn sofa, for both agreed that
young Lenz should not go home to-night; and it went to Pilgrim's heart
when the child said, "My father speaks so loud, and my mother too; and
my mother said my father was a wicked man."
"Oh! my poor Lenz, you must do what you can, to make your boy less
sensitive than yourself," thought Pilgrim.
The rain and snow came down in such gusts, that it was scarcely
possible to go outside the house, especially as large masses of snow
were tumbling off the roofs. Soon it was evening, but Lenz did not
come; and Pilgrim was startled by hearing the maid say that she had met
Petrowitsch on the road to the Morgenhalde, not far from the house; he
asked her "Whose child is that?" and when she said, "Lenz's son,
Wilhelm," he patted the boy's head, and gave him a lump of sugar, or at
least one half of it, as he broke it in two, and put one piece into his
own mouth.
Is it possible? Can Petrowitsch really be softened? Who knows the heart
of man?
After Petrowitsch had fully enjoyed his triumph over the Doctor and
Pilgrim, he felt quite comfortable. He watched the people going to
church in groups, and at last one solitary woman and then a man running
to arrive in time.
Petrowitsch usually went regularly to church; indeed it was said that
in his will he had bequeathed a large sum for the purpose of building a
new place of worship; on this day he stayed at home, having sufficient
occupation for his thoughts, but involuntarily it occurred to him--
"That fellow, Lenz, has good friends in his need. Pooh! who knows if
they would have been as zealous, if they had been rich! ... Pilgrim's
earnestness did, however, seem genuine: tears were in his eyes; he
controlled his own indignation, and submitted to all my impertinence,
for the sake of his friend; but who can tell if this was not all a
trick on his part? No, no, there still are true friends in the world."
The organ vibrated from afar, and the singing of the congregation rose
in the air, then all was still: the Pastor was, no doubt, preaching his
sermon: one solitary human voice cannot be heard at such a distance.
Petrowitsch sat in his chair with clasped hands, and it seemed as if
some one was preaching to him, for suddenly he started up, and said
aloud:--"It is a very good thing to show others that you have a will of
your own; but it is also pleasant to be esteemed. After all, it is not
worth much; but still, to take men by surprise, and to make them say,
'Well, we never could have believed this.' Yes, yes, that would be
pleasant enough."
For many years Petrowitsch had not dressed himself so rapidly as
today--usually his dressing, like everything he did, was a work of
time, on which he could always spend a good hour--today he was ready in
a few minutes. He put on his fur cloak--and he had the finest fur in
the country; Petrowitsch had not been so long in Russia for nothing.
His old housekeeper, who had seen him so short a time before in his
dressing gown, looked at him in amazement, but she never ventured to
address him, unless he first spoke to her. Petrowitsch, stepping out
stoutly and carrying his goldheaded stick, with its strong sharp point,
went through the village, and then proceeded up the hill. No human
being was on the pathway, not a single soul looked out of the
window--so there was no one to wonder why the old man had left his own
house in such dreadful weather, and at so unusual an hour. Büble,
however, barked loud enough to supply this deficiency, as if saying,
"My master is going to a house--to a house--where no one would believe
he was really going. I could not have believed it myself." Büble barked
this out to a certain crow, who was perched contemplatively on a hedge,
gazing, in deep thought, at the melting snow; Büble soon barked for his
own behoof only, and the deeper the snow became, the higher Büble
jumped, making various unnecessary scurries on his own account, up the
hill and down again, and then he looked at his master, as if to say,
"No living creature understands you and me, except ourselves--we know
each other pretty well."
"I give up my peace for ever if I do it," said Petrowitsch to himself;
"but if I don't do it, I shall have no peace either, and so it is
better to earn some gratitude into the bargain; and he certainly is a
good, single hearted, honest man, just like his father. Yes, yes!"
These were Petrowitsch's reflections. He arrived in front of Lenz's
house. The door was locked; Büble had trotted on before him, and was
standing on the door step, when at the same instant--Petrowitsch had
actually the latch of the door in his hand--he sank to the ground. He
was lying under a mass of snow.
"This is the result of taking charge of other people's affairs," was
his first thought as he fell. Soon he no longer had the power to think.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
BURIED ALIVE.
"Get a light, Lenz; get a light! Let us at least see our danger,
whatever it may be. You sit there in the dark, groaning and lamenting:
why are you shedding tears on my hand? What do you mean? Let go my hand
that I may rise and strike a light."
"Annele, stay where you are!" Lenz could scarcely speak in his
agitation. "Annele, I had resolved to put an end to myself, and came to
take a last look at you; but now we are buried alive, and our child
with us."
"If any act of energy on your part had been required to cause this
misfortune, it never would have happened; it must have come of its own
accord."
Still, still, these bitter, irritating words--still the same sharp,
cutting tone. Lenz could scarcely draw breath.
"I must rise--I will rise," continued Annele. "I am not like you,
letting my arms hang idly by my side. Come good, or come evil, just as
it may chance, I am resolved to see what can be done. You would prefer
waiting, I suppose, till you are dug out, or the snow at last melted?
With me it is very different."
"Stay where you are, I will strike a light," answered Lenz, and went
into the next room, but before he could light a candle, Annele was
standing beside him. She had her child in her arms. He went to the
granary, but quickly returned, saying, with horror, that the roof had
given way under the weight of the snow; "And not snow alone," continued
he; "large trunks of trees have rolled down on the house, along with
the snow. That must have been the cause of the dreadful crashes we
heard."
"What care I for that? The point now is to help ourselves, and to find
some rescue."
Annele ran from window to window, and from door to door. "It cannot be!
such a misfortune is impossible!" Not till she saw that nothing yielded
to her frantic efforts, everything being as immovable as mason work,
did Annele break out into loud lamentations, and place the child on a
table. Lenz took the little girl in his arms, and begged Annele to be
patient, she having now sunk down in silence. "The cold hand of death
lies on our house," said he, "and it is no use struggling against
fate."
"Where is my boy?" said she, suddenly starting up. "Have you hid him
anywhere?"
"No; he is not here."
"God be praised! Then we are not all lost; one of us at least is safe."
"I will tell you fairly that I sent away the boy on purpose. I did not
wish him to see me murder myself. Now it has turned out differently.
God will demand our souls together. But this poor infant! it is hard it
should die with its sinful parents."
"I have committed no sin; I have nothing to reproach myself with."
"Well! continue to think so, if you can. Do you not know that you
murdered me, poisoning my heart, dishonouring me in my own eyes,
striving to trample upon me, and depriving me of all moral courage?"
"A husband who can submit to such things deserves no better fate."
"Annele, for God's sake remember that in the course of an hour, we
shall probably stand before another Judge! Search your conscience!"
"I don't want to hear your sermons; preach to yourself."
She went into the kitchen, and tried to light a fire, but she uttered a
cry of distress. When Lenz went to her, he saw her eyes fixed in horror
on the hearthstone, where rats and mice were sitting staring at her,
and a raven was flying about in the kitchen, dashing first against
plates, and then against pans, making them fall on the floor with a
crash.
"Kill them, kill them!" screamed Annele, hurrying away.
Lenz soon got rid of the rats and mice, but he could not succeed in
getting hold of the raven, without shattering all the crockery on the
kitchen shelves. The light of the lamp drove the creature distracted,
and without light it was impossible to find it. Lenz returned to the
sitting room, and said, "I have loaded pistols here, so I could shoot
the raven, but I dare not risk it, for the vibration from the shot
might hurry on the final destruction of the house. So I will at least
make this room safe."
He dragged a heavy press into the middle of the room, under the main
cross beam, placing a smaller one on the top, which he crammed full of
linen, and pushed it so tight against the ceiling, that it could
support a great pressure.
"Now we will bring in here whatever food we have in the house." This he
also completed quickly and surely.
Annele looked at him in astonishment. She could not stir from the spot;
she felt as if suddenly paralysed.
Lenz then brought out his prayer-book, and Annele's, and opened them
both at the same place--"Preparation for death." He placed the one
before Annele, and began to read the other himself; but presently he
looked up, and said, "You are right not to attempt to read this, for
there is nothing here to suit us. Never before was there such a case:
two human beings vowed to live in peace and unity, and mutually to
enhance the value of life, but they signally failed, and went different
ways, and yet now they are imprisoned together on the threshold of
death. They could not live together, but they must die together. Hush!"
said he, suddenly; "don't you hear a faint cry? It seems to me that I
hear groans."
"I hear nothing."
"We can't light a fire," continued Lenz; "the chimney is choked up, so
we should be stifled. But, God be praised! here is the spirit lamp that
my poor mother bought. Yes, mother," said he, looking up at her
picture, "even in death you help us. Light it, Annele; but be very
sparing of the spirit. Who knows how long we must stay here?"
Annele was transfixed with amazement at Lenz's expressions and
gestures. The words were often on her lips--"Are you the same Lenz who
was always so supine and helpless?" But she did not give utterance to
them; she was like a person in a trance, who would fain speak, but
cannot. She could not articulate a syllable.
After she had swallowed a cupful of hot milk, however, Annele said: "If
the rats and mice come in here, what is to be done?"
"Then we will kill them here too, and I will throw them out into the
snow, that their putrid carcases may not taint the air. I will do the
same to those in the kitchen."
Annele thought--"This must be another man! Can this be the former
listless, indolent Lenz, who is now so bold, when face to face with
death?"
Some words of kindness and appreciation trembled on her lips, but still
she said nothing.
