The cool evening following the excessive heat of the day had tempted the villagers out of doors. Some families sat on the bench before their houses, but more were gathered about the stone railing of the bridge, always a favorite place of evening resort for rest or social chat after the day's work. Thence can be seen the passing on both sides, while the babbling of the brook provokes conversation. Various woods were lying seasoning in the water below. The clocks were less likely to warp or shrink when the wood of which they were made had been thoroughly drained of its juices. But the people on the bridge understood the process of seasoning in all its branches. The subject of their talk now, even as late in the day as this, was the morning's funeral, which naturally led to a discussion of young Lenz and the necessity of his making a speedy marriage. The women were lavish of their praises of him, not a few of their encomiums being meant as hints to the men that they might profitably follow his example, since virtue, when seen, was so readily appreciated. The men, however, pronounced him a good sort of fellow enough, only too soft-hearted. The young girls, with the exception of those who had declared lovers, said nothing; especially as the suggestion had been started that Lenz was to marry one of the doctor's daughters. Some even asserted that it was a settled thing, and would be publicly announced as soon as the proper time of mourning was over. Suddenly, no one knew how or where it originated, the report circulated from house to house, and among the persons on the bridge, that Lenz had spent that day, the very day of his mother's funeral, in uninterrupted work. The women lamented that avarice should mar a character in other respects so good. The men, on the other hand, tried to excuse him. But the conversation soon turned upon the weather and the course of events,--both fruitful subjects, as nothing can be foretold of either. They were none the less comfortably discussed, however, till it was time to bid good night, and leave the stars in heaven and the affairs of the world to go on their appointed courses.
But the pleasantest resting-place of all was the doctor's pretty garden, further down the valley, whence a wonderful fragrance arose on the evening air. And yet not wonderful either, for the garden was stocked with all manner of medicinal plants in full blossom, the doctor being a mixer of drugs as well as physician. He was a native of the village, the son of a clockmaker. His wife came from the capital, but had made herself so completely at home in her husband's native valley, that her mother-in-law, the old mayoress, as she was called, who lived with them, used to say she must have led a previous existence as a child of the Black Forest, so naturally did she adopt its customs. The doctor, like his father before him, was mayor of the village. He had four children. The only son, contrary to general expectation, did not learn a profession, but preferred to study the science of clock-making, and, at the time of our story, was absent in French Switzerland. The three daughters were the most aristocratic ladies in the place, at the same time that they were unsurpassed in industry by any of their humbler neighbors. Amanda, the eldest, acted as her father's assistant, besides having the charge of the garden. Bertha and Minna took an active part in the housekeeping, and occupied their leisure in plaiting those fine straw braids that are sent to Italy and come to us in the shape of Leghorn hats.
This evening, the family in the garden had a visitor,--a young machinist, called in the village, for convenience, the engineer. His two brothers married daughters of the landlord of the Lion. One of them was a rich wood-merchant in the next county town, the other the owner of one of the most frequented bathing establishments in the lower Black Forest, as well as of a considerable private estate. It was said that the engineer was to marry the landlord's only remaining daughter, Annele.
"You speak well, Mr. Storr," the doctor was saying, in a voice whose tones showed him to be hale and hearty. "We must not rejoice in the beauties of mountain and valley, and take no thought for the people who inhabit them. There is too much of the superficial, restless spirit of change in the world of to-day. For my part, I have no desire to rove; my own narrow sphere contents me, body and mind. I have even had to give up my old hobby of botanizing, or, rather, I have voluntarily given it up, in order to devote more time to the study of humanity. In the general division of labor, every one should take what best suits his capacities. That is a lesson my country-people will not learn, and our native industry suffers in consequence."
"May I ask you to explain yourself more particularly?"
"The thing is very simple. Our clock-making, like all our home pursuits, is the natural result of the unproductiveness of our soil, and the indivisibility of our large, entailed estates. Younger sons, and all whose whole capital consists in their industry, must make the most of that, if they would earn a living. Hence that natural aptitude for work, that strict, unresting carefulness, that are common among us. Our forests supply the best wood for machinery and cases, and as long as our wooden clocks found a good market, a manufacturer, with the help of his wife and children to paint the dial-plate, could make an entire clock in his own house. But now that metal clocks have been introduced, and have, in a measure, supplanted the wooden ones, a division of labor has become necessary. There is a strong competition in France, in America, and especially in Saxony. We must give up pendulums, and take to springs. These changes cannot be effected without the help of some general and binding association among the workmen. The stone-cutters, in old times, used to form themselves into a guild, presided over by a chosen head, and that is what is wanted here. The workmen, scattered about on the mountains, must enter into a league with one another, and work into each other's hands. The difficulty is to bring about such a league among our people. In Switzerland a watch passes through a hundred and twenty hands before it is finished. But the very perseverance of the good people here, which is undoubtedly a virtue, makes them unwilling to adopt new ways. Only by unexampled frugality and application could our home manufactures have been carried on as long as they have. You would hardly believe what a morbid sensitiveness our people have contracted by their constant and close confinement at their work. They have to be handled as tenderly as their own clocks, which an awkward touch will break."
