Hammer and Anvil Part 94

And now it grew lighter and more open with every step, and I pa.s.sed out of the forest upon the crest of the mountain, which to my right hand rose to a mighty height, while westwardly, to the left, it sloped away to a deep valley, over which I could see far-distant mountain terraces rising slope above purple slope, against the evening sky. The sun had set, but its radiance still lay calm upon the light clouds which floated over the mountain, and a few paces from me, bathed in the roseate light reflected from the clouds, stood a female figure by a mossy rock upon which she leaned her right arm, while her left hand with her broad straw hat hung idly by her side. She was looking fixedly at the sunset sky, and her features were clearly defined against the bright background. Thus I saw her once more.

But she neither saw me nor heard me, for the soft gra.s.s m.u.f.fled my steps. I wished to call her by name, but could not; and now she slowly turned her face towards me and looked at me with wide fixed eyes and unmoving features, as though I were an apparition which she had long yearned to behold, and which the might of her longings had summoned before her. But as I spread my arms, saying, "Paula, dearest Paula!" a heavenly light flashed into her lovely face, a faint cry broke from her lips, and she lay upon my breast with a storm of pa.s.sionate tears, as if all the sorrows she had borne all these long years had burst forth in one moment.

What I said, what she said, while we stood on the mountain ridge, while streak after streak of the rosy light faded out of the sky, I cannot now recall.

And then we went back hand in hand through the silent wood, by another way than that by which I had come; a way that at first led over a gra.s.sy slope directly down the mountain, so that we could still see the valley in the faint evening light, and then under high beeches where it was quite dark, so that Paula held firmly to my hand until we came upon open s.p.a.ces and the valley lay before us again, now dim in gray twilight, so that I thought the descent must be longer than the ascent, and yet it was so short--so short! What did it matter? I knew that with her who was leading me down the dim mountain path I would walk henceforth hand-in-hand so long as we both lived upon earth; and an inward prayer rose in my soul that her last day might be mine also.

And now I see ourselves--that is our mother, Paula, Oscar and myself--seated at a table in one of the arbors in front of the inn, and the light of the lamp in its gla.s.s shade falls mildly on the gentle features of the blind lady who from time to time lays her soft hand upon mine, and on Paula's dear face that beams with a lovely radiance from her inward happiness, and upon the beautiful young features of Oscar, whose dark eyes glow while he tells how a young English n.o.bleman whose acquaintance he made at Rome has given him a grand commission to paint a series of frescoes in his castle in the Highlands, and how before he sets out there, he had to come after his sister to get some advice from her; and then the youth tosses back his long hair, and lifts a full gla.s.s and drinks it off to our health, and the mother smiles gently upon us, and as our gla.s.ses clink together there appears in an opening in the trellis that head with the gray moustache and white hair which played so important a part in the history of art.

Then I am standing at the open window of my room, listening to the rustling of the west wind in the branches and the plashing of the fountain before the inn, and my gaze is fixed upon a star that beams brighter than all the rest in the nightly sky.

And the old sadness awakens once more in my heart, and my eyes fill with tears.

But when I look again, the star is beaming more brightly than ever, as if it were an eye looking lovingly down and sending me greeting from the abodes of the blest.

CHAPTER XXIX.

In this history of my life I have now reached the point at which from the first I intended to close the narrative. To be sure I said to myself then, and still must admit, that in this way I shall not give contentment to all. One will find that there is a certain regular and not unsatisfactory progress in the story, and that he would not object to read a few hundred pages further, if no better entertainment was at hand; another will maintain that according to his experience (this is a man of great experience) life begins to be truly interesting exactly at the point at which I cut short my story. Youthful adventures, he says, are like the maladies of children; every one must have them, sooner or later, and therefore there is nothing of special interest about them; only when the perfectly developed man takes his position in public life, and undertakes his share in solving the problem of the age, or when he, as a private man, has had the opportunity of proving his character in those conflicts which are never wanting in wedded life, and in the relations of parent to children, which always present trials and difficulties--then only is it worth while to follow the story of a life.

