"I know what you have come for," said Petrovitsch to the doctor as he entered. "Take a seat." He drew a chair up to the well-heated stove, in front of which a bright open fire was burning.
"Well, what have I come for, Sir Prophet?" asked the doctor, summoning all his good-humor to his aid.
"Money; money for my nephew."
"You are but half a prophet; I want a kind heart too."
"But money, money is the main point. Let me tell you at the start that I am not one of those who spend their tenderness over a drunkard by the roadside. On the contrary, if the fellow has a broken leg, he has no one but himself to thank for it. I speak thus freely to you because you are one of the few men whom I respect."
"Thank you for the compliment. An honest physician, however, must heal the diseases that are of a man's own making as well as those he could not prevent."
"You are a physician, and you are sick too, like our whole district,--like our whole race in these days."
The doctor expressed surprise at the new light Petrovitsch thus threw upon his character, revealing principle and not a love of ease as the groundwork of his misanthropy.
"Can you sit an hour with me? To-day is my seventieth birthday."
"I congratulate you."
"Thanks."
Petrovitsch sent the maid to Ibrahim to say that he should be an hour later than usual at his game that evening, and then, resuming his seat by the doctor, continued: "I am inclined to be communicative to-day and talk about myself. Let me tell you that, as for the opinion of the world at large, I care as little about it as this stick of wood which I am laying on the fire cares who burns it."
"I should be greatly interested in hearing by what process you have thus reduced yourself to the hardness of a log of wood."
The doctor was anxious to avail himself of the unusual mood in which he found the crabbed old fellow, to gain a better insight into his character, even at the expense of prolonging Lenz's painful uncertainty. He was not without hope of inducing Petrovitsch to advance a sum of money which would enable Lenz at once to become a shareholder in the new factory.
"You were eight years old when I went abroad," began Petrovitsch, "and therefore know nothing about me."
"Begging your pardon, we heard a deal about the wild pranks of the--"
"Of the goatherd, I suppose. Thereby hangs a tale. For the forty-two years that I was travelling by land and by sea, in all degrees of heat and cold that man or beast can endure, that name pursued me like a dog, without my having the sense to give it a kick that should silence it forever.
"Our family consisted of only three brothers. Our father was proud, in his way, of having us all boys; but children then were not thought so much of as they are in these days. They had to learn to take care of themselves. Fewer words, good or bad, were thrown them, and every one, therefore, was made to go farther than a hundred do now. My brother Lorenz, generally called by the family name, Lenz, the father of the present Lenz, was the oldest; I was the youngest, and between us came Mathes, a handsome fellow, who was carried away by that great butcher Napoleon, and lost his life in Spain. I once visited the battlefield where he fell, and saw a great hill under which all the dead bodies had been huddled together. There was no telling any man's brother. But why dwell upon that? Not long after our Mathes turned soldier, my brother Lorenz went to Switzerland for three months, and took me with him. Who so happy as I? My brother was a quiet, thoughtful man, regular and exact as clock-work, and fearfully strict. I was a wild, ungovernable child, inclined to no good, and with a special distaste to sitting behind a work-bench. What does my brother do but take me, soon after Candlemas, to a boy-sale at St. Gall? There were boy-sales held there then every year, where the Swiss farmers came to buy farm-hands from Suabia.
"As we were standing together on the market-place, a square-built Appenzeller came along, and planting himself in front of us asked my brother, 'What is the price of the boy?'
"'A cord of Swiss impudence,' I answered, pertly; 'six feet wide and six feet high.'
"The stout Appenzeller laughed, and said to my brother, 'The boy is smart, I like him.' He asked me various questions, all of which I answered as well as I knew how.
"My brother and the Appenzeller agreed upon the terms. The only farewell I received was, 'You will get thrashed if you come home before winter.'
"The whole summer I served us goatherd, and a merry life I had; but those words, 'What is the price of the boy?' often rang in my ears. I felt like another Joseph, sold into Egypt by my own brother, but with no likelihood of becoming king. In the winter I was at home again, where I was not well treated, nor, I confess, very well-behaved. In the spring I said to my brother, 'Give me a hundred florins' worth of clocks, and let me join you in the clock trade.' 'A hundred cuffs, more likely,' was all the answer my brother Lorenz gave me. At that time he had the whole charge of the business and the household, my father being sick and my mother not daring to interfere. Women were not of as much account in those days as they are now,--fortunately for them and their husbands, too, in my opinion. I induced a travelling merchant to let me go with him and carry his clocks. He almost broke my back with the burdens he imposed upon me, and nearly starved me into the bargain; yet I could not get away from him. I was worse off than the poor horse in harness, for he is at least of value enough to be cared for. Many times I was tempted to run away with the wares intrusted to me; but always atoned for my evil thoughts by compelling myself to remain awhile longer with my tormentor. No harm came to me from this experience, however, hard as it was. I kept healthy and honest.