"It seems to me," answered the young man, "that the first thing wanted now is a better case for your clocks, that they may become more of a parlor ornament."
"I quite agree with you," said Bertha, the second daughter. "I spent a year with my aunt in the capital, and, wherever I visited, I found one of my compatriots, a Black Forest clock, like Cinderella, in the kitchen. In the best room, resplendent with gold and alabaster, was sure to be a French mantel-clock, never wound up, or never right if it was, while my compatriot in the kitchen was always going, and always exact."
"Cinderella needs to be metamorphosed," said the young man; "but she must keep her virtues, and tell the truth, when she gets into the best parlor."
The doctor did not let the conversation follow the turn the young people had given it; but entered into further explanations of the peculiarities of his country-people. A tolerably long residence abroad enabled him to judge them impartially, while yet he had lived years enough at home to know and appreciate their good qualities. He spoke High German, but with a decided provincial accent.
"Good evening to you all," cried a passer-by.
"Ah, is it you, Pilgrim? Wait a minute," cried the doctor. "How is Lenz?" he asked, as the passer-by stopped at the garden gate.
"I have not seen him since the funeral. I am just from the Lion, where I was fool enough to get into a quarrel about him."
"How was that?"
"They were talking about his having been at work all day to-day, and finding fault with him for it, and calling him a miser. Lenz a miser! Nonsense!"
"You should not let it disturb you. You and I know, and so do many others, that Lenz is a good fellow, above all such reproaches. Was not Petrovitsch with him to-day?"
"No. I thought he would be, and therefore did not go myself. Doctor, I wanted to ask if you would have time to come to my house to-morrow for a moment. I should like to show you what I have been doing."
"Certainly I will come."
"Good night to you all."
"Good night, Pilgrim; pleasant dreams."
"Send me back my songs to-morrow," cried Bertha, as he was going.
"I will bring them," returned Pilgrim; and soon after they heard his clear musical whistle in the distance.
"That is a remarkable man," said the doctor. "He is a case-painter, and an intimate friend of Lenz, whose mother was buried this morning. He is quite a hidden genius, and has rather a remarkable history."
"Pray, let me hear it."
"Some other time, when we are by ourselves."
"No, we should like to hear it again," exclaimed his wife and daughters, and the doctor began as follows.
Pilgrim was the son of a case-painter. Left an orphan at an early age, he was brought up at the public expense by the old schoolmaster. But he spent by far the greater part of his time with Lenz the clockmaker on the Morgenhalde. In old Lenz's wife he found almost a second mother, while their only surviving child, the Lenz who has been working to-day, was like a brother to him. Pilgrim was always the more ready and skilful workman of the two; for Lenz, with all his undoubted ability, has a certain fanciful dreaminess of character. Perhaps there is a genius for music in Lenz and for painting in Pilgrim that has never been developed; who knows? You must hear Lenz sing some time. He is first tenor in the Liederkranz; and it is chiefly owing to him that our society won the prize at two musical festivals,--one at Constance and the other at Freiburg. As the boys grew up, Lenz was apprenticed to his father and Pilgrim to a case-painter, but they continued close friends. Through the long summer evenings they would wander singing and whistling over hill and valley, as sure to be together as the twin stars in heaven. Winter nights Pilgrim had to walk up to the Morgenhalde through snow and storm; for Lenz, being, as I have said, the last of five children, was somewhat spoiled by his mother, and kept at home in bad weather. There they would sit together half through the night, reading books of travel or whatever else they could lay hands on. Many a volume out of my library has their thirst for knowledge devoured. Together they devised a plan for travelling abroad; for, with all the domestic habits of our people, there is a general desire among them to see the world. As soon as it was sure that both were exempt from military service,--Pilgrim by lot, and Lenz as being an only son,--they were anxious to carry their plan into execution. Lenz showed on this subject for the first time a persistent obstinacy which had never been suspected in him. He would not be dissuaded from the journey. His father was for letting him go, but the very thought threw his mother into despair. When the minister's persuasions failed, I was called in, and enjoined to talk the boy into a whole catalogue of diseases, if other arguments failed. Of course I pursued a different treatment. The two friends had always admitted me into their confidence, and now freely imparted to me their entire plan. Pilgrim, as usual, was the instigator. Lenz, notwithstanding his sensitiveness, has a sound practical nature, though limited to a small circle of ideas. If not confused by arguments, his instincts generally lead him in the right direction; and whatever he undertakes he clings to with a perseverance amounting almost to devotion. I will show you to-morrow a standard regulator he has set up, whose adoption would be a benefit to the whole country. Lenz's mind was in fact not so firmly made up in favor of Pilgrim's plan as he had given his parents to understand. He thought his friend would do better to learn clock-making thoroughly before going into the trade, as a merchant should be able to repair any clock that may come in his way, as well as those he carries with him. Pilgrim finally decided to enter on an apprenticeship. As soon, however, as he had learned what was absolutely necessary, the plan of his journey was resumed more resolutely than ever. The objects he proposed to himself were numerous. At one time he wanted to make money enough to visit an academy; at another he meant to become a great artist on his travels; then again he only desired to discomfit the