Problematic Characters Part 21

CHAPTER XIX.

The boy and he walked for a time in silence through the wood. Bruno was too proud to begin a conversation with one who seemed to have forgotten him entirely, and Oswald was too busy with his own thoughts.... Every person with whom we happen to come in contact is a mirror which reflects our own image, and Oswald had beheld his own face in the crystal clear mirror of that man's pure, childlike soul--but how beheld? torn by pa.s.sion, darkened by doubt, so that he was startled.

"And this man," he said to himself, "comes to you for advice! the seeing to the blind, the healthy to the sick! He discovers an error in the account of his life, and he sits down and counts and counts till the sum is right, and all is smooth and as it ought to be again, while you, you rush through life like a reckless merchant, adding debt to debt, rushing from one speculation into another, unconcerned about the day of reckoning. That man would sooner cut off his right hand than use it to seize anything which he has not earned in the sweat of his face--you accept the gifts of the golden Aphrodite, and whatever else kind fate offers you, as if it were due to you, and grumble to find it not more than it is. Now you are already dissatisfied with Melitta's love, for which you ought to thank her on your knees; now you want her to have loved you before she knew you, or at least to drown all recollection of this man. 'If I could kill memory,' she said. Well, what is indifferent to us we forget easily enough, and what we do not and cannot forget--that is not indifferent to us. Then she hates this man? But hatred is the brother of sweet love! Perhaps she loves him still?--And where did he come from just now? From her! No doubt--Bruno, does this byroad lead anywhere else, except to Berkow?"

"No; and I really do not think the road is interesting enough to walk it twice the same day. Here is another one, which will bring us out of the forest and then along the edge of the wood almost to the house.

Shall we go this way?"

"Very well!" said Oswald, falling back into his bad dreams. "Then he came from her. But that cannot be ... 'A rolling wheel has formed the woman's bosom; the lily-hills conceal what ever changes:'--the baron may have read that in the Fritjofs Saga as well as I. He is a learned man, and baron, and rich.--The man cannot miss it; but Melitta shall give me an account of it; she shall tell me that I have reason to hate the man as I do."

Bruno had walked in silence on the opposite side of the road. He noticed Oswald's excitement; he saw how his face grew darker and darker, how his lips trembled with pain, how his hand closed angrily; he saw that his friend was not happy. More was not needed to make the generous boy forget all his own sensitiveness, his own complaints; he came gently up to Oswald, and seizing his hand, he said:--

"What is the matter, Oswald? why do you not talk? Are you angry with me?"

"I, angry with you?" that was all the young man said; but there was enough in the tone in which he uttered these words, and in the look with which he accompanied them, to convince Bruno that his suspicion was groundless, and to let the long pent-up torrent of his affection break forth in wild haste. He embraced Bruno and caressed him amid sobs and tears.

"Bruno, Bruno, what does that mean?" called out Oswald, frightened by the boy's pa.s.sionate tenderness.

"I thought you had ceased to love me," sobbed Bruno; "and look here, Oswald, if you cease loving me, I'll die."

The pale, death-like image, of which Oswald had dreamt so fearfully in his feverish excitement, reappeared before his mind's eye and gave a terrible meaning to the pa.s.sionate words of the boy. Speechless with emotion, he drew the sobbing boy to his heart, and repeated within himself the vow to be a brother to the poor forsaken boy. Thus they stood in close embrace ... Red evening lights were playing in the tops of the pine-trees--the soft plaintive song of a little bird came from the forest--a sweet, solemn moment.

Suddenly hideous sounds fell upon their ear; they came from near by; loud threatening voices of men who seemed to be angrily disputing--scolding, cursing--then for a moment deep silence, and finally the loud cry: "Great G.o.d! Help! help! Is no one near! Here!"

Oswald and Bruno, who had listened for a moment breathlessly, rushed at full speed towards the place from which the cries came. They reached a place close to the forest, where people had been cutting wood, and here and there cords of wood were piled up in long rows. By the side of a four-horse wagon a man was lying on the ground, who kicked with hands and feet, while another man was bending over him, either to calm or to ill-treat him--they could not distinguish which! As they approached the latter rose--it was the steward, Wrampe--and cried: "Quick, doctor, for G.o.d's sake! The fellow is dying before my eyes."

The appearance of the man who lay on the ground was indeed fearful in the extreme. His face was distorted, the eyes rigid, so as to show only the white, foam on his lips, his hands closed, the body in spasms; Oswald could hardly recognize the gigantic servant who had excited Bruno's anger by his cruelty towards the horses.

Oswald had knelt down by his side; he wiped the foam from his mouth, he loosened his stiff cravat, and tried to make him lie easier.

"Is there nothing to put under his head?" he called to the steward, whose red-bearded face, full of helpless anxiety, looked inexpressibly foolish.

"Under his head? under his head? here!" and he pulled off his coat and put it as a cushion under the man's head.

"Is there no water near by?" asked Oswald again.

"Water near by? No; but in the coat pocket is a bottle--there it is--that may be as good--great G.o.d!"

