Edelweiss Part 19

"And why not? you please me specially to-day. People are right in praising your eyes. How true and clear they are! I did not know they were so beautiful. You are really a handsome fellow!"

Lenz looked yet handsomer from the glow of pleasure which overspread his face. "I will have some new clothes made in the latest fashion,--shall I not?"

"No, stay as you are. You look much more comfortable and respectable so."

"Not only look so, but am so."

"Are so, to be sure. Don't treat every word as if it were a tooth in a clock-wheel."

"You are quite right."

They drove through the neighboring village.

"Blow, Gregory; blow loud!" commanded Annele. "See, there is where my cousin Ernestine lives. She was our maid a long while, and afterwards married a tailor, who now keeps shop here. She cannot bear me, nor I her. Her green face will turn blue with rage when she sees us drive by without stopping. There she comes to the window. Yes, stare your little pig's eyes out of your head, and open your mouth till you show your bunchy gums! It is I, Annele, and this is my Lenz. Do you see him? How is your appet.i.te now? It is dinner-time. I wish you joy of your last year's herring."

She snapped her tongue in triumph as they went by.

"Do you take pleasure in that, Annele?" asked Lenz.

"Why not? It is right that we should show evil to the evil and good to the good."

"I don't think I could."

"Then be thankful you have me. I will make them all crawl into a mouse-hole before us. They shall be grateful for every look we bestow on them."

As they approached the town, Annele gave her bridegroom directions as to his behavior. "If the engineer is here, my brother-in-law's brother, you must be on your dignity with him. He will want to have some fling at you, because he is frightfully cross at my not accepting him. But I don't like him. And if my sister begins her complaints, listen to her tranquilly. It is not worth while trying to comfort her, and does no good either. She lives in gold, and has nothing to do but cry. The truth is, she is not very strong. The rest of us are perfectly healthy, as you can see by me."

The lovers were not successful at their sister's. She was ill in bed, and neither her husband nor his brother was at home. They had both gone down the Rhine on a large raft. "Won't you stay with your sister? I have business to attend to in the town."

"Can't I go with you?"

"No; it is about something for you."

"Then I had certainly better go too. You men don't know how to choose."

"No, I cannot have you," insisted Lenz. He took from under the seat of the wagon a package of considerable size, and set off with it to the town. Babette's house was a little way out of the town, near a great lumber-yard by the brook. Un.o.bserved by Annele, Lenz brought back the same package somewhat enlarged, and restored it to its place under the seat.

"What have you bought me?" asked Annele.

"I will give it to you when we get home."

Annele thought it hard she could not show her beautiful ornaments to her sister, but had already learned there were some things in which Lenz would have his own way in spite of entreaties and remonstrances.

They dined at the hotel. The landlord's son, Annele said, an excellent man, who now kept a great hotel at Baden-Baden, had also been one of her suitors; but she had refused him.

"Why need you have told me?" said Lenz. "I am almost jealous of the past, never of the future, that I promise. I know your truth, Annele, but it pains me to think that others have so much as raised their eyes to you. Let bygones be bygones. We begin our life anew."

Annele's face beamed with unwonted softness as he spoke. A portion of his own purity and candor fell upon her, and made her gentle and loving. She knew not how better to express this new sentiment in her than by saying: "Lenz, you need not have bought me any bridal present.

You have no need to do as others do. I am sure of you. There is something better than all the gold chains in the world."

The tears stood in her eyes as she spoke, and Lenz was happier than ever.

The church clock was striking five when they took their places in the wagon and set out for home.

"My dear father made that clock," said Lenz, "and Faller helped him. By the way, that luckily reminds me. Faller says you took offence at some awkward speech of his; he will not tell me what it was. You must forgive him. He is a plain-spoken soldier, and often says awkward things, but he is a good fellow at heart."

"Maybe so. But see here, Lenz, you have too many burrs clinging to you.

You must shake them off."

"I shall not give up my friends."

"Heaven forbid that I should ask you to! I only mean you must not let every one get hold of you, and persuade you into everything he likes."

"There you are quite right. That is a weakness of mine, I know. You must warn me whenever you see me in danger, till I am thoroughly cured of it."

At these words, so pleasantly and humbly spoken, Annele suddenly stood up straight in the carriage.

"What is the matter? what is it?" asked Lenz.

"Nothing, nothing. I don't know why I got up. I believe I don't sit quite right. That is better. Does not our carriage ride nicely?"

"Yes, indeed. We sit in an easy-chair, and yet are abroad in the world.

It is right pleasant driving. I never before drove in my own carriage, for your father's is the same as mine."

"Certainly."

They pa.s.sed Probler on the road. He stood still as the lovers pa.s.sed, and saluted repeatedly.

"I should like to take the old man in with us," said Lenz.

"What an absurd idea!" laughed Annele. "Probler on a bridal drive!"

"You are right," answered Lenz. "We should not be so cosey all by ourselves here with a third person sitting opposite, seeing and hearing everything. It is not being unkind not to invite anybody to drive with us now. This is a time when we need to be happy all by ourselves. How beautiful it is! The whole world seems to laugh. Probler laughed too, and I am sure was not offended. He would understand that I could not give away a second of this hour."

Annele answered with a searching look, then cast her eyes down, and silently clasped her bridegroom's hand. Their first drive had not begun as merrily as they had expected, but both came home with a peculiar joy in their heart. Annele said little. A new experience was pa.s.sing within her. It was still broad daylight when Lenz helped her out of the wagon at the door of the Lion, and left her to go up the steps alone, he following with the carefully covered parcel which he took from under the carriage-seat. He called her into the sitting-room, and there solved the mystery by saying: "Annele, I give you with this the best and dearest possession I have. My good Pilgrim painted it for me, and it shall be yours."

Annele stared at the picture for which Lenz had so mysteriously provided the gilt frame in the city.

"You cannot find words to describe the look my mother turns upon you,--can you?"

"So that is your mother? I see her gown and her neckerchief and her hood; but your mother! it might just as well be the carpenter's Annelise or Faller's old mother. In fact, it looks rather more like old Mrs. Faller. Why do you look so pale, as if you had not a drop of blood left in your cheeks? Dear Lenz, can I say what is untrue? You surely do not wish that. What fault is it of yours? Pilgrim is no artist. He can't paint anything but his church-towers."

"It is like losing my mother over again to hear you speak so," said Lenz.

"Don't be so sad," prayed Annele, tenderly. "I will honor the picture.

I will hang it up at once over my bed. You are not sad now,--are you?

You have been so kind and good to-day! I a.s.sure you, the picture will help me recall your mother whenever I look at it."

Lenz turned hot and cold by turns. Thus could Annele at her pleasure raise him to the highest happiness or wound him in his tenderest affections. Weeks and months pa.s.sed in this way. Joy predominated, however, for a softness had come over Annele never known in her before.