Kitabı oku: «Edelweiss: A Story», sayfa 12

"Please God, that shall never be necessary. We will be of one mind, and bear joy and sorrow in loving fidelity, as my mother used to say."

"We will show the world that we live honestly together."

"Shall I set the musical clock going?"

"No, we have had enough for to-day."

CHAPTER XXIII.
THE FIRST NAIL IS DRIVEN. – PEACE ON THE HEIGHTS, AND THE FIRST SUNDAY GUEST

The next morning Annele was again on friendly terms with Franzl, and complimenting her good management. "I have never given you anything, Franzl," she said; "would you rather have a gown or some money?"

"Money would please me best."

"Then here are two crowns for you."

Lenz gladly added the same amount when Franzl showed him Annele's present. How thoughtful she is, he said to himself, and how careful always to do just the right thing! It never would have occurred to me to make Franzl a present; and yet only yesterday she was talking of sending her away. "She is a dear, foolish, hasty child," he added aloud. "Just like our young burgomaster's wife at home," interposed Franzl; "who, as the weight-manufacturer's wife once said, always planned for seven visitors when there were but six chairs, so that one had to go bobbing about while the others were seated." Lenz laughed. "We Knuslingers know a thing or two, I assure you. See now how quickly your wife has brought everything to order. Most women would have been three days about it, and have stumbled a dozen times and broken half the things to pieces. Your wife has no left hand. She is right hand all over," – a compliment which much pleased Annele, when Lenz repeated it to her.

She showed now a new accomplishment. Lenz asked her to drive a nail above his father's file. She struck it firmly and squarely on the head at the first blow, and on the nail thus first driven in her new home he made her hang his mother's picture.

"That is good," he said. "If it is not just like her, it has her eyes, and, please God, they shall look down on a fair, good, happy life. We will make it such a life that she may always have pleasure in beholding it."

Only do not make a saint of her, Annele wanted to say, but checked herself.

This was Wednesday of their wedding week, the whole of which was to be kept as a time of holiday. Lenz worked a few hours daily, chiefly for the sake of reminding himself that he had an occupation; he was happier, too, after having worked a couple of hours. The wedding festivities were, of course, lived over again, and very funny it was to see Annele mimic the peculiarities of the different guests. She made you actually see and hear the landlady of the Bear and of the Lamb and of the Eagle, while her imitation of Faller's trick of rubbing his hand over his mustache was so perfect that you could almost fancy a growth of bushy hair above her roguish lip. There was no ill-nature, nothing but harmless fun, in it all. She was thoroughly happy. "O, how beautiful, how good and wholesome it is up here!" she cried, in the morning; "and how still! I never could have believed there was such quiet in the world. Sitting here, as I do, seeing and hearing nothing of what goes on below, and not having to give an answer to anybody, it seems to me I must be sleeping with my eyes open, – and such a pleasant sleep! Down in the village, life is like a mill-wheel; here I am in another world. I can almost hear my heart beat. For the next fourteen days I do not mean to go down into the town. I will wean myself from it altogether; I know I can. The people that live there have no idea how good it is to be out of the world, – out of the hurry and hubbub and stir. O Lenz, you do not know how well off you have been all your life!"

Thus in a hundred different ways did Annele express her delight as she sat in the morning by Lenz's side. "I knew you would like living here," he answered, his face beaming with joy; "and you may be sure I am thankful to God and my parents for having been allowed to pass my life in this place. But, dear little wife, we cannot stay up here a fortnight all by ourselves. Next Sunday, at the farthest, we must go to church, and I think we ought to pass even a little of to-day with our parents."

"As you like. Happily, we cannot take this blessed rest away with us, but shall find it waiting when we come home."

"And you, my mother," interrupted Lenz, looking up at his mother's picture, "you are our angel of rest; your pure eyes say, as they look down upon us, Thank God, children, that it is so with you, and so shall continue your life long."

"It seems impossible I have been here so little while," continued Annele; "I feel as if I had lived here forever. These quiet hours are better than years anywhere else."

"How prettily and cleverly you describe it! Only remember your words, if ever this place should seem too lonely for you. Those who did not believe you could be happy in such a solitude will be surprised."

"Who didn't believe I could be happy? I know, – your Pilgrim, your great artist. He is a pretty fellow. Whoever is not an angel he sets down as a devil. But one thing I tell you, he shall never cross this threshold."