"Look! that confounded raven has bitten me," said Lenz, coming in with
his hand bleeding, "and I cannot catch him. The creature is crazy from
terror, for the mass of snow carried the bird along with it. There is a
perfect pillar of snow in the chimney. It is ten o'clock. They are now
leaving church down below in the village. When the last peal rang out,
we were buried alive. That was our death-bell."
"I cannot die yet, I am still so young! and my child! I never knew, or
anticipated, that I exposed myself to sudden death by settling in such
a desert with a clockmaker."
"Your father is the sole cause of it," replied Lenz. "My parents were
three times snowed up. The snow lay so thick outside, that for two or
three days no one could leave the house; but we never were buried under
it till now. Your father sold the wood; it is his doing; he let the
wood be cut down over our heads."
"It is your fault; he offered to give you the wood."
"That is true enough."
"Oh, that I were safe out of this house, with my child!" lamented
Annele.
"And you don't think of me at all?"
Annele pretended not to hear this speech, and exclaimed again,
"Gracious powers! why must I die thus? what have I done?"
"What have you done? Soon, very soon, God will tell you. My words are
of no avail in awakening your conscience."
Lenz was silent, and Annele also, though she felt she must say
something, and yet she could not utter.
"Good heavens!" began Lenz at last; "here are we two doomed to die, and
yet what are our mutual feelings? Misery and despair! and, even if by
any unforeseen good fortune we are rescued, all the former tortures and
discord will be renewed. My parents were, as I told you, three times
snowed up. My mother took every possible precaution every winter in
case of such an event, and laid in a great provision of salt and oil. I
know nothing of the first two times, but I perfectly well remember the
last. I never saw my father and mother kiss each other in my life, and
yet they loved each other truly and faithfully in their hearts. And on
that occasion, when my father said, 'Marie, now we are once more in the
world, and separated from all other living creatures,' then, for the
first time, I saw my mother kiss my father; and the three days that it
lasted, the harmony in which they lived was like paradise. In the
morning, at midday, and at night, my father and mother sung together
from their hymnbook, and every word they spoke was calm and holy. My
mother said, 'Oh, that we may one day die thus together, and be
translated from peace here, to peace everlasting hereafter! I hope I
shall die at the same moment with you, that one may not be left to
grieve for the other.' It was then my father spoke of my uncle, and
said, 'If I must die now, I have not a single enemy in the world. I owe
no man anything. My brother Peter alone dislikes me, and that
distresses me deeply.'"
Lenz suddenly stopped in the midst of his narration.
"Something is scratching at the front door, and now I hear whining and
barking. What is it? I must see what it is," said Lenz.
"Don't, for God's sake!" screamed Annele, laying her hand on his
shoulder.
Her touch was like an electric shock to him.
"Don't go, Lenz. It is a fox, or perhaps a wolf; they bark just like
that I heard one once."
Encouraged by voices in the house, the voice outside became more
clamorous, and the scratching and barking more vigorous.
"That is no wolf!" cried Lenz; "it is a dog. Hark! it is Büble! Good
God! it is my uncle's dog, and my uncle is not far off; he is also
buried under the snow."
"Let him lie where he is; the old villain deserves no better fate."
"Woman! are you mad? Even at such a moment you are poisonous still."
"I drunk nothing but poison during all the long days up here. It was my
only refreshment."
Lenz went to the kitchen, and came back with a hatchet in his hand.
"What do you intend to do?" said Annele, clasping her child closely.
"Stand out of the way! stand out of the way!" cried Lenz, in a stern
voice, and, exerting all his strength, he hacked the door, which opened
outwards, to pieces.
It was indeed Büble, who darted in with a howl, but quickly rushed out
again, and began to poke his nose eagerly into the snow, barking louder
than ever.
Lenz set to to shovel away the snow, and very soon a piece of fur came
to light. Lenz now worked more cautiously, and, laying aside his
hatchet and shovel, he grubbed in the snow with his hands. He was
obliged to take the snow inside the house, to gain space, at last.
He found his uncle. He was insensible, and so heavy that Lenz had
scarcely strength to drag him in. He managed, however, to get him into
his room, and, after undressing him, he laid him on the bed. Then he
continued to rub him with all his strength till he revived. "Where am
I?" groaned he, "Where am I?"
"With me, uncle."
"Who brought me here? Who took off my clothes? Where are the clothes?
Where is my fur cloak, and my waistcoat? my keys are there. So you have
got me at last."
"Uncle, do be quiet. I will bring you everything. Here is your
waistcoat, and your fur cloak too."
"Give them to me. Are the keys safe? Yes, here they are. Ah, Büble! are
you there too?"
"Yes, uncle, it was he who saved you."
"Ah, now I remember! we were buried in the snow. How long ago is it?
Was it not yesterday?"
"Scarcely an hour since," replied Lenz.
"Do you hear help coming?"
"I hear nothing at all. Try to rest quietly where you are, while I go
into the next room to fetch you some restorative."
"Leave the light here, and bring me something hot."
When he was alone, Petrowitsch thought to himself, "I deserve it, right
well do I deserve it. Why did I go out of my way to meddle with their
affairs?"
Lenz quickly returned with some brandy, which seemed considerably to
revive Petrowitsch, who, fondling the dog that had crept close to him,
said, "Now let me go to sleep for a time. What is that? Is it not the
cry of a raven?
"Yes, one was dashed down the chimney by the snow, into the kitchen."
"Well, let me sleep."
CHAPTER XXXV.
A HEART TOUCHED.
Lenz went and sat down beside Annele in the sitting room. For some time
neither said a word; the child alone laughed, and tried alternately to
grasp the light, and then her father's eyes, that were fixed sadly on
her.
"Thank God! that if we must perish," said Lenz, at last, "our boy at
least is safe." Annele was silent; the clocks continued to tick quietly
in unison, and now the musical clock began to play a hymn. The eyes of
the husband and wife then met for the first time. Annele changed the
position of the child on her lap, and clasped her hands reverently.
"If you can pray," said Lenz, after the sacred melody was finished, "I
advise you to search your heart, and try to repent."
"I have nothing to repent of, so far as you are concerned, and what I
really do require to repent of, I shall confide to God alone. I never
wished to be unkind to you, I tried to be good and upright always."
"And I?"
"And you, too, did the same, so far as you could; I am more just
towards you, than you are to me; you would not let me even try to earn
a living."
"And all your harsh and dreadful words----"
"Pooh! words break no bones."
Lenz conjured and entreated her at least to be gentle and quiet before
his uncle.
Annele replied as if in a dream:--"Your uncle croaking, and the raven
screeching, tell me too plainly that die we must."
"You are not usually superstitious; it would be terrible if you were,
for you threw my mother's legacy and the writing out of the window, and
called on the storm to come."
Annele made no answer, and Lenz after a time rose, and said he would
dig deeper into the hole from which he had rescued his uncle. If he
could only dig his way through to the hill, he could then make his way
out, and bring succour, Annele's first impulse was to stretch out her
hand to detain him. If the snow were to give way, and Lenz be buried
under it, neither she nor Petrowitsch would have strength to dig him
out. She had already extended her hands to hold him back, but she
covered her face with them, and let him go. He came back shortly, and
said that the snow was so soft, that every hollow sank down quickly,
and that he feared it was snowing heavily outside. He, however,
shovelled out the snow, that he had brought into the house when digging
out his uncle, and dragged a press against the entrance to the house,
as fresh snow penetrated through the splintered door.
He was so thoroughly wet through, that he was obliged to change his
clothes, and it was his Sunday suit, which was also his wedding suit,
that he put on. "Five years ago this very day," thought he, "what a
number of sledges were standing before the 'Lion!' if the guests that
day were only here now to save us from death!"
After a short sleep, Petrowitsch awoke, but he lay quite quiet. He
deliberately thought over all that had happened. In this extremity
neither haste nor lamentations were of the smallest avail. Yesterday he
had recalled the whole of his past life; it seemed as if, within that
short space of time, he had lived it all again, but now the end is
come. He said this to himself quite coolly. How he was to behave to
Lenz and Annele, he could not for some time decide. At last he called
Lenz, and asked for his clothes, as he wished to rise. Lenz said it was
very cold in the next room, and it was impossible to light the stove;
moreover, his uncle's clothes were quite wet. Petrowitsch, however,
still persisted on rising, and asked, "Can you not lend me a warm
dressing gown?"
"Yes, I have one belonging to my late father--will you put it on?"
"If you have no other, I suppose I must," said Petrowitsch, peevishly,
for in his heart it made him sad, and in fact nervous, to wear what his
brother had worn.
"You look now wonderfully like my poor father," cried Lenz, "as like as
possible, only you are not so tall."
"I had a hard time of it when I was young, or I should have been less
stunted," said Petrowitsch, looking at himself in the glass, as he came
into the room.
The raven screeched in the kitchen; Petrowitsch started at the noise,
and desired Lenz, in an imperious voice, to kill the bird instantly.
Lenz explained why he could not, and then peace was to be established
between Büble and the house cat. Büble continued to whine for a long
time, for the cat had scratched him severely, but was now shut up in
the kitchen, which had the good effect of making the raven silent.
Petrowitsch asked for some more brandy, and Lenz told him that
fortunately there were three bottles of it still remaining; they were
at least twelve years old, and had belonged to his mother. Petrowitsch
soon made a tumbler of hot punch. He became more conversible, and
exclaimed:--"It would be too absurd, certainly! here have I dragged my
old carcase all through the world, and now I am to be crushed to death
in my parent's house. Serves me right; why could I not get over my
longing for home? Yes, a longing indeed." Then he laughed, and
continued: "My life is insured--what good does that do me now? and do
you know who is the cause of our all being buried alive? That upright
man, the fat Landlord of the 'Lion,' who sold the wood that sheltered
this rooftree, to pay his debts."
