Edelweiss Part 24

"How our own? Has my father made it over to you?"

"No, it is still his,--that is, his with certain restrictions. He has no right to cut it wholly down, because it is all that keeps our house from being buried under the snow or the mountain itself."

"Don't talk so. What is it to me?"

"I don't understand you."

"Nor I you. You should not suggest such dreadful things to me now."

"Then I will sing to you, and let who will hear."

He took Annele's hand and, merrily singing, led her back to the house, where they arrived just in time to receive a visit from the landlord.

He was evidently come upon business, for, taking his son-in-law into the inner room, he began at once. "Lenz, I can do you a good turn."

"That is well. A good turn never comes amiss."

"Is your money still with the bailiff?"

"He has paid me four hundred florins of it, but the greater part is still in his hands."

"Ready money is trumps now. You can make a good trade with it."

"I will give notice to the bailiff."

"That would take too long. Give me your note to sell, and I will guarantee you twenty-five per cent."

"Then we will go shares."

"It was foolish of you to say that. I had meant to give you the whole; but you are methodical in all your business matters, I see."

"Thank you, father-in-law, I like to be fair. I want no favors."

"Your best way would be to leave the money in my business, and let me hand you whatever interest it draws."

"I don't understand business. A regular percentage suits me better."

On returning to the sitting-room they found a nice lunch set out by Annele herself, but her father seemed in a great hurry to be gone, and would take nothing. "It is your own wine, father," Annele insisted. "Do sit a few minutes with us, we see so little of you."

There seemed no seat on the Morgenhalde broad enough to bear the whole weight of the landlord's dignity. He drank a gla.s.s standing, and then went down the hill, frequently pressing his hand on his breast-pocket as he went. "Father is particularly uncommunicative to-day," observed Annele.

"He has some pressing business on his mind. I have just given him my two thousand six hundred florins that the bailiff borrowed."

"And what did he give you in exchange?"

"I don't know what you mean; nothing. I will ask him for a written receipt some time, since that is the custom."

"If you had asked my advice, you would not have given him the money."

"Annele, what do you mean? I am sure I ought not to take amiss anything you say to me when you thus mistrust your own father. But, as Franzl says, we must be indulgent with you now, and let you have your own way."

"Indeed!" said Annele. "No one need be indulgent with me. What I said about my father meant nothing. I don't know how I came to say it.

Franzl must go. It is she who sets you against me."

In vain Lenz defended poor Franzl, and protested she did nothing of the kind. Annele carried her point. In less than a fortnight the old woman had to leave the house. Lenz comforted her as well as he could, a.s.suring her she should soon come back, and promising her a yearly sum as long as she lived. But she shook her head, and said, weeping, "The Lord G.o.d will soon put me beyond want. Never did I think to leave this house, where I have lived for eight and twenty years, till I was carried out. There are my pots, and my copper kettles, and my pans, and my tubs; how many thousand times I have taken them in my hand, and polished them up! They are my witnesses. No one can say I have not been neat and orderly. The nozzle of every pot, if it could speak, would tell who and what I have been. But G.o.d knows all. He sees what goes on in the great room, and in the kitchen, and in each of our hearts. That is my comfort and my _viatic.u.m_ and-- Enough; I am glad to get out of this place; rather would I spin thistles than stay here a day longer. I don't want to make you unhappy, Lenz. You might hunt me down like a rat before I would bring ill-will into the house. No, no, I will not do that. Have no anxiety about me; you have cares enough of your own.

Gladly would I be crushed under the weight of them, if I could but take them from you, and bear them on my own shoulders. Have no fear for me.

I shall go to my brother in Knuslingen. There was I born, and there will I wait till I die. If I join your mother in Paradise, I will tend upon her as she was used to being tended here. For her sake, our Lord G.o.d will admit me, and for her sake you shall still be blessed in this world. Good by; forgive me, if I have ever grieved you. Good by,--a thousand times good by!"

For some time after Franzl's departure Lenz continued silent and gloomy. All the higher did Annele's spirits rise in consequence. She was indeed a witch, who could do with him what she would. There was a magic in her tone, when she wished to please, that none could resist.

Pilgrim used all his influence to reconcile Lenz to this new state of things. He tried to convince him that the old serving-woman had usurped a certain authority which prevented his wife from being mistress in her own house. Annele, in fact, had been brought up to take an active part in household work, and was much happier for having plenty to do. The care of such a little house, she said, was nothing to her, and she never meant to keep another maid. The apprentice must be called in to help. By the aid of his mother-in-law, however, Lenz finally succeeded in securing a new girl.

Matters how went on pleasantly and smoothly again till into the summer.

Annele insisted upon her mother's obliging the landlord to pay Lenz back his money, and the father-in-law consequently appeared one day, and made Lenz an offer of the wood behind his house, in return for the money received, and for one thousand florins in addition. Lenz replied that he did not want the wood, but ready money, for which, however, he could very well afford to wait. No further steps were taken, except that the landlord, like the man of honor he was, gave a receipt, drawn up in due form, good in case of life or death.

