The Harvard Classics Shelf of Fiction - German Part 16

"Oh, so you would like to kiss me?"

"Yes, even I; but there's no hurry, I know you can't escape. I want to enjoy the antic.i.p.ation a few minutes longer, perhaps five, or six at the most."

"Oh, indeed! Is that the way you repay my confidence in you, and do you really care much about it? Wouldn't you consider a bargain?"

"Not though you spoke with the eloquence of an angel, not for a minute!

There's no way out of it for you to-night, my lady."

"Then I will also make a declaration, my dear sir. If you so much as touch me with the tips of your fingers to-night against my will, it's all over between us and I will never see you again; I swear it by Heaven and my own honor. For I am in earnest."

Her eyes sparkled as she spoke. "That will take care of itself,"

replied Karl, "I'm coming soon now, so keep still."

"Do as you like," said Hermine curtly and was silent.

But whether it was that he thought her capable of keeping her word, or whether he himself did not want her to break her vow, he stayed obediently in his seat and gazed at her with shining eyes, peering to see by the moonlight if the corners of her mouth were not twitching and she were not laughing at him.

"Then I shall have to console myself with the past again and let my memories compensate me," he began after a brief silence; "who would believe that those stern and firmly closed lips knew how to kiss so sweetly years ago!"

"You mean to begin on your shameless inventions again, do you? But let me tell you that I won't listen to such irritating nonsense any longer."

"Be calm! Just this once more we will direct our gaze back to those golden hours and more particularly to the last kiss that you gave me; I remember the circ.u.mstances as clearly and distinctly as if it were to-day, and I am sure that you do too. I was thirteen and you about ten and it was several years since we had kissed each other, for we felt very old and grown-up. But there was to be a pleasant ending after all--or was it the lark, the herald of the morn? It was a beautiful Whitmonday--"

"No, Ascension--" interrupted Hermine, but broke off in the middle of the word.

"You are right, it was a glorious Ascension Day in the month of May and we were on an excursion with a party of young people, we two being the only children among them; you stuck close to the big girls and I to the older boys and we disdained to play with each other or even to talk.

After we had walked hither and yon we sat down in a bright grove of tall trees and began to play forfeits; for evening was coming on and the party did not want to go home without a few kisses. Two of them were condemned to kiss each other with flowers in their mouths without dropping them. After they, and the couple that tried it after them, had failed, you suddenly came running up to me without a trace of embarra.s.sment, with a lily-of-the-valley in your mouth, stuck another between my lips and said, 'Try it!' Sure enough, both blossoms fell to join their sisters on the ground, but, in your eagerness, you kissed me all the same. It felt as if a beautiful, light-winged b.u.t.terfly had alighted, and involuntarily I put up two finger-tips to catch it. The others thought I wanted to wipe my lips and laughed at me."

"Here we are at the sh.o.r.e," said Hermine and jumped out. Then she turned round again pleasantly to Karl.

"Because you sat so still and treated my word with the respect due to it," she said, "I will, if necessary, go out with you again before four weeks have pa.s.sed and will write you a note to say when. That will be the first writing I have ever confided to you."

With that she hurried to the house. Karl rowed rapidly to the public landing so as not to miss the blast of the worthy buglers that pierced the mild air like a jagged razor.

On his way through the street he encountered Ruckstuhl and Sporri who were slightly tipsy; greeting them pleasantly and familiarly, he grasped the former by the arm and began to praise and flatter him.

"What the devil have you been up to again? What new trick have you been planning, you schemer? You're certainly the grandest sharpshooter in the whole canton, in all Switzerland, I _should_ say."

"Thundering guns!" cried Ruckstuhl, highly flattered that someone else besides Sporri should make up to him and compliment him, "it's a shame that we have to turn in so soon. Haven't we time to drink a bottle of good wine together?"

"Sst! We can do that in our room. It's the custom among the sharpshooters anyway to take in the officers, at least once during their service and secretly carouse in their room all night. We're only recruits, but we'll show them that we're worthy of the carbine."