"It was not Pilgrim. Why will you try to find any one now to hate? A hundred times I have heard my mother say, 'We can have no peace of mind if we do not feel kindly towards our fellow-men.' If she had but lived a year longer, that you might have learned of her! Was not that a good saying? You know how it is if you hate any one, or know you have an enemy. I experienced it once, and remember how hard it was. Wherever you go, or whatever you do, you feel an invisible pistol pointed at you. My greatest happiness is, that there is no one in the world whom I hate, and no one, so far as I know, who hates me."

Annele had but half heard him. "Who could have said so if it were not Pilgrim?"

"No one. I have only feared so sometimes myself."

"I don't believe that. Some one put it into your head. But you ought not to have repeated it to me. I might tell what persons have said to me about you, – persons you would never suspect of speaking so. You have your enemies, like the rest of us, but I know better than to make you uncomfortable by repeating their stupid talk."

"You only say that to pay me back. It is all fair; I have deserved it. But now we are quits, and let us be merry."

The two were, indeed, full of happiness again. Franzl in the kitchen often moved her lips, as she was wont to do when thinking to herself. That is natural and right; thank God they feel so. Such would have been my life with Anton, if he had not proved faithless, and married a black woman!

On Sunday morning Lenz said, "I had quite forgotten to tell you that I had invited a guest to dinner with us today. You have no objection?"

"No; who is it?"

"My good Pilgrim."

"You should have invited your uncle too; it would be no more than proper."

"I thought of it, but did not venture to, he is such a queer man."

For the first time they heard the bells in the valley ringing. "Is that not beautiful?" said Lenz. "I have heard my mother say, a thousand times, that we did not hear the bells themselves, but only their echo from the wood behind the house, so that it is like hearing bells from heaven."

"Yes; but we had better be starting now," returned Annele. On the way she began: "Lenz, I do not ask from curiosity; I am your wife, and have a right to know. I swear by those bells not to repeat it."

"You need never swear; I have a horror of oaths. Tell me what it is you want to know."

"You and your uncle seemed to understand each other perfectly on the day of the wedding; what has been settled about the inheritance?"

"Nothing; we have never exchanged a word on the subject."

"And yet you acted as if all were signed and sealed."

"I did nothing. I only said my uncle and I understood each other, and so we do. We never speak of such things. He is free to do as he will."

"He was pushed into a corner, that day, that he could not have got out of but for you. Such a chance will hardly occur again. He might have been made to leave us a handsome legacy."

"I cannot bear to have strangers meddling in our family matters. I am driven into no corner. If he leaves me nothing, I am quite able to take care of myself."

Annele was silent; in her heart was no ringing of bells such as were pealing clear over mountain and valley. They entered the church together, and after the service stopped to see their parents before going home. Not far from the open meadow Pilgrim called after them, "Admit a poor soul into your paradise." They turned round, laughing. Pilgrim was in excellent spirits on the way up, and still gayer at table, where he finished by drinking a full glass to the health of his future godson, and insisting on Annele's drinking with him. Her whole manner towards her guest was friendly in the extreme. At first she was disconcerted by occasionally meeting her husband's eye fixed upon her with an expression of wonder at her powers of dissimulation. Even when she refused to look his way, she fancied his glance of disapproval behind her back, and grew positively angry. On looking round at last, however, and seeing by his beaming face that he thought her perfectly sincere in her assumption of friendliness, she became so in earnest, and exclaimed heartily to Pilgrim: "How happy you and Lenz are in your friendship! from this day let me make one with you."

Pilgrim was loud in his praises of Annele, as Lenz accompanied him part of the way down the hill.

"Never has a dinner tasted so good as to-day's," exclaimed the husband, joyfully, as he re-entered the little room. "What greater happiness can there be in the world than to earn your meat and drink by honest toil, and have a darling wife and a faithful friend to enjoy it with you?"

"Yes, Pilgrim is an entertaining fellow," returned Annele.

"I am so glad you have converted him," added Lenz. "He was not quite inclined to like you; but you are a perfect witch; you can do what you like with everybody."

Annele was silent, and Lenz began to feel almost sorry he had told her that: there was no occasion for it. But honesty never can come amiss. He repeated that she ought to feel particularly happy at having turned an enemy into a friend. She still made no answer; and afterwards, when Pilgrim's name was mentioned, kept a resolute silence.

Annele despaired of doing anything with Lenz until she could make him give up his cheerful views of human nature. As time went on, she gained many a victory by showing him, on every possible occasion, how mean, how wicked and deceitful, men were.

"I never knew that such were the ways of the world. I have lived like a child," said Lenz.

"I have been abroad in the world for you, Lenz," Annele answered. "I have known thousands and thousands of persons in their business and other relations. I have heard how differently they talk behind a man's back from what they do to his face, and have seen them laughing at him for being taken in by fair professions. Hardly anybody says what he really believes. I can tell you more of the world than you would have learned in ten years of travel."

