Seldwyla Folks Part 4

Now that the two children were dressed they were taken along for breakfast in the adjoining room. Early in the morning bread had been baked, and with the milk soup the little ones received each a fresh loaf of c.u.mmin seed bread, and in place of the one sweet roll which on ordinary days was specially baked for Kuengolt, there were two that day, and the little girl would have it that the boy received the larger of them. Dietegen ate without urging all that was offered him, just as though he had returned to his father's house after an enforced stay with evil strangers. But he was very still throughout, and he keenly observed everything around him: the pleasant mild woman who treated him like her own son, the sunny, light room, and the comfortable furniture with which it was fitted up. And after having eaten his breakfast with a good appet.i.te, he continued these observations, noticing that the walls were wainscoted with smooth pine, and higher up decorated with painted wreaths and flowers, and that the leaded window panes showed the arms both of husband and wife. When he also carefully inspected the handsome closets and the sideboard with its load of shining vessels and tableware, he suddenly remembered the dingy silver jug that had almost brought him to his death, and the cheerless house of the beadle in Ruechenstein, and then, afraid that he should have to return there again, he asked with a tremor in his voice: "Must I now return home?

But I don't know the way."

"There is no need of your knowing it," said the housewife, moved by his evident dread, and she stroked his smooth chin. "Have you not yet noticed that you are to remain with us? Go along with him now, my little Kuengolt, and show him the house and the woods, and everything else. But do not go too far away!"

Then Kuengolt took the boy by the hand, and first led him into the forester's armory where he kept his weapons. And there hung seven magnificent crossbows and arquebuses, and spears and javelins for the chase, hangers and dirks, and also the long sword of the master of the house which stood in the corner by itself. Dietegen examined all this, silently but with gleaming eyes, and Kuengolt mounted a chair to take down several of the finest crossbows from the wall, which she handed him so that he could look them over more at leisure, and he was delighted with these, for they showed ornaments inlaid in ivory or mother-of-pearl, daintily done by some expert artisan. The boy admired it all, in a silent sort of ecstasy, about as would a rather talented prentice in the studio of a great master painter while the latter might be absent from home. But Kuengolt's quick proposal to have him try his marksmanship outside in a meadow could not be realized at the time, because the bolts and arrows were locked away in a separate receptacle.

But to make up for that she gave him a fine hunting spear to hold so that he should have a weapon of some kind to take along into the greenwoods. Near the house she showed him a hedged-in s.p.a.ce full of deer and game, in which the town constantly kept its reserve of stock, so that at no time there should be lack of venison and other fine roasts for public or private banquets. The girl coaxed several roes and stags to come to her at the hedge, and this was astonishing to Dietegen, for so far he had seen such animals only when dead. With his spear, therefore, he stood attentive, his eyes fixed on these pretty denizens of the woods, and could not get his fill of watching them.

Eagerly he held out his hand to fondle a finely antlered stag, and when the latter shyly bounded aside and leisurely trotted off, the boy scurried after him with a joyous halloo, and ran and jumped with the animal around in a wide circle. It was perhaps the first time in his life that he could use his young limbs in this way, and when he felt how his tendons stretched with the violent exercise and how he was able to race with the swift stag, the latter apparently taking as much pleasure in the sport as Dietegen himself, a feeling of untried strength and agility first woke within him.

But as they later on stepped into the domain of the deep forest, high up on the hill, the boy resumed once more his usual air of thoughtful quiet and deliberation. Up there mighty trees grew closer together, leaving hardly a fragment of sky to discover from below--tall pine and gnarled oak, spreading lindens, beeches, maple and spruce, all growing in a semidarkness where the sunlight seldom pierced. Red squirrels glided spectrelike from trunk to trunk, woodp.e.c.k.e.rs hammered incessantly for their fare, high up birds of prey shrilly pursued their quarry in the open, and a thousand forest mysteries were dimly at work.