Oswald washed the sick man's forehead with the brandy; he became more quiet.

"How did this happen?" he asked.

"Why, I don't know," cried the steward, in a sad voice. "I came riding up here because the fellow was idling too long in the wood, to help him to move faster; there he sits on a stump and does not stir. What are you sitting there for? I say. Why should I not sit here? says he. Are you drunk again? says I, for I saw his eyes were quite watery and his bottle lay empty by his side. Drunk yourself! says he. You infamous rascal! says I. Rascal yourself! says he. Well, doctor, I couldn't stand that, of course. So, down from my horse and a few good licks upon his back was all done in a moment. He, in perfect rage, makes at me--all of a sudden he falls down like an ox, and commences--a, great G.o.d, he is at it again. I never saw the like in all my life!"

The man had another attack of spasms. Oswald began to fear the worst "Quick, quick!" he said. "Down with the wood from the wagon; we must drive him home slowly. In the mean time somebody must go for the doctor."

"Yes, yes; I'll go for the doctor!" cried the steward, glad to escape, and one foot in the stirrup.

"You stay here!" commanded Oswald; "how can I lift the man without you?

Are you not ashamed, Mr. Wrampe, to be such a coward? Take an example of Bruno!"

Bruno had helped Oswald as well as he could; now he was standing on the wagon, throwing down the wood with great energy. "I will go for the doctor, Oswald!" he said, jumping down.

"I presume that will be the best, Bruno," said the latter. "You know the road, and I cannot well leave him. Shorten his stirrups, Mr.

Wrampe!"

"Directly," said the latter, but Bruno had done it already, and with one effort, without using the stirrups, he was in the saddle and had the bridle in his hand. The fiery horse, feeling the light burden, reared.

"He'll throw you," said the steward.

"Never mind," replied the boy. "Your whip! Up, _allez!_" and he cut the horse over the neck and galloped off at full speed. Oswald just saw how he leapt the broad ditch and took a short cut through the wood in order to reach the highroad more quickly, and thus to get through Fashwitz to the little town where the doctor lived.

CHAPTER XX.

The steward and Oswald had in the mean time succeeded, though not without difficulty, in putting the patient on the wagon, after having made him a kind of couch with the aid of some clothes and hay from the adjoining meadow. Mr. Wrampe's giant power seemed to be perfectly paralyzed by the fright. Oswald got into the wagon to support the servant, who was now in a state of lethargy, and the steward undertook to drive. Fortunately the distance was not very great, as the cottages lay on this side of the barns and outbuildings, and therefore much nearer than the chateau itself.

"You know where the man lives?" asked Oswald, as they came near the village.

"The very first house," answered Mr. Wrampe, turning round in the saddle and pointing with his whip at a cottage, which looked more like a large kennel than a habitation of men.

"Is he married?"

"Has been married," replied Mr. Wrampe, "but his poor wife--" here he broke off, casting a shy look at the man's pale face, as if he meant to say: Of the dead and deadly sick we ought to speak no evil.

"Has he any children?"

"Two; there they are at Mother Claus' door. Mother Claus! he! Jake has had his troubles again; put the children out of the way or they'll be frightened." The steward's sense of propriety had evidently been wonderfully developed by his wrong. The old woman seemed to be enjoying the last rays of the sun before the door of her cottage, while two little children were playing in the sand at her feet.

When the old woman looked up, Oswald recognized the old lady with whom, the day before, on his way to church, he had had the singular conversation about immortality. The old woman cast a look at the wagon, took the children, led them into the house, and came out again just as the wagon stopped at the door.

"Is he dead?" she asked, coming near.

"No, mother," said Oswald.

"Why, to be sure, the young gentleman again! Well, I like that in you, that you take pity on a poor fellow. Just carry him in, will you? I have put the children up stairs."

The steward and Oswald lifted the man, who was perfectly motionless, out of the wagon, and carried him, bending low, through the house-door through a narrow pa.s.sage into the low room, where they put him on a broad bed with a blue counterpane. The old woman followed them, asked the steward to help her in undressing the man, and then said to him:

"Well, you can go now. Mr. Stein and I can manage Jake."

The steward was very glad to receive permission to go. With a few unintelligible words he left the room, and Oswald saw through the window how he took a long pull from his bottle before he mounted his horse, as if he were standing in special need of some such refreshment after the unusual physical and mental efforts which he had made.

Oswald had taken a seat on a low settee near the small open window. He looked around him and saw, at the first glance, that a good spirit was prevailing in the humble cottage in spite of the coa.r.s.e drunkard on his bed. The bed itself was freshly covered; the ceiling and the walls were scrupulously clean, the floor sprinkled with white sand. The air in the room was fresh and sweet; the small window-panes as bright as their old age and greenish hue would permit Mother Claus had seated herself by the bed and performed, as it seemed to Oswald, some mysterious, perhaps magnetic, pa.s.ses over the sick man, who had apparently fallen into a pleasant sleep. She rose and said: "I will put the children to bed, if you will stay here while I am away."