Joseph in the Snow, and The Clockmaker Volume II Part 17

These words were so touching, that Lenz shed tears. If the Landlord's boots involuntarily creaked as an accompaniment to his wife's speech, they now creaked louder and quicker than ever. At last the Landlord's boots were silent, and his lips began.

"Enough for the present. Let us be men, Lenz;--compose yourself;--quite right. Now tell me what portion you expect with your wife."

"I never asked about her portion; she is your child, and you will do all you can. I am not rich, my profession is my chief source of income, but I have my parents to thank, for having provided against any evil day. There is no lack: we can have our daily bread, and to spare."

"Well said, and to the point,--just what I like. Now as to the marriage contract, what do you intend to do?"

"I can give no opinion on the subject: the law of the land will decide that."

"Yes, but I must have a particular settlement. You see a widow loses half her original value, and money must make up for that. Now if you die without children of your own--"

"Father!" cried Annele, "if you mean to say such things, let me leave the room, for I really cannot stay and listen to them."

The Landlord, however proceeded coolly: "Don't be so affected. Just like you women! 'Oh, pray don't talk of money!' Ah! bah! You shrink from it, just as if a frog were crawling about your feet. But if there was no money, you would wish for it often enough. G.o.d be praised! you never in your life knew what it was to be without it, and I hope you never may. So as to the survivor--"

"I will not listen to you. Is this like the happiness of a betrothal, to talk of such things?" said Annele, indignantly.

"Your father is right," said her mother, gently. "Show your good sense, and hold your tongue. These matters will soon be settled, and then you can be as merry as you please."

"My Annele is right," said Lenz, in an unusually loud, firm tone; "we shall marry according to the law of the land, and so not another word on the subject. Come, Annele! What! to talk of dying just now! At this moment we only think of living. Don't take it amiss, father and mother.

We are all agreed, and every minute now is worth a million."

So saying, he ran down into the garden, holding Annele's hand clasped in his.

"A singular young man!" said the Landlord, looking after him: "but so it is. All musical geniuses have their whims. A moment ago he was sobbing like a child, and now he is singing like a lark; but he is an excellent creature, and when I win my Brazilian lawsuit, or gain the chief prize in the lottery, Lenz shall be paid a handsome marriage portion."

With this admirable and satisfactory project, the Landlord went creaking about the public room, receiving with dignity the congratulations of friends and strangers. He said little, but insinuated that a wealthy connection was of no great importance to him.

"If the man is only healthy and high principled, that is my chief object;" and every one nodded approvingly. Great wisdom may be contained in few words.

CHAPTER XIX.

FIRST VISIT TO A NEW HOUSE.

The first person who came to wish Annele joy was Faller. She, indeed, looked down with considerable condescension on the poor creature; but his humility pleased her; and Faller could not make a sufficient number of apologies for coming so soon, but he had no rest till he came, for he was attached with all his heart to Lenz, for whom he would give his life.

"I am glad that my bridegroom has such good friends, but every man can provide for himself in this world, be he whom he may."

Faller did not perceive this last hit at him, or affected not to do so, and began enthusiastically to depict the excellence of Lenz's heart.

Tears stood in his eyes, and he ended by saying:--"Annele, he has a heart like an angel!--like that of a newly born child. For G.o.d's sake never be harsh to him, or you would sin against G.o.d. Never forget that you have a husband to whom every sharp word is like a stab from a knife. He is not pa.s.sionate, but his feelings are very sensitive. Do not take amiss my telling you this--I do so from the best of motives. I would gladly serve him if I could, and I don't know how. You are indeed favoured by G.o.d to be chosen by such a man; but go gently to work with him--very gently and kindly."

"Have you done at last?" asked Annele, her eyes flashing; "or have you got anything more to say?"

"No; I have finished."

"Now I will say something to you in return. You have been so forward and impertinent, that you deserve to have the door shut in your face.

What do you mean?--how dare you speak in such a manner to me?--who asked you to interfere?--how can you suspect me of being hard? But it is lucky, very lucky that I know this so soon; now I see what sort of beggars hang about my Lenz. But I will soon make a clean sweep of the whole lot. The day when you could wheedle him by your hypocrisy and fine words is at an end. I make you a present of the wine you have drunk. Now go along, I will, however, repeat to my Lenz what you have presumed to say to me, and it shall be stored up against you."

In vain did Faller protest his innocence of all evil intentions: he begged pardon, and conjured her to listen to him; but it was all no use. Annele showed him the door--so at last he left her, and Annele did not vouchsafe him even a parting glance.

Soon after Faller came Franzl, beaming with joy. The mother took her forthwith into the back parlour. Franzl had been rejoicing that she had managed this affair, and thought she could now die happy; but it proved, to her consternation, that she had ascribed to herself much more merit than she deserved, and now she got none at all. The Landlady soon made her feel her mistake by saying--"Well, Franzl, what do you think about this? You had nothing to do with the affair, and I quite as little. The young people were sharper than we were. You and I were talking a few days ago as to what might come to pa.s.s, and all the time behind our backs they had settled everything. I could have believed this of Annele, but not of Lenz. But it is better so; and as G.o.d has willed it, let us thank him for his goodness."