moneyed aristocracy by coming home with a bag full of gold. In reality he despised money, and for that very reason would gladly have had it to throw away. There was, besides, some youthful fancy in his head at that time, I imagine. Greece, Athens, was the goal of his desires. The very name of Athens would make his eyes sparkle and his color rise. "Athens!" he would say, "does not the word transport you to marble staircases and lofty halls?" He seemed to imagine that the mere breathing of classic air would make another man of him, change him into a great artist. I tried to disabuse his mind of these mistaken notions, and succeeded in making him promise he would confine himself to earning a living, and leave all else for some future time. Old Lenz and I gave security for the merchandise he was to take with him. He finally set out alone, Lenz yielding to our persuasions, and remaining at home. "I am like the wave," Pilgrim used to say, "that is drawn from the Black Forest to the Black Sea." He hoped to introduce our domestic clocks into Greece and the East, where they had never been so favorably received as in northern countries and the New World. It is pleasant to hear Pilgrim tell how he went through various foreign countries, through cities and villages, with his Black Forest clocks hung about him, making them strike as he went along, himself taking notice all the while of everything on the way. That was the trouble with him. His eyes were too busy with other things, with the landscape and beautiful buildings and the manners and customs of the country,--a great mistake for a merchant. As our clock-work never changes, go where it will, over sea and land, so our people remain the same in every latitude. To make and to save, to live frugally, and never be content till they can come home with a full money-bag, that is the one thing they care for, let the world wag as it may. A very good and necessary thing it is, too, in its place. One head must not have too many projects at one time. But the day of peddling and saving is past. We must be men of business now, and establish permanent markets in other lands for our merchandise.
"Did Pilgrim ever reach Athens?"
"Indeed he did, and he has often told me that the joy and devotion with which the Crusaders greeted Jerusalem could not have exceeded his on first seeing Athens. He rubbed his eyes to convince himself it was really Athens. He expected the marble statues to nod a greeting to him as he went jingling through the streets. But not a single clock did he sell. He was reduced to such extremity at last as to consider himself lucky to get a piece of work to do; and what work! For fourteen days, under the blue Grecian sky, in sight of the Acropolis, he had to paint the green lattice-work fence of a beer-garden."
"What is the Acropolis?" asked Bertha.
"You can tell her, Storr," suggested the doctor.
The engineer gave a hasty sketch of the former beauty of the citadel of Athens and its present scanty remains, promising to bring a picture of it the next time he came, and then begged the doctor to go on with his story.
"There is little more to tell," he resumed. "With the closest management, Pilgrim contrived to dispose of his clocks, so that we were no losers. It required no small courage to return poorer than he went, to be a general laughing-stock among his old neighbors. But as his enthusiasm led him to despise the moneyed aristocracy, as he was fond of calling it, he put on a bold front, and let who would laugh. Of course, he went first to the Morgenhalde. The parents were standing with folded hands about the dinner-table. Lenz gave such a cry, his mother used to say it would kill her to hear the like again. The two friends fell into each other's arms. Pilgrim soon recovered his good spirits, and laughed about his luck being better at home than anywhere else; for there he found at least a well-spread table. Certainly he could nowhere have found a warmer welcome than from the parents and son at the Morgenhalde. Old Lenz wanted to take him into his house; but Pilgrim resolutely declined. He was always jealous of his independence. He fitted up a nice workshop at Don Bastian's, very near us. At first he took pains to introduce new patterns of clock-cases; but he could not succeed in changing essentially the shape of our Black Forest clocks,--the square with a pointed arch. Not disheartened by finding his novelties unacceptable, he cheerfully fell back on making the old-fashioned cases, for which he gets plenty of orders. He has some skill in coloring; but his drawing is faulty. You must know that different countries have different tastes in clock-cases. France likes the case well covered with bright colors; North Germany, Scandinavia, and England prefer simpler outlines, architectural ornamentation, like gables or columns,--at most, nothing more florid than a garland. Shepherds and shepherdesses are for the Vorarlberg. No clocks can be sent to the East with human figures on the dial-plate; lately Roman numerals have been allowed, but formerly none but Turkish. America likes no painting, but requires carving more or less elaborate. American clocks, as they are called, have the weights raised by pulleys on one side. Hungary and Russia fancy fruit-pieces and landscapes. Ornaments of the best taste are not always preferred; on the contrary, a finical style is often most popular. If you can improve the appearance of our clocks, you will be doing Pilgrim a service. Perhaps you can give him a fresh start in life; though he hardly needs it, for he possesses the rare art of being happy without being prosperous."
"I should like to make his acquaintance."
"You shall call upon him with me to-morrow. Only come bright and early, so that we can take a walk over the hills. I will show you some fine views, and nice people beside."
After bidding the engineer a hearty good night the doctor and his family re-entered the house.
The moon shone clear in the heavens; the flowers sent out their fragrance into the night, with none to enjoy it, and the stars looked down upon them. No sound was heard, save from a house here and there the striking of a clock.
