The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries Volume Xix Part 54

The morning was warm, for it was summer, and the sunlight was already flooding the meadow from which the young man was approaching. He was barefooted, like the Alpine peasants, indeed he had been used to run barefooted as a child. His well worn trousers were turned up above his ankles, and his shirt sleeves were rolled up nearly to his elbows. He came forward with a light, swaying step, dressed only in shirt and trousers. Everything about him seemed as fresh and free as the morning.

"Heavens and earth!" said Simmen.

Fausch did not pause in his work. Only once he looked quickly, almost secretly at the lad who was approaching.

"That's a fine looking boy of yours, Fausch," Simmen went on.

The smith muttered something or other. As he kept on driving nails into the horseshoe, no one would have suspected that his breath was coming faster and that Simmen's praise had aroused in him a wild joy, that seemed to be set free for the first time. Just so--with his heart beating stormily--had he gone to see Maria, in the old days when they had given their promise to each other.

Cain now reached the workshop, and said, as he pa.s.sed, "Good morning!"

"Good morning!" answered Simmen, and turned to Fausch: "What is the boy's name?"

The smith looked up with a sullen expression and was so slow in answering, that it seemed as if he first had to recollect himself, and then as if the words stuck in his throat: "The boy's name is Franz." At this very moment his stubbornness almost got the upper hand of him, and as Cain, who had carried the milk to the house, came quickly back, Fausch's hands itched to take hold of him, and show him to the landlord and say: "His name is Cain. I chose and I still choose that he should bear that name." The inner conflict in Stephen Fausch was not yet ended.

From the tavern, a voice now called to the landlord, just as Fausch was finishing his work. Simmen started to go, but the girl who had called him came out in front of the tavern, looked over toward him and then walked toward the shop, as if she were curious; so then the landlord beckoned her to come over to them.

"I want you to see my child, smith," said he, "the only one, and a tardy blossom. It had seemed as if the house would always be empty." He put his arm around the shoulders of the fifteen-year-old girl, who had approached, and pushed her toward Fausch.

The stable boy was now leading the two horses away. Just then Cain came to call Fausch to breakfast.

The girl gave her firm brown hand to the smith. "Good morning!" said she.

"There is some one else too, Vincenza," said the landlord, and pointed to Cain, and the child, without any timidity, laughed and gave her hand to the boy also.

"His name is Franz," said her father.

"Good morning, Franz!" said Vincenza.

"You look like a negress beside the boy," laughed Simmen, and placed the girl close beside Cain. Her deep black, curly hair was braided and wound around her head, which reached to Cain's shoulder. She had a brown complexion, brilliant black eyes and handsome features of the Italian type. When she laughed at what her father said, her white teeth flashed, and the whites of her eyes too, producing a curious and striking effect between the brown skin and the black pupils.

"She is an Italian," said Simmen, "she looks like her mother."

It was curious how Cain's almost feminine and yet fair and strong beauty came out by contrast with the other three people.

As the girl, Vincenza, immediately turned away with Simmen, she looked back at the boy more than once; she had never seen any one like him.

Stephen Fausch was still busy in and around the workshop, and Cain stood near by. His eyes were full of careless joy, and his chest expanded. Once he began to sing. Then he reminded his father once more: "Come now, the milk is waiting."

As they were about to enter the house, through the open door which was near the workshop, the boy once more looked about over the distant view. "It is beautiful here," said he. And Stephen Fausch did the same, only he did not speak; his words were too costly. Then they went into the house together.