Below, in the dense underbrush, hares and foxes, deer and smaller game were waging war, and song birds twittered or warbled in a chorus of multiform sound. Kuengolt laughed and laughed because the boy knew nothing of all these secret doings in the forest, although he had grown up in a mountain fastness surrounded by the very life of the woods, but she at once began to explain to him these things of which he was so profoundly ignorant. She showed him the hawk and his nest, the cuckoo in his retreat, and the gay-clad woodp.e.c.k.e.r as he was just clambering up a thick trunk with bark promising him rich harvest. And about all these things he was highly amazed, and wondered that trees and bushes should bear so many names, and that each should differ from the next.

For he had not even known the hazelnut bush or the whortleberry in their haunts. They came to a rushing brook, and disturbed by their steps, a snake made off into the water, and the girl seized the spear in the boy's hand and wanted to stick it into the rocky nook. But when Dietegen saw that she was going to blunt or break the edge of the finely tempered weapon, he at once took it out of her fingers, saying that she might damage the spear.

"That is well done," suddenly came the voice of the chief forester, his patron; "you will prove a help to me." With a gamekeeper he stood behind the two children. For the noise of the rushing water had drowned in their ears all other noise. The gamekeeper bore in his hand a woodc.o.c.k, just shot, for the two had gone forth early in the morning.

Dietegen was permitted to hang the stately bird to the tip of his spear, flinging it over his shoulder, so that the spread wings of the bird enveloped him, and the forester gazed with approval upon the handsome youngster, and made up his mind to make an all-around woodsman of him.

Just now, though, he was to learn somewhat the difficult arts of reading and writing, and for that purpose was obliged to walk every day to town with the little girl; there in a convent and in a monastery the two were taught as much of these mysteries as seemed good for them. But his chief lessons Dietegen had from the little girl herself when coming and going from town, Kuengolt delighting in informing him as to all that was going on in the world, so far at least as she herself knew, and more particularly as to the ordinary things of life, as to which Dietegen had been left in deplorable ignorance by his former taskmaster, the beadle.

But the little instructress was in her way a ruthless practical joker, and followed a unique method of her own in teaching the boy. She exaggerated, distorted or plainly misstated the facts as to most things in talking to her pupil, and abused grossly the credulity and trustfulness of the boy, merely for her amus.e.m.e.nt, and she did this as to most things. In this she showed a wonderful gift of invention, an exuberant fancy of the rarest. When Dietegen then had accepted her fictions, and would perhaps express his wonder at them, she would shame him with the cool statement that not a single word had been true. She would scornfully blame him for believing such palpable untruths, and then, with a show of infinite wisdom, she would tell him the real facts. Then he would redden under her sarcastic remarks, and would endeavor to avoid her pitfalls, but only until she saw fit to make sport of him once more. However, in the course of time Dietegen's powers of judging facts began to widen, and he ceased to be so gullible, and this another boy who attempted to emulate Kuengolt's example found out to his sorrow. For Dietegen simply slapped his face when he came out with a particularly outrageous whopper.

Kuengolt, rather taken aback at witnessing this castigation, was curious to ascertain whether this wrath under given circ.u.mstances would also turn against herself. She made a test on the spot, feeding him with some of her choicest fairy tales. But from her he accepted everything without a murmur, and so she continued her peculiar method of instruction. At last, though, she discovered that he had acquired enough independence of thought and a large enough stock of knowledge to enable him to play with her himself. He would answer her inventions with counterinventions, and would argue from her nonsensical statements in such shrewd fashion as to turn her first doctrines into ridicule, and he would do this in perfect good-nature, proving the untenableness of her own theories. Then she came to the conclusion that it was time to give up her nonsense. But in place of that amus.e.m.e.nt she now indulged in another. Namely, she began to tyrannize over him most unmercifully. It grew so that it was almost worse than things had been with the beadle's wife. His servitude was deplorable. She made him fetch and carry during all his spare time. He had to haul and hoist and labor for her in a truly ridiculous manner. She constantly required his presence about her; he had to bring her water, shake the trees, dig in the garden, crack open nuts after getting them for her, hold her little basket, and even to brush and comb her hair she wanted to train him--only that is where he drew a line. But then he was scolded by her for refusing this, and when her mother took sides against her she became quite obstreperous with the latter as well.