"Alas! by this action he buries his own child and his grandchild," said
Lenz.
"Neither of you are worthy to name my father's name," cried Annele, in
a shrill voice. "My father was unfortunate, but wicked he never was;
and if you say one word more against him, I will burn the house down."
"You are crazy," cried Petrowitsch; "are we to be grateful to him for
throwing these pretty little snowballs on our heads? But calm yourself,
Annele, come here and sit down by me, and give me your hand, Annele; I
will tell you something. I never thought you honest till now, but now
you are so indeed; you are right, and I am pleased to see that you
won't allow your old father to be abused. There are very few who still
cling to those who have nothing. So long as people have money in their
purse, we hear, often enough, 'Oh! how fond I am of you!' You are
right, my girl!"
Annele looked up at Lenz, who cast down his eyes, and Petrowitsch went
on to say:--
"It is perhaps as well that we should sit together thus at the very
hour, when--who knows?--we may be doomed to die; now all must be clear
and aboveboard among us. Lenz, come a little nearer! I think you hoped
that your wife would console you in adversity; and just because you
were dissatisfied with yourself, and could not exonerate yourself on
some points, you longed for praise from others, instead of being the
support and comfort of your wife,--proud Annele, of the 'Lion.' Don't
shake your head, for you are proud enough. Pride is no bad thing, and I
only wish Lenz had more of it; but wait a little, you will get it yet."
"Yes," cried Annele, "he told me lies; he persuaded me that he had
recalled the security he had given for Faller, and it was not the
fact."
"I never said anything of the kind, I only evaded your perpetual
importunities."
"Now, as I said before," continued Petrowitsch, "it comes to your turn,
Annele; say, upon your honour and conscience, whether you knew, when
you married Lenz, that your father was ruined?"
"Must I tell the honest truth?"
"Yes."
"Then I solemnly swear that this was the state of the case.--I knew
that my father was no longer a rich man, but still I considered him
perfectly independent. I liked Lenz truly while we were still wealthy,
but, at that time, my mother would not listen to a word on the subject.
My mother was always very ambitious for us, and moreover, she never
wished me to enter any family where I should have a mother-in-law."
"You would then have married me while my mother was alive," said Lenz,
"and yet Pilgrim declared that you said you never would have done so."
"When he said so, he told the truth. As a girl I used to say many
foolish things, merely to make people stare, and because they laughed
at my smart repartees."
Lenz fixed his eyes intently on Annele,--but Petrowitsch said:--
"Pray don't say any more, till I ask you to speak. You were both
persuaded that you married each other out of pure love and tenderness,
and yet each believed the other to be rich; and when this proved not to
be the case, then all sorts of suspicions, and bad feeling, arose
within your hearts. Say, honestly, Lenz; did you not believe that
Annele was rich?"
"Yes, I did; but, uncle, the misery that consumes me--that makes my
heart bleed, and my head burn,--does not arise from that; you know that
to be true, I am sure, Annele?"
"I never valued my cleverness much," said Annele, "but at all events, I
had both more quickness, and more experience than he had, and a better
idea of managing our affairs--and if he had yielded to my wishes and
settled in an inn, as I wished, we would not be now in this wretched
state, and death, too probably, staring us in the face."
"And what means did you use to persuade him to fulfil your wishes?"
"I showed him that he was good for nothing but to knock in stupid pegs.
I don't deny it. I did not spare him, and was resolved to break his
will, so I said whatever came uppermost, and the more it seemed to hurt
his feelings the more I was pleased."
"Annele, do you believe in eternal punishments?"
"I cannot do otherwise, for I suffer so cruelly now in the power of you
both, nothing hereafter can be worse. You can both torment me as you
please; I cannot defend myself, I am a weak woman."
"A weak woman!" shouted Petrowitsch, at the pitch of his voice. "A weak
woman! A capital idea! You are so hard and stubborn, that the very
walls might crumble down on your head without moving you; you pour the
most deadly poison into your husband's heart, enough to drive him mad,
and then you call yourself--a weak woman!"
"I could speak falsely," continued Annele, "and make you all sorts of
promises in this hour of extremity, but I will not; I would rather be
torn to bits, than give up a single atom of my rights. All that I said
to him was true, and that I said it venomously, is also true."
"Then it was all true," cried Lenz, as white as a sheet. "Only remember
one thing; you said my good deeds were only a cloak for my indolence,
and also that I had behaved ill to my mother. My mother! what will you
feel when we meet you, perhaps an hour hence?"
Annele said nothing. Petrowitsch, too, paused for a time, and then
said:--
"Annele, if he had strangled you for that speech, he would have been
beheaded, but God would have pronounced him innocent. Yes! as a
landlord's daughter, you are sharp enough, and no doubt you have heard
of rascally, worthless waggoners, who, when their horses don't go along
fast enough, put burning tow in their ears, till the wretched animals
are driven mad with pain. Your words towards Lenz were quite as cruel;
they were the burning tow in his ears by which you drove him wild.
There is my hand Lenz, you are too soft hearted, and go about, asking
every one:--'Give me a kind glance, or a kind word,'--that is pitiable
work. But you did not deserve such a punishment. You did not deserve
that a she-devil should drive you out of your senses. Give me the child
instantly! you are not worthy to carry an innocent child in your arms."
So saying, he snatched the child from her; the child screamed, but Lenz
interposed, saying:--
"Not so, uncle: Annele, listen to me, don't close your heart against
me, I mean to speak kindly to you. Annele, we are both standing on the
brink of our open grave."
"Heavens!" screamed Annele, covering her face with her hands, and Lenz
continued:--
"You, too, are on the brink of the grave,"
Annele no longer answered, for she had sunk down in a state of
insensibility on the floor.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
VOICES FROM THE DEAD.
As Annele fell, she upset the lamp on the table, which came down with a
crash, and was extinguished, leaving them in entire darkness. Lenz
rubbed Annele's temples with the brandy that he luckily got hold of;
she breathed at last, and grasped his hand. He carried her into the
next room, and after laying her down on the bed, he hurried back to get
a fresh light.
Lenz fortunately had an ample store of purified turpentine oil in the
house, by which he usually worked at night. The raven, in the kitchen,
had broken the large can, and an insupportable smell of rosin
penetrated into the room, when the door was opened. Lenz lighted the
lamp with the brandy, and the three miserable prisoners looked still
more deplorable, by the blue flickering light.
Petrowitsch laid the child on the bed; her feet were as cold as ice. He
ordered Büble to lie down on the child's feet, which Büble instantly
did. Then Petrowitsch took Lenz by the arm, and led him back into the
sitting room, the door of the adjacent room remaining open.
The raven and the cat were again at war in the kitchen, but they let
them fight it out, till they were quiet of their own accord.
"Have you anything fit to eat?" asked Petrowitsch; "it is past five
o'clock, and I am wofully hungry."
There was enough to eat, as a ham had fallen from the loft down the
chimney; there was also bread, and a large sack of dried fruit.
Petrowitsch ate with a good appetite, and pressed Lenz to eat also, but
he could not bring himself to swallow a morsel. He was anxiously
listening to every sound in Annele's room. The child was talking in its
sleep; a kind of confused muttering, as if from another world, and it
was startling to hear it laugh--still sound asleep. Annele lay quiet,
breathing softly. Lenz went in to take up the child, and called out in
terror, for he had seized Büble by mistake, who bit at him fiercely.
Annele was roused by the cry, and calling Lenz and Petrowitsch to come
to her, she said:--
"I thank God that I still live, if only for one hour longer. I ask
forgiveness from all, but more especially from you, my Lenz."
"Don't try to speak much at present," interrupted he. "Will you not be
persuaded to take something? I have found some coffee, but not the
coffee mill. I will bruise it if the child is awake. There is some good
ham here besides."
"I cannot eat. Let me speak. What has happened? Why did you give such a
cry, Lenz?"
"It was nothing. I wished to take the child, and Büble snapped
viciously at me, and in the terror of the moment, and the anguish of
our position, I felt as if some monster, I knew not what, was about to
devour us all."
"Alas!" said Annele, "your distraction of mind, your nervous state,
has all been caused by me. Oh! Lenz, what I dreamt has come to pass.
Last night I thought I stood beside an open grave, and looked in,
deep, deep, and dark; little heaps of earth rolled down and down; I
tried to save myself, but could not; I stumbled, and was precipitated
to the bottom. Hold me fast! Now it is past--lay your hand on my
face--merciful powers! to think that you must die with me, that all
this misery has fallen on us, in order to bring me to repentance! I
deserve it, but you and this child." ... Tears prevented her saying
more; she seized Lenz's hand and placed it to her lips, then she
exclaimed:--
"An hour ago, I would gladly have died, but now I should be so glad to
live! I should like yet to show the world what I can do! I see now what
I have been. Henceforth I will thankfully implore a kind look or word.
Merciful Father! succour us, and save us from this dreadful death, if
only for a day, for an hour! I then would send for Franzl; Lenz, my
first shortcomings began with her."
"Now I do verily believe that the evil one is fairly driven out," said
the uncle: "a striking proof of it is your thinking of Franzl, and
wishing to benefit her, whose life you embittered by turning her away.
Here you have my hand in token of friendship; now all will be well."
Lenz could not speak; he hurried into the next room, and bringing some
of the spirit, he placed it to Annele's lips, saying:--"Drink, Annele,
and for every drop you drink, I would fain give you as many grateful
and loving words." Annele shook her head, and he went on:--"Only drink
it, to give you fresh strength. Now try to rest, and don't speak
another word."
