Edelweiss Part 31

"How old you have grown, Lenz! You look all fallen away. Is it true that Annele has turned out such a bad wife?"

Lenz's face flushed crimson. "Good Heavens!" cried Katharine; "how stupid I am! I beg your pardon, Lenz, a thousand times. I did not mean to wound you. I know it is not true. People will talk as long as the day lasts, and when the days are short they take the night for it. I pray you again and again to forget I ever said such a thing. I have been so happy at having you see me in my own home, and now all my pleasure is gone; I shall be miserable for weeks. You and the landlady said I was too stupid, and I really am. Please give me back my heedless words, Lenz."

She held out her hand as if expecting him to lay the words in it.

Lenz grasped her hand, a.s.suring her that he was not offended, but, on the contrary, grateful to her from his very heart. The hands of both trembled. Lenz said it was time he was on his way again, but she held him fast, and seemed anxious, by talking of all manner of other topics, to efface the remembrance of her heedless speech. When he left at last, she cried out after him: "Remember me to your Annele, and bring her soon to see me."

Lenz went on his way with the borrowed hat; a beggar's hat, as he called it, sadly.

Katharine's words pursued him. The same pity that was expressed for him in that house was doubtless felt in many others. The thought almost unmanned him, but he would not give way. He told himself that it was his own fault; he ought to have showed more firmness.

Again and again his stick fell from his hands, and every time he stooped to pick it up, he almost lacked the power to rise.

So much for a man's brooding over his sorrows instead of giving heed to his way! You would lose your hands if they were not fastened to your body. Mind what you are about!

He straightened himself up and walked on more briskly. The sun shone bright and warm; the icicles on the rocks glittered and dripped; joyous mountain songs, that he used to sing with the Liederkranz, began to ring in his ears. Away with them! It could not have been he who once sang such songs out of the gladness of his heart.

The relations he visited gave him a friendly welcome. At first he related everywhere the adventure of the hat as an excuse for appearing in such a dilapidated condition; but, finding that no one seemed to think it required an explanation, he finally ceased to mention it. Of course, in those very houses where he said nothing of the hat, it excited great speculation; and was taken as a proof of the abject poverty into which he had fallen.

His request for money was everywhere refused with more or less civility. Some wondered at his applying to them when he had rich brothers-in-law and an uncle rolling in money; others more politely excused themselves on the plea of having just bought some land and needing all their money for building; or regretted he had not applied a few days ago, before they made their last investment.

Sorely dispirited, Lenz pursued his way. He could not bear to think of home. His one wish was that he might never see the Morgenhalde again, but could lie down in some ditch, or in the wood, or in any one of the many quiet places he pa.s.sed; lie down and die. Still, an irresistible force drove him ever onward.

Before him lay Knuslingen, where Franzl lived with her brother. There was at least one person in the world who would be glad to see him.

Who indeed could be so happy as Franzl when Lenz entered her room? She was sitting at the window, spinning coa.r.s.e yarn, and a great bound her distaff gave at the sight of him. Twice she wiped the chair on which he was to sit, uttering all the while many apologies at the untidiness of the room. She had never noticed before how damp and smoky it was. Lenz must tell all about himself, and yet she could not keep still long enough to listen. She began running on in her old way. "At first the cold here was more than I could bear, after being used to our good sun on the Morgenhalde. Whenever there is a ray of sunlight anywhere, we were sure to get it there. Whatever else may go wrong, Lenz, be thankful for so much good sunlight; that no one can rob you of. It is very different here. For seven weeks and five days not a glimmer reached this valley. On the second day after the festival of the Three Kings, at eleven o'clock, the first ray of sun fell on that pear-tree at the edge of the hill, and from that time the sun kept climbing up so that in summer it is warm and pleasant. By this time I have grown to feel quite at home here again. But, Lenz, what makes you look so? There is a something in your face that I never saw before,--something that does not belong there. Ah! that is better; when you smile you have your old look again,--your pleasant look. You must have felt how I have prayed for you and yours every morning and every evening. I bear no grudge against Annele, not the least. She was quite right. I am a poor, worn-out tool. Whom do your children look like? What are their names?