But Dietegen did not pay her back in her own coin, never lost his patience with her, and was always equally submissive and indulgent with her. Her mother saw that with vast pleasure, and to reward him for his fine conduct she treated the boy like her own son, and gave him all those finer hints and that almost imperceptible guidance and advice which else are only saved for children of one's own, and by means of which children finally acquire without knowing it those habits and better manners which are commonly comprised under the name of a careful education. Of course, she herself gained in a way from this; for her own daughter thus acquired unconsciously many of her lessons, Dietegen being there as a sort of mirror of what was expected of her. Truly, it was almost comical how little Kuengolt in her restless temperament veered and shifted constantly between imitating her better model or else becoming jealous and wroth and scorning it for the time. On one occasion she became so excited as to stab at him with all her might with a sharp pair of scissors. But Dietegen caught her wrist quickly, and without hurting her or showing any anger he made her drop them.

This little scene which her mother had espied from a hiding-place, moved the latter so strongly that she came forth, took the boy in her arms, and kissed him. Pale and excited the girl herself left the room with out a word. "Go, follow her, my son," whispered the mother, "and reconcile her. You are her good angel."

Dietegen did as bidden. He found her behind the house and under a lilac bush. She was weeping wildly and tearing her amber necklace, trying, in fact, to throttle herself by means of it, and stamping on the scattered beads on the ground. When Dietegen approached her and wanted to seize her hands, she cried with a great sob: "n.o.body but I may kiss you. For you belong to me alone. You are mine, my property. I alone have freed you from that horrid coffin, in which without me you would have remained forever."

As the boy grew up marvelously, becoming handsomer and more manly with every day, the forester declared at breakfast one morning that the time was now ripe to take him along into the woods and let him learn the difficult craft of the huntsman. Thus he was taken from the side of Kuengolt, and spent now all his time, from dawn until nightfall, with the men, in forest, moor and heath. And now indeed his limbs began to stretch that it was a pleasure to watch him. Swift and limber like a stag, he obeyed each word or hint, and ran whither he was sent. Silent and docile, he was forever where wanted; carried weapons and tackle, gear and utensils, helped spread the nets, leaped across trenches and mora.s.s, and spied out the whereabouts of the game. Soon he knew the tracks of all the animals, knew how to imitate the call of the birds, and before any one expected it, he had a young wildboar run into his spear. Now, too, the forester gave him a crossbow. With it he was every day, every hour almost, exercising his skill, aiming at the target, shooting at living objects as well. In a word, when Dietegen was but sixteen, he was already an expert woodsman who might be placed anywhere, and it would happen now and then that his patron sent him out with a number of his men to guard the munic.i.p.al woods and head the chase.

Dietegen, therefore, might be seen not alone with the crossbow on his back, but also with pen and ink-horn in his girdle upon the mountain side, and with his keen watchful eyes and his unfailing memory he was a great help to his fosterfather. And since with every day he became more reliable and useful, the master forester learned to love him better all along, and used to say that the boy must in the end become a full-fledged, an honorable and martial citizen.

It could under these circ.u.mstances not be otherwise than that Dietegen on his part was devoted soul and body to the forester. For there is no attachment like that of the youth for the mature man of whom he knows that he is doing his best to teach him all the secrets of his craft, and whom he holds to be his unapproached model.

The chief forester was a man of about forty; tall and well-built, with broad shoulders and of handsome appearance and n.o.ble carriage. His hair of golden sheen was already lightly sprinkled with silver, but his complexion was ruddy, and his blue eyes shone frank, open and full of fire. In his younger days, too, he had been among the wildest and merriest of Seldwyla's choice spirits, and many were the quaint and original quips he had perpetrated at that time of his life. But when he had won his young wife, he altered instantly, and since then he had been the soberest and the most sensible man in the world. For his dear wife was of a most delicate habit, and of a kindness of heart that could not defend itself, and although by no means without a spirit and a wit of her own, she would have been unable to meet unkindness with a sharp tongue. A wife of ready wit and pugnacity would probably have spurred this naturally sprightly man on to further doings, but in contest with the graceful feebleness of this delicate wife of his he behaved like the truly strong. He watched over her as over the apple of his eye, did only those things which gave her pleasure, and after his busy day's work remained gladly at his own hearth.