Profoundly do I feel the weighty nature of these criticisms; but I had once for all made up my mind not to be guided by the wish to please this one or that--nor, indeed, to please any, as it would now appear--and to the one I can reply that with the least possible trouble he can find a far more amusing book to while away his leisure hours; and as to the other (the man of great experience) with the best will in the world I cannot possibly satisfy his great requirements, though I freely admit that he has a perfect right to make them. Did I wish to make my story ever so interesting, I could find nothing to tell of conflicts in wedded life, nor of domestic trials and difficulties--or nothing that would be worth the telling; and if I--as I sometimes flatter myself in moments of peculiar elation and self-satisfaction--have done an honest day's work at the great task of our time, and all things considered, have approved myself no despicable workman, I would not willingly antic.i.p.ate my wages; and I think that there will in due time, perhaps, be found a good friend, who, either in an elegant epitaph, or an elaborate obituary notice in the newspapers, will award me my meed of praise in well-chosen words.

But in earnest, dear reader, who have grown to be my friend, or you would not have read on so far--you for whom alone I have written, and for whom alone I write this closing chapter--in earnest I think it will be agreeable to both of us if I break off here. I do not know whether you are a craftsman initiated into our art and mystery; and this is what I should have to know in order to narrate to you the life of a craftsman, such as I am, in such a way that in the one case it would be satisfactory to you, and in the other not too wearisome: indeed I do not even know whether you may not be a lady, who, despite your excessive amiability and general loveliness, with all your other accomplishments have no especial fondness for the discussion of technical matters, and who, for the care with which I have hitherto limited myself to merely touching the edge of these obscurities and mysteries, have given me hearty thanks--thanks which for much I would not forfeit now.

As I say, I know none of these things; but one thing I know, and that is that you--to borrow the phrase of good Professor Lederer--are a human being, to whom nothing that concerns humanity is alien; and as I have hitherto, I trust, only told you what found a ready response in your sympathies, because it concerned a man who was neither better nor worse, wiser nor more foolish, more interesting nor more common-place, than the average of his kind, and whose thoughts and feelings, whose aims and endeavors, even whose errors you could readily understand, so I think you, as a good man and my friend, must feel why I ask you to depict for yourself the rest of my life's history, in accordance with your friendly sympathy and amiable imagination, in bright and cheerful colors.

And the words "bright and cheerful" you may take literally, for--and I say this with a heart full of the deepest grat.i.tude, and without fear of "the envy of the G.o.ds" in which I do not believe--there has fallen much, very much glorious sunlight across the path of my life. My efforts have been crowned with amplest success, far beyond my boldest expectations, and very far beyond my modest pretensions and moderate wants; and, what is of far more importance, to arrive at these results I have never had to deny the doctrines of my teacher, never had to be a hard hammer to a poor much-tormented anvil, on the contrary, I am as sure of it as of my own existence that I should not only not be the cheerful man that I am, but I should also not be the rich man that I am, had I not all my life long been a believer in the great and lovely doctrine of mutual helpfulness, brotherhood, and the community of all human interests.

This living, active, and inspiring faith has brought me blessings a hundred and a thousand fold; and with the deepest conviction I recommend it to all who aim at success, even those who are disposed to attach no especial value to the possession of a good conscience, and yet perhaps find that this little prized and contemptible thing, if one only has it, contributes no little to the happiness of life.

You will willingly, I doubt not, my friend, spare me any further exposition of these truths, since you have found them confirmed in your own life; and you are quite ready to go on with the picture of my life in the way I have indicated, and dispense with the narration of further details concerning myself and my family, the number and ages of my children, and whether the boys are strong and intelligent, and the girls bright and handsome--you are already disposed to heap all those excellences upon their young heads, when I simply say that they are, without exception, fine children; but you think that what may be sufficient for myself, my wife, and my children (although these last nowhere appear in this narrative, and consequently have really no just claims to any consideration), what may be sufficient for us, is in no wise just to the other persons who have appeared in this story, and in whose behalf you have a right to put forth decided claims; and you would like before the close to know what has become of them, to one or the other of whom you have perhaps taken a fancy.