"One occurrence, which exerted a great influence on my future movements, I must relate here, because I shall have occasion to refer to it later. Anton Striegler and I were sitting chatting together one beautiful summer morning, before the posada--as they call the inns in Spain--of a large town about six leagues from Valencia, when a handsome boy, who happened to be passing, stopped, listened to our talk for a while, and then began wringing his hands like one possessed. Just as I was about to call my companion's attention to the boy, he suddenly sprang towards us, and seizing Striegler, cried out in Spanish, 'What is that you were saying?'
"'None of your business,' returned Striegler, also in Spanish.
"'What language was it?' asked the Spaniard again.
"'German,' answered Striegler. The boy seized the image of the saint that hung from his neck, and fell to kissing it as if he would eat it up. Finally he begged us to go with him to his house, where his father was talking in that language and no one could understand him. On the way he explained that his father was a blacksmith from Germany, who had lived in the town for forty years, and had married here; that for weeks he had been lying dangerously ill, and during the last few days had talked in an unknown language, so that he could neither make himself understood nor understand those about him. The whole family were in the greatest distress. On entering the house we found an old man with snow-white hair and long white beard, sitting upright in bed, and calling out, 'Give me a bunch of rosemary!' then he would begin to sing,--'And plant it on my grave.' The sight and the sounds chilled every drop of blood in my veins; but Striegler is not easily daunted, and, approaching the bed, said in German, 'How are you, countryman!' If I live to be a hundred, I shall never forget the old man's face when he heard those words. He stretched out his arms and then folded them on his breast, as if to gather the sounds to his heart. Striegler talked further with him. The old man was able to give sensible answers; a little confused at times, but in the main intelligible. He was a Hessian by birth, named Reuter, but had changed his name to Caballero. For fifty years he had spoken nothing but Spanish, and now at the point of death every Spanish word had forsaken him. I believe that, for the rest of his life, he never understood another word of that language. The whole family was made happy by having us as interpreters of the old man's wants. Striegler took advantage of this incident to gain for himself something of a position in the town and turn it to profitable account, while I sat by the sick-bed. The best part of my life abroad was that I spent with Striegler. I had plenty to eat and drink, and for the sake of the old man was abundantly well treated. At the end of three days we left him; but hardly had we gone a couple of leagues before the son came riding after us to say we must go back, for his father was crying for us. We went to him again. He was talking German; but too incoherently for us to make out his meaning. At last, with the cry, 'Now I will go; now I will go home!' he fell back and died."
Here Petrovitsch paused in his story. "The whole thing made a deeper impression on me than I knew at the time. Striegler, after a while, returned to Spain and, I hear, married a daughter of Caballero. I continued my travels through France. At Marseilles I met your father, who saw I was not such a good-for-nothing fellow as the world supposed, and gave me the means of starting business on my own account. The saving and starving I had long practised for others I now tried for myself. I met with considerable success, paid back your father's money, and received from him more wares. My business led me over half the world. I could speak five languages; but a word of German, especially of Black Forest German, always made my heart leap in my bosom. One great weakness of mine was that I could never conquer my homesickness. It haunted my steps like a ghost, and spoiled the relish of many a jolly drinking-bout."
Petrovitsch paused again, poked the fire till it crackled merrily, and then, rubbing his hand over his old, wrinkled face, resumed: "I pass over ten years. I am in Odessa, and a made man. A fine city Odessa is, where all nations are at home. One friend I have there whom I never shall forget. There are villages in the neighborhood, Lustdorf, Kleinliebenthal, and others, occupied wholly by Germans; not from our part of the country, however, but chiefly from Wurtemberg. Many commissions were intrusted to me by persons at home; but I kept faithfully by your father until his death. Although my property was handsome, quite sufficient to enable me to drive, I travelled over all Russia on foot, not knowing what fatigue meant. Look at the muscles of that arm; they are of steel. What must they have been thirty years ago? They were something to be proud of then, I can tell you. I settled in Moscow, and remained there four years. Yet I can hardly call it settling, for I never rested an hour; never made myself at home, as the phrase is. In that way I could better earn and save. I never, in all my life, was called in the morning, nor turned over for another nap when I once waked.
"Many of our country-people came to me, and always found me ready to help. Not a few out in the world owe their fortune to me. I asked about home, and was told my father was dead, my mother was dead, and my brother was married. I asked if he never inquired about me. That was a hard question to answer. All he had ever been heard to say of me was that I should one day come home a beggar. But the cruelest thing of all was my countrymen's calling me the goatherd. My brother was to blame for my having to bear that nickname through life. I always meant to send him a couple of thousand florins, with a letter saying: 'The goatherd sends you this for the hundred cuffs you owe him, for all the good you have done him, and for your faithful care of him.' I kept thinking I would do it, but, the devil knows why, I never did, I got tired living in Moscow, and wanted to go home; instead of which I went to Tiflis, and stayed there eleven years.
"As I began to grow old my feelings changed, I resolved to go home with a bag of gold, that all men should see but my brother; with him I would have nothing to do. The more I thought of it, the more I was convinced that he had dealt cruelly with me, and would be glad to know I was dead. He should suffer for it. I hated him and often reviled him in my thoughts; yet my thoughts kept returning to him. An indescribable homesickness consumed me. No water tasted as good as that of the old well at home by the church, and no air was as fragrant as ours of a summer evening. Thousands and thousands of times I have thought how gladly I would give a hundred florins for a roomful of the air of my native valley. Then I imagined the delight of getting home and having all the dwellers above the town and below it gathering together to see Peter, or Petrovitsch, as they call me now. There should be long tables spread on the meadow before our house, where all should come who would, and eat and drink for three days,--all but my brother. Yet all the time I felt in my heart, though I would not confess it, that he was the only person I loved. Every year I said, next year I shall go; but I kept staying on. It is hard to leave a business in which everything you touch turns to gold. I wondered how I came to be so gray and old. At last I fell sick,--for the first time in my life dangerously sick. For weeks I was out of my head, and talked, as I afterwards learned, in a language that no one about me understood. The doctor was able to make out a few words, which he said were German. I frequently cried out, 'Cain!' and, 'What is the price of the boy?' Then I remembered Caballero in the village near Valencia. Suppose you should one day be lying so on your death-bed, and should cry out for water, and there should be no one to understand you!-- Now the time was come. Home, home, home! Thanks to a good constitution, I quickly recovered and proceeded to carry out my fixed resolution. Perhaps my brother would humble himself and acknowledge his injustice to me; then I would stay by him till I died. How much time might still remain to us? What was the whole world away from those of our own blood? On the way,--for I actually set out at last,--I was like a child who has been lost in the wood and runs crying home. I often had to remind myself how old I was. Hatred of my brother revived in my heart and tormented me. It was like a severed artery that will not heal: a touch, a thought, brings the bad, black blood again.
"I reached home.
"The mountains seemed to be rising and running to meet me, as I entered the valley.
"I drove through the different villages. There was where such and such a one lived; I could not think of the names till I had passed. The road was broader and more convenient than it used to be, and followed the valley instead of going over the Woltending mountain. I was in a strange land and yet at home. Mountains that used to be thickly wooded were now as bare as a Turk's head. There had been a terrible sacrifice of trees. I entered the village on a beautiful summer evening at haying-time, just as the bells were ringing. They seemed voices not of this world. I had heard many bells in the forty-two years I was abroad, but none like these. Involuntarily I took off my hat; it was so good, so heavenly to feel my native air blowing about my head! I know not what echo it woke within me. The gray hairs on my head seemed growing young again. Most of the persons I met on the way were strangers to me. You, doctor, I recognized from your resemblance to your father. No one knew me. I drew up at the 'Golden Lion' and inquired if Lorenz Lenz of the Morgenhalde was at home. At home? He had been dead these seven years. A thunderbolt falling at my feet could not have more confounded me. Fortunately I recovered myself before my agitation was observed.
"I went up to my room, and late at night walked through the village, meeting many familiar objects that convinced me I was once more at home. All was still about my parents' house. The pine trees at the back of it, that were hardly twice as tall as I when I left home, were now giants, ready to be cut down. I half resolved to depart before day. What should I do here? It would be easy to go, for no one had recognized me.
"But I did not depart.
"Persons came to me from all quarters, and offered me their hands--to be filled. But, doctor, I once to kill time fed the sparrows on my window-sill, and from that day the importunate beggars are possessed to come here every morning, and distract me with their noise; there is no frightening them away. It is easy to acquire habits, but hard to break them up. I stopped asking about anybody, for I heard of nothing but death and disaster, and a hundred times a day got a stab at my heart. Whoever came in my way was very well; who did not, was gone. All came to see me except my sister-in-law and her prince. 'My brother-in-law knows where his parents' house is,' she said. 'It is not for us to run after him.' The very first time I saw young Lenz, I conceived a dislike to him. He looked like none of us, but took after his mother's family. When I look round upon the village now, and the whole district, in fact, I am ready to tear my old hair out for having come home. Everything is stunted and lazy and spoiled. Where is the old light-heartedness, the old high spirit? Gone. The youths are good for nothing. Don't I have to pick the cherries before they are ripe to prevent the young trees from being broken? My musical nephew there cossets himself up in his room, while I, at his age, was out making my way in the world. I mind nothing; but he turns pale and sick at every rough wind and every rough word. There was a time when I hoped something from him, and thought he might still make my life happy. If he had married your daughter Amanda, the young people should have come to me, or I would have gone to them. My property would have come into your family, as it is right it should; for I am indebted to your father for the beginning of my good fortune, if good fortune it is. That cursed Pilgrim guessed my thoughts, and tried to make me a go-between. I would have nothing to do with it. I never give advice nor take it. Every man must work out his life in his own way. And this is the point I want to come at: that I won't give a red cent; rather would I throw my money into the fire. Now I have talked enough. I have made myself quite hot."
