The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries Volume Ix Part 7

ANTONY.

What do you mean by that?

LEONARD.

You know how to compose yourself.

ANTONY.

I wear a mill-stone as a cravat sometimes, instead of going to the river with it. That gives one a strong back.

LEONARD.

Let him who can imitate you.

ANTONY.

He who has such a gallant fellow to help him bear it, as I seem to have found in you, ought to be able to dance under the burden. You have grown quite pale. I call that sympathy!

LEONARD.

I hope you don't misunderstand me!

ANTONY.

Certainly not!

[_He drums on a dresser._]

That wood is not transparent, is it?

LEONARD.

I do not understand you!

ANTONY.

How foolish it was of our grandfather Adam to take Eve, when she was naked and dest.i.tute, and did not even bring a fig-leaf with her. We two, you and I, would have scourged her out of Paradise as a tramp! What do you think?

LEONARD.

You are exasperated with your son.--I have come to you regarding your daughter--

ANTONY.

You had better be careful!--Perhaps I'll not say no!

LEONARD.

I hope you will not. And I will tell you what I think: The patriarchs themselves never used to scorn the dowries of their women. Jacob loved Rachel and courted her seven years, but he also liked the fat rams and sheep that he earned in her father's service. That, I think, was not to his discredit, and to outdo him in anything would be to put him to the blush. I should have liked very much to see your daughter bring a couple of hundred thalers with her; and that was quite natural, because she herself would thereby be so much the better off with me. If a girl brings her bed in her trunk, then she will not have to card wool and spin yarn. In this case it will not be so, but what of it? We'll make a Sunday dinner out of Lenten fare, and a Christmas feast out of Sunday's roast. In that way we'll make out all right!

ANTONY (_offers him his hand_).

You talk well, and G.o.d smiles on your words. Well, I will forget that for fourteen days at tea-time my daughter put a cup on the table for you in vain. And now that you are to be my son-in-law, I will tell you where the thousand thalers are!

LEONARD (_aside_).

So they are gone then! Well, I shall not have to go out of my way to please the old werewolf, even if he is my father-in-law!

ANTONY.

Things went hard with me in my early years. I was no more of a bristly hedgehog than you when I came into the world, but I have gradually grown to be one. At first all the quills in my case pointed inward, and people found pleasure in p.r.i.c.king and pinching my soft smooth skin, and were amused to see me flinch when the points penetrated into my very heart and bowels. But the thing did not appeal to me; I turned my skin inside out and then the quills p.r.i.c.ked their fingers and I had peace.

LEONARD (_to himself_).

Safe from the very devil, methinks!

ANTONY.

My father, by not allowing himself any rest day or night, worked himself to death in his thirtieth year, and my mother nourished me as well as she could with her spinning. I grew up without learning anything. When I became larger and was still unable to earn any money, I would gladly have disaccustomed myself to eating; but when now and then at noon I would pretend to be sick and push back my plate, what did it mean? It meant that in the evening my stomach would compel me to announce myself well again! My greatest grief was that I was so unskilled. I used to blame myself for it, as if it were my own fault, as if in my mother's womb I had been supplied with nothing but teeth to eat with, as if I had purposely left behind me there all the useful capabilities and a.s.sets. I used to blush with shame when the sun shone on me. Just after my confirmation the man whom they buried yesterday, Master Gebhard, came into our house. He scowled and made a wry face, as he always used to frown when he had anything good in mind to do. Then he said to my mother: "Did you bring your youngster into the world in order to let him eat the very nose and ears off your head?" I felt ashamed and put the loaf of bread, from which I was just on the point of cutting off a piece, back into the cupboard again. My mother took offense at his well-meant words; she stopped her wheel and replied vehemently that her son was a fine good fellow. "Well, we will see about that," said the Master. "If he wants to, he can come right now, just as he stands there, into my workshop with me. I do not ask any money for teaching him; he will get his board, and his clothes I will also supply; and if he wants to get up early and go to bed late, opportunities will not be wanting for him to earn a little money on the side for his old mother." My mother began to cry and I to dance. When we finally came to an agreement, the Master closed up his ears, walked out, and motioned me to follow. I did not need to put a hat on, for I had none. Without saying good-by to my mother, I went after him. And on the following Sunday, when I was allowed to go back to her little room for the first time, he gave me half a ham to take with me. G.o.d's blessing on the good man's grave! I still hear his half-angry: "Tony, under your coat with it, so my wife won't see it!"

LEONARD.

You are not crying?

ANTONY (_dries his eyes_).

Yes, I can never think of that without its starting the tears, no matter how well the source of them may have been stopped up. Oh well, that's all right! If I should ever get the dropsy, I shall at any rate not have to draw off these drops too.

[_With a sudden turn._]

What do you think about it?--Supposing on a Sunday afternoon you went over to smoke a pipe of tobacco with a friend, a friend to whom you owed everything in the world; and supposing you found him greatly confused and perturbed, a knife in his hand--the same knife you had used a thousand times to cut his evening bread--and holding it, covered with blood, at his neck, and nervously drawing his handkerchief up to his chin--

LEONARD.

And that is the way old Gebhard went about to the end of his days.

ANTONY.

On account of the scar. And supposing you arrived in time to help save him, but to do it you had not only to wrench the knife out of his hand and bandage the wound, but you had also to give over a paltry thousand thalers that you had saved up; and, furthermore, you had to do it all absolutely on the sly, so as to induce the sick man to accept it, what would you do?

LEONARD.

Being a free and single man, without wife and child, I would sacrifice the money.

ANTONY.

And if you had ten wives, like the Turks, and as many children as were promised to Father Abraham, and if you took only one second to think about it, you would be--Well, you are to be my son-in-law! Now you know where the money is. Today I could tell you, for my old Master is buried; a month ago I would have kept the secret even on my death-bed. I slipped the note under the dead man's head before they nailed up the coffin. If I had known how to write, I would have written underneath: "Honestly paid!" But, ignorant as I am, there was nothing for me to do but tear the paper in two. Now he will sleep in peace--and I hope that I shall too, when they stretch me out beside him.