From this morning on they began to feel at home without the least difficulty. Fausch found plenty of work. At the hospice there was an almost incessant coming and going of travelers on foot or in wagons, traders and trains of pack horses or mules. Many of them needed the smith's help for their animals or their wagons. By some strange chance, no acquaintance came along the road for a great while. Even Hallheimer did not come, and just as both Simmen and Fausch began to wonder at his absence, the smith got a letter saying that the trader was confined to the house by a severe illness, so that not only had he been unable to make his usual trips to Italy, but the smithy at Waltheim was still unsold, because he had been unable to attend to such business. But because no familiar face reminded them of the old days at Waltheim, the memory of what had driven them away from there faded imperceptibly from Fausch's mind as well as from the boy's. Cain heard no more scornful speeches or mysterious whispers. And so he quite outgrew the bashfulness that had clung to him formerly; he went about freely, holding up his head, and some song was always on his lips. But Fausch too was probably pa.s.sing the most peaceful days that had fallen to his lot in all his life. He was rejoiced that there was no one here, who knew about his boy's name and origin, though, indeed, he did not admit this even to himself, but still stammered over Cain's new name, and every time had, as it were, to drag it out by force. But more than all, it was the wonderful beauty of the high mountain country, that made them both feel that the change they had made was a happy one. "I always wanted to see it once," said the taciturn smith. He and Cain loved to go out in front of the house, or wander down through the meadows, or sit on some rock, to marvel over the beauty in the midst of which they lived. The wonder was ever new, in the early morning, before the dawn glimmered in the east, in the brilliancy of noon, at sunset, when the mountains and the heavens were all aflame, and in the night, when no sound broke the silence and the sky was full of stars. At these times they did not talk, but they drew great deep breaths, and felt such joy merely in living, that the two unspoiled men were almost without a wish.

All day long Cain helped his father in the shop; but when, at Simmen's wish, the smith took an apprentice, Cain had more free time and could help Katharine, who was no longer very strong, or else he was called on by Simmen for all sorts of services. He was both skilful and quick, and in dealing with people he had a ready, almost fine manner, for which also Katharine deserved credit, for no matter how weak and tremulous her hands had grown, she still kept control of the boy. The hospice tavern, this summer, was surprisingly full of life. The guests came in such numbers that often the four large, ground floor rooms could not accommodate them all. Thus it often happened, and as his usefulness came to be known, daily, that little Vincenza would come running to the workshop: "Come, Franz, you must help us."

Then the boy would get rid of the dust of the shop, put on clean clothes, and would soon be up at the tavern, and it did not take long to teach him. He was soon able to move about among the tables and wait on the guests just as the maids, the host and his wife and the slender Vincenza did. It was a pleasure to see Franz and the others at work; they seemed to turn everything off so easily. The landlord's wife was a very tall woman, nearly a head taller than her husband; she was pale, with clear-cut features, and black hair and eyebrows. She had a sharp, decided manner, and if she went to manage matters in the room where the servants and common people, tradesmen and apprentices were, where it was often noisy and not always peaceful, she did not need any masculine intervention, to maintain order among the turbulent folk. Simmen, in spite of his rather unwieldy figure, was active and quick, and took hold himself, when there was too much for the maids to do, and helped to bring in the food and drink. But Vincenza and Cain moved swiftly and easily among the guests who crowded the rooms, were now here, now there, and their work and their pleasure in their work gave them rosy cheeks and brightly flashing eyes. It soon appeared that in the special dining room, where those of the upper cla.s.ses sat, and where Simmen, who had a keen eye for the rank of his guests, always brought the more important travelers, these guests took especial pleasure in the two young people, and gradually Simmen told them to devote their whole attention to the service of this room. Many eyes were fixed upon them.

They received many friendly nods and kind words, and because they enjoyed all this together, they quite unconsciously came to feel that they belonged together, and this feeling was not confined to their work in the guests' rooms. They began to stand talking together after their work was done, then one day Vincenza ran over to see Katharine, with whom she was growing quite friendly. A few days later Cain brought her a book, that he had kept since his own school days. But when he saw that she was but little accustomed to reading, and therefore could not rightly enjoy what she read, he asked her to come with him that evening, which was a Sunday, to the meadow behind the old monastery; there he sat with her, leaning against one of the many blocks of stone, and read to her. She was so delighted, that she would not let him stop until he had read her story after story, and it grew so dark that he could no longer make out the letters. Then the young girl, who was usually impetuous and far from serious, looked very dreamy, and said, drawing a long breath: "You read beautifully."

And that was true. Cain's voice had a deep, full tone, that was excellent in reading as well as in singing.

Thus their friendship grew day by day, and this was scarcely surprising, since they were the two youngest people on the mountain, in fact the only young people.

When the summer gave way to autumn, there was less travel over the mountain road, although it never ceased entirely, even in the deepest winter, and there were many hours in which Cain and the young girl could well be spared, or thought they could. They began to wander about the mountains together. Vincenza acted as the guide, for she had climbed about everywhere with the goatherds when she was a child, and knew the way. Hand in hand, singing lightheartedly in the pure, early morning they would climb some green slope, or clamber over rocks and boulders to the snow near by, or they would wander to a dark valley not far away, where a third lake lay quite inclosed by steep rocky walls, and known to very few people in all the world. Simmen kept a boat on this lake, a homely old thing with only one oar. When Vincenza brought Cain over here one day, he was much excited and' thought that he had never in his life seen anything so beautiful as this water and the perfect stillness that brooded over it, and he would go to see it again and again, whenever he had time enough. Vincenza always went with him.

One Sunday afternoon they both found their way to the lake once more.

It was Vincenza's sixteenth birthday.

At the north entrance to the mountain pa.s.s they turned off from the main road into a little rough stony path, on one side of which was a swift mountain stream, on the other a high rocky wall, and then the path disappeared in the dark valley of this black lake, like a snake creeping in among the stones. They soon reached the broad, unpainted boat, whose rusty chain was pa.s.sed around a rock on the bank. Cain stepped in, took the oar and pushed the bow of the boat further up on the bank, so that Vincenza could get in more easily. With a quick spring she jumped in and sat down on the movable seat that was laid across the boat. Cain stood in the stern and dipped his old weather-beaten oar slowly and quietly. Imperceptibly they slid away from the sh.o.r.e. The water was black, and as smooth and still as if no breath of wind could find its way into the walled valley. The dark walls of the bank descended abruptly to the lake, and only here and there lay a gentler slope of the mountain, but even such spots were desolate and strewn with rocky debris, and the valley had no outlet excepting the way by which Cain and Vincenza had entered. The lake was as dark and still as night, but now a bit of sky, as large and still as the water, lay above it and lent the lake its beauty. It rested on the dark and jagged mountains that dipped their feet in the water, and every change of light and shade and color in the sky was mirrored in the lake.

The late afternoon was clear, and beautiful in its deep stillness, as it often is before bad weather comes on, when the storm is drawing a deep, long breath and only the clouds are moving. The clouds mounted silently and solemnly in the west above the black, rocky peaks, now a heavy brown one, that trailed and twisted, and stretched out, till it looked like a bridge reaching from one sky margin to the other, and then rolled together again and fled away to the east just as it had approached from the west--now a thin white one, that flew past like smoke, and then a still more delicate one, that hung like a spider's web in the blue, and suddenly vanished in the midst of the sky, as if the depths had opened to draw it in.

Cain's boat sped over the water, and the play of the clouds in the sky, was all around the boat on the lake.

"Look at the clouds," said Vincenza, pointing to the water.

When they had pushed off from the sh.o.r.e, clear sunshine had been shining over the lake. Now it was quenched, and the shadows always made the valley seem gloomy like night. But all at once the clouds that were sailing over the sky began to glow. The white ones turned to fragments of flying flame, and a mysterious light shone through the dark ones, and bordered them with purple. And the steep and desolate banks and the lake itself glowed with the rosy hue of the clouds. It was almost as if an invisible torchlight procession were climbing upward over one of the mountains or rocky wildernesses, and all the flickering torches cast their light into the lonely valley as they moved onward and upward, step by step.

"It was never so beautiful before," said Vincenza, speaking softly for surprise and reverent joy. "You're on fire, Franz," she added with a smile, that like her voice was almost reverent.

The glow poured over the boat and the two figures in it. Cain had laid aside his workman's blouse and stood in his dark trousers and white shirt. As he sculled, his figure bent forward and back with a great pleasure in the motion, and something like timidity came over Vincenza as she kept on looking at him, and she said hesitatingly: "You are--a handsome fellow--Franz Fausch."

"Shall we sing something?" asked Cain.

Vincenza did not answer, but as he unconsciously began to sing, she joined in with him.

They used often to sing together, when they were climbing some mountain path, but always before their singing had been some gay melody to which their steps kept time, and they had not paid much attention to what they were singing: But now Cain started one song after another, and the boundless silence that surrounded them, carried their voices back to them, in a way that delighted them. At first they sang of their fatherland, then one of the soft Italian songs that Vincenza knew and had taught Cain, and then a home song of longing: "Why, oh why, my heart, this sadness."

Cain sculled quite silently. His voice was like a bell, whose tone rose from the water, and Vincenza's like a little bell, ringing on the mountain, and they found each other, and it was as if they were floating together over the silent lake, further and further, to lose themselves among the rocky mounds beyond.

And so Cain and the young girl had almost reached the further bank which was wholly lost and solitary. Cain drew in his oar and sat down.

"Let's stay here a while," said he, and they drifted contentedly and talked of this and that, and looked down into the lake, and dipped their hands into the ice-cold water and then looked up again at the clouds. Because the motion of the clouds could be better seen from Vincenza's seat, Cain got up and sat beside her in all simplicity. Then they began to interpret the manifold forms of the clouds, and laughed and made fun of each other, when one of them failed to see in the cloud picture what the other seemed to see, and got quite excited when both could plainly see the same thing. By and by a curious picture came floating past, which was composed of two clouds, one narrow and light colored and one smaller and darker, but both clinging together as if an arm held them. They floated upward, now closer together, now almost separating, so that it seemed as if the arm that joined them must be rent in two, but yet it still held fast, and drew them, linked together, far away across the sky. At first they did not know what to make of this. Then Vincenza said: "That is you and I, Franz."

They laughed, and for the first time, they could not look at each other, but gazed almost shyly into the distance. At the same time, each felt the other's presence as something infinitely good and comforting.

Cain playfully stroked the girl's left hand, which lay on the seat, with his right, and she permitted him and looked quietly down before her. They might perhaps have sat so for a long while, if Vincenza had not happened to look toward the entrance to the valley, where something suddenly caught her attention. She looked more carefully. "Isn't that--? Your father is over there, Franz," said she to her companion.

He stood up and recognized Fausch, who was standing close to the sh.o.r.e and looking over toward them. He was not beckoning to them, but yet he looked as if he were waiting for them.

"We must go home," said Cain, and seized the oar. But even now they did not go fast. The darkness that swept down suddenly over the Schwarzsee deepened around them. The ruddy glow was quenched. The lake lay like polished black gla.s.s, and the rocky banks seemed to grow higher.

Stephen Fausch still stood and waited. In the uncertain light his figure seemed to have grown bigger, like the rocks. As the young people approached the bank, he gave them no greeting, but turned away, with his hands in his pockets, and grumbled, as they bid him Good evening: "Where have you been all this time, you two?"

He had on his black, Sunday clothes; but his face had not a Sunday expression. His brow had an angry look.

They stepped out quietly onto the bank, looked at the smith, to see if he was coming with them, then all three started on the homeward road. The night had almost descended upon them before they reached the hospice. During the whole walk they hardly spoke ten words; only Fausch grumbled once, turning to the side where Cain was walking: "Pretty soon we shall not see you all day long."

Vincenza was inwardly angry. What a bull-headed, unfriendly man he was, the smith!

Cain did not know what to make of his father. Was he displeased with something? What could have come over him? He did not know that Stephen Fausch was always looking for him when he was not by. He could not know that the man was hungering for him, perhaps without knowing it himself, and that his restlessness and that strange wild hunger, that his shut-in nature hid under a rough, ill-tempered manner, had today driven him to follow them to the lake.