At the most important festivities of the town only, three or four times a year, he went among the councilmen and other citizens, led them with his fresh vigor in deliberation and at the festive board, and after drinking one after the other of the great guzzlers under the table, he would, as the last of the doughty champions, rise upright from his seat, stride quietly out of the council chamber, and then with a jolly smile walk uphill to his forest home.

But the chief comedy would always come the next day. For then he would waken, after all, with a head that hummed like a beehive, and then he would rouse himself fully, half morosely, half with a leonine jovial humor that indeed had the dimensions of a lion when compared with the proverbial distemper of the average toper. Early he would then show up at breakfast, the sun shining with strength upon his naked scalp, and ignoring his symptoms, he would jest and make fun of himself and his achievements of the previous night. His wife, then, always hungering after her husband's humor, he being usually rather reticent, would then answer his sallies with a merry laughter, so bell-like and wholesouled as one would never have suspected in a being so demure as she. His children would laugh, also his gamekeepers and huntsmen, and lastly his servants. And in that way the whole day would pa.s.s. Everything that day would be done with a bright smile and a salvo of hearty laughter. And always the chief forester leading them all, handling his axe, lifting heavy weights, doing the work of three ordinary men. On such a day it was once that fire broke out in the town. High above burning roofs a poor old woman, in her frail wooden balcony, forgotten and disregarded, was shrilly crying and moaning for help from a fiery death, and above her shoulder her tame starling went through the drollest of antics, likewise claiming attention. n.o.body could think of a way to save mistress and bird. The flames came nearer and ever nearer. But our chief forester climbed up to a protruding coping on a high wall facing the old woman's nook, a spot where he stood like a rock. Then with herculean strength he pulled up a long ladder to him, turned it over and balanced it neatly until it touched the window where the old hag was struggling for breath. He placed it securely within the opening, on the sill, and then he strode across it, firm and unafraid, back and forth, carrying the ancient woman safely across his shoulder, and the stuttering starling on his head, the greedily licking flames and the swirling clouds of smoke beneath his feet. And all this he did, not by any means in a heroic pose, as something dangerous or praiseworthy, but as though it were a harmless joke, smiling and laughing.

After a solid piece of work of that kind he would feast with his family in jolly style, dishing up the best the house afforded. And at such times he always was particularly tender to his wife, taking her on his knee, to the great amus.e.m.e.nt of the children, and dubbing her his "little whitebird," and his "swallow," and she, her arms clasped in pleasurable self-forgetfulness, would laughingly watch his antics.

On a day like that, too, he once arranged for a dance, it being the first of May. He had a musician fetched from town, and got likewise some merry young folks to increase the sport. And there was dancing aplenty on the smooth greensward in front of the house, right under the blooming trees, and dainty dancing it was. The chief forester opened the merriment with his smiling young wife, she in her modest finery and with her girlish shape. As they made the first steps, she looked over her shoulder at the youngsters, happy as could be, and tipping her foot on the green sod, impatient to be off. Just then Dietegen, who for much of the time past had kept to the men entirely, threw a glance at Kuengolt, and lo! he saw that she also was growing up to be a handsome woman, as pretty a picture as her mother. Her features indeed strongly resembled those of her mother, small, regular and charming. But in her figure she took more after her father, for she was trimly built like a straight young pine, and although but fourteen her bosom was already rounded like that of a grown-up damsel. Golden curls fell in a shower down her back and hid the somewhat angular shoulderblades. She was clad all in green, wore around her neck her amber beads, and on her head, according to the fashion of those days, a wreath of rosebuds. Her eyes shone pleasantly and frankly from a guileless face, but once in a while they would flash wilfully and glide casually over the row of youths whose eyes hung on her youthful beauty, with a slightly critical bent, and at last rest for an instant on Dietegen, then turn away again.

Dietegen looked as though hungering for recognition, but she only once more glanced back at him. But that glance seemed to have somewhat embarra.s.sed her, for she stopped to arrange her hair, while he flushed deeply.