"But of what use is it?" asked Lenz. "I don't see that it does any good. If we keep on our own straightforward way, the world about us may be as bad as it will, it can do us no harm. Besides, there are plenty of honest persons in it. A child brought up in an inn is, as you say, at home among strangers. You told me that evening when we first talked together how keenly you felt your position. You must be glad to have at last a little home of your own, where every passer-by has not the right to come in, and defame himself and his neighbors over his mug of beer."

"Certainly," answered Annele, in no very cordial tone. Lenz had vexed her again by undervaluing her former life. He seemed to fancy she had not known what happiness was till he revealed it to her.

CHAPTER XXIV.
OLD HEIRLOOMS ARE BANISHED, AND A NEW TONE IS HEARD ON THE MORGENHALDE

The wedding week and many other weeks and months passed, during which little occurred worthy to be recorded in our story. Almost every morning Annele laughed at Lenz for his astonishment over the loaf of fresh white bread which the landlady sent up daily from the town. It was not the delicacy that surprised him so much as the fact that persons should become dependent upon such things. Many luxuries that Lenz had considered only suitable for holidays were to Annele every-day necessities. She ridiculed his ignorance, which knew not how to double the comforts of life without increasing the expense; and a great improvement she certainly introduced into their way of living, baking better bread out of the same meal, and in all household matters bringing to pass much greater results with the same outlay. But, on the other hand, she was often discontented, and especially in the spring was apt to complain: "Dear me, how the wind blows up here! it is enough to take the roof off the house."

"I cannot help it, dear child. We get good fresh air to pay for it. Every breath we draw is like a draught of dew. Remember how you used to delight last autumn in our bright, cheerful sunshine, when the valley was shrouded in mist. And what good water we have too! People live to be old, ever so old, up here. As for the house, you need have no particle of concern for that. It is built of whole trunks of trees, and will stand for our grandchildren and great-grandchildren."

When the snow began to melt, and the usually empty gullies on the mountain-side were, to Lenz's great delight, filled with the rushing streams, Annele complained that she could not sleep for the noise of the water.

"You often complained in the winter of the deathly stillness up here, – that you could hear no wagon and see no passing; now you have noise enough." Annele gave her husband a sidelong glance, and, without answering, went into the kitchen, and had a good cry with Franzl. The old woman cautioned Lenz against contradicting his wife; it was not well for her or the child she bore.

Lenz was quiet and industrious, and took great pleasure in his work. Whenever he appealed to Annele to admire some tone that gave him peculiar satisfaction, she would answer: "O, it is nothing to me. I am really afraid your work will be the ruin of you; it will never repay you for the time you spend on it. The way to make a fortune is to turn off things quick, and not quiddle so over them."

"I know my own work best, Annele."

"If you know best, you have no need to talk to me. I can only speak according as I understand. If you want a post for a listener you had better go down to the doctor's and borrow one. There are plenty of painted red lips there that will speak never a word."

Days passed, and the spring that now broke in glory over the earth seemed to bring fresh life on the Morgenhalde. The landlady often came up and revelled in the good warm sun. The landlord, who had grown more of a growler than ever, seldom appeared. Annele openly withdrew herself more and more from her parents, and clung with increasing tenderness to Lenz. Of a Sunday morning or a holiday afternoon they often went together into the forest, where he had set up a bench among his father-in-law's trees. "Hark to that bird," said he, one day, as they were sitting there in a happy mood. "He is the true singer, caring nothing whether any hear him or not, but making music for himself and his mate, just as I do." And Lenz sent his voice blithely into the echoing wood.

"Yes," answered Annele, "and for that reason you ought to resign your place in the Liederkranz; it is no longer a fit society for you. As a bachelor you might keep company with Faller and the rest, if you chose, but for the head of a family it is not the thing. Besides, you are too old to sing."

"I old? Why, I am born new every spring. I was just fancying myself still a child, building a boat with my dead brother. How happy we were!"

"One would think your whole life had been a miracle. What do you mean by talking so?"

"You are right. I must learn to be old; I am almost as old as this forest. I remember, as a child, there were very few large trees here; most of the wood was of young saplings, and now it has grown high above our heads, and, thank Heaven, is our own."

"How our own? Has my father made it over to you?"

"No, it is still his, – that is, his with certain restrictions. He has no right to cut it wholly down, because it is all that keeps our house from being buried under the snow or the mountain itself."

"Don't talk so. What is it to me?"

"I don't understand you."

"Nor I you. You should not suggest such dreadful things to me now."

"Then I will sing to you, and let who will hear."