"Good morning, Lenz! You have had a good night's rest, just as children do who have cried themselves to sleep." Thus was Lenz greeted the next morning by Faller's deep bass voice. "O my friend," he answered; "it brings back all my misery to wake up and remember what happened yesterday. But I must be calm. I will proceed at once to write the security for you. Take it to the mayor before he starts on his round, and greet him from me. I remember I dreamed of him last night. Go to Pilgrim's too, if you can, and tell him I shall wait at home for him to-day. Good luck with your house! I am glad to think you will have a roof of your own."
Faller started off for the valley with the paper, leaving Lenz to his work. But before sitting down to it he wound up one of his musical clocks and made it play a choral. The piece goes well, he said to himself, nodding his head approvingly over the wheel on which he was filing. It was her--my mother's--favorite tune. The great musical clock with the handsomely carved nut-wood case, as tall as a good-sized wardrobe, was called "The Magic Flute," from the overture of that opera, which was the longest of five pieces that it played. It was already sold to a large tea-dealer in Odessa. A smaller clock stood beside it, and near that a third, on which Lenz was working. At noon, after laboring uninterruptedly all the morning, he began to feel hungry; but no sooner had he sat down to his solitary meal than all hunger forsook him. He asked the old serving-maid to eat with him, as she used to do in his mother's lifetime. She consented, after a great show of maidenly delicacy at the idea of dining alone with so young a man; but by the time the soup was finished, she had so far recovered her self-possession as to bring up the question of his marriage and gave her advice against it.
"Who says I mean to marry?"
"I think, if you do, you ought to marry the bailiff's daughter Katharine. She comes of a respectable family, and has the greatest respect for you; she actually swears by you. That would be just the right sort of wife,--not one who would treat you like the very ground she walks on. Girls nowadays are so--so exacting, they care for nothing but dress and show."
"I am not thinking of marrying; certainly not now."
"You are quite right. It is not at all necessary you should. Take my word for it, you will never be better off than you are now. I am used to your ways, and I will keep everything so exactly as your mother did that you will think she is alive again. Don't your beans taste good now? Your mother taught me to cook them so. She understood everything from the greatest to the smallest. You will be as comfortable as can be when we are by ourselves. You see if you are not."
"I don't think we shall keep on as we are, Franzl," said Lenz.
"So you have some one already in your mind,--have you? People fancy Lenz thinks of nothing but his clocks and his mother. Much they know about it! If it is only some girl that comes of a good family. Katharine, now, would be a wife for every day in the week,--for working days and for holidays. She can look after the house and the field, and can spin--you'd think she would spin the very straw down from the roof. Then, too, she swears by you; all you say and all you do is perfect. She always says whatever comes from Lenz is right, however it may look,--like your working yesterday, for instance. Besides, she is well off; what she inherits from her mother alone would be a portion for one of your children."
"I have no thought of marrying, Franzl. Perhaps--I don't know, but perhaps--I shall sell or lease my house and go abroad."
Franzl stared at him in speechless amazement, forgetting even to carry her spoon to her mouth.
"I will provide for you, Franzl; you shall want for nothing. But I have never been out into the world, and should like once to see and learn something. Perhaps I may further my art in some way; who knows?"
"It is none of my business," said Franzl; "I am only an ignorant servant-woman, though we Knuslingers have the reputation of keeping pretty good eyes in our heads. I don't know much about the world; but one thing I do know, and that is, that I have not lived in service twenty-seven years for nothing. I came into this house when you were four years old. You were the youngest and dearest of all the children, and your brothers and sisters in their graves,--but no matter for that now. I have lived with your mother twenty-seven years. I cannot say I am as wise as she was; where is the woman, far or near, who can say that for herself? You'll never find her equal as long as the world lasts. But I learned a good deal from her. How often I have heard her say, 'Franzl, people rush out into the world as if somewhere, across the Rhine or over the sea, fortune were running about the streets, and crying to Tom, Dick, and Harry, "Good morning, Tom, Dick, and Harry; I am glad to see you." Franzl,' your mother used to say, 'if a man can't succeed at home, he won't succeed abroad. There are people enough everywhere to pick up gold, if it does rain down, without waiting for strangers to come and help them. What sort of a fortune can a man make in the world? He can't do more than eat, drink, and sleep. Franzl,' she'd say, 'my Lenz,'--excuse me, it was she that said it, not I,--'my Lenz, like the rest of them, once got into his head that silly notion of travelling; but where can he be better off than here? He is not fitted for the wild world. One must be a robber, like Petrovitsch, a good-for-nothing, stingy, greedy, cruel wretch.' I don't mean she said that; she never said such a thing of anybody; but I say it and think it. 'If my Lenz were to go abroad,' she said, 'he would give the shirt off his body to the first beggar he met; any one could deceive him, he is so kindhearted. Franzl,' says she, 'if the wandering spirit comes over him when I am gone, Franzl,' says she, 'hang on to his coat, and don't let him stir.' But, good gracious! I can't do that; how can I? I can only speak; and I must speak, for she made me solemnly promise. Just think how well off you are. You have a comfortable house, a good living; you are loved and respected. If you go out into the world, who will care for you? who will know you are Lenz of the Morgenhalde? When you have no place to lay your head, and are obliged to spend the night in the woods, you will think of your house at home and the seven well-stuffed beds that are in it, and the plenty of furniture and dishes, and the wine on tap in the cellar. Sha'n't I fetch you a glass? I'll get you one in a minute. Always drink when you're out of spirits. A thousand times your mother has said, 'Wine cheers a man up, and makes him think of other things.'"
