Waldfried Part 20

She returned in the evening, bringing their eldest daughter, whom she intended to keep with her as a companion. A large wagon carrying sofas, rocking-chairs, and all sorts of furniture followed.

Although Annette had intended to lead a quiet and contemplative life, she might have been seen in the village at any hour of the day. She speedily acquainted herself with all of its features. She had, by rearranging the furniture in her own rooms, made them habitable and tasteful, and she now desired to effect a corresponding transformation in the houses of the wood-cutters; but the wives of the well-to-do farmers looked askance. Whenever she met one of the villagers, she would greet him or her politely, and would ask both old and young what they had had for dinner. She insisted that this was the most important of all questions. The people, however, found it great sport to answer her with lies.

She had speedily become attached to the wife of the school-master, but disliked to go to the clergyman's house.

CHAPTER II.

Our clergyman was the son of poor parents. His father had been a beadle. He is without a single spark of genius, but is said to have distinguished himself by great application. He attends to his duties methodically, but in a cold and perfunctory manner. During the summer, he spends much of his time fishing; in the winter, he is almost always at home. He is well-skilled in that game of chess which requires but one player. He lost his father while he was quite young, and in order to be able to aid his mother and his many brothers and sisters, he married a wealthy, but half-witted girl, whom he never cared to take into society. Politics had no attractions for him.

Formerly, if a beggar applied to him for alms he would have him sent up into his room, and would ask him, "What good will it do if I give you that which will only help you for a moment or so? Come and listen"--and he would then read the beggar a sermon, or a chapter out of the Bible.

But, of late years, the beggars had piously avoided his house.

Our school-master, on the other hand, is a clever and wide-awake man.

He, too, had taken part in the political movements of 1848, but when placed on trial was acquitted. Ever since that time, he has held aloof from political affairs. He married a woman who is exceedingly clever, and who brought him some money besides.

The clergyman has no children: the school-master has three--two sons, one of whom is a merchant down by the fortress; the other is a machinist, and resides in America. He is said to have quite a large business. The daughter is the wife of the inspector of roads. The school-master is quite proud that he can say, "If I were to give up my position to-morrow, I could afford to live without work"--a state of affairs to which the skill and economy of his wife has greatly contributed. The couple lead a loving and tranquil life. They are hale and hearty, and, as it often happens when two persons have lived together many years, they have grown to look very much alike. Their garden was filled with teeming flower-beds. Florists from the neighboring watering-places would come daily to purchase flowers, and thus the garden had become a source of considerable profit.

But now that the war had emptied the watering-places, the flowers were left to perish for want of purchasers.

Annette instructed the school-master's wife in the art of drying flowers, and making pretty bouquets of them.

Carl's mother, who lived in a little house out by the rock, worked every day in the garden of the school-master's wife.

Annette was attracted by the woman. She was short and thin, old and stooping, but had wonderfully clear and sparkling eyes, and Annette felt quite happy to think that this old woman, who was almost deaf, could by means of her eyes still have so much enjoyment.

During the summer, the spinner, as had been her wont every year, would sc.r.a.pe off the bark from the branches of the elderberry tree, and afterward tie up the branches in bundles. Annette did great damage by explaining to her--she had only learned it herself the day before--that they would be used to make gunpowder. When the old woman heard that, she felt as if she could not bear to touch the wood; but, as she had undertaken the task, she was obliged to finish it, and so went on with her work, although it was not without murmuring.

Through Annette's insinuating herself into the intimacy of others, much that happened in our village acquired clearer colors, and greater importance in my eyes.

I told her the history of the spinner. She had had a husband, a tall, handsome man. He had been employed as a laborer on the road, but had wasted all his earnings at the tavern.

Besides that, he had been a sportsman, and had loved, above all things, to roam through the woods with the forester and his attendants, in search of game.

While these things were going on, the wife had, with her own earnings, reared four children, who were always among the tidiest in the village.

Whenever anyone expressed pity that she had so thoughtless and inconsiderate a husband, she would say, "Oh, that's all right. If he were not so shiftless a fellow, he would never have married me; he would have gone and married some woman better, handsomer, and richer than I was."

When the building of the railway was begun, he gave up his situation and went to work in the valley; but he would never bring home a groschen of money. Indeed, on one occasion, when he received a larger sum than usual, he drove up in a carriage with two comrades, and the three were not content until the last kreutzer had been spent.

