Problematic Characters Part 7

Oswald took the path which he knew would lead him to the village where the minister lived. The sun was shining brightly in the blue sky, on which large white flakes of clouds were standing quietly about. The air was not oppressive, for the vicinity of the sea tempered the summer heat. Larks were singing their jubilates on high. Near the edge of the great forest, which sent an outrunner, as it were, far into the cultivated fields, an immense bird of prey was drawing its wide circles. No laborers were to be seen in the fields, and the ploughs and harrows were lying idle about. In an enclosure near the road, fat cows and calves were ruminating in peace and comfort; a couple of merry colts came up to the fence and looked with curiosity at the wanderer.

Oswald had gone beyond the farm-yard. He came to the place in the road where the scene between Bruno and the servant had taken place.

Involuntarily, almost, he stopped; the whole scene came back to his mind; he saw the fair boy, angry and threatening, like a youthful G.o.d, and the mean, frightened hind. He almost regretted having persuaded his favorite to stay at home. He was so happy, so cheerful on this beautiful morning, and it had become quite a habit with him to share all his joys with the boy. "You wild, good, n.o.ble fellow," he said to himself, "what are you doing in this world of womanish men? Are they not afraid of you already now, when you are a mere boy; what will they do when you grow up to be a man? All the world cries aloud, 'We want men!' How can you ever expect to have men, when home and school and life all unite to break the proud strength of youthful hearts in the germ already? They take the bow and whittle away at it more and more, and then they wonder if the delicate thing breaks suddenly in their hands. Pygmies, who try to bind and fetter with a thousand slender threads the giant whom a lucky accident has brought to their desert island!"

Oswald was very near working himself into a most melancholy state of mind; but the bright, clear morning did not let him indulge long in dark night-thoughts. An image, the image of a beautiful woman, which had remained last night, before sleep closed his eyes, clearly before his soul, which had pa.s.sed like a pleasant shadow through all his dreams, and which this morning had hovered around him like the echo of some charming melody, now came vividly before his mind's eye. He tried in vain to banish it. Who has not experienced the persistency with which the forms of persons who are often perfectly indifferent to us will present themselves before us, with every detail, against our earnest desire, whilst we cannot, by any effort of our own, conjure up the picture of those who are dearest to our heart? Is it because we are so rarely able to look upon these calmly and deliberately; or is it because where heart speaks to heart, and soul mingles with soul, the outward form is consumed as by a flash of lightning? Is it because the mind, capable of seizing what is imperishable, eternal, has no need of the mere perishable body? While Oswald was thinking only of Melitta, and wished to think of nothing else, he saw continually before him the baroness, Mademoiselle Marguerite, and a number of ladies of his acquaintance; but the Amazon in the green riding-habit was forever dissolving into capricious vapors. "Well, then, fare thee well, fair vision!" cried the young man, and endeavored to lead his thoughts into a new channel.

The ground on which he had been walking had so far been undulating; now it became level, like the surface of the sea during a calm. A vast heath lay before him; beyond it the village with the church, which was the goal of his pilgrimage. Other farms appeared here and there against the horizon. The willows, which so far had followed the road on both sides, became scarcer, and at last disappeared entirely. Here and there the turf had been taken off and the peat lay bare, or was piled up high in long black rows, for the purpose of drying. In the ditches glimmered the black waters. Pee-wees and other marsh-birds were flying to and fro. In the whole wide expanse Oswald did not see a human being, except a woman who was sitting a few hundred yards before him, upon a boundary-stone. As he came nearer he saw that it was an old woman, dressed very poorly, but scrupulously neat. She must have fallen asleep on the stone from the fatigue of her journey, for she quickly threw up her head when Oswald approached, and looked with astonishment at the young man.

"Good-morning, mother," said the latter, stopping; "is the village there before us Fashwitz?"

"Yes," said the woman, with a vivacity rare at her time of life; "are you going to church there?"

"Yes, mother. When does service begin?"

The old woman glanced up at the sun, and said:

"I have slept too long; it is too late now for me; my old legs won't carry me fast enough; but you are a young man. You will be in time yet I beg your pardon, sir, but what is your name?"

"Stein--Oswald Stein."

"Stein? I must have heard that name somewhere."

"Maybe. It is not a rare name."

"Stein--hm, hm; I beg your pardon, sir, where do you come from?"

Oswald, who was rather amused at being questioned in this nave way, and who liked the manner of the old woman, sat down opposite to the old lady on the trunk of a fallen willow-tree. He knew there was time enough for him; and while she, with her wrinkled hands resting on her knees, fixed her deep-sunk but expressive eyes firmly upon his face, he said to her:

"From Grenwitz, mother."

