On the Heights Part 154

In the cottage, she found the little pitchman standing before her table, and arranging a great heap of aromatic herbs and roots.

"Just look," he cried, "I've found something already. Yes, I know a thing or two. I've been gathering clover and mountain parsley for the apothecary. I know everything growing hereabouts that they can use, and many a time has my sister said: 'In the spring everything's sweet and good; and wherever the poison lies, it takes the summer heat to bring it out.' Oh, she was a clever one! Many a time she's said: 'The best things grow up among the clouds.'"

After a short pause, he began again:

"Gundel's right; I must say, I didn't think you were so handsome. But, somehow, you don't look healthy; you must eat more; why, you hardly eat anything."

A grateful smile was Irma only reply.

"Do you know what I'd like to have been?"

"What?"

"Your father."

Irma answered him with a silent inclination of the head. Her father's spirit had been invoked, and it seemed as if he were speaking to her through the lips of this poor, simple-minded man, who continued:

"G.o.d forgive me, but I can't help feeling, once in a while, as if you had dropped down from heaven, and had neither father nor mother; and to-day you look so weak that my eyes fill with tears whenever I look at you. Now, do eat a bit!"

He went on chattering as confusedly as if he had been drinking too much, but the refrain was always the same: "Now do eat something!"

To please the good old man, Irma forced herself to do so.

CHAPTER IX.

The days were bright and cheerful, the nights were glorious.

The air was pure, the view was clear, and all troubled thoughts seemed to have lingered below in the crowded dwellings of men.

"I think you could now sing again," said the little pitchman to Irma; "your voice isn't so hoa.r.s.e as it was. But you need more sleep. When one is old, sleep runs away of itself. Don't drive it away, as long as it wants to stay with you."

The little pitchman now seemed doubly careful of her, and Irma perceived that her voice was hoa.r.s.e. She would sit down and rest oftener than she had previously done. She would still roam through the woods and valleys, wherever huntsmen or woodcutter dared venture, but she would so often stop to rest herself that her wanderings resembled the flight of some young bird which, at every short distance, is obliged to stop. She now remembered that this weariness had been upon her ever since her return from the capital. During the winter she had paid no attention to it; but now she thought she could understand Walpurga's motive in urging her to go up to the shepherd's hut. It was because she was ill, and in the hope that she might become well again.

And yet she felt no pain. One day, while in the heart of the forest, she tried to sing a scale, but found that she could not. Her head sank upon her breast; and thus, after all--

On Sunday morning Franz came, bringing joy with him.

"Oh, how nice it is," said Gundel, as soon as she found herself alone with Franz. Irma was quite near, however, and heard every word of what she said. "Oh, how nice it is! I used to think my arms were only for work, but now I can do something else with them; I can throw them around somebody's neck and hug and kiss him!"

Gundel, who was usually dull and sullen, had become active and sprightly. She was bustling about all day, scrubbing, washing, milking the cows, making b.u.t.ter and cheese, and was always singing or humming a tune to herself. With her, singing filled the place of thinking. She was just like a bird that flutters about, singing all day long. Love had awakened her soul, and the self-dependent position in which she now found herself afforded a vent to her native cheerfulness of temperament.

Irma regarded all that environed her as if she were a mere looker-on, taking no part in the life about her.

Tradition tells us of good genii who descend to the earth, remain there long enough to look about them and put things to rights, and then return to heaven. They have no share in the world's cares and troubles.

And thus it often seemed to Irma as if she were withdrawing herself from human sight, conversation and sympathy, into the one great idea in which she was wholly absorbed.

She went into the hut, and with her pencil wrote these few words in her journal:

"I desire my brother to give a marriage portion to Gundel and Franz, after my death, so that they may establish a household of their own."

Thereupon she wrapped the journal in the bandage which she had worn on her brow, and, placing her hand on it, vowed that she would not write another word in it. She had recorded enough of her self-questionings and of what her eyes had beheld, to reconcile her with the friend whom she had so deeply injured, as well as with herself. The days that still remained to her, she desired to spend completely, and with herself.

Franz had brought word that Walpurga would not come that day, as her boy was unwell, but that she hoped to come without fail on the following Sunday. Irma was almost pleased at the opportunity thus afforded her to become accustomed to her present life, before being obliged to converse with any one who knew her. She was now surrounded by people to whom her past was unknown. They indulged her wish to be alone, and only addressed her when she asked them a question.