That indeed was the first time when they two felt they were no longer mere children. But a few minutes later they met and found themselves partners in a country dance, hand in hand. A new and sweet sensation pulsed through his veins, and this remained even after the ring of dancers had again been broken.

Kuengolt, however, had still the same feeling regarding him; she looked upon the youth as upon something all her own, as something belonging to her, and of which, therefore, one may be sure and need not guard closely. Only once in a while she would send a spying glance in his direction, and when accident would bring him into the close neighborhood of another maiden, there would also be Kuengolt watching him.

Thus innocent pleasure reigned until an advanced hour of the evening.

The young people became as sprightly as new-fledged wood pigeons, and soon even excelled in their merry humor their bounteous host, and the latter on his part delighted to pleasure his amiable young wife, while soberly encouraging his youthful guests in amusing themselves. She, the wife, was serene and happy as sunlight in springtime. And she even became playful enough to call her brawny husband by intimate nicknames.

But harmless and decorous as all this was, it may be that the citizens of other towns where merriment was not the natural birthright, as in the case of the Seldwylians, would have deemed it a trifle beyond the proper limits. The spiced May wine which was served the guests had been mingled in its elements according to ancient usage, but just as in their joy itself there was a bit too much license, so also there was a trifle too much honey in the drink. The hands of the young girls lay perhaps somewhat too frequently upon the shoulders of the youths, and now and then, without meaning any harm, a couple would quickly kiss and part, and this without playing at blind man's buff, as do the philistines of our days under similar conditions. In short, what these young people of Seldwyla lacked in their diversion was the gift of attracting without seeming to; but with this gift, on the other hand, Dietegen, as a regulation Ruechensteiner, was plentifully endowed. For although he was already in love, he fled like fire from the fondling and caressing which with these Seldwyla couples was by now rather freely indulged in, and preferred to keep himself out of the danger line. All the bolder and provoking was Kuengolt who, in her childish ignorance and after the manner of half-grown girls, did not know how to control her affections, and who went to look up the frigid youth. She discovered him seated in the shadow of a group of darksome trees, and sat down beside him, seizing his hand and playfully twining his fingers. When he submitted to that and even, gently and almost in a fatherly way, spun her ringlets in his palm, the girl at once put her arms around his neck and caressed him with the innocence but also with the abandon of a child, whereas in truth it was already the maiden that spoke out of her. Dietegen, however, no longer a child, essayed to use his maturer judgment for both of them, and thus was strenuously trying to loosen her hold on him, when his fostermother, the chief forester's wife, came joyously running up to the bench, and noticed with particular pleasure how matters stood apparently.

"That is right," she cried, "that you, too, are of accord," and she embraced them both tightly. "I hope and trust, my dearest daughter, that you will love and cherish Dietegen with all your might. He is deserving indeed, my child, that he not only has found a new home in our house, but that you, too, will give him a home in your little heart. And you, dear Dietegen, will, I know, at all times be a true and faithful protector and guardian to my little Kuengolt. Never leave her out of your sight, for your eyes are keen and observant."

"He is n.o.body's but mine, and has been for long," said Kuengolt to this, and she kissed him boldly and lightly upon the cheek, half like a bride and half as a child caresses a kitten which belongs to it. But now the situation for the poor bashful youth, thus hemmed in between mother and daughter, became unbearable, and he flushed and awkwardly loosened their combined hold of him, stepping back a few paces to escape their blandishments. But Kuengolt, in her wilful mood, pursued him laughing, and when in his retreat from her he came into close proximity to the pretty mother, the latter jestingly caught him by the arm, saying: "Here he is, my little daughter, now come and hold him fast."

When thus entrapped anew by them, his heart beat excitedly, and while finding himself thus wooed, so to speak, by both feminine tempters, he at the same time felt intensely his lonesome condition in the world.