But yet with all this no word of complaint ever fell from the lips of his wife; and when, at last, her husband lost his life while blasting a rock, she bewailed his death, saying that he was the best man in the world.

Two of her sons and one daughter were employed at Mulhausen; but they would not help the mother. Carl, who had been Joseph's servant, and was now with the troops, gave all his earnings to her, and would not suffer her to accept a gift from any one.

When Annette knew this, she was all attention to the spinner; but it required much clever management to be able to do her a service. Besides that, it was awkward that the spinner was so indistinct of speech, that with the exception of her son Carl and the school-master's wife, there was hardly any one who could understand her.

Richard and Bertha shook their heads while watching Annette's movements, and could not refrain from commenting on them. But my wife would always tell them that Annette was of an active temperament, and was only happy when a.s.sisting others. She also told them that Annette had interested herself for the baker Lerz's victim and her child, and that she had given the clergymen of the neighboring villages considerable sums to be distributed among the poor. And, further, that it was much to her credit that she would not allow herself to be driven away from her work by rudeness on the part of those whom she was trying to benefit.

We soon had an amusing instance of this.

One Sunday afternoon, while we were up in the arbor, Annette had seated herself with Rothfuss and Martella on a bench in front of the house.

She was trying to find out from Rothfuss how much he loved his horses and cattle.

Rothfuss knew nothing about loving them. All he said was, "Feed them well, and they will work for you."

She was quite provoked that the tinkling of the bells of the cows that were grazing on the mountain patches was inharmonious. She said that she would buy bells that were in accord with each other, and present them to the owners of the cows.

She conversed quite familiarly with Rothfuss and Martella, and asked them to look upon her as their companion.

To which Rothfuss replied, "I have nothing against the Jews--they are all the same to me. In the place where I was born, there were lots of Jews, and I was on good terms with all of them. Two of them served in the same regiment with me; and in my village there was a splendid girl whom they called 'the little beauty;' she was strong and healthy and jolly. She loved to dance with me; and, if I could only have afforded to marry, I would have been bound to have her. And you may take my word for it, she would not have refused me.

"You are a sensible woman; one can talk to you about all sorts of things. You are not like Baroness Arven, who once ordered me to take my cap in my hand while I was speaking to her. You are better than she is.

"Yes, indeed; my first love was a Jewess.

"And then there was Myerle the horse-dealer, who often came to see us.

He looks just like you;--are you related to him? I know him intimately; he is a sharp fellow, and a man of his word, and always gives two crown thalers drink-money. Of late he has been trying to make it Prussian thalers, but that won't go down.

"The Jews are just like us in everything. There is only one thing that they cannot do--they don't know how to drink; and they don't try it, either. But in all other respects they are just like us. 'He who is wet to the skin need not dread the rain.'"

"And you, Martella," asked Annette, "what do you think of the Jews?"

"I? I don't think of them at all. I want nothing to do with them. In the forest they always told me that my mother must have been a Jewess; but it is not true."

"Who is your mother, then?"

"Who? Why, Madame Cuckoo;--just ask her."

Martella walked away.

Annette joined us and told us all that had happened, adding: "One is always getting new and interesting ideas. Rothfuss and Martella, comparing their religion with mine, look upon themselves as n.o.bles who vouchsafe me their favor. I accept it with thanks."

My wife, however, looked over to us with a significant glance that seemed quite distinctly to say, "There, you can see now that she is free from prejudice, and full of imperturbable kindness."

Notwithstanding her love and respect for us, Annette found great pleasure in her intimate relations with the neighboring family of Baron Arven. This may have been the result of her having formerly been kept in the background.

Her constant journeyings to and fro were the occasion of our making some delightful acquaintances.

Just beyond the boundary line, where I owned a large piece of woodland, there resided a young forester, who was of n.o.ble birth, and a relative of Annette's husband. We had before that been strangers to each other; but Annette knew how to draw him and his wife into our circle, and we were charmed by the simple manners of these highly cultivated people.

Our family was so widely extended that we found it quite easy to trace a distant relationship to our newly discovered friends. The young wife was the daughter of a high official. Though living in the woods, she did not neglect her intellectual life, and found good music of great a.s.sistance in that regard. She had also been able to bring up st.u.r.dy boys; and we were quite pleased to learn that her only rule with them had been _truthfulness and obedience_. These two requisites had been firmly and inexorably insisted upon, and as a result the boys did their parents great credit.

The new element that Annette had thus introduced into our circle often caused us to forget that the very next hour might bring us the saddest news.