When the spring comes again, I must get to see them if I have to creep on my hands and knees." Then Franzl went on to tell how she had three hens and three geese and a potato-patch, all her own. "We are poor,"

she said, folding her hands on her bosom, "but, thank Heaven, we have never been reduced to looking on and seeing others eat. We have always had something to put in our mouths. Please Heaven, next year I mean to buy myself a goat." She bestowed great praise upon her geese, and greater still upon her hens. The hens, whose winter-quarters were in a coop by the stove, politely clucked their thanks and took as good a view as their s.p.a.ce permitted of the man to whom their good qualities were thus set forth. The gold-colored hen, called Yellow-hammer, flapped her wings with delight, and then gave herself a good, comfortable shake.

Lenz had no time to speak, before Franzl, thinking to comfort him, broke out into fierce abuse of the landlady, mixed with commendations of Katharine and her kindness to her, as well as to all the poor in the neighborhood. "She feeds my hens, and they in return feed me," said the old woman, laughing at her own wit.

Lenz at last made out to say that it was time for him to be going. He heard Annele's sharp words as plainly as if she were standing at his elbow, reproaching him for his foolish waste of time, in sitting listening to any old woman's tale that was poured into his ears. He cast a hurried look behind him to see if she were not actually in the room, and hastily seized his hat and cane. Franzl begged him before he went to mount with her into her little chamber under the roof where she had something to say to him. He trembled inwardly lest Franzl too was about to speak of his unhappiness at home. She did not refer to that, however, but brought out from the straw of her bed a heavy, well-filled shoe, tied with many fastenings, saying: "You must do me a favor; I cannot sleep in peace with this thing here; and I pray you to take it away and do what you please with it. Here are a hundred florins and three crown-pieces. You will take them, won't you? and give me back my quiet sleep." Lenz declined the proffered money, and again prepared to depart; but Franzl wept and held him fast. "If you have any message for your mother, let me know. Please G.o.d, I shall soon be with her, and will deliver it faithfully. And if your mother is too timid to tell our Lord G.o.d the whole truth, I will do it myself. You can rely upon me."

Still the old woman would not let go of Lenz's hand, and kept saying: "There was something else I wanted to say to you; it has been on my tongue, but now I cannot think what it was. As soon as you are gone I shall certainly remember it. I was to remind you of something; don't you know what it was?"

Lenz did not know what it was, and at last almost reluctantly took his departure.

He entered a wayside inn, where a noisy welcome awaited him. "Hurrah, hurrah! that is jolly to have you here too," cried a voice in greeting; and there at a table, on which stood a great flagon of beer, sat Probler with two of his a.s.sociates. One of his pot companions was the blind musician from Fuchsberg, whose instrument Lenz was in the habit of putting in order every year. An expression of embarra.s.sment and mortification overspread the blind man's face at the sound of Lenz's voice, but he a.s.sumed a braggadocio air, and, flourishing his gla.s.s above his head, cried out, "Come, Lenz, pledge me out of my gla.s.s!"

Lenz courteously declined. Old Probler tried to get up and advance to meet him, but his legs soon admonished him that he was safer sitting, and he contented himself with calling out: "Take a seat with us, Lenz, and let the bankrupt world without snow itself away as it will. There is no good left in it. Here we will sit till the day of judgment. I want nothing more; when I have spent my last farthing I shall sell my coat for drink, and then lay me down in the snow and save you the cost of burying me. Here you have a proof, comrades, of what a worthless world it is, that can thus bring its best and n.o.blest to ruin. Have a drink, Lenz! That is well. Look at him, the best and bravest fellow in all the world; and how has the world used him? When his mother died, and the whole town was talking of nothing but Lenz's marriage,--why, the sparrows could not be madder after a sack of corn than the girls were for Lenz."

"Enough of that," interposed Lenz.