Annele said she could not rest, though she would have been glad to do
so, as it was his wish; she lamented bitterly, that, in all probability
they must all soon die; but Lenz tried to soothe her by saying, that
they had still food enough to last for several days, and that they
ought to thank God for his great mercy in this; and before what they
had in the house was consumed, no doubt help would arrive. Annele then
began afresh to deplore the great sin she now felt she had committed,
in having received so unthankfully the blessings that had been granted
to her, always living in peace and plenty, and yet these mercies she
had utterly disregarded; and she perpetually bewailed and lamented,
saying--"I feel as if snakes were winding round my head. See if every
hair is not a snake--and only yesterday I was so proud, plaiting my
hair."
With feverish, trembling fingers she took down her hair, and let it
float over her shoulders, making her look still more wild and wretched.
Lenz and Petrowitsch had considerable difficulty in pacifying her; the
uncle at last insisted on Lenz leaving Annele alone, and going with him
to the next room, when Petrowitsch said to him:--"Pray endeavour to be
composed, for Annele's sake, or she will die before any help can reach
us. I never beheld such a revulsion in any human being, I could
scarcely have believed it. Such a shock to the whole system must be
very trying. Now tell me what letter was it that I found in your
child's frock, when I placed Büble on her feet?"
Lenz related the desperate determination he had come to, and said it
was his farewell to Annele and to life, and begged his uncle to give it
back to him; but his uncle held it fast, and read it out in a low
voice.
Lenz shuddered at hearing the words repeated, that he had intended
being spoken after his death. He watched the expression of his uncle's
face, so far as it was visible in the blue light, to see what he
thought of it; Petrowitsch however, did not once look up, and read on
to the end, when he gave one quick sharp glance at Lenz. He then put
the letter in his pocket.
"Give me the letter, and I will burn it," said Lenz, in a whisper.
In the same suppressed tone, Petrowitsch answered:--"No, I mean to keep
it, I have only half known you till now."
He was uncertain whether Petrowitsch meant this for good or evil, but
the old man stood up, and took down his brother's file from the wall,
holding it in his hand, which pressed on the well worn hollow, produced
in long years of work, by his dead brother's fingers.
Perhaps at that moment he made an inward vow, that if they were
rescued, he would supply the place of a father to Lenz, but he only
said: "Come here, I want to whisper something to you. The basest action
a man can commit is suicide; I knew the son of such a man, who
said to me--'My father made his fate light, but ours hard!' and that
son----" here Petrowitsch suddenly paused, and then said, close to his
ear--"cursed his father's memory!"
Lenz started back in horror, and almost sunk to the ground on hearing
these words, but Annele at this moment called to him:--"Lenz, for God's
sake come here!" They hurried to her, and she said, still in a most
excited state, "Oh! my dear Lenz, to think that you really wished to
make away with yourself! Surely you could not have done so when it came
to the last, for the children's sake; but I am the guilty cause of your
ever dreaming of so fearful a sin. Oh! how your heart must have bled! I
don't know what is the worst thing I have done, to implore your
forgiveness for."
"It is all over now," said Petrowitsch, soothingly. It was singular
that the same ideas should be working in Annele's brain, in her room,
where she could not possibly hear a word of what the two men were
saying in cautious whispers. Both tried to pacify her.
Several clocks now struck three.
"Is that noon or night?" asked Annele.
"It must be night."
They recapitulated all that had occurred since the snow had been
precipitated on the house; and they agreed it must be long past
midnight.
"Oh! daylight! if I could only once more, only just once more, see the
blessed sun! Oh! rise in the sky and succour us! Oh! that it were
light!" cried Annele, incessantly. They could not quiet her nervous
excitement, till at last she dropped asleep from sheer exhaustion.
Petrowitsch also fell into a doze, and Lenz alone remained awake. He
dared not sleep; it was indispensable that he should steadily face
their deadly peril, and ward it off, so far as human means could avail.
He extinguished the light. The store of spirits for the lamp must not
be wasted--who knows how long it may still be required! And soon, as
Lenz sat thus in silence and darkness, it seemed first noon, and then
night; at one moment he wished it were day, at the next he hoped it was
night. If it were day, help would be nearer; if night, those outside
would have been working on longer, shovelling away the snow, and
rolling away the heavy trunks of trees. Often he thought that he heard
sounds outside, but it was all a delusion--it was the raven croaking in
his sleep.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
A PHALANX.
At the self-same hour--it was twelve o'clock at noon--Faller went to
Lenz's home, wishing to tell him that he was now freed from the
security for his house. It was raining and snowing alternately, and a
violent wind drove the rain and snow about, so that it was scarcely
possible to see through it. Faller, however, strode on sturdily, his
head bent forward, struggling manfully with the storm. Suddenly he
looked up, having arrived at his destination, when he rubbed his eyes,
and stared round him aghast. Where have you got to? have you lost your
way? Where is Lenz's house? He turned round and round, but could not
understand where he was. Stop! there are the old firs that stand just
in front of Lenz's house; but the house! the house! In his anguish of
mind, Faller slipped into a snow wreath, and the more he struggled to
extricate himself, the deeper he plunged in. He prayed to God, he cried
for help--no one heard him. He managed to get hold of the trunk of a
tree and to cling to the branches, for he could get no further; then a
fresh avalanche came rolling down the hill, and carried the snow with
it in its course, and Faller was free. And this last rush of snow
having cleared the pathway, he hurried down into the valley. By the
time he saw light glancing from the house, night had set in, and with
shouts which quickly roused even those who were asleep, Faller cried
aloud through the village: "Help! help!"
All hurried to their windows, and out into the street, when Faller
declared that Lenz's house at the Morgenhalde was buried in the snow.
Faller rushed to the church, and rang the alarm bell. Very few people
came from a distance; the weather was so dreadful, that the wind did
not carry the sound of the alarm bell far.
Pilgrim and the Techniker were the first to arrive at the church door.
There was no end to lamentations at this frightful occurrence,
especially at night, and in such a hurricane. Pilgrim could not utter,
he seemed frozen with horror.
The Techniker acted like a prompt and gallant young man. "Get ladders
and ropes instantly," said he, "collect as many as you can, and shovels
and hatchets."
Torches were lighted, while the storm, however, blew about wildly. Some
women came also. They had tied their gowns over their heads as a
shelter against the storm, and it was a strange sight to see these
spectral looking figures, clinging to their husbands and sons, in the
red light of the torches, and endeavouring to prevent their going to
the rescue, from the fear of their being lost in the snow.
The Techniker wound the end of a long rope round his body--he assumed
the command at once--and ordered six men, at considerable distances, to
bind themselves together, so that they might not have to seek each
other, and might be able mutually to assist each other out of a snow
wreath, if they fell into one.
Pilgrim formed one of the band, and Don Bastian also offered to be one,
but the Techniker told him to place himself at the head of another
chain of men.
They took some dry wood with them to light a fire, and provided with a
number of hatchets, shovels, and ladders, they set off up the hill.
When they arrived at about fifty paces from the house--they could not
get any nearer--a space was cleared of the snow in a sheltered spot,
and a fire lighted. The ladders were placed against the mountain of
snow, but they sunk in as soon as a man got on them; moreover the wind
blew out the torches, and at intervals a cry was heard: "I am sinking!"
Every kind of attempt was made, but all failed.
"Nothing can be done at night, and in such a storm," was the universal
cry; at last it was resolved they should all go home; one watchman was
to be left beside the fire. Faller immediately offered to remain, and
Pilgrim wished also to stay, but the Techniker saw that his teeth were
chattering from cold, and he insisted on taking him home, consoling him
by saying, that if the inhabitants of the house on the Morgenhalde were
still alive, help would be quite time enough in the morning.
In the village the report quickly spread, that Petrowitsch must be
buried along with them in the snow, as he had gone to Lenz's house that
morning, and had not returned; his comrade Ibrahim, when he heard the
alarm bell, had run into the street with a pack of cards in his hand
saying: "I am waiting for Petrowitsch." Pilgrim said to his new friend:
"It would indeed be sad, if Petrowitsch at last resolved to assist
Lenz, and lost his life on that account."
Pilgrim reproached himself severely for having spent the whole day in
childish games with Wilhelm, for a kind of presentiment had drawn him
towards the Morgenhalde--a sensation as if some misfortune had happened
there; but he had persuaded himself that this feeling was purely
imaginary, and had gone on playing with his godson; now he sat beside
the child's bed till his eyes almost closed from fatigue, thinking how
little the boy, who was sleeping soundly, anticipated what a misfortune
this night might bring on his head--indeed perhaps had already brought
on him.
Faller remained at his post like a soldier on the field, and a comrade
stood with him--a dial maker, who had once been a sapper and miner.
They held a council together how this snow fortress was to be stormed,
but they could discover no mode of setting to work. Faller in the mean
time stirred and replenished the fire on the side of the hill, furious
that he could find no way to rescue his friend.
A stranger joined them at their watch fire; it was a messenger from the
neighbouring town, who had been sent to summon Annele to her mother,
who was dying.
"Fetch her out!" said Faller in bitter sorrow; "she is below there."
He then related what had occurred, and the man went homewards in the
darkness.
Faller ventured to skirt the uprooted wood, by a bye path; if he could
only reach the fir trees before the house, then aid would be nearer. In
company with the dial maker, he pushed some large logs lying on the
side of the hill, towards the fir trees; several were precipitated
down, and remained standing upright in the snow, while one rolled down
the hill, and rested on the firs.