The odd conceit overcame him that he was a lost soul shaken from the tree of life, which while cherished by soft hands, was nevertheless to be forever deprived of its own existence and individuality, a state of mind which with callow youths thus beset may be more frequent than commonly supposed. Therefore, a prey to two conflicting emotions equally powerful, of which one necessarily excluded the other, his strong sense of personal freedom struggling within his breast with the new-born sentiment of tender regard, he stood mute and trembling, half in rebellion against the sudden intimate aggression of the two women, and half strongly inclined to draw the young girl into his arms and to overwhelm her with caresses. His Ruechenstein blood was against him.

While he loved the mother with a wholesouled and most grateful devotion, her thoughtless encouragement of him to play a lover's part towards her daughter seemed to him strange and unbecoming. He looked upon himself as really Kuengolt's property, as truly belonging to her by reason of her having saved his forfeited life. But at the same time he felt himself seriously responsible for her moral conduct, for her maiden chast.i.ty and her correct manners, and when now Kuengolt strove to kiss him on the mouth, he said to her, in perfect good humor but withal in the tone of a crabbed schoolmaster: "You are really still too young for things of that kind. This is not suitable for your age."

At these words the girl paled with shame and annoyance. Without another syllable she turned away and joined once more the throng of merrymakers, where she danced and sprang about recklessly a few times, and then sat down a little distance away by herself, with a face that betrayed clearly how hurt she was at the rebuff.

The chief forester's wife smilingly stroked the strict young moralist's cheek, saying: "Well, well, you are certainly very strict. But the more faithfully you will one day take care of my child. Give me your promise never to desert her! Only don't forget, we Seldwyla folk are all of us rather gay and debonair, and it is possible that in being so we sometimes do not think enough of the future."

Dietegen's eyes grew wet, and he gave her his hand in solemn vow. Then she conducted him back to the others. But Kuengolt turned her back on him, and instead in real grief gazed into the mild May night.

He on his part now marveled at himself. Strange, now of a sudden this girl whom but a minute before he had misnomed a mere child, was old and grown-up enough to cause him, the moralizing youth, love pangs. For sad and confused he too stood now aside and felt still more ashamed than the girl herself.

"What ails you? Why do you look so sorrowful?" asked the forester, when he in the best humor in the world now approached the group. But Kuengolt at the question broke into pa.s.sionate tears, and exclaimed before everybody: "He was a gift to me by the judges when he was really nothing but a poor lifeless corpse, and I have reawakened him to life.

And therefore he has no right to sit in judgment on me, but rather I alone am his judge. And he must do everything I want, and when I love to kiss him it is his business to simply keep still and let me do it."

They all laughed at this odd statement, but the mother took Dietegen's hand and led him to the child, saying: "Come, make up with her and let her kiss you once more. Later on you, also, shall be her master, and shall do as you see fit in such matters."

Blushing deeply because of the many onlookers, Dietegen offered his mouth to the girl, and she seized him by his curls, quite in a frenzy, and kissed him hard, more in wrath than in love, and then, having once more thrown him a look that betrayed anger, she quickly turned on her heels and dashed away in such haste that her golden ringlets fluttered in the night air and in pa.s.sing brushed his face.

But now the reluctant fire of love had also been kindled in his own young soul, and soon after he left the throng and went in search of rash Kuengolt, striding rapidly and gazing all about for her. At last he discovered her on the other side of the house where she sat dreamily at the well, and was playing with the amber beads of her necklace.

Advancing quickly he seized both her hands, compressed them in his vigorous right, and then laid his left on her shoulder so that she shuddered, and said: "Listen, child, I shall not permit you to trifle with me. From to-day on you are just as much my own property as I am yours, and no other man shall have you living. Keep that in mind when some day you will be grown up."

"Oh, you big old man," she murmured slowly and smiled at him, but pallor had overspread her features. "You indeed are mine, but not I yours. However, you need not mind that, because I don't think I'll ever let you go!"

So saying she rose and went, without first looking at her old playfellow once more, over to the other side of the house.

But this was not all. The forester's wife caught a cold in the suddenly chilled air of this very May night, and an insidious disease grew out of it which carried her off within a few months. On her deathbed she grieved much about her husband and her child, and expressed great anxiety on their behalf. She also denied till her last breath the real cause of her illness and death, deeming it scarcely a fit thing for a housewife and a mother to thus go out of life merely because of a surfeit of riotous pleasure.