Franzl stood with her mouth and eyes wide open, but she was obliged to go home without a sc.r.a.p of praise or anything else, and Annele scarcely condescended to notice her.--Then Pilgrim came.

Annele behaved in a very different manner to Pilgrim than she had done to Faller. She knew that he did not like her; but before he had said a single word she thanked him for his warm sympathy, and Pilgrim treated the whole affair in a good-humoured and facetious manner, hinting that no man was to be trusted, or Lenz would not have kept the matter so close. He thought he thus saved his conscience, and yet did not disturb what was now a settled thing.

But the toughest wood to saw through, yet remained: this was Petrowitsch; and the father resolved to be present. When Petrowitsch came as usual to dinner, he affected to know nothing. The Landlord communicated the fact to him officially, and said that Lenz was expected every minute to dinner. Annele was very childlike and submissive to the old man, and seemed almost as if she intended to throw herself on her knees to ask his blessing. He stretched out his hand kindly to her. The Landlady, too, wished to get hold of his hand, but she only succeeded in grasping two fingers of his left hand. Lenz was glad when he came, to find all going on so smoothly. He was only vexed that Pilgrim, who had spoken so much against them all, should be seated at the same table; but Pilgrim seemed quite unconcerned, so Lenz was soon the same.

The sky looked down sourly on Lenz's betrothal: it rained incessantly for several days following. The rain kept trickling on like one of those incessant talkers who chatter without ceasing. Lenz was of course constantly at the "Lion" Inn, where everything was so comfortable, and every one as well cared for as in his own house. One day, when there were sixteen different tables in the large public room, Lenz told Annele it was like a well frequented marketplace.

"You are witty," said she. "I must tell my father that--it will amuse him."

"Don't do that. What I say to you, I don't intend to go farther."

Lenz was overflowing with happiness. He went backwards and forwards along the distant, and almost impa.s.sable road, just as if he had been pa.s.sing from one room to another. He was often congratulated on his way by different people; and many said--"Don't think us impertinent, but we never believed that Annele would stay in this village. It was always said she would marry a landlord in Baden-Baden, or the Techniker. You may laugh, but you have fallen on your feet."

Lenz was not at all offended by being considered inferior to Annele; on the contrary, he was proud that she was so modest in her views as to choose him. When Lenz was sitting in the back parlour with Annele and her mother, and the old man sometimes came in, uttering some pious sentiment in his deep, sonorous voice, Lenz would say--"How grateful I ought to be to the good Lord, who has given me parents again! and such parents too! I seem to have come into the world a second time. I can scarcely realize that I am actually at home in the 'Lion' Inn, when I remember what I thought when, as a child, I saw the upper storey built, and plate gla.s.s in all the windows! I am sure the Palace at Carlsruhe cannot be finer, we children used to say to each other. And I was standing by when the Golden Lion itself was hung up. I little thought, then, that the day would come when I should be quite at home in such a palace! It is hard that my mother did not live to see it!"

The two women were touched by these words, although Annele did not leave off counting the st.i.tches in a pair of slippers that she had begun to work for Lenz. Neither of them spoke for some little time, till the mother said--"Yes! besides, what first-rate connections you will have in my other two sons-in-law. I told you already that I love and respect them, but differently from you, I have known you from the time you were a child, and I feel towards you as if you had been my own flesh and blood. But you have seen them, and know what well bred, genteel young men they both are--and men of business, into the bargain.

Many a one would be glad, if they had as much capital as they make in a single year."

After a pause, however, Annele said--"If that tiresome rain would only cease, then, Lenz, we would go out driving together at once."

"I should, indeed, enjoy being with you alone under G.o.d's s.p.a.cious sky.

The house seems too confined for my sense of happiness. Annele, we would drive to the town."

"Wherever you like."

Presently Lenz said again:--"I am very glad my 'Magic Flute' was so safely packed, for I should so grieve if it was injured."

"That is very needless anxiety," said the mother. "The thing is now sold, and of course the purchaser runs all risks."

"No, mother, that's not at all the case. I understand my Lenz better.

He is attached to a work that cost him so much anxiety, and he would have been glad never to have parted with it. If one has pa.s.sed days and nights, month after month, engrossed with one object, it would be very distressing to know that it was injured."

"Yes, dear Annele; you are indeed my own!" cried Lenz, joyfully. How well and thoroughly this excellent girl understood his feelings and explained them!

The mother chided them playfully:--"It's no good talking to you lovers; anyone who is not in love, is sure to be wrong in your eyes." She went in and out, for Lenz had begged that, at all events at first, Annele might be released from her attendance in the public room. "I am not jealous," said he, "far from it; but I should like to intercept every look you cast on others, for they all belong to me, and me only."

One afternoon the rain ceased for an hour. Lenz did not desist from urging Annele, till she consented to go with him to his own house. "I feel as if everything there was expecting you. All the stores, and presses, and china, and other things that you will like to see."

Annele resisted for some time, and at last said--"My mother must go too."

The old lady was very speedily equipped. They went through the village.

Every one greeted them. They had scarcely gone a hundred steps when Annele complained--"What a horrid footpath, Lenz--it is so heavy and deep. You must repair it thoroughly. But I'll tell you what would be better: you must make a carriage road, so that people may be able to drive up to our door."