"Good Heavens!" said his companion, "the large logs that we have rolled
down, are sure to come in collision with the roof, and to crush to
death the unhappy inmates."
"I am the most stupid wretch that ever lived, the most senseless, the
most idiotical; now I shall have been the cause of your death, my dear,
good Lenz!" cried Faller in despair.
After a while he managed to crawl on a bridge formed by the trunk of a
tree, and succeeded in setting fire with his torch, to several trees
that were heaped together on that spot.
"That will melt the snow surely," cried he, elated.
"Yes, but it may catch the straw thatched roof," replied his comrade.
Faller stood transfixed, but soon began to roll huge snowballs on the
top of the fire, and succeeded in extinguishing it just as day broke.
It was a bright morning, almost as warm as a spring day; the sun shone
warmly on the Morgenhalde, seeking the house that he had greeted for so
many long years, but could no longer find it; he sought its master, who
was always so quiet, and yet so busy, seated at early dawn working at
his window, just like his father before him, and his grandfather before
that; but neither house nor master was to be found, and the sun's rays
blinked strangely, and flickered hither and thither, as if they had
lost their way; the treacherous snow displayed its broad glittering
white surface, as if saying: "Do your worst." The sun sent down fiery,
burning rays, and melted the outposts, but the fortress itself must be
besieged for days.
The men had all reassembled, with the Techniker at their head; and from
the adjacent village, and many other parishes besides, there were
plenty of stout hands ready to work.
The trees rolled down by Faller, at all events served as a firm
support, and, miner fashion, a path was dug out below, and above also
the work went on quickly, and according to a regular plan.
A solitary raven kept constantly flying among those who were clearing
away the snow, and would not be driven away. Its companions in the air
screeched to it in vain; it paid no attention to their cries, but
watched those who were at work, as if it had something very particular
to communicate.
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
A PLANT GROWS UNDER THE SNOW.
Lenz sat sad and silent in darkness and solitude, watching for death.
Petrowitsch awoke at last, and related to Lenz, that in the days of his
youth, he remembered a house being overwhelmed by an avalanche in a
similar manner, and that, when they at last succeeded in digging out
the inhabitants, they found them all crushed flat, and four peasants
who had been sitting round a table were crushed also, with their cards
still in their hands. The old man shuddered as he recalled this
circumstance, and yet he could not refrain from relating it; it was a
relief to him to tell it, although it made Lenz shiver with horror. He
however quickly added, that he felt sure that God would permit them to
be saved, for the sake of the innocent child; and he almost rebelled
against the decrees of Providence, in ordaining that the poor child
should be buried along with them.
"Annele is now, however, become as good and placid as a child,"
answered Lenz.
Petrowitsch shook his head, and admonished him, if he ever saw the
light again, not to be so easily reconciled; he advised him to act in
such a manner, that Annele must daily and hourly seek to win his
affections. Lenz resisted this advice, and told his uncle that it was
evident he never had been married:--
"An angel dwelt within Annele, that might render home a heaven for any
man, and the sad thing was, that in the bitterness of her trials, she
had repressed all the naturally good impulses of her kind heart."
Petrowitsch shook his head again, but made no reply.
The child suddenly gave a loud scream, and Annele awoke and cried
out:--
"The ceiling is falling! the ceiling is falling! Lenz, where are you?
stay beside me! let us die together: give me the child in my arms!"
By degrees Annele was pacified, and with restored self command went
into the sitting room with Lenz and Petrowitsch.
Lenz bruised the coffee beans, which were part of the present brought
by Ernestine the grocer's wife; and again they all sat together by the
light of the feeble blue flame. The coffee cheered them all. The clock
struck. Annele said she had not tried to count the strokes, she would
ask no more whether it were day or night; they would at all events live
together in eternity, when the last fatal hour was past. She had hoped
that they would have contradicted her fear of the worst, and the
certainty she had expressed of approaching death, but no one said a
word.
They continued to sit in silence together, for there was little more to
say. After a long pause, Lenz said to his uncle that the past was now
all smooth and clear, but he should like to know why his uncle had been
always so dry and reserved towards him.
"Because I hated him whose dressing gown I am now wearing. Yes! hated
him; he ill used me in my youth, and it was his fault that I was called
the 'Goatherd' for life. In his file there is a hollow produced by long
pressure; how much more must it work on the human heart!--and his
pressure on it was hard indeed. My only brother cast me off; and when
at last I came home, I rejoiced at the thought of giving vent to the
mass of hatred I had borne about with me so long. I can, with truth,
say that I hated him to the death. Why did he die, and leave me alone
in the world, without our ever having exchanged one kind word at the
last? On the whole of my long journey home, I felt so happy in the
thought that I should again have a brother; and now he was gone and no
one to replace him; but in truth, and to speak honestly, I did not
really hate him, for had I done so, would I have come home? In
this world I shall hear my brother's words no more, soon perhaps
elsewhere,----"
"Uncle," said Annele, "at the same moment when Büble scratched at the
door--at that very same time--Lenz was telling me, that when his father
was once snowed up here, though not buried like us, he had said--'If I
must die now, I have not an enemy in the world but my brother Peter,
and I should like to be reconciled to him.'"
"Really! really!" said Petrowitsch, pressing one hand on his eyes, and
with the other grasping the well worn file of his brother.
For long nothing was heard but the ticking of the clocks, till Lenz
again asked why his uncle had always been so indifferent about him; it
had grieved his heart, that, for nearly a year, his father's only
brother had settled in the same place, and yet would not notice him;
every time he met Petrowitsch, he would like to have gone up to him and
taken hold of his hand.
"I saw that well enough," answered Petrowitsch, "but I was angry with
you and your mother, because I heard that she spoiled you, and told
you--seven times a day at least--how good you were, and the best son in
the world, and so clever and so prudent! That was very unwise. Men are
like birds. There are some who devour insects, and must have each
minute a fresh one in their crops; and you are just like one of these
birds, every minute a pat on the shoulder, or a panegyric."
"He is right, is he not Annele?" said Lenz, with a bitter smile.
"Not far wrong," answered Annele.
"Don't you say a word," cried Petrowitsch, "you are also a bird, or
rather you were one, and do you know what kind of one? a bird of prey:
they can endure hunger for days, but then they devour whatever they can
get hold of--an innocent singing bird, or a kitten, with bones, and
skin, and fur, entire."
"He is right here also," answered Annele, "I never was better pleased
than when I got hold of some one to pull at, and to tear to pieces. I
exhibited this unhappy tendency, the very first day you and I drove out
together, when I felt such malicious pleasure in provoking Ernestine,
and you asked me, 'Does that give you pleasure?' These words sunk into
my heart, and I intended to become as amiable as you, and felt there
was more real happiness in this; and yet I lived on in the old way, and
every now and then I thought, 'presently I will begin to be very
different, but no one shall see it, my husband above all must not
suspect it;' and then the old evil spirit got the mastery again over
me, and I felt ashamed that people should observe that I wished to be
better, and so at last I gave up even wishing to be so. I felt I was
Annele of the 'Lion,' who had been a favourite with every one who came
to the house--that there was no need for any change. And I was furious
with you, because you were the first person who ever found fault with
me, for saying what others praised and laughed at; and then I wished to
show you that you were no great things yourself. And at last all hung
on the one point: 'you must be a landlady again, then you will recover
your self-esteem, and the world, too, will see what you are.' It was
thus I thought, and thought wrong. Even yesterday--was it yesterday?
when the Pastor was here. Listen! your uncle is asleep; I am glad of
it. I am thankful to be one hour alone with you before we pass into
eternity. No third person could understand the love we bear each other
in our hearts, even amid all--all that has happened. If I could only
see your face once more, only once fairly in the bright daylight! I can
distinguish nothing by this blue flickering light. If I could see but
once your kind face and loving eyes! To die thus without one last look,
what agony it is! and how often I have turned away my eyes when I saw
that yours were seeking mine! Oh! for but one single look, that I could
see you once before we die."
Petrowitsch still pretended to sleep. He had quickly seen that Annele
was eager to unburthen her heart, and that no third person ought to
interfere. The child played with Büble, and Annele continued:--
"Oh! if I could but recall the years that are past! Once you said
to me at noon: Is there anything in the world more cheering than the
sun?--and then again one evening: What pure happiness fresh air brings!
I ridiculed you for your simplicity; I was constantly sinning against
your better nature; everything makes you happy, and so it ought to be.
Just as I once threw away your father's file and broke the sharp point,
and it seemed to enter my heart, but I took care you should not know
this; and I threw out of the window your mother's pious writing, and
the plant: there is not a single thing in which I have not acted wrong.
I know--I know that you forgive me freely; pray to a gracious God that
He will also forgive me in life and in death."
A musical timepiece began to play a hymn. Petrowitsch moved uneasily in
his chair, but appeared to sleep again. When the air was ended, Annele
exclaimed:--
"What is there that I have not to ask forgiveness for? even that clock.
Now for the first time in my life, I hear how holy that music sounds,
and yet how often I vexed you on this subject also! Good and gracious
Lord! I ask it not for myself--but save us, oh! save us! let me prove
that I wish to make up for the past."
"I feel quite happy now, even if we are doomed to die," said Lenz;
"while the clock was playing it came into my thoughts--we have got the
precious plant Edelweiss again; it grew under the snow in your
naturally good heart. Why do you tremble so?"
"I am so cold, my feet are like ice."
"Take off your shoes, and I will warm your feet in my hands. Are you
better now?"
"Yes, much better, but my head feels as if every hair were dripping
blood. Hark! I hear the cock crow, and the raven screech. God be
praised! it must be daylight at last."