"From Grenwitz? Is it possible? That is where I came from. I beg your pardon, sir, are you on a visit there?"

"Not exactly. I teach the boys."

"Is that possible?"

"Why not?"

"Well, the candidates for the ministry generally look very differently."

Oswald laughed.

"And you are walking the long way quite alone, mother?"

"I have not a soul who could walk with me; my husband died ever so long ago, and my boys died and my girls died--they all died."

The old woman smoothed the folds of her dress on her knee as if she meant to say: All buried, and the earth smoothed down over them, and there is an end of them all.

Oswald felt deep pity for the lonely, helpless old age of the woman. He said, merely in order to say something which he thought might be of some little comfort to the poor old soul:

"Well, you will see all your dear ones again in the other world."

"In the other world?" said the old woman, glancing up at the blue sky.

"I believe in no other world."

"What! You do not believe in it?" asked Oswald, astonished.

The old woman shook her head.

"You are quite young yet, Mr.--how was your name? Stein--yes--you are quite young yet, Mr. Stein; but when you have seen as many people die as I have, you too will no longer believe in it. When a man dies, he is dead--really dead. And then, at the resurrection, as they call it, what would become of all the people? In our village there is not a soul left of all who lived when I was young. And the others, who were born after me, they have grown old and they are dead too. And thus new ones are coming all the time, and more new ones. No; the whole earth would not have room enough for all these people."

"But perhaps in other stars?" suggested Oswald.

"How could they get there? No; no one gets away from the earth, but they all get under the earth--all--all;" and the old woman again smoothed the folds of her dress on her knees.

"The body, yes; but not the soul."

"Well, I don't know," said the matron, shaking her head; "but I know this much, that when any one dies he is really dead, and we say, Now the poor soul is at rest. And what better can we wish one another than rest, whether we are n.o.blemen or peasants, young folks or old?"

"But why do you walk all the way to church if you do not believe in anything?" asked Oswald.

"Who says that?" said the matron, almost indignant; "I believe in G.o.d, like every good Christian; and everybody ought to be upright and pious; that has nothing to do with the resurrection; and we must do our duty, that no one need be told. And now, young master, make haste and get away, or you'll be too late. I'll turn back again. Goodby!" And so she got up, seized an oak stick which had been leaning by her side against the stone, offered Oswald her withered, trembling hand, which the latter pressed, not without a feeling of reverence, and set out to walk back slowly the way she had come.

"That is a remarkable woman," said the young man to himself, walking on rapidly. "I must inquire about her. Who would have imagined that the doctrines of modern philosophers--doctrines which, to be sure, are only ancient coins with a new image and superscription--are current even among these cla.s.ses of the people? Well, well, when even the poor in spirit and the simple in heart begin to remember that they have eyes to see and ears to hear, the last day of lying prophets must be near at hand."

CHAPTER IX.

The village of Fashwitz is an experiment made at the expense of the government. Originally the estate had been, like the whole larger part of the island, the property of a n.o.ble family, and had lapsed back into the possession of the crown when that family had become extinct. The government, desirous to obtain a nucleus of small landowners or independent farmers, which are here almost entirely wanting, had established here and on other estates genuine farmers' colonies, by laying them out in small parcels and selling these to all who chose to buy for merely nominal prices. The community at Fashwitz had a church built for them, and a minister was sent there; it was surely not the fault of the government if the good people of Fashwitz did not prosper.

It seemed, however, highly desirable that they should avail themselves of their other privileges and prerogatives a little more zealously than they seemed to do of the opportunity to obtain spiritual food on Sundays. For when Oswald obtained admittance to the church through a side-door--the great door was locked--he found that the devout listeners consisted of a few Sunday-school children, who were there _ex officio_, a handful of old women, faithful to the old traditions of their youth, and the families of some landowners in the neighborhood who tried to set their tenants and dependents a good example. The interior of the church formed a large, well-lighted hall, with a flat ceiling, in which pulpit, altar, and benches were discreetly arranged--everything bran new, perfectly practical, and very unattractive. There were no small stained window-panes, no pictures on the walls or over the altar, no angels of wood or bronze blowing their trumpets with swelling cheeks, no votive tablets, no faded wreaths, in fine, none of those means by which the Catholic, to whom the church is but the antechamber to heaven, gives expression to his longings for a higher life. The only poetical feature in the church were the shadows cast by the linden-trees before the windows, which waved to and fro on the bright wall opposite, and the broad bands of light which fell diagonally across the building, and formed so many golden bridges on which the thoughts could escape from the unattractive interior to the summer morning, which, outside, lay warm and fragrant on meadows, fields, and forests. No one in the audience, however, seemed to stand in need of such a road, or to find it at all practicable, except, perhaps, a pretty little girl about ten years old, with long golden curls, who seemed to have a strong longing after the bright flowers and white b.u.t.terflies in the garden of her father, a stout old gentleman nodding devoutly by her side, and who, on that account, was frequently admonished by her governess to sit still and behave herself properly.