So saying, she hurried out of the room and into the cellar, soon returning with a flagon in her hand. Lenz insisted on her bringing a second glass, and filled it for her himself; but she was too modest to do more than touch her lips to it till she had cleared off the table and retreated with her wine into the kitchen.
Lenz worked on again industriously till evening. The wine or something else made him restless, so that he was several times on the point of throwing down his tools and going out for a walk. But upon second thoughts he concluded to stay at home, and receive the friends who would be sure to seek him out and relieve his loneliness. No one came, however, except Pröbler. He liked Lenz for being one of the few who did not make fun of him, nor laugh at his constantly refusing to sell any of his works of art. He would mortgage them till he lost all power to redeem them. It was said that the landlord of the Lion, who carried on a large business as commissioner and wholesale dealer, owed Pröbler quite a handsome sum on the works he had pawned to him.
Lenz used to listen with all attention and seriousness while Pröbler would talk of his great discovery of theperpetuum mobile, and how he wanted nothing further to bring his work to perfection than the twenty-four diamonds on which it needed to move. In return, the old man willingly gave his help in setting up the standard regulator which was to benefit the whole district; and he really contributed some valuable suggestions, which Lenz was very glad publicly to give him credit for.
To-day, however, Pröbler came neither about a new discovery nor theperpetuum mobile, but to offer himself as mediator in case Lenz was desirous of marrying. He proposed to him a whole list of marriageable girls, among them the doctor's daughters. "You are too modest," he added in conclusion; "all houses are open to you. Tell me honestly in what direction your preference leads you, and I will see that you are met half-way." Lenz hardly vouchsafed an answer to his proposition, and the old man finally departed. The idea that he could have one of the doctor's daughters lingered in Lenz's mind. They were three noble girls. There was a thoughtfulness--an almost motherly carefulness--about the eldest, while the second played and sang beautifully. How often Lenz had stood before the house and listened to her! Music was his one passion. He longed for it as a thirsty man for a spring of water. How would it seem to have a wife who could play the piano? She should play him all the pieces he wanted to put into his clocks; he could make them sound a great deal better after he had heard them. But no; such a wife would be too aristocratic for him. One who could play the piano would not look after the house and the garden and the stable, as a watchmaker's wife must. He would wait quietly.
When twilight came on, Lenz changed his clothes and went down into the valley.
All houses are open to him, Pröbler had said. All houses? that is as bad as none at all. Unless you can enter a house without interrupting the inmates in their occupation; unless no glance, no expression asks, What have you come for? what plan is on foot? unless you are made to feel at home,--you have no house open to you. Lenz went in imagination up and down the whole village, stopping at every door. Everywhere he would find hands stretched out to greet him, but nowhere a home. Yet he had one friend with whom he would be as much at ease as in his own room. Pilgrim, the case-painter, had wanted to go home with him yesterday after his mother's funeral, but fell back because he was joined by his uncle Petrovitsch. The two despised each other for different reasons; Petrovitsch Pilgrim, for being a poor devil; and Pilgrim, Petrovitsch for being a rich one. To Pilgrim's, therefore, he would go. His friend lived down in the valley with Don Bastian, as he called him, a man who had been a dealer in clocks and made a considerable fortune during a twelve years' residence in Spain. On his return home he had bought a farm, resumed his peasant's clothes, and retained no traces of his Spanish journey except the gold and a couple of Spanish words which he liked to air occasionally, especially in midsummer when the travellers from all quarters of the world returned to their native valley.
In the public room of the Lion, at a table comfortably laid before the balcony window, sat a young man alone, eating with that relish which is the privilege of a stout young fellow in his twenties, after a day's walk over the mountains. Sometimes, however, his eye wandered thoughtfully from the viands themselves to the heavy silver plate on which they were served. It was a remnant of the good old time, when interest-bearing investments were not the only ones allowed. At last the young man, who was no other than the engineer who had spent the evening before at the doctor's, lighted a cigar and, drawing a brush from his pocket, began smoothing his full, light beard. He had a marked countenance. A high, full forehead projected from under his brown hair, his cheeks were fresh, and there was an expression in his deep-set blue eyes that inspired instant confidence.
A cool evening breeze was blowing in at the open window, quickly dispersing the blue smoke from the cigar.
"Smoking already? then you will have nothing more to eat," said a girl, entering from an adjoining room. She wore a fresh white apron made with a stomacher, and was peculiarly neat and nice in her whole dress. Her figure was slender and supple; her face oval yet full, with bright, intelligent brown eyes; and three tiers of heavy brown braids were wound like a crown about her head.
With a ready flow of words she continued: "You must excuse us; we had done expecting you to dinner, it was so late."
"Everything was excellent. Come and sit down by me a little while, sister-in-law."
"In a minute; as soon as I have cleared up. I cannot sit down with the things all standing about so."
"You must have everything as neat and orderly as yourself."
"Thank you for the compliment. I am glad you have not spent them all at the doctor's."
"Come back as soon as you can; I've ever so much to tell you."
After leaving the guest alone again for a while, the landlord's daughter returned with a piece of knitting-work in her hand, and took a seat opposite him at the table. "Well, let me hear," she said.
The engineer told her how he had been accompanying the doctor on his daily round over the mountains, and could not sufficiently praise his wondrous insight into the life of the people. He found them as the doctor had described, industrious and pious, yet without bigotry.
"We have been into three or four inns to-day," he said. "Generally, when you enter a country tavern of a summer's noon, you find some miserable creature besotting himself on a bench behind the table, half asleep over his stale beer or schnapps, who will stare at every new-comer, and brag and rail in some unintelligible fashion. It is a very common sight in other places, but I saw nothing of the sort here."
"Our mayor, the doctor," said Annele, "shows no mercy to drunkards, and we are principled against giving to one."
The engineer entered with enthusiasm into a description of the doctor's character. Wherever he went, the day seemed to grow brighter. His honest sympathy brought something like contentment even into the huts of the poor, while the confidence which his character as well as his words inspired everywhere imparted fresh courage.
The girl listened in some embarrassment to this glowing description, and only answered as she pressed a knitting-needle to her lips, "O yes, the doctor is a true friend of the poor."
"He is your friend too; he said a great deal of good of you."
"Did he? That was because he was out in the open air; he does not dare speak well of me at home. His five womenkind would not let him. I must except the old mayoress, though; she is always kind."
"And are not the others? I should have thought--"
"I don't want to speak ill of them or any one else. I desire to be thankful I have no need to exalt myself at the expense of others, to help myself out of another's purse, as old Marie Lenz used to say. Thousands of persons are passing in and out here who can let the whole world know what we are. A hotel is not like a private house, where the family can appear most loving to one another, and keep everything in beautiful order for two or three days, while a visitor is present, and then, behind his back, be ready to scratch each other's eyes out, and let the housekeeping go at sixes and sevens; or, where a young lady can begin to sing when she sees a gentleman going by, or can take her work into the garden and make herself ornamental. But I don't want to speak ill of anybody, only--" here Annele slipped as by accident into the familiar German "thou." "Oh! I beg your pardon; I forgot I was not talking to my brother-in-law, or I should not have said 'thou.'"
"I have no objection to it. Let us say 'thou' to one another."
"Not for the world! I cannot stay, if we are to talk in that way. I wonder what keeps father so long?" said the landlord's daughter, blushing.
"Where is your father gone?"
"He had to see to his business, but he may be back any minute. I wish he would give up business. What is the use of his working so hard? He thinks he could not live without it. A man might as well die as give up business, he says; watching and working, thinking and planning, keep one's faculties awake. And I believe he is right. For my part, I cannot imagine how any one in youth and health can sit and play the piano all the morning, or dilly-dally about the house, singing. To turn your hand to this thing and that keeps you wide awake. To be sure, if you count what we women earn in money it is not much; but to keep a house in good order is worth something."
"Yes, indeed," said the engineer; "the devotion of people to their work here is wonderful. Many of the clockmakers work fourteen hours a day. They deserve great praise for it."
The girl cast a look of surprise at him. What have those stupid clockmakers to do with the matter? Couldn't he, or wouldn't he, understand what she meant?
There came a pause which the engineer broke by asking about the landlady.
"Mother is in the garden, picking beans. Let us go and find her, for she cannot leave her work."
"No, I'd rather stay as we are. Tell me, sister-in-law,--I may call you so without offence, I hope,--is not the doctor's oldest daughter, Amanda, a ladylike, amiable girl?"
"Amanda? why should she not be? she is old enough. She is high-shouldered, too, as you would see if her city dressmaker did not pad her so skilfully." The girl bit her lip. How silly to have said that! He was thinking of Bertha all the time he asked about Amanda. "Bertha, now," she added, recovering herself, "is a merry--"
"Yes, a noble girl," interrupted the young man, then suddenly stooped to pick up a needle the landlord's daughter had dropped under the table. He seemed vexed at having betrayed himself, and hastened to change the subject.
"The doctor told me a great deal about Pilgrim yesterday."
"What is there to tell? The doctor can make a story out of everything."
"Who is Petrovitsch? They say you know all about him."
"No more than every one knows. He dines here every day, and pays when he is done. He is an obstinate old curmudgeon, as rich as a jewel and as hard. He lived ever so many years abroad, and cares for nobody. Only one thing he takes delight in, and that is the avenue of cherry-trees leading to the town. A row of crab-apple trees used to stand there, and Petrovitsch--"
"Why is he called Petrovitsch?"
"His name is Peter, but he lived among the Servians so long that people got into the way of calling him Petrovitsch."
"Tell me more about the avenue."