They started up, as if help were really at hand, and the uncle, too,
seemed to rouse himself from his supposed sleep; but suddenly there was
a loud crash. "We are lost!" cried Petrowitsch.
All was again still. The ceiling of their sleeping room had given way,
so that the door could no longer be opened. After the first moment of
alarm, Lenz thanked God that his wife had a presentiment in her sleep
of what had happened, and left the room with her child; and for their
comfort he told them that their sleeping room was a new building,
unconnected with the other part of the house; and that he had no fear
of the stout crossbeams of the old house not standing fast and
untouched. It did seem to him, however--only he took care not to say
this--that the walls of the room next the sleeping one bent inwards;
but this was merely a delusion, caused by the flickering, dim, blue
light.
A long silent pause ensued; no sound was heard except when a cock was
heard crowing in the distance, or when Büble barked and the raven
croaked.
"This is an actual Noah's ark," said Petrowitsch; and Lenz replied:--
"Whether the issue of this is life or death, we are equally saved from
the deluge caused by sin."
Annele placed her hand in his.
"If I had only my pipe; it is so stupid in you not to smoke, Lenz,"
said Petrowitsch, in a complaining voice. The thoughts of his
collection of pipes at home, must have reminded him of his fireproof
strongbox, for he continued:--"I tell you fairly, that even if we are
saved, you need not expect any money from me--not a single dollar."
"We shall not want it then," said Lenz; and Annele asked in her clear
voice:--
"Do you know who will not believe you?"
"You?"
"No! the world will never believe it; if you were to swear it a hundred
times over, no man will credit, that he who shared our deadly peril,
will not share his life with us henceforth. The world will in future
give us credit for your sake, and make us rich if we like."
"You are as shrewd and mischievous as ever," said Petrowitsch; "I
thought all your gay gibes were at an end for ever."
"I am thankful they are not," cried Lenz; "Annele, keep up your lively
spirits; if God rescues us from this peril, be honest and merry, as
Pilgrim says."
Annele threw her arms round Lenz's neck, and kissed him affectionately.
All the three suddenly felt that they had become as cheerful as if all
danger were past, and yet, at this moment, it was greater than ever.
They would none of them point it out to the others, but yet they saw
with awe and fear, that the walls were trembling, and the cross beams
sinking.
Annele and Lenz held each other in a close embrace:--
"Let us die thus, and shelter the child by our bodies," cried Annele.
"Farewell, life! Lord God, save our child!"
"Hark! there is a hollow sound; help is at hand! we are saved! we are
saved!"
CHAPTER XXXIX.
SAVED.
"I hear two distinct knocks following each other," cried Lenz; "I will
give a signal in answer; I will set the clocks all playing."
He did so, but the confusion of sounds quite stupefied him; even at
this moment of deadly anguish, the discord was insupportable to him. In
his excitement, he had injured the mechanism of the largest musical
clock, which went to his heart.
Again they held their breath and listened eagerly, but all was still.
"I rejoiced too soon," said Petrowitsch, his teeth chattering from
excitement, "we are still nearer death than life."
Again distinct knocks were heard, and Petrowitsch complained that the
hammering seemed to knock his head, and that every blow went through
his brain.
Lenz could not have set the clocks properly, for suddenly one of them
began to play the air of the grand Hallelujah, and Lenz sang with
it:--"Hallelujah! Praise God, the Lord!"
Annele sang with him, placing one hand on Lenz's shoulder, and
the other on the head of her child, and up above a voice
shouted--"Hallelujah! Hallelujah!"
"Pilgrim! my dearest of all friends!" cried Lenz, in a voice that was
heartrending.
The door of the room was broken in with a hatchet.
"Are you all still alive?" cried Pilgrim.
"Praise and thanks be to the Lord! we are--all of us."
Pilgrim first hugged Petrowitsch, whom he took for Lenz, and the old
man kissed him on both cheeks, Russian fashion.
Immediately after Pilgrim, the Techniker appeared, followed by Faller,
Don Bastian, and all the members of the Choral Society.
"Is my boy all right?" asked Lenz.
"Indeed he is, I left him in my house," said Don Bastian.
By this time the snow was shovelled away from the window.
"The sun! the sun! I see the sun once more!" cried Annele, sinking on
her knees.
The musical clock continued playing the Hallelujah, the Schoolmaster
joined, and the whole of the Choral Society sung with him in full loud
tones. It seemed as if an impetus had been given to the mass of snow by
the powerful chorus, for the avalanche rolled away from the front of
the house down into the valley.
The house stood free.
The door had remained open, and the moment the windows were also thrown
up, the raven shot away into the sky, over the heads of all the
assembled people.
"The bird is off," cried the child.
Outside, however, a raven had been long wheeling about, waiting for its
mate; and now they flew along together, first high into the air, and
then dipping down in circles far away over the valley.
The first woman who came up to Annele, was Ernestine, her cousin, who
had heard of the sad catastrophe, and also of the death of the
Landlady, Annele's mother, and had hurried to Annele in the hope of
comforting her; she knelt down beside her; Lenz was leaning on Pilgrim.
Petrowitsch was becoming very indignant, that nobody took any charge of
him, when luckily the Techniker came up to him just in time, wishing
him joy of his providential escape. "So far so good," thought the old
man; "this is the only well bred man of the whole band." Pilgrim too
was very kind, and said aloud: "I beg your pardon for having hugged you
so tight; I took you for Lenz: pray shake hands with me."
Petrowitsch gave him his hand instantly.
"I found a piece of your mother's writing in the snow," said Faller in
a hoarse voice; "the words are almost effaced, but you can still
see--'This plant is called Edelweiss--Marie Lenz.'"
"That paper is mine!" exclaimed Annele, starting to her feet. All
looked at her in astonishment, and Ernestine screamed out:--"Annele,
Annele! Look at her for God's sake! her hair is as white as snow!"
Annele went to the glass and uttered a cry of horror, and, clasping her
hands over her head, she cried:--"An old woman, an old woman!" and sunk
into Lenz's arms; after a time she rose sobbing, dried her tears, and
whispered to Lenz: "This is my Edelweiss, grown under the snow."
CHAPTER XL.
ALL'S WELL.
The ravens flew over the valley, and flew over the hills, and at last
they flew past a small house, where an old woman was seated at the
window spinning coarse flax, and her tears were falling fast on the
threads as she drew them out. It was Franzl; she had heard the report,
that Lenz and his family were buried in the snow: even from Knuslingen,
people had hurried to the rescue. Franzl would gladly have gone with
them to help if she could, but her tottering limbs could not bear her
thither, and unluckily she had lent her only pair of shoes to a poor
woman, who was obliged to go to the Doctor. In the midst of all her
distress, Franzl often struck her forehead and thought: "Oh! how stupid
I was not to observe when he was here, that something was wrong; but
what use is that now? I had it on the tip of my tongue that day, to beg
him to take timely precautions against the snow. We were twice snowed
up, for a day and a half: every winter we tried to guard against it.
But it's too late to think of that now; my old mistress was right, when
she said a hundred times over: 'Franzl, you can speak sensibly; but
always an hour too late to be of any use.'"
The ravens, who were now flying past, could have told Franzl that she
might dry her tears, as the buried alive were rescued; but men do not
understand ravens, and human beings are some time before they can carry
good news over hill and valley.
It was evening when a sledge came driving along, with a cheerful
ringing of bells. What does the sledge come here for, and stop at this
door?--there is no one at home but old Franzl.
"Who is getting out, is it not Pilgrim?" Franzl wishes to rise to meet
him, but she is unable to stir.
"Franzl, I have come to fetch you;" cried Pilgrim. Franzl rubbed her
eyes: "Is it a dream? what does it mean?" Pilgrim continued: "Lenz is
saved, and all belonging to him, and I have been sent to fetch your
fair Princess Cinderella! Will you entrust your precious person to my
care in the sledge?"
"I have not a single pair of shoes to put on," said Franzl at last.
"I will lend you a pair of fur boots, I have below; they are sure to
fit your small feet, Princess," answered Pilgrim. "And here is the
skin--I mean the fur cloak of Petrowitsch the sorcerer. You must come
with me this very moment, my well-beloved Franzl of Knuslingen! You
must cease spinning your magic threads, and leave your magic wheel
here; unless it thinks fit to walk after us on its wooden legs." So
saying, Pilgrim bowed to Franzl and offered her his arm, as if to lead
her to a banquet.
Franzl was utterly confounded. Luckily her sister-in-law came home at
this moment, and she seemed to have no objections to Franzl being
carried off in a sledge. She assisted to help old Franzl to pack her
things; but the old woman made her leave the room, for she wished above
all to pack up a certain secret shoe carefully.
"I have my own feather bed here," said Franzl, "do you think you could
put it on the sledge?"
"Let Knuslingen sleep on it in peace," answered Pilgrim; "make a
footstool of your pillow, and leave all the rest."
"Must I leave my hens and my geese here too? They are my own, they all
belong to me; and my beautiful gold speckled hen has been laying for
the last six weeks."
The bepraised lady stuck her head out, between the bars of the coop,
and showed her red comb.
Pilgrim said that hens and geese all ran after the veritable Cinderella
of their own accord; and that if these chose to do the same, no one
wished to prevent them, but that they certainly would not be taken in
the sledge.
Franzl now charged her sister-in-law to pay the greatest attention to
the cherished creatures she left behind: she was to take care of them,
to feed them well, and to send them to her when a man came for them.
When Franzl was leaving the room, the hens began to cackle uneasily in
their coop, and even the geese said a friendly word of regret as she
passed them.