"How did the water of the spring by the church taste, that you had longed for so much?" asked the doctor.
"Bad; very bad. It is too cold and too hard. I cannot bear it."
With this for a text, the doctor undertook to reason Petrovitsch into a better way of thinking. He tried to convince him that the world had not changed for the worse any more than the spring of water; only his eyes and thoughts, as well as his palate, had lost their youth. He explained to him, that while he was perfectly right in strengthening his mental and bodily powers by contact with the outside world, yet domestic industry and economy required that many should stay at home, and be screwed, like their own vice, to the work-bench. He laid special stress on the delicacy, amounting almost to morbid sensitiveness, that accompanies a talent for music; at the same time pointing out to the old man the same soft-heartedness in himself that he censured in his nephew. He strongly urged upon him the necessity of extending a helping hand. But Petrovitsch had relapsed into his old obstinacy, and silenced the doctor by saying: "I keep to what I said before. I neither give advice nor take it. I shall take no steps in the matter. If you say another word, doctor, I will not answer for the consequences."
It was clear there was nothing further to be hoped for, and, as a message arrived at this moment from Ibrahim, Petrovitsch and the doctor left the house together. The doctor was obliged to draw his cloak close about him as he went up the Morgenhalde. It was blowing fiercely, though the wind was strangely warm.
While Lenz, in his great distress, was wandering about the world, Annele was visited at home. She was alone, wholly alone; for her husband had left no parting word behind. He had gone away moody and silent, without opening his lips. Pooh! Two words would have brought him back, she thought, and yet a strange fear oppressed her heart, and flushed her cheeks. She had never been used to the company of her own thoughts. In the constant bustle and stir in which her life had been spent, she had never sat down quietly to think. Now it was forced upon her. No matter what she turned her hand to, or how persistently she went about her household work, something was always following her, pulling at her gown, and whispering, "Hearken to me!"
Little William was sitting by the servant-maid, winding the yarn as fast as it was spun. The baby had been put to sleep, and as Annele sat by the child's bed an invisible power held her in her chair, and forced her to listen to the voice of her own thoughts: Annele, what change has come over you? The gay, handsome Annele, whom all loved and flattered, sitting here in a darkened chamber of a lonely house, having to delve and to save!--I would not mind that; I would do it gladly, if I were but honored in the household. But nothing I do or say suits him. What do I do that is wrong? Am I not frugal and industrious, willing to work even more than I do? But this place is like a grave.--
She started, trembling, from her seat. A dream she had had in the night came vividly to mind,--not a dream, this time, of merry parties or flattering guests, but of her own open grave. She had stood beside it, and distinctly seen the little clods of earth rolling down into the pit that had been dug for her. She screamed aloud and stood as one paralyzed.
With an effort she recovered herself; all the life within her cried: "I will not die, not yet; for I have not yet lived, either at home or here."
She wept in deep compassion with herself as her thoughts travelled back over the years that were gone. She had imagined life would be so happy alone with the man she loved, far away from the world; from the publicity that had grown irksome to her, and the undefined feeling of insecurity that had begun to poison her enjoyment of the profusion about her. It was her husband's fault that she longed now for a wider field in which to use her wasted powers. He was like his own clocks, that play their little tunes, but hear nothing beyond. The comparison made her laugh in the midst of her wretchedness.
She would gladly have yielded obedience to one who showed himself a master among men, but not to a miserable sticker of pins.
Yet you knew who and what he was, whispered something in her heart.
Yes, but not like this, not like this, she answered.
Has he not a good heart?
Towards every one but me. No one who has not lived with him knows his many whims, his frightful bursts of passion. This clock-making is fatal; we must try another mode of life.
This was the point to which Annele's thoughts always reverted. If she could only be a landlady at the head of the first establishment in the country; could only be earning some money and have some communication with the world, happy days would come again.
She went to the glass and rearranged her dress. She could never go about in any slatternly fashion; no slippers for her, though Lenz often did not draw on his boots from one Sunday to another. For the first time for many months she dressed her hair in its triple crown of braids, and her proud glance as she stood before her glass said plainly: I am Annele of the Lion; I have no idea of pining away for any man. I have harnessed afresh, and he must drive with me. Our two strongest horses are put to the carriage. She snapped with her tongue, and raised her right hand as if brandishing a whip over the horses' heads.