The second and third Sundays pa.s.sed by, but Walpurga did not come, although she sent up some bread and salt. Irma scarcely cared to conjecture the cause of her absence.

How scornfully Irma had once repelled the thought of "a life in which nothing happens"; but now she realized it in herself, without the slightest feeling, on her part, that it might have been otherwise. She worked but little, and would lie for hours on her favorite spot on the hillside.

Nature shed its kindly influence upon her. She greeted the dews of early morn, and the dews of evening moistened her locks. Like surrounding nature, she was calm and happy and without a wish. But in the night, when she looked up at the starry skies which, from the mountain height, were clearer and brighter, her soul soared into the infinite. She gazed on the mountains, unchanged since the day of their creation, peaks which no human foot had ever trod, which only the clouds could touch and on which the eagle's eye had rested. Familiar as she was with the life of plants and birds, she now scarcely regarded them. They seemed part of herself, just as her limbs were part of her body. Nature was no longer strange to her. She felt herself a part of it. She had reached that state of calm content in which life seems a pure chain of natural consequences, in which daily doubts and questionings have ceased. The sun rises and sets, the gra.s.s grows, the cows graze, and the law of life bids man work and reflect. The world around thee is subject to law and so is thine own life. To man alone is vouchsafed the knowledge of his duty, so that he may learn freely to obey the dictates of his own nature.

This thought illumined her soul with a light as clear as the blue sky above her. It caused her to forget that she had ever lived another life, or had ever erred.

On the fourth Sunday, Irma started out at an early hour and walked as far as the boundary-stone, where she waited for Walpurga and Hansei.

Now that they had sent word that they would surely come, Irma longed to see Walpurga, the only being who knew her past and could confirm to her who she was.

She was sitting on the boundary-stone. She had taken off her hat and her brow was bare. She sat there with her head resting on her hand, and wondering why, deep within the soul, there dwells a feeling that resents the surrender of our personality and the desire to know who and whence we are. To others, the galley-slave is only known by the number he bears, but, as to himself, he knows who he is and can never forget it. Why can we not freely lose ourselves in nature?

Her head drooped still lower. Presently, she heard voices and hurriedly arose.

"Isn't that our Irmgard?" asked Hansei.

"Yes, it is!"

Walpurga hurried up to her and held out her hand; but Hansei stood as if petrified. He had never before seen such a being. It always seemed to him as if there were something superhuman about her. Her whole face was radiant, her eyes larger, and the pure, n.o.ble forehead was as white and smooth as marble. Walpurga, who had known Irma when at the height of her beauty, now looked at her with a different feeling, for she was suffering for her sake, in a way that Irma could little dream of.

Involuntarily, she pressed her hand against her trembling heart.

"Why don't you shake hands with me, Hansei?" asked Irma.

"I--I--I never saw you look this way before."

A slight blush overspread her forehead. She pa.s.sed her hand over it.

Then she offered her hand to Hansei, who, in his excitement, pressed it so violently that he hurt her.

They walked on together toward the hut, and had gone but a few steps before they were joined by the little pitchman. He had, as was his wont, stealthily followed Irma. He was concerned for her sake, for he saw that something was the matter with her, and was, therefore, loth to leave her alone.

"She looks splendid, don't she?" said he to Hansei, who had remained with him while Irma and Walpurga walked on in front. "But she lives on nothing but milk, just like a little child; and you can't make her remember that, up here, the nights get cold all of a sudden. She always wants to sit out of doors in the damp, night air. I often think she must be an angel and that, all of a sudden, she'll spread her wings and fly away--yes, you may laugh at it, but it ain't far from here up to heaven. 'We're the Lord's nearest neighbors, up here,' as my sister used to say."

Hansei and the uncle went off to look after the cattle. Besides the calf born on the first day, two others had come and all were doing well. It was a full hour before Hansei came to the hut, and his whole bearing expressed his satisfaction with all that had seen.

Meanwhile, Walpurga had examined everything in the hut, and she, too, had found cleanliness and order everywhere.

In the afternoon, their next neighbor, who lived at a mountain meadow about an hour's distance from Hansei's, paid them a visit and brought her zither with her.

It was no small condescension, on the part of the freeholder's wife, to sing with Gundel and the neighbor. Franz joined in, and the little pitchman was also able to take part. Hansei, however, could not sing a note; but his want of ability added to his dignity--a wealthy farmer is supposed to have given up singing.