Joseph in the Snow, and The Clockmaker Volume III Part 15

"I had no idea I was considered so holy."

"Herr Lenz, I come, not because I believe that it will do any good, but still I shall have done my duty."

"It would be well if every one did their duty."

"You know your nephew Lenz--"

"There is no Lenz whom I care about, except the one I see there," said Petrowitsch, looking at his wrinkled face in the gla.s.s.

"You know, however, that your brother's son is in distress."

"No, the distress is in him. This comes of giving way to the impulses of a good heart, and having companions who encourage such weakness; and whatever advice may be in opposition to this, is considered the mere whims of a peevish, withered old man."

"You may be right; but wise speeches do no good now. The misery of Lenz is greater than you think."

"I never tried to fathom its depth."

"In one word, I have the greatest fear that he may make away with himself."

"That he did long since. A man who marries so stupidly makes away with his life."

"I don't know what more to say. I thought I was prepared for everything; but not for this. You are worse, and yet different, from what I thought."

"Thanks for the compliment. It is a sad pity that I can't hang it round my neck as an order of merit, like the Choral Society."

The good humoured, merry Pilgrim stood before the old man, looking as foolish as a swordsman whose blade is made to fly out of his hand at each attack.

Petrowitsch feasted on this spectacle, and crammed a large piece of sugar into his mouth. Then he said, smacking his lips, "My brother's son followed his own devices, and it would not be fair on my part, were I to deprive him of the harvest he so richly deserves. He has squandered his life and his money, and I have no power to restore either."

"Indeed you have, Herr Lenz! His life, and that of his family, can yet be saved. All discord in the house will cease when they are once more at ease, and free from care and anxiety. The proverb says, 'Horses quarrel over an empty manger.' Money is not happiness in itself, but it can bring happiness."

"A very remarkable fact how free and easy young people are with other people's money! but they object to earning it themselves! Once for all, however, I am resolved to do nothing for the husband of Annele of the 'Lion,' whose affection is only to be bought with money."

"And if your nephew dies?"

"Then he will, probably, be buried."

"And what is to become of the children?"

"No one can tell what becomes of children."

"Did your nephew ever offend you in any way?"

"I don't know why he should."

"What can you, then, do better with your money than--"

"When I find that I require a guardian, I will apply to Herr Pilgrim."

"Herr Lenz, you are a vast deal too clever for me."

"You do me much honour," said Petrowitsch, kicking off his slippers.

"I have done all I could, at all events," rejoined Pilgrim.

"And at a cheap rate; words cost little--how much a bushel? for I should like to buy some."

"This is the first and last time I ask you anything."

"And this is the first and last time I refuse you anything."

"Good morning, Herr Lenz."

"The same to you, Herr Pilgrim."

Pilgrim turned round once more at the door. His face was red, and his eyes flashed, as he said, "Herr Lenz, do you know what you are doing?"

"I have hitherto always known pretty well what I was doing."

"You are, in fact, turning me out of your house."

"Really!" said Petrowitsch, with a sneer. He, however, cast down his eyes when he saw the expression of Pilgrim's face--half rage, half sorrow.

Pilgrim resumed: "Herr Lenz, I submit to a good deal from you. Of all the men, far and near, who have seen trees and hedges growing, where sticks are to be had, not one can come forward and say that those who offended Pilgrim ever yet did so with impunity. You may do so, and do you know why? Because I allow myself to be maltreated for the sake of my friend. Alas! it is all I can do for him. I don't say one angry word to you--not one. You shall never have it in your power to say, 'Pilgrim behaved so rudely to me, that it prevents my doing anything for his dear friend Lenz.' For my friend's sake I submit to your insults. You may tell every one you turned me out of doors."

"I shall not gain much credit by that."

Pilgrim drew a deep breath, his lips quivered, and he left the room in silence.

Petrowitsch looked after him, with pretty much the same satisfied air that a fox displays when it sucks the blood of a leveret, and then lets it run away, as it best can.

He paced his room in high good humour, playing with the ta.s.sels of his dressing-gown. His satisfaction seemed positively to inflate him, for he stroked himself down with his hands, as if to say, "Now you are once more yourself; yesterday evening you were a soft hearted fool, and had no right to abuse this weak, wayward world."

In the mean time Pilgrim went homewards in a dejected mood, and, pa.s.sing his own door, went far out into the fields, till at last he turned, and went home. There, to his great joy, he found his friend's child. "Thus it is when friends are really attached; my good Lenz was thinking of me, at the very same moment when I was thinking of him.

Perhaps he knew, or at least had a presentiment, that I meant to go to Petrowitsch, and sent the child to me to a.s.sist my pet.i.tion. But it would have done no good; to such a man as Petrowitsch, men and angels would speak equally in vain."

Pilgrim was unwearied in the games he thought of to amuse the boy, and in the drawings he did for him; and then, with the aid of a white handkerchief, and his black neckcloth, he could make with his fingers hares, and hounds chasing them. Little Wilhelm shouted with joy, and made Pilgrim tell him the same story at least three times over. Pilgrim had a very pretty knack of story telling, especially about a certain chesnut brown Turk, Kulikali, with a huge nose, who could swallow smoke. Pilgrim dressed himself up in a moment as the Turk Kulikali, seated himself crosslegged on a strip of carpet on the floor, and did all sorts of conjuring tricks. Pilgrim was on this occasion quite as much a child as his young G.o.dson. Then they went down stairs, and dined with Don Bastian. In the afternoon, in spite of drizzling rain and snow showers, Pilgrim went to the riverside for an hour with Wilhelm. Was it not a pretty sight! Great blocks of ice were swimming along, and crows perched on them; they wished to see for once how they liked boating, but when one of the ma.s.ses of ice was shivered, they wisely flew away, and settled on another. It was a giddy sight to look down on from above. It seemed as if the earth were moving, and the ice standing still. The boy clung timidly to Pilgrim. He took him home, and put a mattress for his G.o.dson on his old well worn sofa, for both agreed that young Lenz should not go home to-night; and it went to Pilgrim's heart when the child said, "My father speaks so loud, and my mother too; and my mother said my father was a wicked man."

"Oh! my poor Lenz, you must do what you can, to make your boy less sensitive than yourself," thought Pilgrim.

The rain and snow came down in such gusts, that it was scarcely possible to go outside the house, especially as large ma.s.ses of snow were tumbling off the roofs. Soon it was evening, but Lenz did not come; and Pilgrim was startled by hearing the maid say that she had met Petrowitsch on the road to the Morgenhalde, not far from the house; he asked her "Whose child is that?" and when she said, "Lenz's son, Wilhelm," he patted the boy's head, and gave him a lump of sugar, or at least one half of it, as he broke it in two, and put one piece into his own mouth.

Is it possible? Can Petrowitsch really be softened? Who knows the heart of man?

After Petrowitsch had fully enjoyed his triumph over the Doctor and Pilgrim, he felt quite comfortable. He watched the people going to church in groups, and at last one solitary woman and then a man running to arrive in time.

Petrowitsch usually went regularly to church; indeed it was said that in his will he had bequeathed a large sum for the purpose of building a new place of worship; on this day he stayed at home, having sufficient occupation for his thoughts, but involuntarily it occurred to him--