Joseph in the Snow, and The Clockmaker Volume III Part 6

"Very well," They took their axes and went home.

In his own house Lenz found Annele pressing her children to her heart, and crying out: "Oh! my poor children, you must beg! my poor infants!"

"Not so long as I have life and health," said Lenz; "remember I am your husband, only be calm and good-tempered."

"Good-tempered! I never in my life did harm to any one; and you are mistaken if you think now that you can make me your slave, and that I shall creep at your feet, on account of my poor father's misfortunes.

Just the reverse! I won't give way in the smallest thing. It is now your turn to show some of that benevolence you are so proud of. Show me how you can stand by your wife."

"I will do so, undoubtedly; but unless a hand is opened, how can anything be placed in it?"

"Had you only followed my advice, and bought the Lion, we should have been provided for, and the house would not have been transferred to strangers; above all, don't say one word to me about your money! On the very spot where you are now sitting, you sat on that day; and here I stood, and here your gla.s.s stood so close to the edge of the table, that I pushed it farther on the table; do you remember? then and there, I told you plainly and fairly--a prudent man does not part with his money, not even to my father, nor to any one."

"Did you know of his difficulties at that time?"

"I knew nothing, absolutely nothing; but I did know what prudence meant, and so leave me in peace."

"Will you not go to your mother? she is in such bitter grief."

"What good could I do? to set her off again in floods of tears at sight of me? Why should I go down to be stared at, and pitied by all the people? Am I to hear the Doctor's fine daughters strumming at their music, and laughing as I pa.s.s by? I am quite contented to stay up here by myself; I don't wish to see anybody."

"No doubt it is all for the best," said Lenz, kindly; "perhaps you will in future be both better and happier here alone with me. The time may return, indeed it must surely return, to what it once was, when you said: 'Up here we are in Paradise, and we will let the world below drive and rush about here and there, as they please; we can be happy without that.' We once were happy, and we shall be so again; if you are only kind to me, I can do as much work as three men, and you need have no regret on my account, for I did not marry you for your money."

"Nor did I marry you for yours; indeed, I don't think it would have been worth while; if I had wanted to be rich, I might have got many a wealthy husband."

"We have been too long together to talk of the marriages we might have made," said Lenz, interrupting her; "let us go to dinner."

After dinner, Lenz mentioned the affair about the wood, and Annele said, "Do you know what will be the result?"

"What?"

"Nothing, but that you will be obliged to pay the woodcutters for their day's work."

"We shall see about that," said Lenz, and went again in the afternoon to the Doctor's, whom he had not found at home in the morning. On his way there, he was joined by a very sorrowful companion. Faller came up to him as pale as death, and exclaiming: "Oh! it is dreadful, too dreadful! a flash of forked lightning in a calm bright sky!"

Lenz tried to cheer him, saying: "That certainly between three and four hundred gulden were a heavy loss, but he had no doubt of being able to bear up against it," and thanked his faithful comrade for his sympathy. All at once Faller stood still, as if rooted to the spot.

"What! has he involved you too? He owes me thirty-one gulden for clocks, by which I made very little profit, but I let him keep them as if they had been in a savings' bank, to pay for a paling to go round my house; now I am thrown back at least two years."

Lenz wrung his hands, but said he could not stay another moment, as he must go to the magistrate instantly.

Faller looked after him sadly, and almost forgot his own misery in that of his friend.

The Doctor was much depressed by the stroke that had ruined the Landlord of the Lion. The sum that he lost himself was not great, but the bankruptcy was a misfortune not only to the village, but to the whole adjacent country.

When Lenz related that he had also suffered, the Doctor exclaimed, in horror: "So he has involved you too! nothing can surprise me now. How could he be so wicked? How had he the heart to do it?" but after a time he said: "How does your wife bear it?"

"She does not bear it at all, she places it all on my shoulders."

Lenz detailed the history of the wood, and urged instant help, that his house might not be exposed to all the violence of the weather and snow storms, and to prevent the hill crumbling down on his head. The Doctor in his magisterial capacity declared: "To level the wood to the ground, would be a disgrace to the whole country, and would probably destroy the best well; the one beside the church, which is fed by the wood. At all events, they must be obliged to leave sufficient timber on the side of the hill, to be a protection to your dwelling, but we have no power over them. It is a shame and an iniquity, that the owners of woods may cut them all down as they please. There is a law against it in progress, but I fear that if it ever pa.s.ses, it will be, as it too often is, a case of shutting the stable door when the steed is stolen."