Many a one, as you may well suppose, in the five and twenty years that have pa.s.sed has been taken away by death, whom neither entreaties nor exertions can compel to relinquish his prey, however desperately the survivors try to hold fast in their hands the vanishing threads of a life so dear.

Thus you departed, dearest and best of mothers, and were changed for us into a luminous picture of gentleness, kindness and patience, and at the same time of calm, strong, self-sacrificing courage, to which we have at all times been wont to turn with devotion, as to that of your n.o.ble husband, and from whose memory we have often drawn counsel and comfort.

And you too, brave old sergeant, faithful heart of gold, you too left us, full of years, highly honored, and deeply wept, and by none more deeply than our boys whom you taught to ride and to fence, and to speak the truth, happen what might.

And you also, dear good Hans, last of an ancient race of heroes! Be not vexed with me, dear friend, if I have allowed myself now and then a sportive word at the quaint ways that clung to you as long as your ma.s.sive frame threw its broad shadow upon the ground. Believe me, despite all, no one ever loved you as I loved you, perhaps because no one was ever so near to you as I, and no one had the chance of knowing how not one drop of faithless blood ever coursed through your great n.o.ble heart, and how from crown to heel you were a true knight without fear and without reproach.

You too, enthusiastic friend with the fantastic ways, with the affected speech, and with sincere love in your soft and gentle soul, kindly Fraulein Duff! I thank you for allowing us to have the care of your declining years; and though your ardent wish to see all our daughters, your pupils, married before your death, was not fulfilled, I think you still lived to find what your loving and affectionate heart had sought so faithfully.

Ah! yes; the ranks of the dear old familiar faces have been sadly thinned; but we will be thankful that so many are still left us, so many whom we never could replace.

For who could replace you, my brave Klaus, best of all foremen, and yourself head-foreman after the worthy Roland with his smile under his bushy beard had himself vanished into that primeval forest from which no one has ever yet emerged, any more than all the treasures of the archipelago which your Javanese aunt was to bring, could replace your Christel, or your eight boys, who, since as boys they cannot compare with their mother, try their best to be as like her as possible, and have all her blue Hollander's eyes and blond hair. The old Javanese aunt has not made her appearance yet, and I am afraid she never will.

But I fancy you have long forgiven her this misbehavior; and only once were you really angry with her, and that was at the time when for your friend George fifty thousand _thalers_ more or less were a matter of salvation or ruin, and when you besought heaven to send you the aunt quickly, even though she were an uncle.

And a few other friends are left still, and will remain, if it be heaven's will, awhile longer, though one of them at least has been expecting a stroke of apoplexy every day for the last fifty years----

"No, no, doctor; I will not finish the shameful sentence. You fly at once into your alt.i.tudes that I should mention you in my book, as if the history of my life could be anything but the history of my life, and a.s.sert that after you have worn an honorable baldness for half a century, I make a child's jest of you at last, and you can no longer show yourself upon the street. Scold as much as you like, doctor, and in the topmost notes of your highest register, if you like; I understand you, and know that you will tune yourself down again presently; and I further know that if everybody does not take off his hat to you on the street, it is because everybody does not know you."

"And I do not wish to be known," cries the doctor, "nor to be exhibited to the public as a curiosity of natural history, least of all by you who have always seen me in a false light--if indeed a mammoth like you can see anything in the right light. If I am to have my portrait taken, it shall be by your wife, who ought to be ashamed, by the way, to neglect her n.o.ble art so, out of mere idolatry of you and of her children--or else by Oscar. _Apropos_, will you not include in your book a thorough a.n.a.lysis of all Oscar's paintings, or at least of his chief works, and thus cover yourself with ridicule, as you really know nothing whatever about art? or will you not set forth in detail all that Kurt has accomplished in our railroad undertakings, and his inventions in various departments of machinery, and so, as he is modesty itself, cover him with a garment of confusion? Or will you not denounce Benno to the government because his agricultural school at Zehrendorf which grows and flourishes so quietly, is a formidable rival to the official country inst.i.tutes?"