"He was in the habit of walking about with a knife in his hand, and lopping off the superfluous branches by the roadside. One day, the superintendent of the roads arrested him for mutilating the trees, so he had a new row of cherry-trees planted at his own expense, and for six years has had the fruit picked before it ripened, that thieves might not injure the trees. They have grown beautifully, certainly. But he cares nothing for his fellow-men. See, there goes his only brother's child, Lenz of the Morgenhalde, who can boast of having received no more from his uncle than he could put on the point of a pin."
"That is Lenz,--is it? A fine-looking fellow he is, with a delicate face, just as I had imagined him. Does he always stoop like that when he walks?"
"No, only now, because he is feeling so badly at his mother's death. He is a good fellow, though a little too soft-hearted. I know two eyes that are looking out at him from a vine-covered house, wishing they might tempt him in; and the eyes belong to Bertha."
"Indeed? Is there any engagement between them?" asked the engineer, the color mounting to his forehead.
"I don't suppose they are engaged, but she would be glad enough to catch him; for he has a pretty property, while she has nothing but a pretty straw hat and a pair of ragged stockings."
The landlord's daughter--or Annele of the Lion, as she was commonly called--congratulated herself on having administered this bitter pill, and quite forgot her own vexation in delight at the pain she had caused.
"Where are you going?" she continued, as the young man took his hat, and prepared to depart.
"I want a farther walk, and think of going up the Spannreute."
"It is beautiful, but as steep as the side of a house."
Annele hurried into the back garden as soon as he left, and watched him. He did, in fact, go a little way up the mountain, but soon retraced his steps, and went down the valley towards the doctor's.
"Plague on you!" she said to herself; "not another kind word shall you get from me."
"He is not at home," cried Don Bastian's wife, as Lenz came up the slope to the house. "He must have gone to see you. Did you not meet him?"
"No; is his room open?"
"Yes."
"I will go up awhile," he said, and approached the familiar room. But, on opening the door, all power to enter forsook him. There stood his mother smiling upon him. His first thought, on recovering his self-possession, was one of gratitude to the faithful friend who had fixed upon the canvas those dear features, so honest and kindly, before their memory had faded. "He is always my good angel," he said to himself. "He was doing me service when he could not be with me, and such a service!--the greatest in all the world."
Long and fixedly, through gathering tears, Lenz gazed at the beloved face. "While I have eyes left, they shall look upon her. O if I could only hear her speak! if the voice of the departed could only be brought back!" He could hardly tear himself away. It was so strange to have his mother there alone, looking and looking with no one to look back at her. Not till it grew too dark to see did he leave the room. "My tears must cease here," he said to himself, as he turned away. "Whatever I feel shall be shut in my own breast; no one shall call me unmanly." As he passed the doctor's house, a sound of music reached him through the open windows. He distinguished the words of a foreign song sung by a powerful baritone voice that belonged, he knew, to no one in the valley. Whose could it be? A beautiful voice, to whomever it belonged.
"Now, Miss Bertha," he heard the stranger say, "you must sing to me."
"Not now, Mr. Storr; we shall be going to tea soon. Later in the evening we will sing together. Meanwhile I want you to look over this piece of music."
Aroused to a consciousness of his long fasting by the mention of supper, Lenz suddenly formed a bold resolution, and with a firmer step and more erect carriage went straight towards the town, and into the Lion Inn.
"Good evening, Lenz. I am glad you remember your old friends in your grief. Not a minute has passed that I have not spoken your name, and everybody that has come in through the day has talked of you. Has not your right ear burned? You will surely be rewarded in this life, dear Lenz, for your devotion to your blessed mother. She and I were the best of friends, as you know, though we did not see each other as often as we should have liked; for she did not leave home much, nor I either. Will you have a glass of the new wine, or the old? Better take the new; it is right good, and will not fly into your head. You look so red and heated!--of course, after losing such a mother"--Here the landlady of the Lion--for she it was who thus condoled with Lenz--expressed by a wave of her hand that her feelings would not let her say more.
"But what can we expect?" she began again, while setting the bottle and glass on the table. "We are mortals, after all. Your mother lived to be seventy-one,--a whole year beyond, the allotted age. To-morrow I may have to follow her. With God's help I too will leave behind a good name for my children. Not that I pretend to compare myself with your mother,--who could? But now might I venture to give you a little bit of advice? I mean it for your good."
"Certainly; I am always glad of good advice."
"I only want to warn you against your too tender heart, against letting your grief take too entire possession of you. You won't be offended,--will you?"
"No, no; why should I be? On the contrary, you show me, as I never knew before, how many good friends my mother had, and how fortunate I am to inherit them."
"You deserve them all. You are--"
"Welcome, welcome, Lenz!" interrupted a clear, youthful voice, and a full, plump hand was held out to him, behind which appeared as full and fresh a face. It was Annele of the Lion, who came in with lights. "Why did you not let me know, mother, that Lenz was here?" she added, turning to the landlady.
"You are not the only one that is privileged to talk with a young man at twilight," replied the mother, with a meaning smile.