Late in the summer, the usual quiet of the village was interrupted by two great events,--the marriage of the engineer with Bertha, the doctor's second daughter, the eldest choosing to remain single; and the return of the doctor's son, now a skilful clockmaker, from his studies abroad. It was said he meant to build a great clock-factory, not far from his father's house. A great outcry was raised among the native clockmakers, that they should be ruined if clocks were to be manufactured by machinery, as they were in America. Lenz took the matter quietly, and, with the schoolmaster, spared no pains to carry into operation his long-cherished plan of uniting the workmen in one common a.s.sociation. Perhaps necessity would compel them to a step of which they had not been able or willing before to see the advantages.

The two spent whole days in going from house to house, explaining the standard regulator. They recommended the adoption of five different sizes, which would be quiet sufficient to show all the variety of works. Nothing but a division of labor could save the workpeople. The axles, wheels, and springs, and more especially the stoppers and screws, could be made cheaper and better by machinery, while the adjustments of the parts and the finishing touches must always be left to the hand of a master. Human understanding and thought are indispensable to the proper arranging and harmonizing of the whole. He urged the clockmakers either to contribute a share to the new manufactory or to set up one of their own. But he found idle complaints instead of active co-operation. Every one insisted on keeping to his old ways, thinking he understood best his own interests, and unwilling to risk them for the sake of the common good.

Lenz came home discouraged, only to be received by his wife with reproaches: "For Heaven's sake, stop setting up ninepins for other men to knock down. Let others alone; they don't trouble themselves about you. You would like to oil everybody's doors, that they should not creak, though no one's teeth are set on edge by them but your own."

Lenz smiled at his wife's sharp comparisons. No sooner had he relinquished his plan for the good of his fellow-workmen than she began urging him to set up a manufactory in company with her father. He could go abroad a year, if necessary, she said, and she would spend the time with her parents. Lenz maintained that he was not suited for such an undertaking, and, moreover, would certainly not travel now that he was a married man, after staying at home through his bachelor life. Annele took small satisfaction in his a.s.surances that she might set her mind quite at rest as to the future, as he should never fail to make a comfortable living, in which a.s.surances he was fully borne out by Pilgrim. Pilgrim, therefore, she regarded as the chief obstacle in Lenz's path to fortune,--a man who had never accomplished anything himself, and never would; and she used all the means in her power, though without success, to breed discord between the two friends.

Annele carried a perfect ledger in her head, so constantly was she revolving figures and plans. Knowing that Lenz had been Faller's security for the purchase of his house, she now teased him to withdraw his name. So strongly did she insist, that he was fairly obliged to consent, and had entered Faller's house for the purpose of announcing his determination, when he was met by his old comrade with a face half rueful and half laughing, and told of the arrival of a second pair of twins. "The little creatures know I am mad on the subject of children, and so come to me in couples." Of course Lenz could not increase the young father's anxieties by withdrawing his security at such a time, and was obliged to return an evasive answer to his wife's inquiries as to the result of his visit.

On the night before the marriage of the engineer with the doctor's daughter Annele gave birth to a son. As Lenz was standing by her bedside, full of his new happiness, she said: "Lenz, promise me one thing; promise me to break off all connection with Pilgrim, at least for three months."

"I can promise you nothing now," he answered, a bitter drop poisoning his cup of joy.

Annele was beside herself at hearing the music from the valley. So great was her excitement that her mother and husband trembled for her life. Towards noon, however, she fell into a quiet sleep. Lenz stopped up all the doors and windows, that every sound should be kept out. From this sleep she awoke more tranquil, and showed such patience and sweetness that Lenz was filled with twofold thankfulness for the happiness vouchsafed him as husband and father. It was wonderful how Annele's moods changed. In her present interval of tenderness she reminded her husband of their promise to Pilgrim that he should stand G.o.dfather, and expressed pleasure at the idea. Lenz was desirous that Petrovitsch should be second G.o.dfather; but the old man resolutely declined.

Pilgrim brought with him, and laid in the baby's cradle, a huge paper, containing a great number of signatures and illuminated by himself. It was a diploma of the Liederkranz, he said, making the new-comer, in virtue of his unquestionably good voice, an honorary member of that society.

"Do you know the sweetest tone in all the world?" asked Lenz,--"the first cry of one's child. Here is something else for you, my son. Take hold; see how he grasps it!" He put into the baby's little hand his father's file, as if for a special consecration; but Annele s.n.a.t.c.hed it away.

"The child might kill itself with that sharp edge," she cried, and threw the instrument with such violence to the ground as to break off the point.

"There is my precious heirloom broken," said Lenz, sadly.

Pilgrim tried to console him, and declared, laughing, that there must ever be new men and new tools in the world. Annele said not a word.

CHAPTER XXV.

THE PENDULUMS SWING EACH IN ITS OWN DIRECTION, AND THE CORD IS STRAINED ALMOST TO BREAKING.

"Come here a minute, Annele, I have something to show you."

"I have no time."