"Scold away, doctor: you have not an idea how admirably all you say fits into my last chapter. I should like to let you have the last word there, as everywhere else."

"That was all that was wanting!" cried the doctor in wrath, and ran out of the door, the last of our guests.

This scene happened yesterday evening, and I said to Paula, "Was it not a happy idea to leave the last word to my best, oldest, dearest friend, to whom I owed more than I could ever find words to say."

"I could never know which was to be the last touch in my pictures until I had given it," said Paula: "perhaps it will be the same way with your book."

To-day, thinking it over in the early dawn, I find that Paula was right. I feel that I must close, and yet have the feeling that I must not stop yet; that I have forgotten or omitted something, I know not what; that I owe the reader, despite my solemn disallowance erewhile, information on a mult.i.tude of points.

For example, how it happens that I am sitting at my writing table "in the early dawn," after having, as it seems, a little company of friends with me yesterday evening: have I then been writing all night until morning overtook me?

Nothing of the sort. The early dawn, that is to say, four o'clock in winter, and in midsummer, as now, often two o'clock, has for years found me in my office, reading, calculating, drawing, and now, since I have had this book on hand, for the most part writing. I have all my life been a good sleeper, so far that my sleep is very profound and mostly dreamless: but I have long accustomed myself to do with half the sleep that others find indispensable. The Doctor says I have too large a heart, like most big good-natured fellows of rather limited intelligence and with broad shoulders, whom nature has marked out for carrying burdens and playing the part of anvil; but he smiles when he says so, and I do not know if he be speaking in earnest or in jest.

I have been just now standing at the open window, after extinguishing the lamp by which I have been writing. In the perfectly cloudless, light-green, July sky stood the sickle of the waning moon, but the stars had all faded from sight. Over my window, just under the eaves, sat a swallow, and sang, rocking her little head from side to side and looking towards the east where the sun would presently rise. I have never heard a sweeter song, and even now while I write its melody fills my whole soul. From one of the tall chimneys of the factory, whose main building turns its front towards the villa, arose a column of dense smoke springing slender and straight as a pine-shaft high into the clear air. There is a great casting to be made to-day, and Klaus has had his furnaces lighted early.

I see this picture, as I have endeavored to describe it, often and often in the early morning, and it always inspires me with cheerfulness and joy, and with a thankful heart I greet the rising sun.

There resounds a well-known sound, a welcome clangor the first blow of the hammer on the anvil; the day which the swallow announced is here.

Farewell, my friend; we will both go to our work.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: "Ordinarius," the professor charged with the especial instruction of any cla.s.s. "The Prima," or first form, corresponds to the sixth or highest form in an English public school.--Tr.]

[Footnote 2: "Steuerrath," Councillor of Customs, the t.i.tle of an official, as is also "Commerzienrath," Councillor of Commerce, in the next paragraph.--Tr.]

[Footnote 3: "Gnadigste," most gracious. A form of address to ladies of rank.--Tr.]

[Footnote 4: "Rathhaus;" Council-house, or City Hall.--Tr.]

[Footnote 5: "Raubmordergalgenma.s.sig."]

[Footnote 6: From this point the conversation is continued in the familiar second person, which does not convey the same a.s.sociation in English, and is therefore not adopted in the translation.--Tr.]

[Footnote 7: "Bierkaltschale," a beverage composed of beer, sweetened with fruit sliced into it.--Tr.]

[Footnote 8: An old-fashioned table-compliment, meaning "may your dinner do you good!"--Tr.]

[Footnote 9: "Die Liebe" is feminine in German.--Tr.]