"No, no; you need not be ashamed to hear the truth. The doctor's daughters, and the paper-miller's only daughter, who was so rich and handsome and married Baron Thingummy,--every one of them would have jumped at him. The paper-miller said to me the day after the betrothal: 'Lenz of the Morgenhalde might have had my daughter and welcome.' And now--Peace, Lenz; I have done--only the Lord or the Devil knows who will get the upperhand. Look at that man! His own father-in-law has robbed him, has sold the very hair off his head, and left his house bare in the middle of winter. I was honest too once, Lenz; but I have had enough of it, and you will see the folly of it presently. Go about the world, if you are in want, and ask of the good and charitable. Take a pinch; take a pinch! their snuff-boxes are open to you, and that is all. Take a pinch!" Probler pressed his snuff-box upon him and laughed immoderately.

Lenz shuddered at hearing himself thus held up to view as the most striking example of failure and ruin. Such a notoriety he had never thought to attain. He tried to convince Probler that a man had no right to ruin himself, and then cry out against the world for having ruined him. His arguments in favor of every man's helping himself instead of expecting the world to help him greatly strengthened his own confidence, but failed to affect his hearer, who drew a knife from his pocket, and forcing it into Lenz's hand, together with the knife that lay on the table, cried out: "There, you have all the knives; I can do you no hurt. Now tell me honestly, am I a good-for-nothing fellow, or might I have been the foremost man in the world, if the world had helped me? Your father-in-law, whose soul the Devil must weigh out like so much lead, smeared his creaking boots with the marrow of my bones; and capital blacking he found it. Tell me honestly, am I a good-for-nothing fellow, or what am I?"

Of course Lenz had to acknowledge that Probler would have been a master in his art, if he had remained in the right road; at which the old man shouted and beat upon the table, and was with difficulty prevented from throwing his arms about Lenz's neck and kissing him.

"I want no other funeral oration. Lenz has p.r.o.nounced my eulogy. Drink, drink! empty your gla.s.ses!"

Lenz had to drink with the rest, and Probler, filling the gla.s.ses again, cried out exultingly: "The doctor wants to take me into his hospital, his manufactory. It is too late. The time for doctoring and manufacturing is past. There is Lenz of the Morgenhalde, whom all respect to-day and to-morrow, and how much longer? I was once like him, and now when I go through the town men point their fingers at me and shrug their shoulders and cry, 'Pah, there is that scamp of a Probler!'

Follow my advice, Lenz. Don't wait till you are as old as I, but make your bow in good season. Hark to me, brother, I have something to tell you. Do you remember our setting up those standard regulators? Do you know what we were then? A couple of pattern fools. Did you want to unite the clockmakers in an a.s.sociation? You might as well try to make them join hands with the Devil. Hark to me, brother! Don't tear yourself away; stay here, stay here! I have something to tell you. I make you my heir. There is a way to buy jollity in the world, and forgetfulness, and good cheer. I know your heart is heavy; I know where the shoe pinches. Old Probler knows more than other men; he knows everything. Pour wine on the worm in your heart; wine or brandy.

Whatever drowns it is good. Then we shall have no more clocks, no more hours, no day and no night, no more time, but all eternity."

The old man fell into the most frenzied ravings. At times a spark of intelligence shone through his wild utterances, and then again all was delirium. It was impossible to tell whether it was a fact, or only his fancy, that the landlord's failure had robbed him of all provision for his old age, or whether it was the sale of his mysterious work that had reduced him to this state of despair. The burden of his cry was ever "Lenz, drink your life out while you are young, and don't be so long killing yourself as I have been." Lenz turned sick with horror at this living proof of what a man may come to who has lost his self-respect, and whose only refuge is self-forgetfulness.

"Your mother had a good saying," began Probler again; "did I tell you that was Lenz of the Morgenhalde? Yes, your mother. 'Better go barefoot than in ragged boots,' she used to say. Do you know what she meant? I have a better proverb: 'Tear off the nag's shoes before you take her to market.' Landlord! here is another horseshoe for you. Wine, wine!" He threw down a dollar.

