Edelweiss Part 15

"You are drunken now; how can I speak soberly with you?"

"I am not drunken; I am perfectly sober."

"Good; tell me, then, how this all happened so suddenly."

"I cannot tell. It came upon me like a flash from heaven, and now I see it had long been the one wish of my heart."

"I thought so; and yet I thought, too, you would do nothing without letting me know."

"Neither will I. You shall go with me to her father to-morrow. I have not yet laid my suit before him."

"Not yet? Thank Heaven! Then I hope it may come to nothing."

"What! would you drive me mad?"

"No need of that. Lenz, she is not yet your betrothed; she is not yet your wife; there is still time for me to speak openly. It would be wrong to draw back now, but it would be only one wrong. If you marry Annele, you will be doing a thousand wrongs your life long. Lenz, she is no wife for you,--she least of any."

"You do not know her, only joking with her as you do. But I have learned her through and through,--her goodness, her cleverness."

"You think I do not know her? Why, I have eaten a bushel of salt with those people. I can describe them every one to you. Annele and her mother are so much alike they cannot bear one another, though they do pretend to be so fond in public. They exchange sweet speeches, because the guests eat and drink better when pleasant sounds are going on. But none of their soft words come from the heart. They have no heart. I never believed, till I knew them, that there could be such persons.

They talk of kindness, of love, of pity, of patriotism too, perhaps, and religion; but these things are empty words to them, meaning nothing, prompting them to nothing. The world, they firmly believe, has agreed to use the names for effect, without any one attaching the least significance to them. Annele has not a ray of heart; and without heart I maintain there can be no right understanding. She can never enter into another's feelings and opinions; can neither share them nor yield to them. She can, like her mother, catch another person's words, and make a fine show with them. They both have a peculiar faculty of blaming, even scolding, in such a way that you cannot make out to the end whether it is a declaration of love or of war. Father, mother, and daughter make nice music together for the public edification. Annele plays first fiddle, the old woman second, and mine host a growling ba.s.s. He, I must say, is the only honest one in the house. Here, as everywhere, the female bees are the ones that sting, and how they sting! The landlord speaks charitably of his neighbors, and cannot bear to hear his wife and daughter abuse them. Their special delight is to tear to pieces the good name of wife or maid. The mother does it with a certain hypocritical compa.s.sion, but Annele plays with the world like a cat with a mouse; and the burden of the song always must be, you are the fairest, the healthiest, the cleverest, and, if it is any compliment, the best. I have often studied to make out what const.i.tutes the essence of ill-breeding, which may be highly polished to the eye.

True coa.r.s.eness is pleasure in the misfortunes of others. O Lenz, you have not the key-note of that household; all your knowledge of music will not help you find it. It is nothing but mocking and lies. These people will never understand you, your wants and your tastes. I tell you, only he that is of the truth can understand and love the truth.

You will be always a stranger to them."

"I am ashamed of you, Pilgrim. You are saying these things of persons whose house you have entered daily for eight years, at whose table you eat, and with whom you are apparently on friendly terms. What must I think of you?"

"That I go to an inn, eat, drink, and pay my money. I pay daily, and am done with them daily."

"I cannot understand you."

"I believe you. I have had to pay dear for my knowledge, and would rather have remained ignorant, like you. It is not pleasant to know people as they are. Yet the world has some--"

"And you think yourself one of the good ones?"

"Not exactly that. I thought you would turn against me. I must bear it.

Abuse me, do with me what you will, cut my hand off,--I will gladly beg, if I may know that thus I have saved a man like you. Give up Annele, I entreat you. You have not asked her yet of her father. You are not bound."

"Those are the tricks your knowledge of the world teaches you,--are they? I am not so clever as you; I never travelled abroad, as you have; but I know what is right. I have betrothed myself to Annele in the presence of her mother, and I will keep my word. G.o.d grant I may receive her from her father! I tell you, for the last time, I did not ask your advice. I am quite able to act for myself."

"I shall rejoice with all my heart if I have been mistaken. But no; Lenz, for Heaven's sake, be persuaded! There is still time. You cannot say I have ever dissuaded you from marrying."

"No."

"You were born to be a husband. I was a fool not to urge you more strongly to marry one of the doctor's daughters."

"Do you think I would have gone to them, and said, 'My guardian, Pilgrim, sends his compliments, and says I am to marry one of you,--Amanda, if I can'? No: they are too fine ladies for me."