"Is your mistress at home?" asked a voice without.
"Yes."
There was a knock, and, to Annele's great surprise, the minister entered.
"Welcome, sir," said Annele, courtesying; "did you wish to see me or my husband?"
"I came to see you, knowing your husband was absent. I have not seen you in the village since your parents' misfortune, and thought I might perhaps be of some service to you in your trial."
Annele breathed more freely. She had feared her visitor might have been sent by Lenz, or had come to speak with her about Lenz.
She spoke with sorrow of the fate of her parents; her mother, she feared, would not long survive the shock.
The minister talked with her kindly and seriously, urging her to be resigned to what had happened, whether merited or unmerited, and not to let distress and anger tempt her to shut herself from the world. He reminded her of the one honor that he had spoken of at her marriage; he spoke pleasantly of her father, whose misfortune was due to a miscalculation on his part, not to any intentional dishonesty.
"I have not forgotten your wedding day," pursued the minister, giving a slight turn to the conversation, "and wished to bid you good morning on this fifth anniversary of it."
Annele smiled and thanked him; but the thought struck to her heart that Lenz had gone away without bidding her good morning. With a return of her old fluency she expressed her pleasure at the honor her minister paid her; spoke of his great goodness, and of the daily prayers the whole village ought to offer up to Heaven for his life and health. She evidently was bent upon keeping the conversation away from her own affairs. She would allow no approach, on the minister's part, to the subject of her domestic difficulties. Under the influence of that determination she drew in her breath and moistened her lips, as the postilion Gregory might when he was about to blow one of his elaborate pieces on the horn.
The minister understood it all. He began by praising Annele for her many good qualities,--for her neatness and careful management in her parents' house, and her keeping her purity unharmed by the temptations which assailed her there.
"I have long been unaccustomed to praise," answered Annele. "I had almost forgotten I was ever of account in the world."
The minister saw his bait was taking. As a physician wins the confidence of his patient by describing to him all his aches and pains, till the sick man looks up joyfully and says, "the doctor knows my whole case; he will surely help me," so the minister described to Annele all her mental sufferings, and wound up with saying: "You have often seen blood flow from a wound, from a blow or a bruise, and know how the black blood gradually takes on all the seven colors. So it is with the soul's wounds. An injury, an offence, like that black blood gradually takes on all the colors,--hate, contempt, anger, self-pity, pain at the wrong, a desire to return evil for evil, and again to let all go to wreck and ruin."
It seemed to Annele that she was holding her heart in her hand, and showing how it had been bruised and lacerated and beaten to pieces. The good-for-nothing barrelmaker, he would have his full deserts now! "O, help me, sir!" she cried.
"I will; but you must help yourself. You do not need to change your nature. Alas for you, if you did! I am old enough to know how easy that is to say, and how hard to do. You only need to shake off something foreign to yourself that has taken possession of you. There is goodness in you, only you have forgotten it, wilfully forgotten and ridiculed it, and prided yourself on your sharpness of tongue. Have done with all pride and ambition. Where is no oneness of heart is a continual wearing upon each other."
The little man's figure dilated, and his voice gathered strength as he laid bare before Annele her false pride and her hard-heartedness towards Franzl. Annele's eyes flashed at the mention of Franzl.
So the secret was out. It was she, the thievish, hypocritical old woman, who had brought this upon her, and turned all against her. No cat ever mangled a mouse with greater pleasure than Annele now pulled to pieces old Franzl.
"If I could but have her once in my clutches!" she snarled.
The minister waited till her fury had spent itself. "You make yourself out to be wicked and vindictive," he said; "but I still maintain you are not so at heart."
Then Annele cried to think she should be so sadly changed; it was not like her to be so angry. It was all because she had nothing to do; was not allowed to be earning anything. She was not made to keep house for a petty clockmaker; she was made to be a landlady. If the minister would only help her to be landlady, she promised he should never see another spark of anger or cruelty in her.
The minister admitted that she had all the requisite qualities for a landlady, and promised to do everything in his power to make her one; but implored her, as she kissed his hands in gratitude, not to trust for her improvement to any external circumstances.
"You are not yet subdued by your grief and humiliation. Your pride is your sin, the cause of unhappiness to you and yours. God forbid you should need the loss of husband or children to bring you to your better self!"
Annele's seat was opposite the mirror, and as she caught the reflection of her face in the glass there seemed to be a cobweb floating before it. She passed her hand several times across her face.
The minister got up to go, but Annele begged him to sit with her a little longer; she could think better when he was by.
The two sat in silence. No sound was heard except the ticking of the clocks. Annele's lips moved, but no voice came from them. She kissed his hand devoutly when he at last departed, and he said: "If you feel yourself worthy, if your heart is softened, really softened, come to the communion to-morrow. God bless you!"