The mention of his mother's name, though in such an unworthy connection, acted as a warning to Lenz as effectually as if her eye were suddenly and sternly fixed upon him. He rose from his seat, in spite of all Probler's efforts to detain him. Gladly would he have taken the old man with him, but it was impossible to stir him from the spot. All he could do was to charge the landlord to keep him where he was till morning, and on no account to give him anything more to drink.

"There is my last pinch gone," cried Probler, throwing his snuff-box after him as he closed the door.

Drawing his breath hard, as if escaping from a close and burning h.e.l.l, Lenz staggered out into the free air of heaven.

The night was coming on. The ice-bird twittered by the frozen brook, and the ravens sought the cover of the forest. A buck came out to the edge of the wood, stood with his great eyes fixed on Lenz till he came close up to him, then with a bound vanished again into the thicket, marking his course by the fresh snow he shook from the tender firs as he pa.s.sed.

Lenz often stopped, thinking he heard himself called. Perhaps Probler was following him. He shouted in reply till the echoes rang; he went back a s.p.a.ce; but no one did he see or hear. Again he pushed on. The trees, the mountains, seemed dancing to meet him. A woman who looked like his mother came towards him. If his mother should see him thus!

The old woman gave him a friendly greeting as she pa.s.sed, and warned him not to linger in the valley after dark, for there were black gullies in the snow, and avalanches were falling which might bury a man and no one be the wiser.

A wonderful tone there was in the old woman's voice, just like his mother's. Thanks for the friendly warning!

A sacred vow Lenz registered in his heart.--

He also resolved, however, not to go home empty-handed, and, turning his steps to the city, sought the house of his brother-in-law, the lumber-merchant. The rich man was happily at home, but gave him such an ungracious reception that he found it difficult to state his errand.

Sister Babette's husband laid all the family misfortunes at Lenz's door; he alone was to blame for not having taken affairs from the beginning into his own hands. Whether the accusation was made in good faith or not, it furnished an excellent excuse for refusing help. In vain did Lenz pray, with clasped hands, to be saved from absolute ruin.

The lumber-merchant only shrugged his shoulders and advised him to apply to his rich uncle, Petrovitsch.

CHAPTER XXIX.

ANOTHER WORLD.

"Good evening, Mr. Lenz," a voice cried to the dispirited wayfarer, as he was turning sadly away. Lenz started. Who could be calling him "Mr.

Lenz?"

A sleigh drew up by his side, and the engineer, throwing back his fur wrappings, pressed him to jump in and occupy his empty seat. There was no resisting his cordial manner. He made Lenz, who was warm from walking, take the fur robe, while he covered himself over with the horse-blanket. The horses set off at a brisk pace; the bells jingled merrily; they seemed to be flying through the strangely soft air.

Annele is right; I ought to have managed to keep a carriage and horses, was Lenz's bitter thought in his poverty and debas.e.m.e.nt. A tormenting spirit seemed ready to turn every occurrence of this day into a reminder of his life's failure, and a temptation to unholy desires.

The engineer was very communicative. He spoke with peculiar satisfaction of the friendly relations that existed between himself and Pilgrim. With his knowledge of drawing,--for he had studied a year at the academy before entering upon his present profession,--and Pilgrim's eye for coloring; they could not only teach one another a great deal, but hoped to invent some new designs for furniture and wooden ornaments. They had already made some sketches of clock-cases, which they hoped would be of benefit to the trade. Pilgrim was as happy as possible in the exercise of his inventive genius, and in the prospect of seeing his pet plan carried into execution.

Lenz listened as in a dream. What was the man talking about? Were there still persons in the world who took an interest in such things, and rejoiced to further another's plans? Lenz spoke little, but felt the better for his drive. To be borne along so was much pleasanter than to have to walk wearily over the mountain and valley. For the first time in his life he felt something like envy.

At the doctor's door he was most hospitably obliged to descend and enter the house.

How delicious it was within! He had almost forgotten there were such peaceful, happy homes in the world, where all was so genial and warm, and fragrant hyacinths bloomed at the double windows; where all things showed that no angry word was ever spoken, but that the kind, true hearts that lived together gave out a pleasanter warmth than the best of fires.