"But Herr Doctor, this iniquity will affect me first of all; can nothing be done?"

"I scarcely think so. When the burdens were taken off land, I was not a magistrate, your father-in-law was then the man. It was omitted to guard the rights of the community, yours included. To be sure, at that period no one would have built a house where yours now stands, if it had been supposed that the wood might be entirely felled some day, but you have no legal right to protection from the wood; make an application, however, to the commissioners; I will give you a letter to them, perhaps they may be able to a.s.sist you."

Lenz felt sadly dejected; he could scarcely stir from the spot, but he dared not make any delay, or think of the law expenses. He took a carriage, and drove to the next town.

In the meanwhile an almost forgotten person appeared at the Morgenhalde, and in the gayest attire too. It was cousin Ernestine, the grocer's wife, from the next town, who had so excited Annele's spite the first time she drove out with Lenz. She came to visit Annele in a new silk dress, and a handsome gold watch hanging at her side. She said she had been in the village, having some money to place in the savings'

bank; they were, thank G.o.d! doing well; her husband carried on a flourishing business, as a house and land agent, and also a pretty brisk trade in rags; he was also agent for a Fire and Hail Insurance Office, and on the lives of men and animals, the finely printed cards of which, were hanging in every shop; that brought a considerable sum, without incurring any risk, and having come in this direction to collect arrears, she could not be so near without calling to see Annele.

Annele thanked her politely, and apologized for not offering her dinner; Ernestine a.s.sured her that she did not come on that account.

"I believe you did not," said Annele; "but these words have a double interpretation." Annele felt convinced that Ernestine had come on purpose to have her revenge, in order that Annele, who had always looked down on her, should now be filled with spite and envy; but Annele had too long played the part of a landlord's daughter, not to be able to receive her visitor with the most polite and cordial speeches; in this manner she did not sacrifice her pride--for she was, after all, the daughter of the Landlord of the Golden Lion, and the other only a poor cousin, who had once been a maid in their service; and she hinted to Ernestine, that the various branches of industry she mentioned, though very suitable for people of a certain cla.s.s, would be wholly unsuitable to those of a higher order.

Ernestine, in truth, was not totally devoid of malice when she went to the Morgenhalde, although she had brought in the bag on her arm, a pound of roasted coffee and some white sugar, as an offering to Annele.

When, however, she saw her, these spiteful feelings were changed into sincere pity, and when Annele treated her so haughtily, she quickly subsided into her usual meek submissiveness, and totally forgot her new silk gown and her gold watch. The present she had intended for Annele, she now converted into a mere sample of her goods, which, she said, she offered to her, in the hope of getting her custom, and she shed very heartfelt tears, when she said:--"That if all the persons who had received benefits from the Golden Lion, would now repay them in kind, Annele's parents would have wherewithal to live on for a hundred years to come; and she added, in all sincerity, that if Annele had only remained in the Lion after her marriage, the inn would now have been as flourishing as in good old times."

This tempting bait made Annele forget old discord, and all the odious new finery of her cousin. Now there began an exchange of reminiscences of old days, intermingled with lamentations over the present, and false ungrateful people; and they agreed so perfectly, that Annele and Ernestine parted as if they had been the dearest friends from time immemorial, and had always lived together like sisters. Annele escorted Ernestine part of the way, and commissioned her to tell her husband to look out for a respectable inn, which might be bought and made profitable, especially where there was a brisk traffic in changing horses, and then she and Lenz would sell their house on the Morgenhalde.

Ernestine promised every attention to her wishes, and repeatedly begged Annele not to send to any one but her for groceries.

When Annele returned home, many were the thoughts that pa.s.sed through her head: "Our inn provided for so many people in its day, and ensured their success in life, and now we are to sink into nothing! Even the simple Ernestine had her wits sharpened up with us, so that she can now actually conduct a shop, and has made a man of her shabby, ruined tailor. Once on a time, she was only too glad to wear my old clothes, and now, how she is dressed out!--like a steward's wife, rustling in silk, and rattling the gold in her purse: and I am not to get on in life, but to remain vegetating and fading away here, and even accepting benefits from Ernestine! for her heart failed her to offer me the coffee and sugar as a gift, so she pretended they were merely samples of her wares.--No, no, my good clockmaker! I intend to wind you up, and set you going in a strain of music you never heard before!"

