Edelweiss Part 36

Annele opened a drawer and showed it.

"Thank G.o.d! you have it still; it will still bring us its blessing."

"The man has actually lost his senses with his superst.i.tion. The idea of pinning his faith to a wretched bit of dried gra.s.s instead of trying to help himself! Just like these beggars to go tearing about the world distracted."

Annele poured forth all this venom with her back upon her husband, as if calling the world to witness his degradation. Her utter ignoring of his presence, and thus speaking of him in the third person, was a keener stab than even her cruel epithets.

With great self-control he said: "Do not speak so, Annele; it is not yourself, but a devil speaking in you. And do not crush the little flower; keep it sacred."

"Ha, ha!" laughed Annele. "That is too much. I won't give way to such miserable superst.i.tion. Out of the window, Edelweiss, and take this precious bit of writing with you."

A tempest of wind was raging without.

"Come, Wind," she cried, as she threw open the window; "come, take all this sacred trumpery." She let go flower and letter. The wind whistled and howled, and whirled them high in the air over the bald mountain-top.

"What have you done, Annele?" groaned Lenz.

"I am not superst.i.tious like you, nor am I yet fallen so low as to make an idol of such trash."

"It is no superst.i.tion. My mother only meant that so long as my wife honored the memory of my parents, a blessing would rest upon the house.

But nothing is sacred to you."

"I do not hold you sacred, nor your mother either."

"That is too much, too much!" cried Lenz, his voice choked with the pa.s.sion he in vain endeavored to repress. "Leave the room and take the boy with you. I have heard enough. Go, or you will drive me mad!--Hush!

There is some one at the door."

Annele withdrew with the child into the inner chamber, just as the doctor entered the room.

"It is as I feared," he said. "Your uncle will not lift a hand to help you. He says you married against his will, and not another word can I get from him. I have used every argument in my power; all was vain. He at last almost turned me out of the house."

"And all because of me! I must bring evil on all who love me and try to serve me. Forgive me, doctor. I cannot help it."

"Why, how you talk; of course you cannot help it. I have known plenty of strange men in my life, but never one like your uncle. He opened his whole heart to me, and a tender heart it is; he is not a jot behind the rest of your family in that. I thought I surely had him and could guide him like a child; but when it came to money, off he was again." Here the doctor gave an expressive snap of his fingers. "Nothing more was to be got out of him. In fact, I don't believe he has anything besides a trifling annuity from some insurance office. Let us put him out of the question altogether. I shall talk the matter over with my sons, and if you prefer not to enter the factory, we can make some arrangement by which you shall employ five or six workmen here, or more, if you can accommodate them, to be paid by our establishment."

"Not so loud, please. My wife can hear us from the next room. I was prepared for the result of your interview with my uncle; there was little else to be looked for. As for the factory, the mere mention of the word has thrown my wife into such a state as I never saw her in before. She will not hear of it."

"Take time to consider it. Will you not come a little way down the hill with me?"

"Pray excuse me; I am so tired! My knees bend under me. Since four o'clock this morning I have scarcely sat down, and I am not used to such long tramps. I almost fancy I am going to have a fit of illness."

"Your pulse is feverish, as is natural after so much fatigue and excitement. A good night's sleep will set you right again. But you must be careful of yourself for some little time to come. You may really work yourself into a serious fit of illness if you don't rest more and husband your strength. Tell your wife from me," he continued, raising his voice so that his words could not fail to be heard in the adjoining room, "that she must take very good care of the father of her children during this season of thaw, and make him keep housed. A clockmaker, used to such constant sitting, gets to be delicate. Good night, Lenz; pleasant dreams to you!"

The doctor had a hard walk down the hill, often sinking deep into the melting snow, on whose surface lay a treacherous covering of stones and gravel. He was obliged to divest his mind of its anxiety for Lenz, and concentrate all his thoughts on the path he was treading. A remark of Pilgrim's constantly recurred to his memory, that Lenz could make as much of life as any man, but he craved joy and love; the dry companionship his home afforded was killing him.