She wished to accompany him part of the way. "No courtesies now," he said; "be first pure and humble in heart. Judge not, that ye be not judged, says the Saviour. Judge yourself; look into your own heart. Accustom yourself to sit quiet and think."
Annele remained sitting where the minister had left her. She found it hard, for sitting with her hands before her and thinking was not her habit. She forced herself to it now. One sentence of the minister's kept ringing in her ears: "You have often good and pure thoughts,--thoughts of penitence; but they visit you as guests, drink their glass, and are gone. You put the chairs in place again, wipe off the table, and all is as if they had not been."
Annele reflected upon it and acknowledged it was true.
She could be hard upon herself as well as upon others. Why have you thus misused your life? she asked herself.
The child woke up and cried. "The minister has no children; it is very well for him to tell me to sit and think, but I must quiet my child."
She took the little girl out of bed and fondled her more tenderly than usual. The child helped to drive away her solitary thoughts.
She suddenly remembered the tune that Lenz had played the first time she was at the house, and she sang her baby to sleep by it now: "Love it is the tender blossom." She still sang on after the child was asleep and lying quiet in her arms, and as she sang the words she thought: Whom have I ever loved? whom?--I wanted to marry the landlord's son and the engineer in order to have a good position; but as for loving any man with my whole heart, I never did. And my husband? I married him because one of the doctor's daughters would have taken him, and because I wanted to get away from home, and because he was good-tempered and everybody spoke well of him.
Annele started as the child turned in her sleep. She quieted her again, but felt uneasy at being thus alone with her thoughts. There seemed ghosts lurking in all the corners, even in broad daylight. If only some one were here to cheer me up! Come, Lenz; come home! Be kind, and all will go well. We need no priest to help us; we can help ourselves. We are helped; I love you.
It was noon, and the sun was shining warm out of doors. Annele wrapped the child carefully up and carried it out in front of the house. Perhaps Lenz was on his way home; she would give him a cordial greeting, bid him the good morning he had forgotten to say, and tell him all should henceforth be peace between them. At this hour, five years ago, they had been married, and now they would be married again.
The figure of a man, still too far off to be recognized, was seen coming up the hill. "Call father!" she said to the child.
"Father! father!" the little thing cried.
The man came nearer. It was not Lenz, but Faller, hurrying up with an extra hat in his hand. "Is Lenz at home yet?"
"No."
"Good Heavens! this is his hat. My brother-in-law picked it up in the gully where he was cutting wood. If Lenz should have done himself any violence!"
Annele's knees shook; she pressed the child to her till it cried. "You are mad, and want to make me mad!" she exclaimed. "What do you mean?"
"Is that not his hat?"
"Good Heavens, it is!" she shrieked, and fell to the ground with the child.
Faller raised them both.
"Has he been found? dead?" asked Annele.
"No, thank Heaven! Come into the house. Let me take the child. Be calm, he has only lost his hat."
Annele staggered into the house, waving her hands before her face to brush away the mist that dimmed her sight. Was it possible? Lenz dead now,--now, when her heart had opened to him? It cannot be, it is not so. "Why should my Lenz kill himself?" she asked as she sank upon a seat. "What do you mean by it?"
Faller made no answer.
"Can you only talk when you are not wanted to?" she asked angrily. "Sit down, sit down, and tell me what has happened."
As if he could punish Annele by not doing her bidding, Faller remained standing, though his knees shook under him. The look he turned upon her was so full of sorrow and bitter upbraidings, that her eyes fell beneath it. "How can I sit in your house?" he said at last. "You have taken the comfort out of every chair."
"I do not need your admonitions. I told you that long ago. If you know anything of my husband, tell it. Has he been found dead? where? Speak, you--"
"No, thank Heaven. God forbid! The shingle-maker from Knuslingen, Franzl's brother, reported him as having been with Franzl, and she lives almost two leagues beyond the place where his hat was picked up."
Annele breathed more freely. "Why did you frighten me so?" she asked again.
"Frighten you? Can you still be frightened?"
Faller told how Lenz had been everywhere, trying to borrow money to pay the security on his house, and added that that need burden him no longer, as Don Bastian had just advanced the required amount.
Annele drew herself up as he spoke. The old spirit of wrath and bitterness rose again within her, mightier, more vengeful than ever. He has deceived you, he has lied to you, her every feature said. He lives, he must live to atone for it. He told you he had withdrawn his security. Come home, you liar, you hypocrite! Annele went into her chamber, and Faller was obliged to depart without seeing her again. Gone was all sorrow, all contrition, all love. Lenz had deceived her, had told her a lie, and he should pay for it. Just like these good-natured milksops who, because they cannot stand up like men for their own rights, must be handled like a soft-shelled egg! Let me alone, and I will let you alone; refuse me nothing, and I will refuse you nothing, though you make me a beggar. Come home, you pitiful milksop!