He took Annele's hand and, merrily singing, led her back to the house, where they arrived just in time to receive a visit from the landlord. He was evidently come upon business, for, taking his son-in-law into the inner room, he began at once. "Lenz, I can do you a good turn."

"That is well. A good turn never comes amiss."

"Is your money still with the bailiff?"

"He has paid me four hundred florins of it, but the greater part is still in his hands."

"Ready money is trumps now. You can make a good trade with it."

"I will give notice to the bailiff."

"That would take too long. Give me your note to sell, and I will guarantee you twenty-five per cent."

"Then we will go shares."

"It was foolish of you to say that. I had meant to give you the whole; but you are methodical in all your business matters, I see."

"Thank you, father-in-law, I like to be fair. I want no favors."

"Your best way would be to leave the money in my business, and let me hand you whatever interest it draws."

"I don't understand business. A regular percentage suits me better."

On returning to the sitting-room they found a nice lunch set out by Annele herself, but her father seemed in a great hurry to be gone, and would take nothing. "It is your own wine, father," Annele insisted. "Do sit a few minutes with us, we see so little of you."

There seemed no seat on the Morgenhalde broad enough to bear the whole weight of the landlord's dignity. He drank a glass standing, and then went down the hill, frequently pressing his hand on his breast-pocket as he went. "Father is particularly uncommunicative to-day," observed Annele.

"He has some pressing business on his mind. I have just given him my two thousand six hundred florins that the bailiff borrowed."

"And what did he give you in exchange?"

"I don't know what you mean; nothing. I will ask him for a written receipt some time, since that is the custom."

"If you had asked my advice, you would not have given him the money."

"Annele, what do you mean? I am sure I ought not to take amiss anything you say to me when you thus mistrust your own father. But, as Franzl says, we must be indulgent with you now, and let you have your own way."

"Indeed!" said Annele. "No one need be indulgent with me. What I said about my father meant nothing. I don't know how I came to say it. Franzl must go. It is she who sets you against me."

In vain Lenz defended poor Franzl, and protested she did nothing of the kind. Annele carried her point. In less than a fortnight the old woman had to leave the house. Lenz comforted her as well as he could, assuring her she should soon come back, and promising her a yearly sum as long as she lived. But she shook her head, and said, weeping, "The Lord God will soon put me beyond want. Never did I think to leave this house, where I have lived for eight and twenty years, till I was carried out. There are my pots, and my copper kettles, and my pans, and my tubs; how many thousand times I have taken them in my hand, and polished them up! They are my witnesses. No one can say I have not been neat and orderly. The nozzle of every pot, if it could speak, would tell who and what I have been. But God knows all. He sees what goes on in the great room, and in the kitchen, and in each of our hearts. That is my comfort and my viaticum and- Enough; I am glad to get out of this place; rather would I spin thistles than stay here a day longer. I don't want to make you unhappy, Lenz. You might hunt me down like a rat before I would bring ill-will into the house. No, no, I will not do that. Have no anxiety about me; you have cares enough of your own. Gladly would I be crushed under the weight of them, if I could but take them from you, and bear them on my own shoulders. Have no fear for me. I shall go to my brother in Knuslingen. There was I born, and there will I wait till I die. If I join your mother in Paradise, I will tend upon her as she was used to being tended here. For her sake, our Lord God will admit me, and for her sake you shall still be blessed in this world. Good by; forgive me, if I have ever grieved you. Good by, – a thousand times good by!"

For some time after Franzl's departure Lenz continued silent and gloomy. All the higher did Annele's spirits rise in consequence. She was indeed a witch, who could do with him what she would. There was a magic in her tone, when she wished to please, that none could resist. Pilgrim used all his influence to reconcile Lenz to this new state of things. He tried to convince him that the old serving-woman had usurped a certain authority which prevented his wife from being mistress in her own house. Annele, in fact, had been brought up to take an active part in household work, and was much happier for having plenty to do. The care of such a little house, she said, was nothing to her, and she never meant to keep another maid. The apprentice must be called in to help. By the aid of his mother-in-law, however, Lenz finally succeeded in securing a new girl.

Matters how went on pleasantly and smoothly again till into the summer. Annele insisted upon her mother's obliging the landlord to pay Lenz back his money, and the father-in-law consequently appeared one day, and made Lenz an offer of the wood behind his house, in return for the money received, and for one thousand florins in addition. Lenz replied that he did not want the wood, but ready money, for which, however, he could very well afford to wait. No further steps were taken, except that the landlord, like the man of honor he was, gave a receipt, drawn up in due form, good in case of life or death.

