Edelweiss Part 27

The landlady wrung her hands, and cried that she had known nothing of it all, that she was ready to kill herself.

"Father-in-law," said Lenz, "is my money lost too?"

"In the common pile, there is no distinguishing one man's money from another's," answered the landlord, oracularly. "But a compromise can be made. Give me three years, and I will pay fifty per cent. Take a seat.

There is no use wringing your hands. Lisbeth!" he called out into the kitchen, "my dinner!" The cook brought in a regular dinner, such as was served on ordinary days. Mine host took off his cap, put it on his head again, settled himself comfortably in his arm-chair, poured out some water, and began to eat, with the composure of true wisdom. "Draw up a chair, wife," he said, looking up from his second plateful. "These are the best horses for pulling up a steep hill; a good piece of meat in your stomach is a great help on a hard journey. Has all the wine been sealed, or can you get me a draught?"

"It is all sealed."

"Then let me have a cup of strong coffee to wind up with; there is comfort in that."

Lenz pressed his hands to his head. Was he out of his senses? Can this man, in whose fall the fate of hundreds is involved, be actually sitting down, with a good appet.i.te, to his dinner? The landlord was condescendingly talkative, and bestowed high commendations upon Annele for not rushing down too, and swelling the chorus of senseless lamentations. "You have a clever, capable wife,--the cleverest of all my children. It is a pity she is not a man, to turn her enterprise to account. The world would look up if she were at the head of affairs. My Annele ought to be the mistress of a great establishment, a great public-house; she would make it the first in the country."

Lenz was indignant at these ready compliments, and at the landlord's whole bearing in such an hour as this. But he fought down his anger, and the very struggle made his voice sound hesitating, almost submissive, as he said: "Father-in-law, take care, above all things, that the wood behind my house shall not be cut down. I have heard axes at work there the whole morning, which must not be."

"Why not?" cried the landlord, with all the more vehemence for Lenz's meekness. "Why not? Whoever owns the wood has the right to do with it what he will."

"Father-in-law, you promised me the wood."

"But you did not take it. The wood is sold to the lumber-merchant from Trenzlingen."

"You had no right to sell it; it is the roof of my house. A few trees can perhaps be cut down, but not the whole forest. That has been the agreement for a hundred years. My grandfather has often told me so."

"It is none of my business. I have other things to attend to now."

"Good Heavens!" cried Lenz, with tears, "what have you done? You have robbed me of the dearest possession I had in the world."

"Indeed! Is money everything? I did not know that your heart, too, was in your breeches pocket."

"No, no! not that. You have robbed me of my second parents."

"I should think you were big enough to stand alone. But you are that sort of fellow that when he is a grandfather will cry out for his mother, 'Mamma! mamma! your little boy is hurt!' You said once you were a man, but what a man! One that can establish a union in which all shall stand by each other like the trees in a forest,--a forest of miserable clockmakers! Ha, ha! Go on with your union, then, that shall take care of yourself and the rest of your set." This malice was a new feature of the landlord's character.

Lenz was the only one of his creditors that placed himself in the breach, and upon his head broke the full force of the ruined man's fury.

Lenz grew red and pale by turns; his lips trembled. "Father-in-law," he said, "you are the grandfather of my children. You know how much you have robbed them of. I would not have your conscience. But the wood must not be cut down. I shall go to law about it."

"Very well; do as you like," returned the landlord as he poured out his coffee. Lenz could stay in the room no longer.

On the stone bench before the inn sat Probler, a wretched object, forcing every pa.s.ser-by to hear his story. He was waiting, he said, for the arrival of the officers, because his best work, containing all his inventions, had been pledged to the landlord, and was now in the house.

It must not be sold, and sent out into the world for every one to copy and cheat him out of his profits. The officers must get him a patent from government which should make him a rich and famous man. Lenz used all his influence to pacify the poor old fellow, a.s.suring him that he was the only one whom the landlord had treated honestly; that he had already received the full value of his works, all of which were utterly unsalable and still on his patron's hands; that they had not been p.a.w.ned at all, but sold outright. Probler, however, was neither to be reasoned out of his belief nor induced to stir from his place.

Lenz went on, having enough to do in looking after his own affairs. He hastened to his uncle Petrovitsch. "Did I not tell you so?" was the old man's triumphant greeting. "Did I not tell you here in this very room, when you asked me to further your suit for Annele, that the landlord was in debt for the velvet cap on his head and the boots on his feet?

Here he has been all this while filling his big paunch with other men's goods."

"Yes, yes, uncle, you were quite right, you foretold it all; but now help me."

"There is no help possible."

Lenz told of the forest, and the circ.u.mstances connected with it.

"Perhaps something can be done in that direction," said Petrovitsch.

"Thank Heaven! If I could but get the forest!"

"That is out of the question; the wood is sold. But it can only be cleared, not destroyed. It is the safeguard of your house, and no one has a right to remove it. We will show the wood-flayer from Trenzlingen who is master."

"O G.o.d, my house!" cried Lenz. It seemed already falling in; he must be at home to save it.

"Your house? You don't seem to be much at home here certainly," said Petrovitsch, laughing at his own wit. "Go to the mayor and enter a protest. One thing more, Lenz; I never in my life again will believe in a human being. I told you then your wife was the only honest one in the house. You see I was not mistaken in the other two. But Annele knew of this all along. She has known for years, known to a certainty, the state of her father's affairs. You were the make-shift, because the doctor's son-in-law would not have her, luckily for him."

"Why do you tell me this now, uncle?"

"Why? because it is true. I can prove it by witnesses."

"But why now?"

"Is there any time when the truth should not be told? I thought you and your Pilgrim were such heroes of romance! But I tell you you were very nearly as poor as you could be before you lost your money; for a man so full of complaints and regrets has ever a hole in his pocket. You are always crying for what you did yesterday, and thinking, 'O poor me! and yet I meant so well!' A man who wants to be pitied is no man; only women beg for pity."

"You are hard upon me, uncle."

"Because you are so tender with yourself. Show yourself now a man. Do not visit this upon your wife. Deal gently with her; her sorrow is greater than yours."

"You think so?"

"Yes. It will be hard for proud Annele of the Lion to find that a greeting from her is no longer the honor it used to be."

"She is not Annele of the Lion now; she is my wife."

"She is, before G.o.d and man. It was your own choice; I warned you."

Lenz hurried to the doctor's, who, as we have said, also filled the office of mayor; he was not at home. Thorns beset him on every side.

His friends were not to be found, and his enemies let out all their secret venom against him, choosing his moment of helplessness to mock and torture him. He hastened up the hill again, past his house and into the wood beyond, where he ordered the wood-cutters to stop their work.

"Will you pay us our day's wages?"

"Yes."

"All right." They shouldered their axes and went home.

In the house Lenz found Annele embracing the children, and crying: "O my poor children! You will have to beg your bread, poor little ones!"

"Not while I have life and health. I am the head; only be calm and pleasant!"

"I have never been otherwise. You are mistaken, if you think that, because my father has failed, I am going to crawl at your feet, and let you do what you will with me. Not a bit of it! I don't give way an inch. Now show your boasted good-nature! Now show how you can support your wife."

"I am most ready to; but how give to one with closed hands?"

"If you had taken my advice, and bought the Lion, we should have been provided for, and the house would not have pa.s.sed into strange hands.

Don't tell me a word about the money. Exactly where you are sitting now you were sitting that day, and I here, and there stood the gla.s.s close to the edge of the table,--so close that I pushed it further in. Do you remember? I said to you then plainly and honestly, a business man never gives his money in that careless way, even to his own father."