Lenz meanwhile sat alone in his room. He was tired out, yet could find no rest. He paced the room like a wild beast in its cage. Racked with pains, and sick in body and mind, his heart cried out: Alas, to be sick and at the mercy of a cruel wife! to have no escape, to lie under the scourge of her tongue, to hear your fevered fancies blamed as evil pa.s.sions, to be cut off from your friends; sick and dependent upon an unloving woman!--rather death by my own hand!

The wind put out the fire, filling the room with smoke. Lenz opened the window and gazed out. No light now in the blacksmith's house; he is buried in the dark ground. Would I too were at rest from my many sorrows!

The air was warm, unnaturally warm. The water dripped from the roof; from the bare mountain-top to the valley below, the wind was rushing and roaring as if one gust were driving hard upon another. There was a rattling and rumbling on the heights behind the house. The tempest, in rage at the loss of its playground in the forest, seemed to be wreaking its vengeance on the chestnut and pines in the garden, twisting them till they creaked and groaned. It was well that his house was firm in its stout oaken beams, else the wind might sweep it away with all in it. "That would be gay travelling," laughed Lenz, bitterly, starting at the same time and casting a frightened look behind him, as the old timbers cracked in ghostly sympathy with the misery within the dwelling. Such words were never heard within these walls before, nor did ever dweller here live through such a night in such a mood; neither father, nor grandfather, nor great-grandfather.

He turned to get his writing materials, and, as he pa.s.sed the mirror, stopped involuntarily and gazed at the figure whose swollen and bloodshot eyes were reflected there. At last he sat down and began to Write, pausing often and pressing his hand to his eyes, then dashing his pen along the paper again. He rubbed his eyes, but no tears fell from them. "You have lost the power to weep," he said, hoa.r.s.ely; "best so; you have wept too much already for a man."

He wrote:--

"DEAREST FRIEND AND BROTHER: My heart is breaking as I write, but I must talk with you once more. I think of the days and the many summer nights I have spent in happy walk's with you, my one ever-loving friend. It could not have been I; it was some one else. G.o.d is my witness, and so is my mother in heaven, that I never wilfully wronged a fellow-being. If I ever wronged or grieved you, dear brother, forgive me. I did it not intentionally, and humbly beg your forgiveness. I am not fit to live.

"Here is my confession; I see no escape but death. I know that to kill myself is a sin, but to live is a greater. Every day I am a murderer. I can bear it no longer. I spend my nights in weeping, and all the time despise myself for it. I might have been a quiet, honest, upright man, had I been allowed to remain in the beaten track; but I was not made for contest. I weep to think of what I have become; I who was once so different! If I live, my life will be a greater shame upon my children than my death. That will be soon forgotten; the next season the gra.s.s will be growing on my grave. By your faithful heart, and by all the acts of kindness you have ever done me, I conjure you to be a father to my forsaken children. My poor children,--I dare not think of them. I was foolish enough once to fancy I could make a good father; but I cannot; I can be nothing. If love is not freely given me, I cannot win it; that is my misery, that is my ruin. A wall of gla.s.s is about me that I try in vain to surmount. My mother was right in saying we can sow and plant and force a harvest by our industry, but one thing must grow of itself, and that is love. It will not grow for me where I had a right to look for it.

"Take my children out of the village when I am buried. I would not have them see me. Pray the mayor and the minister to have me laid beside my parents and my brethren. They were happier than I. Why was I alone left to live for such an end as this?

"You are my little William's G.o.dfather,--take him now for your own child. You always said he had a taste for drawing; take him to your own home and teach him. If it be possible, be reconciled with my uncle Petrovitsch. Perhaps he will do something for my children when I am gone, for I am sure he likes you; I would not tell you now what I did not know to be true. You may still be good friends together. His heart is kinder than he will acknowledge, as my mother always said. My wife--but I will say nothing of her. If my children are happy, let her be forgiven for my sake.