Annele saw that Lenz did not fancy the joke, and continued, without heeding her mother's words: "You must see by my looks, dear Lenz, how I have wept for your mother these last two days. I have hardly got over it yet. Such people ought not to die. To think of all the good she did being so suddenly swept away! I can imagine how your room seems to you; how you look into all the corners, fancying the door must open; that she cannot have gone away and left you; she must come back. All day I have found myself thinking, Poor Lenz, if I could only help him! I should be so glad to bear a little of his burden for him! We looked for you here to dinner to-day. Your uncle fully expected you. He always insists on having dinner served the instant the clock strikes; but to-day he said, 'Wait a little, Annele; keep back the dinner awhile. Lenz will surely come; he never will sit down all by himself up there.' And Pilgrim said you would not fail to come and dine with him at his table. Pilgrim takes his meals here, you know. He is like a brother to me, and so fond of you! Your uncle always has his dinner served at a little table by himself, and likes me to sit down and chat with him. He is an odd man, but as clever as the Evil One. Don't disappoint us at dinner to-morrow, will you? And now what will you have for supper?"
"I have no appetite for anything. I only wish I could sleep on and on for weeks, and forget myself and all that concerns me."
"You will feel differently by and by.--Yes, I am coming!" cried Annele to some teamsters who had just sat down at another table. She quickly supplied their wants, and then resumed her place behind Lenz's chair, keeping her hand on the back of it while answering the questions of the other guests. The touch thrilled like an electric shock through his whole frame. The sight of others at their supper presently reminded him of his own hunger. In an instant Annele was in the kitchen, and back again with fresh table linen. Her hands laid the cloth and set on the dishes so invitingly, and her voice pressed him so cordially to eat, that his supper relished as he had thought food never would relish again.
Who so neat and nimble as Annele, so ready and quick at repartee? Pity she lets her fondness for making fools of people spoil the charm of her wit.
Lenz had no sooner finished his first bottle than she was ready with a fresh one, and filling his glass herself.
"You don't smoke,--do you?"
"I ought not, but should like to."
"I will fetch you a cigar such as my father smokes. We don't let many of the guests have them." She brought the cigar, lighted a paper by the lamp, and handed it to him.
The landlord had entered meanwhile,--a tall, stout, imposing figure, of venerable aspect, with thin, snow-white hair, and a little black velvet cap like a priest's on his head. His silver-bowed spectacles, with their big round glasses, were only meant to be used for reading, and were therefore generally worn pushed up on his forehead, from which a serene and quiet intelligence appeared to be gazing. Very quiet mine host was, quiet even to solemnity, and accounted very wise. He spoke little, but must not great wisdom have been needed to attain the position of the landlord of the Lion? His face was rosy, and, as we have said, venerable, except in respect to his mouth, which he had a trick of drawing in as a person does who is smacking his lips over something savory. He was silent and serious, as if wishing to make amends by his lack of words for the fluency of his wife and daughter. When the landlady was particularly talkative and complaisant, he would shake his head, as much as to say, "That is not to the taste of a man of honor." A man of honor the landlord was known to be through all the country round, and a thorough business man. He had made a fortune as packer,--that is, by buying clocks of the manufacturers, and forwarding them to purchasers in different parts of the world.
"Good evening, Lenz," said the landlord, with a breadth of voice that spoke volumes. Lenz respectfully rose. "Keep your seat," he said, offering his hand; "don't stand upon ceremony; this is a public house." His concluding nod seemed to say, "I make my respects to you; the requisite sympathy is as safe with me as a triple mortgage." With that he walked to his own table and took up the papers.
"By your leave," said Annele, politely, as she came up with a stocking in her hand, on which she was knitting, and took a seat by Lenz. She talked much and well, so that Lenz knew not which most to admire, her kindness of heart or the readiness of her wit.
"I am sorry to have to take money from you," she said, when he was paying for his supper; "I would much rather you had been our guest. Good night. Don't grieve too much. I wish I could help you. By the way, I had nearly forgotten to ask when your great musical clock, I hear so much of, is going to Russia. It must be the finest ever made here."
"It may be sent for any day."
"May I come up with my mother, some time, to see it and hear it play?"
"I shall feel honored. Come whenever you will."
"Good night, and pleasant dreams. Remember me to Franzl. She must come to us if she wants anything."
"Thank you; I will deliver the message."
It was a long mile to Lenz's house, and a steep one too; but he was not conscious of the way. Not till he found himself again in his lonely room did the former feeling of sadness come over him. He gazed out into the summer night, thinking of he knew not what. No sight nor sound of human life reached him, except a solitary light that shone for a moment from the blacksmith's house on the opposite mountain, and then vanished. The happy can sleep.
A wind-mill stood near the smith's cottage, and in the perfect stillness of the night he could hear it working, as a gust of wind set it in sudden motion. The stars shone bright above the dark outline of the mountain ridge. The moon had sunk below the trees, but still tinged the fleecy clouds, and left a trail of pale blue light behind her.
Lenz pressed his hands to his burning brow. His temples throbbed. Everything swam before his eyes. It must be the new wine: he would drink no more at night. "How kind and affectionate Annele was! Don't be a fool; what is Annele to you? Good night; pleasant dreams!" he repeated, and found in fact that night deep and quiet sleep.