It was a fine, bright winter night when Franzl drove off with Pilgrim;
the stars glittered above, and a heaven filled with shining stars arose
within Franzl's soul. She often laid hold of her bundle, and pressed it
till she felt her shoe was safe there; and often, as they dashed along,
she thought it was all a dream.
"Look! there is my little patch of potato ground that I bought," said
Franzl; "it was only a heap of stones, and I have cultivated it so well
during the four years I have had it, that it is worth double, and the
potatoes it grows are like flour."
"Potatoes may be very precious in the sight of the Knuslingers, but you
shall get something better now," answered Pilgrim. He then detailed to
her every particular, with regard to the rescue of the inhabitants of
the house on the Morgenhalde, and told her that they all were now to
live with old Petrowitsch, and that they were the best of friends; the
old miser seemed entirely changed, and Annele's first request was, that
Franzl should be sent for. Franzl sobbed aloud when Pilgrim told her
that Annele's hair was now snow white.
At every house they passed, where lights were visible, Franzl would
fain have stopped and told them the famous news. "There lives so and
so, such good kind people! and they all deplored poor Lenz's fate; and
it is hard that they should go on lamenting, when there is no longer
any occasion for it. And they will jump sky high for joy, when they
hear that the first thing they did was to send for old Franzl; and who
knows if I may ever see them again to say good bye to them?"
Pilgrim, however, drove pitilessly past all these good men, and would
not stop anywhere. When any one opened a window, and looked out at the
sledge, then Franzl called out as loud as she could: "Good bye, and God
bless you!"
And although, from the ringing of the bells, no one heard a word
she said, still she had the satisfaction of having shouted a kind
word to the good souls; for who knows when she might come back to
Knuslingen?--perhaps never!
At the farm where Kathrine lived, Pilgrim was obliged to stop to feed
his horse, but--there is no perfect joy on this earth--Kathrine, alas!
was not at home. As she had no children of her own, she was constantly
taking charge of those of her neighbours; and she was now nursing one
of them in her confinement. Franzl, however, sent her a minute account
of all that had happened, through the sempstress who was sewing in the
house; and she repeated every word twice over, that she might not
forget it.
When she got into the sledge again, she first fully enjoyed her
happiness. "Now," said she, "I feel so much better. It is like sleeping
soundly, but waking up for a moment in the night, and saying to one's
self: Oh! this is famous,--and going sound asleep again."
Pilgrim, however, had nearly destroyed all her delight by a foolish
joke of his.
"Franzl," said he, "you will have but a meagre portion now, I fear, up
yonder."
"Up where?"
"I mean in the other world. You will henceforth live in Paradise; and
those who fare so well in this world, cannot expect to be equally happy
in the next--both would be too much."
"Stop! stop! let me out, I must go home," cried Franzl. "I will have
nothing to do with you; I will not give up my happy life hereafter, for
any thing this world can offer. Stop, or I will jump out."
With a degree of strength no one could have believed she possessed,
Franzl seized the reins and tried to snatch them from Pilgrim's hand,
who had the greatest difficulty in pacifying her, saying, that he saw
she could no longer take a joke. But Franzl said she could make no
allowance for people jesting on such sacred subjects. Pilgrim tried to
persuade her, with the aid of the holy Haspucius--whose words he first
repeated in Greek, and then kindly translated into German, and even
into the Black Forest dialect, for her benefit--that he had distinctly
written, an exception would be made in favour of household servants,
for, however comfortable they may be in this world, their life is hard
enough at best!
Franzl became more composed, and seemed to think that what was said
about servants was true enough. Presently she resumed: "I shall have
such pleasure in seeing my good Lenz's children--for I never saw them;
the boy's name is Wilhelm, is it not? and what is the name of the
little girl?"
"Marie."
"Of course; for that was her grandmother's name."
"I am glad you reminded me of that word grandmother; I had quite
forgotten to say, that the children believe that I have gone to fetch
their grandmother, and that she is to arrive in a sledge. The children
are to remain awake till we arrive, so your Highness of Knuslingen must
be so condescending as to allow the children to call you grandmother."
Franzl, the worthy spinster! pronounced this to be both wrong and
untrue, for it is never right to deceive children. A family name
belongs only to blood relations, and that is a point about which no
jesting should be permitted. She consoled herself, however, by thinking
that she would explain it all herself to the children; she had not the
blessing of being born in Knuslingen for nothing. In the consciousness
that she was the representative of the district of Knuslingen, she was
firm in her duty.
The various episodes on the journey were, however, of some use in
sobering down Franzl; for, first of all, she had persuaded herself that
the whole village would form a procession to receive her on her return,
and to escort her to her new home. She was, however, received only with
a shout of uproarious laughter, and that was by Petrowitsch, who roared
so at the sight of Franzl's costume, that he was obliged to sit down in
a chair; and Büble played his part also, for, as he could not laugh, he
barked loudly, and snapped at Franzl; and it was certainly rather
unkind in Petrowitsch to call out, "Anton Striegler, your lover, must
have known what you would look like some day, and this was why he threw
you over and married another."
"And the worms will spare you yet a while, till you become tender; for
you are too tough and skinny, even for them, as yet," answered Franzl,
giving a hearty kick to Büble.
The long cherished hatred of years, and her rage at being twitted with
her unhappy love, inspired her with this bitter answer. Büble stopped
barking, and Petrowitsch laughing. Both had henceforth a wholesome
horror of Franzl.
Lenz was asleep. Annele was with the children, who, after all, had
fallen asleep, and she had some difficulty in refraining from throwing
her arms round Franzl's neck; but she was ashamed to do so before
Pilgrim and Petrowitsch.
"Look!" said she, "these are our children; give them each a kiss, they
will not wake."
Franzl was to remain in the sitting room, while Annele went to the
kitchen, to get ready something for her to eat. Franzl nodded--"She is
very different from what she used to be." The good old woman could not,
however, stay long in the parlour, and went to join Annele in the
kitchen, who said: "Oh, what a luxury to be able to light a good fire!"
Franzl looked at her in surprise. She could not understand being so
thankful for all the common things of life, which are too often
accepted by us as mere matters of course.
"What do you say to my white hair?" asked Annele.
"I wish I could give you mine, for it is still quite black; and it will
never turn grey, for my mother often told me I had a good head of hair
when I was born."
Annele smiled, and said it had been so ordained; and that it was well
she should bear about with her a lasting token that she had been in the
jaws of death, and must now be doubly good in the world. "You forgive
me, too, don't you, Franzl? I assure you I thought of you at the hour
when death seemed very near."
Franzl burst into tears.
It was indeed wonderful to see the transformation that had taken place
in Annele. When she heard the church bells ringing for the first time,
she took her little girl in her arms, and, making her clasp her hands,
she exclaimed, "Oh, my child, I little thought we should ever hear
these sounds again!" And when Franzl brought in the first pailful of
water, she cried, "Oh, how pure and refreshing spring water is! I thank
our Heavenly Father who gives it to us!"
While the men had almost entirely recovered the awful hours when they
had been momentarily exposed to destruction, Annele seemed to herself
to have risen from the dead; she was now mild and gentle, and every
hasty word went to her heart, so that Franzl often lamented to Pilgrim,
and said, "I fear Annele will not live long, there is something so holy
and unearthly in her look."
The escape of the inhabitants of the house on the Morgenhalde, was the
cause of an event passing almost unperceived, that would otherwise have
been a source of much talk and discussion.
On the second day after Lenz's rescue, the body of a man was found in a
wooded ravine near Knuslingen, buried under the snow frozen. It was
that of Pröbler. No one regretted his fate so much as Lenz, for he
could not help thinking that it was his voice he had heard calling him,
the night he left him; and he suspected something more in the death of
the miserable old man than other people imagined, but he kept these
thoughts to himself.
Annele prospered in Petrowitsch's large house, and was soon as fresh
and blooming as ever.
They remained till late in the summer with their old uncle, till their
own house was repaired and restored. Petrowitsch was not unfrequently
rather crabbed. It made him very angry to see little Wilhelm jump on
chairs and sofas, where Büble, however, might stretch himself at his
ease.
Petrowitsch could not get rid of a bad cough he had got, from being
buried in the snow. The physician advised him to visit some baths, but
he refused to go. He did not say so, but he thought, if he was to die,
he would rather die at home, and then all longing for home would be at
an end. He often went with little Wilhelm to the Spannreute, the hill
behind the house, where a vast number of well-grown larches had been
planted to shelter the house, and deep trenches dug.
One day he said harshly to the boy: "Wilhelm, you are just like Büble;
you can't go on the straight path, you are not content with that. You
are only happy when rushing about, and jumping over hedges and ditches;
that's your grand pleasure! Yes, Büble, you are just as bad; you two
are capital playfellows!"
Then little Wilhelm replied: "Uncle, a dog is not a man, and a man is
not a dog."
This simple speech of the child softened the old man's heart so much,
that he begged Lenz, when he again took possession of his own house, to
leave little Wilhelm with him.
It was Annele who chiefly urged a speedy return to their home on the
Morgenhalde. Once she would have considered it Paradise to live in
Petrowitsch's house, to be kind to the old man while he lived, and to
inherit his wealth when he died; but now her sole wish was to pass the
rest of her days, peacefully and frugally, in their solitary home.
The death of her mother, which was concealed from her for some time,
was a heavy blow to her. All her misfortunes seemed to have been
crowded into that one terrible night.