She was very much satisfied at having given Ernestine orders, to find out a profitable inn for them. When any step is once taken, a line of conduct is quickly settled accordingly.

In the mean time she tried to be calm and quiet. Not till late at night, did Lenz return from the town with an adverse decision. There was no legal right on this property to the shelter of the wood; and when Lenz awoke in the morning, and heard the strokes of the axe on the hill behind his house, every stroke seemed to cut into his flesh.

"I might as well die at once," said he to himself, despondingly, as he went to his work. The whole day he never said a word, and not till night, when he put out the light in his room, did he say aloud:--"I wish I could extinguish my life like this."

Annele pretended not to hear him.

Annele had as yet shed no tear, either for her own misfortunes, or the misery of her parents. With the exception of bewailing the fate of her children, when she first heard what had occurred, she was calm and composed. When, however, morning after morning, no more newly baked white bread came from the village, when she placed the loaf on the table beside the coffee, bitter tears rolled down her cheeks and dropped on the bread: she cut it off before Lenz saw it, and swallowed the bread steeped in her tears.

CHAPTER XXVII.

EVERYTHING GONE.

The Commissioners of Bankruptcy dragged everything into open day, and then came to light all the "Lion's" secret doings. The Landlord then appeared in all his iniquity.

In order to give security to people who, being strangers, were cautious in their dealings with him, he had deliberately deceived those who were connected with him, and dependent on him. Even his own postilions had lost their hardly earned savings. Poor clockmakers went up and down the village, complaining that the Landlord had robbed them of months and years of their lives, and they would all have been ready to swear that he was the most upright man in the whole country, far or near. The Landlady fared no better, in spite of her affectation of entire innocence. She had always made a great show in her house, and talked so big, and been so condescending to everybody! The Landlord had only deceived by his silence, and gloried in being called an honest man right and left, and correct and accurate into the bargain.

Many of the creditors came to Lenz at the Morgenhalde; they were not deterred by the distance; being in the village, at all events they thought they had a right to see the whole extent of the misfortune. It was from a mixture of compa.s.sion, and the wish to console him for his still greater losses, that they all deplored that Lenz should have been so shamefully taken in. Many comforted him by saying that perhaps he would inherit from his uncle, and a.s.sured him that if he one day became rich, they would ask no compensation from him,--indeed they had no right to do so. Wherever Lenz was seen, he was pitied and condoled with on the wickedness of his father-in-law, who had robbed his own son.

There was only one solitary individual who still spoke a good word for the Landlord of the "Lion," and that was Pilgrim, and he did so cordially; always maintaining, in Lenz's house, that the Landlord had only been deceived in his calculations, that he had placed entire faith in the success of his Brazilian speculation, which had failed, and that he was not a bad man: this entirely won Annele's heart, for she had always been very fond of her father. She did not hesitate openly to admit that her mother was a hypocrite; and yet they were constantly closeted together; and it was reported in the village that the Landlady was anxious to dispose of all the things she had secreted, by conveying them to Lenz's house. A poor clockmaker came straight to Lenz one day, and declared he would not say a word of these secret doings if he was only paid his own deposit. Lenz summoned his wife, and told her that he would never forgive her, if she received into the house one single article that ought to have been given up to the creditors. Annele swore on the head of her child, that such a thing had never occurred and never should. Lenz removed her hand from the head of the child, for he disliked all oaths. Annele told the truth, for the house on the Morgenhalde harboured no forfeited property. The mother-in-law was, however, often there. Lenz seldom spoke to her, and it proved very convenient that Franzl was no longer one of the family, for the new maid--a near relation of Annele's--conveyed repeatedly at night to the adjacent village, heavy baskets from the "Lion," and the grocer's wife, Ernestine, managed to turn all their contents into money.

People had pitied Lenz, because his father-in-law's ruin would probably be fatal to him also. He had answered confidently that he would stand firm; now, however, there was an incessant coming and going. Wherever Lenz owed a few kreuzers they were demanded from him, and he no longer got credit from anyone. Lenz did not know which way to turn, and he dared not confess to Annele the most severe blow of all, for she had warned him against it,--in the midst of all these troubles, Faller's creditors called up the sum due on his house; Lenz's security being no longer valid in their eyes. Faller was in an agony of distress when he was forced to tell this to Lenz, bewailing that, being a married man, he did not know where to lay his head.

Lenz unhesitatingly promised him speedy help; his former good name, and that of his parents, would still be remembered. The world cannot be so hard as to forget the well known integrity of his family.