"That would be a great lark! I'll pay for the wine as sure as my name is Ruckstuhl! But we must be sly and crafty as serpents, or we'll do for ourselves."

"Don't worry, we're just the boys for this sort of thing. We'll turn in quite quietly and innocently and make no noise."

When they reached the barracks their room-mates were all in the canteen drinking a night-cap. Karl confided in a few of them, who pa.s.sed the tidings on, and so each of them provided himself with a few bottles which, one after the other, they carried out unnoticed and hid under their cots. In their room they quietly went to bed at ten o'clock to wait till the rounds had been made to see if the lights were out. They then all got up again, hung coats over the windows, lighted the lights, brought out the wine and began a regular drinking bout. Ruckstuhl felt as if he were in paradise, for they all drank to him and toasted him as a great man. His ardent desire to be considered somebody in military as well as in civil life without doing anything to deserve it made him stupider than he naturally was. When he and his henchman seemed to have been put completely out of business, various drinking feats were carried out. One of the men, while standing on his head, had to drink a ladle of wine which someone else held to his lips; another, seated in a chair, with a bullet suspended from the ceiling swinging round his head, had to drink three gla.s.ses before the bullet touched his head; a third had some other trick to perform, and on all who failed some droll penalty was imposed. All this was done in perfect silence; whoever made a noise also did penance, and they were all in their nightshirts so that, if surprised, they could crawl quickly into bed. Now as the time approached when the officer would make his rounds through the corridors, the two friends were also a.s.signed a drinking-feat. Each was to balance a full gla.s.s on the flat of his sword and hold it to the other's mouth and each had to drain the gla.s.s so held without spilling a drop. They drew their short-swords with a swagger and crossed the blades with the gla.s.ses on them; but they trembled so that both gla.s.ses fell off and they did not get a drop. They were, therefore, sentenced to stand guard outside the door, in "undress uniform," for fifteen minutes, and this prank was admiringly said to be the boldest ever carried out in those barracks within the memory of man. Their haversacks and short-swords were hung crosswise over their shirts, they were made to put on their shakoes and blue leggings, but no shoes, and thus, their rifles in their hands, they were led out and posted one on either side of the door. They were scarcely there before the others bolted the door, removed all traces of the carousal, uncovered the windows, put out the lights and slipped into bed as if they had been asleep for hours. In the meantime the two sentries marched up and down in the gleam of the corridor-lamp, their rifles on their shoulders, and looked about them with bold glances. Sporri, filled with bliss because he had been able to get drunk at no expense, grew quite reckless and suddenly began to sing, and that hastened the steps of the officer on duty who was already on the way. As he approached they tried to slip quickly into the room; but they couldn't open the door and before they could think of anything else to do the enemy was upon them. Now everything whirled through their heads in a mad dance. In their confusion each placed himself at his post, presented arms and cried, "Who goes there?"

"In the name of all that's holy, what does this mean? What are you doing there?" cried the officer on duty, but without receiving a sufficient answer, for the two clowns could not get out a sensible word. The officer quickly opened the door and looked into the room, for Karl who had been straining his ears, had hopped hastily out of bed, pushed back the bolt and as hastily hopped in again. When the officer saw that everything was dark and quiet and heard nothing but puffing and snoring, he cried, "Hallo there, men!"

"Go to the devil!" cried Karl, "and get to bed, you drunkards!" The others also pretended that they had been wakened and cried,

"Aren't those beasts in bed yet? Turn them out, call the guard!"

"He's here, I'm he," said the officer, "one of you light a light, quick."

This was done, and when the light fell on the two buffoons peals of laughter came from under all the bedclothes as if the entire company were taken utterly by surprise. Ruckstuhl and Sporri joined crazily in the laughter and marched up and down holding their sides, for their minds had now taken a tack in a different direction. Ruckstuhl repeatedly snapped his fingers in the officer's face and Sporri stuck out his tongue at him. When the derided officer saw that there was nothing to be done with the joyful pair, he took out his pad and wrote down their names. Now, as ill-luck would have it, he happened to live in one of Ruckstuhl's houses and had not yet paid the rent--due at Easter which was just over--it might be because he was not in funds or because he had been too busy while on military duty to attend to it. In any case, Ruckstuhl's evil genius suddenly hit on this fact and, reeling towards the officer, he laughed foolishly and stuttered,

"P-pay your d-debts fir-firsht, m-mister, before you t-ta-take down peo-people's namesh. You know!"

Sporri laughed still louder, lurched and staggered back like a crab and, shaking his head, piped shrilly,

"P-p-pay your d-debts, mister, that-tha-that is well s-said."

"Four of you get up," said the officer quietly, "and take these men to the guard-house, see that they're well locked up at once. In about three days we'll see if they have slept this off yet. Throw their cloaks over their shoulders and let them take their trousers on their arms. March!"

"T-t-t-trousers," shouted Ruckstuhl, "th-that's what we need; there's sh-sh-shtill s-something left to fa-fall out--if-you-shake-them."

"If you sh-sh-shake them, mister," repeated Sporri and both of them swung their trousers about till the coins jingled in the pockets. So they marched off with their escort, laughing and shouting, through the corridors and down the stairs and soon disappeared in a cellar-like room in the bas.e.m.e.nt, whereupon it grew quiet.

The following day at noon. Master Frymann's table was more elaborately set than usual. Hermine filled the cut-gla.s.s decanters with the vintage of '46, put a shining gla.s.s at every place, laid a handsome napkin on every plate, and cut up a fresh loaf from the bakery at the sign of the Hen where they baked an old-fashioned kind of bread for high days and holidays, the delight of all the children in Zurich and of the women who sat gossiping over their afternoon coffee-cups. She also sent an apprentice, dressed in his Sunday best, to the pastry-cook's to fetch the macaroni pie and the coffee cake, and finally she arranged the dessert on a small side table: little curled cookies, and wafers, the pound cake, the little "c.o.c.ked hats," and the conical raisin loaf.

Frymann, pleasantly affected by the beautiful Sunday weather, interpreted his daughter's zeal to mean that she did not intend seriously to resist his plans, and he said to himself with amus.e.m.e.nt, "They're all like that! As soon as an acceptable and definite opportunity offers itself they make haste to seize it by the forelock!"

According to ancient custom Mr. Ruckstuhl was invited for twelve o'clock sharp. When, at a quarter past, he was not yet there, Frymann said,

"We will begin; we must accustom this cavalier to punctuality from the start."

And when the soup was finished and Ruckstuhl had still not arrived the master called in the apprentices and the maidservant who were eating by themselves that day and had already half done, and said to them:

"Sit down and eat with us, we don't want to sit staring at all this food. Pitch in and enjoy yourselves,

'Whoever late to dinner comes Must eat what's left or suck his thumbs.'"

There was no need to ask them a second time, and they were jolly and in good spirits, and Hermine was the merriest of all, and her appet.i.te grew better and better the more annoyed and displeased her father became.

"The fellow seems to be a boor!" he growled to himself, but she heard it and said:

"He probably couldn't get leave; we mustn't judge him too hastily."

"Not get leave! Are you ready to defend him already? Why shouldn't he get leave if he cares anything about it?"

He finished his meal in the worst of humors and, contrary to his habit, went at once to a coffee-house simply that he should not be at home if the negligent suitor should finally come. Towards four o'clock, instead of joining the Seven as usual, he came home again, curious to see whether Ruckstuhl had put in an appearance. As he came through the garden, there sat Mrs. Hediger with Hermine in the summer-house, as it was a warm spring day, and they were drinking coffee and eating the "c.o.c.ked hats" and the raisin loaf and seemed to be in high spirits. He said good afternoon to Mrs. Hediger, and although it annoyed him to see her there, he asked her at once whether she had no news from the barracks, and if all the sharpshooters had not perhaps gone on an excursion.

"I think not," said Mrs. Hediger, "they were at church this morning and afterwards Karl came home to dinner; we had roast mutton and that is a dish he never deserts."

"Did he say nothing about Mr. Ruckstuhl or mention where he had gone?"