"I have been driven to hearing and saying such words as I had never imagined tongue could utter.

"I am in prison and must escape. I have lived through days and watched through nights that were as years. I can endure no more; I am tired, tired even to death. For months I have not closed my eyes and tried to sleep, without being a.s.sailed by visions of horror that pursue me through the day. I can bear this black and haunted sleep no longer; I must have the quiet sleep of death.

"In return for the money I owe you, take the watch which you will find on my body. It will tick on against your faithful heart when my heart shall have ceased to beat. When my effects are sold, buy my father's file and keep it for my son. I have no legacy to bequeath to him. Teach him that his father was not a bad man. He has my unhappy sensitiveness; drive it out of him, make him strong and self-reliant. And the baby-.

"It is hard--hard that I must die; I am still so young; but better now.

The doctor must see that my body is not carried to Freiburg for the students to dissect. Give to him and all his household my cordial greeting. He has long known how things were with me; but they were past any doctor's help. Bid our comrades good by for me, especially Faller and the schoolmaster. My dearest, dearest brother, I have still much to say to you, but my head swims. Good night. Farewell.

"In eternity,

"Your loving

"LENZ."

He folded the letter and wrote the address: "To be delivered to my friend and brother Pilgrim."

The day began to dawn. He extinguished the lamp, and, holding the letter in his hand, approached the window to take his last look of the world of nature. The sun was just rising above the mountain; first a pale streak of yellow, soon obscured by a long stretch of dark cloud; above the cloud, the deep blue of the open heavens, and beneath the broad expanse of snow shimmering in the ghostly light. A rosy flush floats on the black bosom of the cloud, and lo! in an instant the ma.s.s is rent with golden fissures; the whole heaven is spread with gold, that gradually turns to crimson, till of a sudden all is aglow with purple flame. That is the world of light, of bright existence. Take your last look of it before leaving it forever.

Lenz put the letter in his pocket, and went out to take a turn about the house. At every step he sank to his knees in melting snow. He returned to the sitting-room, and, finding that Annele was not inclined to get up, dressed the children himself and gave them their breakfast.

When the village bells began to ring he ordered the maid to take William by the hand and the baby in her arms and go with them to Pilgrim's. He gave the letter into the girl's hand, but finally changed his mind about it, and taking it from her, concealed it in the little girl's pocket. When the child's clothes were taken off at night, the letter would be found. All would be over then.

"Go to Pilgrim's," he repeated to the girl, "and wait there till I come; if I do not come, wait till night."

He kissed the children, and, turning away, laid his head upon the table. Long he lay in the same position. Nothing stirred in the house.

He waited till the last sound of the church-bells had died away, then rose and bolted the house door. "G.o.d forgive me, it must be done," was his bitter cry. He sank upon his knees; he tried to pray, but could not. "She often said her prayers, and before the last word had fairly pa.s.sed her lips, her anger and abuse and mockery broke out afresh. She has sinned against everything in heaven and on the earth. She, too, shall--no; let her live. But in her presence I will do the deed; she shall see the work of her hands."

He covered his face with both hands, then clenched his fists and burst into the chamber, meaning to kill himself before his wife's very eyes.

He drew back the bed-curtains. "Cuckoo! cuckoo!" cried the little girl from the bed. Lenz sank half fainting to the floor.

Suddenly there was a rushing sound;--the earth seemed opening to swallow them,--there was a rolling as of thunder over the earth and under it,--a mighty crash above their heads,--and it was night, deep, dark night.

"What is the matter? For Heaven's sake, what is it?" screamed Annele.

Lenz rose to his feet. "I do not know; I cannot tell what has happened." Annele and the child were beside themselves; they wept and screamed with terror. Lenz tried to open a window; he could not stir it. Tumbling over the chairs, he groped his way into the outer room, where, too, all was in total darkness. "Annele," he cried, "we are buried under the snow!" A silence fell upon them both; only the child sobbed and shrieked, and the poultry in the wood-shed cackled as if a hawk were among them. An instant more and all was still as death.