"They are, indeed, fine ladies, while Annele only acts the fine lady.

Because the doctor's daughters are not on familiar terms with all the world, you thought it would be difficult to become intimate with them.

It was easier with Annele. Oh, I see it all. Annele talked with you of your grief, as she knows how to talk of every thing, and that opened your heart. Annele has in every gown a pocketful of small coin. Her heart is such a pocket, from which she brings out change for every guest."

"Pilgrim, you are doing a wrong, a great wrong!" cried Lenz, his lips trembling with sorrow and anger. To convince his friend how sincere and true-hearted Annele was, he told him her words after the death of his mother and after the departure of his great work. Every one had been to him a revelation.

"My pennies! my coppers!" cried Pilgrim. "My poor coppers! She robbed a beggar-man to get her pennies! O fool, cursed fool that I was! All she said, every word, she stole from me. She is like a corkscrew for getting things out of one. I was fool enough to say those very words to her. It serves me right. Yet how could I think she would trap you with them? O my poor pennies!" The two friends sat long in silence. Pilgrim bit his lips till they bled. Lenz shook his head, doubtingly. "Do you know Annele's chief motive for taking you?" resumed Pilgrim at length.

"It was not your tall figure, not your good heart, not even your money.

Those were minor considerations. Her chief delight is that the doctor's daughter did not get you. He is not yours, but mine. You cannot understand a character like Annele's, to whom no pleasure, no happiness is complete that does not wound another; whose greatest triumph is to imagine another's vexation at seeing her so handsome, so rich, so happy. I did not believe there were such persons till I knew Annele.

Brother, seek not to know her better; it would be your ruin. Why do you look so at me? why don't you speak? Break out at me, do what you will, do with me what you will, only give up Annele; she is poison! I pray you give up Annele! Think,--I have forgotten the crowning argument of all,--think, and G.o.d grant you may not think too late! I desire to be no prophet of evil--Annele cannot grow old."

"Ha, ha! now you would try to make her out sickly. She is sound to the core. Her complexion is of milk and roses."

"Not that; I do not mean that. Was there ever a woman whom it did one more good to be with than with your mother? And why? Because her heart shone in her face, her kindliness towards all men, her joy and care that they should be happy; that makes an old face beautiful, and all who look upon it blessed. But Annele! when she has no more hair to braid into a crown, and no more red cheeks, and no more white teeth to show when she laughs, what is left? She has nothing to grow old; no soul in her body, only pretty phrases; no true heart, no honest intelligence, only a spirit of mockery. When she grows old, she will be no better than the devil's grandmother."

Lenz pressed his lips hard between his teeth. "It is enough, more than enough," he said at last; "not another word. One thing, however, I have a right to demand,--that as you have spoken to me you speak to no one else, no one, and never to me after this day. Only these four walls have heard you. I love my Annele,--and--and--I love you, too, in spite of your jealousy. I no longer desire you to go with me when I ask for her hand. Good night, Pilgrim!"

"Good night, Lenz!"

CHAPTER XVIII.

UNSPOKEN LOVE AND A BETROTHAL.

Lenz was gone, Pilgrim sat long alone, gazing at the light and twirling his sandy beard. He was angry with himself. He had said everything,--too much, in fact,--and defeated his own ends. There was nothing to take back, all was true; but of what use had it been? He walked restlessly up and down his room, then sat down again and stared at the light. How strange life is! How few men work out the fate they were meant for! The young will not believe it. They scold their elders for grumbling, and then make botchery of their own lives. The world is all right; only we must not expect to have everything our own way.

There was a deep, hidden life in Pilgrim. Ten years ago he had gone abroad with a courage ready to conquer the world, and a silent happiness in his heart that needed the a.s.surance of no pledge or spoken word. He loved Amanda, and the doctor's beautiful daughter had inclined to him like a princess; like a G.o.ddess she had stooped to him. During his holidays she let him help her in her garden work by copying the names of her foreign plants in his neatest hand from a book on the little wooden tallies which together they stuck into the ground to mark the different specimens. She was an angel of mercy to the poor forsaken boy, and even when he grew towards manhood he was frequently allowed to a.s.sist her. Always the same gentleness he found in her. Her every look was a blessing. When he pa.s.sed the garden for the last time, on setting out upon his lonely journey, she shook hands with him over the garden fence, and said, "I have a whole alb.u.m to remember you by in the little slips you wrote the foreign names on. If, where you are going, you find these foreign plants in their native soil, you must let them remind you of our garden and the household that is so fond of you. Good by, and come safe back!"

"Good by, and come safe back!" those words followed him over mountain and valley, over seas and through distant lands. The name of Amanda was shouted exultantly through many a foreign clime, and many an echo repeated "Amanda."

Pilgrim wanted to grow rich, to become a great artist, and win Amanda.

He came home poor and in tatters. Many received him with cheap taunts, but she said,--she had grown taller and stronger, and her brown eyes beamed,--"Pilgrim, be thankful that you are at least strong and well, and never lose your cheerful courage." And he did keep his happy temper. He learned to love her as he loved the beautiful linden in his neighbor's garden or the stars in heaven. Not even to Amanda was his heart revealed by a word or a sign. Like those precious stones that are said to shine in the darkness like the sun did Pilgrim's secret love for Amanda illumine his life. Often he did not see her for weeks, and, when they met, his bearing was as calm as with a stranger. But he often wondered who would be her husband. For himself he would leave the world without her suspecting what she was to him, but she must be happy. Lenz was the only one whom he could have marry her. He would not grudge her to him, they were so worthy of each other. He would hold their children in his arms, and lavish all his store of songs and jests for their amus.e.m.e.nt. Now all that was changed, and Lenz stood, as he firmly believed, on the edge of an abyss.

Thus he sat long, gazing at the light. At last he extinguished it, saying, with a sigh and a sad shake of the head, "I could not help myself, neither can I help others."

Lenz, meanwhile, was on his way home. He walked slowly. He was so weary he had to sit awhile on a heap of stones by the roadside. All was dark when he came to the Lion inn. No star was to be seen. The heaven was overcast with clouds. He stood by the inn till the whole building seemed about to fall upon him.

When he reached home, Franzl was asleep. He waked her, that he might have some one to rejoice with him. Pilgrim had strewn all his joy with ashes.

Franzl was enchanted at the news he brought her, and made him smile by repeating for the hundredth time, in order to prove that she also knew but too well what love was, the story of her own "blighted love," as she called it. She always began with tears and ended with complaints, for both of which she had ample reason.

"How pleasant it was then at home, up there in the valley! He was our neighbor's son, good, and industrious, and handsome,--oh, far handsomer than any one nowadays, begging your pardon. But he--I hardly need mention his name, for every one knows it was Anton Striegler--he was bent upon going abroad, and he went abroad on business. There at the brook we said good by. 'Franzl,' he said, 'as long as that brook runs, my heart will be true to you. Keep yours true to me.' He had beautiful ways of talking, and he could write beautifully too. It is always so with those false men. I could not have believed it. I received seventeen letters from him during the first four years,--from France, from England, and from Spain. The letter from England cost in all a crown-piece; for Napoleon would allow no tea or coffee to come into our country, and so the letter, as our curate said, had to go by way of Constantinople through Austria, and, by the time it reached me, cost a whole crown-piece. Since that no letter has come. I waited fourteen years, and then learned that he had married a black woman in Spain. I would have nothing more to do with the base man,--the basest man that ever lived,--and I burned the beautiful letters, the lying letters that he had written me. My love went up the chimney in the smoke."

Franzl always concluded her story with the selfsame words. To-day she had had a good listener,--the best of listeners. He had but one fault, that of not hearing a word she said. His eyes were fixed on her and his thoughts on Annele. Out of grat.i.tude Franzl came at last to speak of her. "I will tell Annele what you are. No one knows you as well as I do. In all your life you never harmed a child; and how good you have always been to me! Don't look so sorrowful. Be merry! I know,--ah, too well I know!--when so great happiness comes to us, we feel crushed under it. But, thank G.o.d! you are in earnest; you will stay quietly at home together and bid each other good morning and good night every day that G.o.d gives you. And now I must say good night, for it is late."

It was past midnight before Lenz went to bed, and then with a "Good night, Annele! good night, dear heart!" he fell asleep.

He awoke the next morning with a strange weight on his heart. He remembered he had dreamed, and in his dream he stood upon the high mountain ridge behind his house with one foot raised to step off into s.p.a.ce.