Annele put no food on the fire, to be ready for her husband's return. A very different kind of cooking was going on.
Lenz went up the hill, after parting from the doctor, with a light and happy heart. From one of two sources help must certainly come,--from his uncle or the factory.
He saw the glimmer of a lamp as he approached his house. Thank Heaven, all is waiting for the good news, he said to himself. Poor Annele! you are more to be pitied than I, for you see the bad side of human nature, while I have only to go abroad to find the world full of kindness. I will help to lighten your burden.
Suddenly, like a burning arrow, came the thought: You have been a traitor to-day in your heart,--twice and thrice a traitor. At Katharine's, and again at the doctor's, you entertained the sinful thought that your life might have been different. Where is the honor you pride yourself upon? You have been five years married, and are the father of two children. Good Heavens! this is our wedding day.
He stood still listening to the voice within him: "Annele, dear Annele! This one day has seen my first and last unfaithfulness. May my parents in heaven refuse to pardon me if I ever give way to such thoughts again! From this time forth we will keep a new wedding day."
In this feeling of self-accusation, and of joy that all things would henceforth be well, Lenz entered his house.
"Where is my wife?" he asked as he saw the two children in the sitting-room with the servant.
"She has just lain down."
"Is she ill?"
"She complained of nothing."
"Annele," he said, going into the sleeping-room; "I am come to wish you good evening and good morning; I forgot it early to-day. I have good news, too, for you and for me. Please God, all things shall go well with us from this day forward."
"Thank you."
"Is anything the matter? Are you ill?"
"No; I am only tired, tired almost to death. I will be up in a minute."
"No; keep in bed if it does you good. I have news for you."
"I don't want to keep in bed. Go into the sitting-room; I will be out in a minute."
"Let me tell my news first."
"There is time enough for that; it won't spoil in a couple of minutes."
A shadow fell on Lenz's happiness. Without a word he returned to the sitting-room and fondled the children till Annele came out. "Will you have anything to eat?" she asked.
"No. How came my hat here?"
"Faller brought it. I suppose you gave it to Faller to bring to me, did you not?"
"Why should I have done that?" he answered. "The wind blew it off my head."
He told in few words his chance visit to Katharine. Annele was silent. She kept her charge of falsehood ready to launch at him when occasion offered. She could bide her time.
Lenz sent the maid into the kitchen, and, holding the boy in his lap, gave a full account of his day's experiences, all but of those thoughts of infidelity which had risen in his heart.
"Do you know the only one point of consequence in the whole story?"
"What?"
"The hundred florins and three crown-pieces that Franzl offered you. The rest is nothing."
"Why nothing?"
"Because your uncle will not help you. Do you see now the mistake you made in letting him off five years ago?"
"And the factory?"
"Who is to be admitted besides yourself?"
"I know of no one yet but Pröbler, whose ingenious inventions have certainly earned him a place."
"Ha, ha! that is too good; you and Pröbler! You are capital yokefellows. Did I not always tell you you would come down to his level? But you are more pitiful than he, for he at least has not dragged down a wife and children. Out of my sight, you poor, miserable milksop! Let yourself be yoked to the same team with Pröbler!" She snatched the child from its father's knee and, turning the torrent of her words upon the terrified boy, continued, passionately: "Your father is a pitiful milksop, who needs to have the bottle always held to his lips. Pity his mother is not alive to make his pap for him! Oh, how low have I fallen! But one thing I insist upon, you shall not enter the factory; I will drown myself and my children first. When I am dead you can go and ask the doctor's crooked daughter to leave her weeds and marry you."
Lenz sat motionless, chilled with horror.
"Mention not my mother's name," he cried at last. "Leave her to her eternal rest."
"I have no objection to leaving her. I neither want nor have anything of hers."
"What? Have you no longer that sprig of edelweiss? Tell me, have you not kept it?"
"Stuff and nonsense! of course I have kept it."
"Where? Give it to me!"
Annele opened a drawer and showed it.
"Thank God! you have it still; it will still bring us its blessing."
"The man has actually lost his senses with his superstition. The idea of pinning his faith to a wretched bit of dried grass instead of trying to help himself! Just like these beggars to go tearing about the world distracted."
Annele poured forth all this venom with her back upon her husband, as if calling the world to witness his degradation. Her utter ignoring of his presence, and thus speaking of him in the third person, was a keener stab than even her cruel epithets.
With great self-control he said: "Do not speak so, Annele; it is not yourself, but a devil speaking in you. And do not crush the little flower; keep it sacred."
"Ha, ha!" laughed Annele. "That is too much. I won't give way to such miserable superstition. Out of the window, Edelweiss, and take this precious bit of writing with you."
A tempest of wind was raging without.
"Come, Wind," she cried, as she threw open the window; "come, take all this sacred trumpery." She let go flower and letter. The wind whistled and howled, and whirled them high in the air over the bald mountain-top.
"What have you done, Annele?" groaned Lenz.
"I am not superstitious like you, nor am I yet fallen so low as to make an idol of such trash."
"It is no superstition. My mother only meant that so long as my wife honored the memory of my parents, a blessing would rest upon the house. But nothing is sacred to you."
"I do not hold you sacred, nor your mother either."
"That is too much, too much!" cried Lenz, his voice choked with the passion he in vain endeavored to repress. "Leave the room and take the boy with you. I have heard enough. Go, or you will drive me mad!--Hush! There is some one at the door."
Annele withdrew with the child into the inner chamber, just as the doctor entered the room.
"It is as I feared," he said. "Your uncle will not lift a hand to help you. He says you married against his will, and not another word can I get from him. I have used every argument in my power; all was vain. He at last almost turned me out of the house."
"And all because of me! I must bring evil on all who love me and try to serve me. Forgive me, doctor. I cannot help it."
"Why, how you talk; of course you cannot help it. I have known plenty of strange men in my life, but never one like your uncle. He opened his whole heart to me, and a tender heart it is; he is not a jot behind the rest of your family in that. I thought I surely had him and could guide him like a child; but when it came to money, off he was again." Here the doctor gave an expressive snap of his fingers. "Nothing more was to be got out of him. In fact, I don't believe he has anything besides a trifling annuity from some insurance office. Let us put him out of the question altogether. I shall talk the matter over with my sons, and if you prefer not to enter the factory, we can make some arrangement by which you shall employ five or six workmen here, or more, if you can accommodate them, to be paid by our establishment."
"Not so loud, please. My wife can hear us from the next room. I was prepared for the result of your interview with my uncle; there was little else to be looked for. As for the factory, the mere mention of the word has thrown my wife into such a state as I never saw her in before. She will not hear of it."
"Take time to consider it. Will you not come a little way down the hill with me?"
"Pray excuse me; I am so tired! My knees bend under me. Since four o'clock this morning I have scarcely sat down, and I am not used to such long tramps. I almost fancy I am going to have a fit of illness."
"Your pulse is feverish, as is natural after so much fatigue and excitement. A good night's sleep will set you right again. But you must be careful of yourself for some little time to come. You may really work yourself into a serious fit of illness if you don't rest more and husband your strength. Tell your wife from me," he continued, raising his voice so that his words could not fail to be heard in the adjoining room, "that she must take very good care of the father of her children during this season of thaw, and make him keep housed. A clockmaker, used to such constant sitting, gets to be delicate. Good night, Lenz; pleasant dreams to you!"
The doctor had a hard walk down the hill, often sinking deep into the melting snow, on whose surface lay a treacherous covering of stones and gravel. He was obliged to divest his mind of its anxiety for Lenz, and concentrate all his thoughts on the path he was treading. A remark of Pilgrim's constantly recurred to his memory, that Lenz could make as much of life as any man, but he craved joy and love; the dry companionship his home afforded was killing him.
Lenz meanwhile sat alone in his room. He was tired out, yet could find no rest. He paced the room like a wild beast in its cage. Racked with pains, and sick in body and mind, his heart cried out: Alas, to be sick and at the mercy of a cruel wife! to have no escape, to lie under the scourge of her tongue, to hear your fevered fancies blamed as evil passions, to be cut off from your friends; sick and dependent upon an unloving woman!--rather death by my own hand!
The wind put out the fire, filling the room with smoke. Lenz opened the window and gazed out. No light now in the blacksmith's house; he is buried in the dark ground. Would I too were at rest from my many sorrows!
The air was warm, unnaturally warm. The water dripped from the roof; from the bare mountain-top to the valley below, the wind was rushing and roaring as if one gust were driving hard upon another. There was a rattling and rumbling on the heights behind the house. The tempest, in rage at the loss of its playground in the forest, seemed to be wreaking its vengeance on the chestnut and pines in the garden, twisting them till they creaked and groaned. It was well that his house was firm in its stout oaken beams, else the wind might sweep it away with all in it. "That would be gay travelling," laughed Lenz, bitterly, starting at the same time and casting a frightened look behind him, as the old timbers cracked in ghostly sympathy with the misery within the dwelling. Such words were never heard within these walls before, nor did ever dweller here live through such a night in such a mood; neither father, nor grandfather, nor great-grandfather.
He turned to get his writing materials, and, as he passed the mirror, stopped involuntarily and gazed at the figure whose swollen and bloodshot eyes were reflected there. At last he sat down and began to Write, pausing often and pressing his hand to his eyes, then dashing his pen along the paper again. He rubbed his eyes, but no tears fell from them. "You have lost the power to weep," he said, hoarsely; "best so; you have wept too much already for a man."
He wrote:--