But while she thus lay lifeless in the house, all that had loved her mourned for her; indeed the whole town did so, for she had not had a single enemy in the world. Her widowed husband wept at night in his bed, and at daytime he spoke never a word, but only from time to time stepped up to the coffin in which she lay so still and peaceful, looking and looking at his sweet partner, and then, shaking his head, slowly walking off again.

He had a heavy wreath of young pine twigs fashioned for her and placed it on the bier. Kuengolt heaped a perfect mountain of wildflowers on top of that, and thus the graceful form of the dead was borne down from the hillside to the church below, followed by the bereaved family and a crowd of relatives, friends and members of the household.

After the burial the chief forester took all the mourners to the tavern, where he had caused a bounteous meal in honor of the dead to be prepared, according to ancient custom. The roast venison for it, a capital roebuck, and two fine grouse, he had shot himself, grieving all the while at the loss he had sustained. And when the gorgeously feathered birds now appeared on the long board he minded him again of the dense grove of mighty oak and maple, high up on the mountain side, in which she had sat awaiting his return from the chase, and in which he, his heart full of love of her who now rested in the cool ground, had many a time been stalking the deer. The image of her stood before his thoughts like life itself. But yet he was not to be left long to brooding, for strict laws of custom called for his active services as host on this occasion. When the claret from France and the golden malmsey had been uncorked and poured into capacious goblets, and the heavy table been loaded with sweets and cakes that scented the precious spices from the Indies, the guests grew lively and clamorous, and he had to propose and answer many a toast, despite his sincere mourning, and the noise soon drowned the still voice within him. Life and death were twin brothers in those days of our forbears.

The forester was seated at table between Kuengolt and Dietegen, and these two because of his tall and broad-backed person were unable to catch a look of one another save by bending over or behind him, and this neither of them wished to do for decency's sake, for they were the only ones who among this crowd of buzzing guests remained sad and serious. Across the board from him sat a cousin, a lady of about thirty named Violande.

This lady indeed could not well be overlooked, for she wore a singular costume, one which did not seem fit for a person satisfied with her lot, a person living in happy circ.u.mstances, but rather one who is restless and hollow of heart. Yet she was handsome, and knew well how to impress people with her charms, but ever and anon something selfish and mendacious would flash out of her handsome eyes that destroyed all these efforts at enforced amiability.

When but fourteen she had already been in love with the forester, her cousin, merely because amongst those young men that came before her vision he was the best-looking and the tallest and strongest. He, however, had never noticed the preference shown for him. Indeed he had not given a thought to this overyoung cousin of his, since his serious choice lay altogether among the more adult persons of the other s.e.x, and wavered among several of these. Full of envy and jealousy, this unmature cousin, though, was already so skilled in feminine intrigue as to be able to destroy the chances of two or three young women that the forester had looked upon with favor, using for that purpose that poisonous weapon, gossip and backbiting. Always when he was on the point of proposing to a beauty that had won his regard, this sly half-woman skillfully understood how to spread rumors calculated to entangle the two, fict.i.tious words uttered by one or the other seeming to show mutual dislike, or something equally efficacious in bringing about a rupture. If her designs miscarried with him, why then she spun her threads so as to make the other believe that the swain was false or fickle, full of guile or not dependable. Thus it came to pa.s.s repeatedly that without his ever discovering the author the lady of his suit would suddenly swerve and leave him out in the cold, while another, of whom he had never thought in that connection, would as quickly show him her favor--all owing to the arts of this Macchiavell in petticoats. And then impatiently and disgustedly he would turn his back on both the willing and the unwilling and plunge once more for a spell into his easy bachelordom. In this way it was that, one after the other, all his wooings came to nought, until he at last happened to meet the mild and amiable lady that subsequently became his spouse.

This one, though, kept hold of him, since she was just as guileless as he himself, and all the artifices and stratagems of the little witch were in vain. Yea, she never even noticed the other's cleverest schemes, simply because she kept her eyes all the time fixed upon him she loved. And indeed he too had been grateful to her for her singlemindedness, and held her all the years of their happy union as a jewel of rare price.