Late in the summer, the usual quiet of the village was interrupted by two great events, – the marriage of the engineer with Bertha, the doctor's second daughter, the eldest choosing to remain single; and the return of the doctor's son, now a skilful clockmaker, from his studies abroad. It was said he meant to build a great clock-factory, not far from his father's house. A great outcry was raised among the native clockmakers, that they should be ruined if clocks were to be manufactured by machinery, as they were in America. Lenz took the matter quietly, and, with the schoolmaster, spared no pains to carry into operation his long-cherished plan of uniting the workmen in one common association. Perhaps necessity would compel them to a step of which they had not been able or willing before to see the advantages. The two spent whole days in going from house to house, explaining the standard regulator. They recommended the adoption of five different sizes, which would be quiet sufficient to show all the variety of works. Nothing but a division of labor could save the workpeople. The axles, wheels, and springs, and more especially the stoppers and screws, could be made cheaper and better by machinery, while the adjustments of the parts and the finishing touches must always be left to the hand of a master. Human understanding and thought are indispensable to the proper arranging and harmonizing of the whole. He urged the clockmakers either to contribute a share to the new manufactory or to set up one of their own. But he found idle complaints instead of active co-operation. Every one insisted on keeping to his old ways, thinking he understood best his own interests, and unwilling to risk them for the sake of the common good.

Lenz came home discouraged, only to be received by his wife with reproaches: "For Heaven's sake, stop setting up ninepins for other men to knock down. Let others alone; they don't trouble themselves about you. You would like to oil everybody's doors, that they should not creak, though no one's teeth are set on edge by them but your own."

Lenz smiled at his wife's sharp comparisons. No sooner had he relinquished his plan for the good of his fellow-workmen than she began urging him to set up a manufactory in company with her father. He could go abroad a year, if necessary, she said, and she would spend the time with her parents. Lenz maintained that he was not suited for such an undertaking, and, moreover, would certainly not travel now that he was a married man, after staying at home through his bachelor life. Annele took small satisfaction in his assurances that she might set her mind quite at rest as to the future, as he should never fail to make a comfortable living, in which assurances he was fully borne out by Pilgrim. Pilgrim, therefore, she regarded as the chief obstacle in Lenz's path to fortune, – a man who had never accomplished anything himself, and never would; and she used all the means in her power, though without success, to breed discord between the two friends.

Annele carried a perfect ledger in her head, so constantly was she revolving figures and plans. Knowing that Lenz had been Faller's security for the purchase of his house, she now teased him to withdraw his name. So strongly did she insist, that he was fairly obliged to consent, and had entered Faller's house for the purpose of announcing his determination, when he was met by his old comrade with a face half rueful and half laughing, and told of the arrival of a second pair of twins. "The little creatures know I am mad on the subject of children, and so come to me in couples." Of course Lenz could not increase the young father's anxieties by withdrawing his security at such a time, and was obliged to return an evasive answer to his wife's inquiries as to the result of his visit.

On the night before the marriage of the engineer with the doctor's daughter Annele gave birth to a son. As Lenz was standing by her bedside, full of his new happiness, she said: "Lenz, promise me one thing; promise me to break off all connection with Pilgrim, at least for three months."

"I can promise you nothing now," he answered, a bitter drop poisoning his cup of joy.

Annele was beside herself at hearing the music from the valley. So great was her excitement that her mother and husband trembled for her life. Towards noon, however, she fell into a quiet sleep. Lenz stopped up all the doors and windows, that every sound should be kept out. From this sleep she awoke more tranquil, and showed such patience and sweetness that Lenz was filled with twofold thankfulness for the happiness vouchsafed him as husband and father. It was wonderful how Annele's moods changed. In her present interval of tenderness she reminded her husband of their promise to Pilgrim that he should stand godfather, and expressed pleasure at the idea. Lenz was desirous that Petrovitsch should be second godfather; but the old man resolutely declined.

Pilgrim brought with him, and laid in the baby's cradle, a huge paper, containing a great number of signatures and illuminated by himself. It was a diploma of the Liederkranz, he said, making the new-comer, in virtue of his unquestionably good voice, an honorary member of that society.

"Do you know the sweetest tone in all the world?" asked Lenz, – "the first cry of one's child. Here is something else for you, my son. Take hold; see how he grasps it!" He put into the baby's little hand his father's file, as if for a special consecration; but Annele snatched it away.

"The child might kill itself with that sharp edge," she cried, and threw the instrument with such violence to the ground as to break off the point.

"There is my precious heirloom broken," said Lenz, sadly.

Pilgrim tried to console him, and declared, laughing, that there must ever be new men and new tools in the world. Annele said not a word.