Wilhelm remained with Petrowitsch, who asked Pilgrim also to live with
him. Those who were passing the house, often heard neighing like a
foal, grunting like a pig, whistling like a nightingale, and hooting
like an owlet; and often an old and a young child's head were seen at
the window: it was Pilgrim and his young godson, trying to vie with
each other, to see who could imitate most animals. And then the real
barking of a dog was heard; it was Büble barking. And last of all, a
loud laugh, interrupted, however, by coughing; it was Petrowitsch, who
was incessantly laughing at the pranks of the old boy and the young
one, till his cough stopped his merriment. He had not left the village
for years, and he maintained that so much laughing was better for his
health than any baths.
It was now the second summer since that eventful night. Lenz was
working busily, and had now three journeymen under him, and all was
going on prosperously.
One day Lenz went to his uncle, and said: "I never yet asked you for
anything."
"But I will ask you something, which is, to be so good as to ask me for
nothing."
"Not for myself, certainly, but for Faller. He was seized with severe
hoarseness in getting us out of the snow. He must go to some Baths."
"Very well; here is money for the purpose. Tell him he must go in my
stead, and float away my cough too. It is very good in you to ask
nothing for yourself. You help yourself; that is always best."
It cost no little trouble to persuade Faller to go to the Baths; but
Annele at last succeeded, through his wife.
Annele had now two friends, certainly very different from each other in
every point. The one was the Doctor's Amanda, and the garden on the
Morgenhalde had a great many cuttings from the Doctor's garden. Annele
took much pleasure now in gardening; she had learned how to tend and
nurse the plants herself. Her second friend was Faller's wife. "You are
more in my own station," said Annele often, "for you too are a
clockmaker's wife." Almost unconsciously, however, the entire
subserviency of Faller's wife gratified her, for she was a combination
of friend and servant.
Faller went to the Baths, where Annele's second sister was, and where
he met an old acquaintance. The bath master was the former Landlord of
the "Golden Lion," who, after the death of his wife, had retired to
this place. He had the same benevolent air, and patronised every one
whom he met. The trials he had endured seemed to have passed very
lightly over him, for he was remarkably cheerful and communicative. He
commissioned Faller to inform the whole village, and the whole country,
that he had been comparatively innocent. He told him that his wife had
misled him, and then affected the most entire ignorance and
unconsciousness; and, even if he had been far more guilty than he
really was, he had done ample penance for his sins in one solitary
hour. He proceeded to detail to Faller, how his wife had denounced and
exposed him on the very morning of his ruin, while, in fact, she was
the one chiefly to blame. It seemed a relief to him to abuse Brazil,
where, he said, no justice was to be found, or he would now, from his
speculations in that country, have been a rich man. He then praised the
Spa, and the good milk, which performed miracles; and if there were
only gaming tables established here, it would be the most fashionable
Spa in the whole country.
Faller came home again; but in the early spring, just as the snow was
again melting, he died.
Shortly after his death, Petrowitsch was also buried. He had often
conquered death; for since autumn his violent cough had become so much
worse, that he constantly expected to choke; and in fact one of those
attacks carried him off at last, quite suddenly.
Just as the Doctor had prophesied, so it was. Petrowitsch possessed
nothing but an annuity, which he had secured by sacrificing the remains
of his capital, for the greater proportion of it had been swallowed by
the gaming tables at Baden-Baden.
Many discrepancies and contradictions in Petrowitsch's conduct, were
thus explained. Above all, the Doctor maintained that the old man had
been angry with the world, because he was angry with himself.
Lenz took one of Faller's sons to live with him, the little girl was
left with her mother, and Kathrine, the farmer's wife, adopted the
twins--she, indeed, only wished to take one, but the children refused
to be separated.
Franzl was proud and thankful to be able to tell her old, kind friend
Kathrine, the present state of the Morgenhalde. "I do not know," said
she, "which Annele spoils the most--her husband or myself. The angels
in heaven must rejoice, when they see how these two live together. You
know I am from Knuslingen: no one can take me in; and though I don't
wish to boast, I am pretty sharp, and see more than most people. At
first they were still a little afraid of each other, like a house that
has been burnt down--the moment you dig in it, the flames are apt to
burst out afresh. They were alarmed lest any thoughtless word should
tear open an old wound, until they by degrees gradually discovered that
each was changed for the better, and mutually loved each other dearly;
and what they used to imagine malice, and ill temper, irritating both
so grievously once upon a time, they found to be only sorrow, at not
having fallen on the right mode of making each other happy. All
thoughts of keeping an inn are at an end with Annele; and I must say my
Lenz has become much more manly and energetic. The Choral Society is
changed into a Polytechnic; and they all say that Lenz appears there to
the greatest advantage, for he is very clever. They have some office
there: I can't quite explain what it means--but it is something to
benefit everybody. My Lenz is the head, and he is called Master of the
Union. When you see the Balancemaker from Knuslingen, he can tell you
all about it better than I can, for he is a member also. Do you know
that my Lenz had a fine silver medal sent to him from England,
because his musical clock won the prize at the Great Exhibition? And
when he showed the medal to Annele, he said: 'I am so happy for your
sake, because it shows you I can do something.' Then she cried, and
said--'That is a shred from our buried life--never wake it again. I
need no testimonial of your merits from others: I can give you the best
myself.'
"When she spoke thus, he looked up to his mother's picture, and said;
'Mother I you may rejoice in heaven, for we are happy!'"
Kathrine heard this good report with sincere pleasure. Franzl, however,
was like a wound-up piece of clockwork. She continued:--"And did you
hear what we inherited from Petrowitsch? Nothing but his dog, who will
neither eat a morsel of potato, nor a bit of bread: he should soon
learn to do so, I can tell him; but my Lenz is far too good to the dog,
and says he saved little Marie's life. So not one kreuzer did we
inherit from our rich uncle. The Doctor, it seems, said so long ago. He
was in some Sickly Insurance, I think they call it, or some such name,
and had nothing but a good annuity. Now it is evident why he was so
hard and tough. And it is also come out that his capital, that he had
scraped together in so many different parts of the world, all went at
the gambling table. Yes; there is no doubt that gamblers are often at
the same time the stupidest, as well as the cleverest men. The Doctor
said so, and what he says is always sure to come true. Won't you stay
here till tomorrow? The Doctor's old mother is to be buried then--the
very last of the old generation. She was not quite seventy-eight. My
Lenz said, when his uncle died, 'I am rather glad that I don't get
anything from him--I shall now help myself, and trust to no one else.'
He intends to take his own son Wilhelm, and young Faller, as
apprentices; but he says they must first leave home and travel."
"And are they good and kind to you?" asked Kathrine, merely to say
something.
"Good Heavens! kind!--they are only too kind. I don't know what use I
am of, that they pretend they could not be happy without me. It is only
a sad pity that I can't help getting old; but my grandmother was
eighty-three when she died, and I dare say she was in reality
ninety-three, for all old people make great mistakes about their age,
never having learnt either to read or to write. I may live to be as
old. I eat and drink well, and sleep like a top. All prospers in our
house. And see! the wood is beginning to grow famously, and it now
belongs to us; and as surely as the wood is now growing as fast as it
can, where God has placed it, and thrives just as it ought, so surely
is everything in our house increasing and prospering. These are fine
shady young trees, are they not? I hope to live to see them large
timber."
Kathrine had not time to wait for that; and when she was on her way
home with the twins, escorted part of the way by Lenz, and Annele, and
Faller's widow, Franzl called out to her from the kitchen--"Kathrine,
be prepared to stand godmother to our next."
* * * * *
This is the story of Lenz and Annele of the Morgenhalde; and now we
know why the young mother has white hair, and why, at the moment of
parting with her son, she begs him to bring her home a plant of
Edelweiss.
When Lenz came home, he found a garland of fresh flowers hung over the
picture of his mother. He nodded gratefully to Annele. She had always
thus cherished the memory of this day. It was now eighteen years since
his mother had been buried. They did not say it to each other, but they
knew in their hearts, that the memory of their admirable mother bloomed
always afresh in their hearts, just as the flowers in the fields, year
after year, bear fresh blossoms.
Faller's widow and her daughter dined with them. On the former
lamenting--"Oh! that my husband had only lived to see our twin sons
setting off together to travel!"--Lenz told her how much she ought to
rejoice, that the twins that Kathrine had adopted years ago, had done
so well in the world. The one, who was a soldier, had become a
corporal; and the other was to inherit his adopted father's property.
Her daughter, a tall slender girl of fifteen, said she had promised to
write to her brother, and to Wilhelm, the first of every month.
After dinner Lenz returned to work as usual. This day eighteen years,
he had soothed a much more excited state of mind by work. It was
invariably his custom to master all his emotions in his workshop.
Annele sat beside him with her needlework. She was no longer restless,
and her eyes no longer flashed with impatience, but had a sweet and
calm expression; and Lenz's work always succeeded better when she was
near. She spoke little, and the whole course of her present thoughts
might be guessed from her saying--"Our Wilhelm has six shirts of that
fine linen, that your excellent mother spun with her own hands."
The places of the two lads were quickly filled, for from all sides
people pressed forwards to place their sons with Lenz.
Franzl was particularly proud and pleased, that Lenz took a grandson of
the Balancemaker in Knuslingen, as an apprentice.
In the evening the Schoolmaster arrived, with a large bundle of papers
under his arm. He laid them down. You could plainly read on them, in
large letters--"Acts of the Clockmakers' Union."
The Schoolmaster begged Lenz, before the Members of the Union
assembled, to walk with him in the wood. Lenz went with him. In the
mean time Annele placed two rows of chairs straight in the room, for
Lenz was Master of the Union.
THE END.
LONDON: PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, STAMFORD STREET,
AND CHARING CROSS.
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