The majority of the people looked as if they had left their minds carefully at home, and a few bore the infliction with the resignation of well-bred men.

And, indeed, it would have been strange if the congregation could have been edified by such a sermon and such a minister. Oswald, who had found a seat opposite the pulpit, and behind the pew of the great n.o.bleman, discovered at the first glance at the preacher, and after a few words of his sermon, that there was about as much sympathy between the minister and the congregation as between a learned missionary and a tribe of good-natured savages. The minister, a small, lean man of about forty, with his dried-up, withered face, seemed to feel this himself very clearly, for he had scarcely seen Oswald when he began to address himself to him almost exclusively, as the only one capable of appreciating the precious pearls which an unwise government forced him to cast here before the swine.

"Oh, my devout brethren," he exclaimed, fixing his eyes through his spectacles upon Oswald, who tried to hide as well as he could behind the golden curls of the little girl, "Oh, my devout hearers, you see how weak our reason is in face of these momentous questions. And yet, and yet, oh, much beloved, there are misguided brethren and sisters who still rely on the dim rushlight of reason long after the sun has risen for them also. Alas! this little stump of a farthing candle seems to them bright enough in the days of feasting, frolicking, and jubileeing, but not so in the days of old age with its solemn thoughts and grave anxieties. Therefore, abandon your faith in reason, and hold fast on faith! Abandon your idle trust in sound common-sense, as you call it!

Oh, my devout hearers, this sound common-sense is a sick, very sick sense, is a device of the devil's, and a will-o'-the-wisp which leads you inevitably into the pool of perdition."

Oswald was strangely, but by no means pleasantly affected by this sermon, which continued for half an hour more, richly larded with quotations from Holy Writ. He was deeply impressed with the contrast between the simple, childlike submission of the old woman to the great, eternal laws of nature, and her modest but solemn way of stating them, and the arrogant self-a.s.surance with which the man in the pulpit decided on the most solemn questions, and condemned every sound sentiment and natural impulse of our heart as empty show and deceitful delusion. The unadorned wisdom of the matron was fresh and fragrant, like a flower on the heath; the boastful knowledge of the preacher, like a plant grown in the hot, oppressive air of a greenhouse, luxuriant in leaves and stalk, but without sap and strength and flowers. Oswald was glad when the learned preacher came at last to say amen! after having once more denounced the morality and anathematized the souls of all who thought differently from himself.

"That is most a.s.suredly not so," he said to himself, as he tried on tiptoe to reach the little side-door by which he had come in. And when, outside, the blue sky once more rose high above him, and the fragrance of the linden greeted him, he breathed deeply, like one who comes from the hot, stifling atmosphere of a sick-room into the balsamic air of a garden.

"I shall not make this man's acquaintance if I can help it," he continued his monologue, making his way down the little hill on which the church stood, and past several grand carriages, which had in the mean while overtaken him, till he reached the village. "What have I in common with him? His thoughts are not my thoughts, and his language is not my language. We would never understand each other. I do not believe in that vague humanity, which is on good terms with everybody and rejects no one; nor do I believe in that philosophy of the beetles, which hum around all flowers in the hope of finding somewhere the hidden treasure of sweet honey. The wise merchant sails past the coast which is too poor for barter, and the great words, 'Who is not with me is against me,' fell from the same holy lips which taught that love is the first duty of man."

Oswald had, as was his wont, given way to his thoughts with such utter forgetfulness of everything around him, that he wandered for some time about in the unknown village, where houses and barns and stables, walls and gardens, lay in inextricable confusion by each other, and presented to the stranger a perfect labyrinth. He was just leaving a narrow alley by the side of a large house, in order to get into a wider street, when the minister met him, coming from church. He could not possibly avoid the meeting, and his attempt to pa.s.s by with a polite bow was a total failure, for the minister had no sooner seen him than he stepped literally in his way and addressed him at once with these words: