Kitabı oku: «Edelweiss: A Story», sayfa 14

CHAPTER XXVI.
THE AXE IS LAID AT THE ROOT OF THE TREE, AND BREAD IS EATEN WITH TEARS

On the sultry evening of a sultry day, the landlord, in an open wagon, drawn by his two bay horses, was returning from a drive to the city. He looked about him to the right and left in a strange way as he entered the village, and saluted with great affability. The wagon drew up before the door of the Lion. Gregory, who, in his postilion's uniform, but without his horn, had been driving, dismounted, and began to unharness the horses. Still the landlord sat motionless in the wagon, looking thoughtfully from the inn to the horses, and again from the horses back to the inn. At last, with a deep sigh, he descended, and stood on the ground. It was the last time he should so drive. All was as it had been, and only one other beside himself knew what a change was coming.

Wearily he dragged himself up the steps, at the top of which his wife was waiting for him. "How do matters stand?" she asked, softly.

"All has been arranged," answered the landlord, pushing by her into the public room, without entering the parlor first, as was his custom on returning home. He handed his hat and cane to the maid, and, sitting down with the guests who were present, ordered supper to be brought him at the public table. When it came, however, he appeared to have no relish for it.

The company did not break up till late into the night, and he remained sitting with the last. He spoke little, but his mere presence was compliment and entertainment enough.

His wife had gone to bed, and was sound asleep long before he retired to rest. Rest, indeed, he did not find. An invisible power drew the pillows from under his head. This bed, this house, everything, would to-morrow be no longer his! His thoughts lingered most lovingly about the carriage and the two bay horses. Suddenly the bays seemed to have entered the chamber; he rubbed his eyes; there they were, stretching their heads over the bed, and glaring at him with their great eyes; he felt their hot breath on his face. Recovering his self-possession, he comforted himself with the thought that he had, at least, borne himself like a man. He had said nothing to his wife, but let her have a quiet night's sleep. To-morrow morning would be soon enough for her to learn the news, even to-morrow after breakfast. Trials are easier to bear in the broad sunlight, after a night's sleep and a-good breakfast.

When the daylight came, the landlord was tired, and begged his wife not to wait for him, but to take her breakfast alone. At last he appeared, seemed to be in excellent appetite, and, on his wife urging him to explain what arrangement had been made, finally confessed: "Wife, I have allowed you to have a quiet night and comfortable morning; now show yourself brave, and take whatever comes quietly and calmly. At this very hour my lawyer in the city is proclaiming me bankrupt."

The landlady sat for a time stiff and speechless. "Why did you not tell me last night?" she asked, at length.

"From kindness to you, that you might have a quiet night's rest."

"Kindness? You stupid blockhead! If you had told me last night, we might have sent off many an article that would stand us in stead for years to come. Now, in this broad daylight, it is too late. Here! here! help! help!" she cried, breaking from her quiet conversational tone into frightful screams, and sinking, half fainting, in her chair. The maids from the kitchen, and Gregory, the postilion, came rushing in. The landlady raised herself, and cried, in the most piteous tones: "You deceived me; you never told me you were near being bankrupt. On your head be all the sorrow and the shame. I am innocent! Unhappy woman that I am!"

It would now have been the landlord's turn to fall into a fainting fit, had not his strength of body and mind supported him. His spectacles fell of themselves from his forehead to his eyes, that he might plainly behold the farce that was acting before him. This woman, who had given him no peace till he, the successful baker and brewer, joined her brother in the clock business, and who, when his brother-in-law died, had almost compelled him to continue the business alone, although he had no proper understanding of it; this woman, who had been constantly goading him on to new enterprises, and knew his affairs almost better than he did himself, – this woman had now called in the common servants to bear witness that he alone was guilty, and that on him alone must fall the blame.

One moment revealed to the unhappy landlord the whole extent of his misery. Five and thirty years it stretched behind him, and forward-how far, none could tell. To save herself, to expose him, his wife had carried her hypocrisy to this extremity.

His glasses grew dim with moisture; he could see no more. Quietly he passed his handkerchief first over them and then over his eyes. From that moment a rancor that never softened struck its roots into his heart; but his pride presented the same quiet, unruffled front.

"You have your own reasons for acting thus," he said, when the postilion and maids had left the room. "They are beyond my finding out. I shall say no more upon the matter." And he kept his word. His wife might talk and lament as she would, she could not move him out of his silence. It almost entertained him to see what a fine face she could assume before the world. He grew to be almost the sage he had been taken for. It is wonderful what woman can do, he thought, as he watched his wife's manœuvres. Practice certainly makes perfect.

The unwise world, however, did not accept the landlord's fall so patiently. Like a thunder-clap the report spread over mountain and valley, The landlord is bankrupt! Incredible! impossible! What can stand if the landlord of the Lion falls?

Even the golden lion on the sign seemed to protest against it, and creaked angrily on its supporting hinges. But auctioneers subdue even lions, and make no account of a coat of gilding. The sign was taken down. Most pitiable the lion looked with one eye hidden by the wall, and the other seeming to blink wearily, as if it, too, would fain close for grief and shame.

There was a crash in the village below, and there was a crash above on the Morgenhalde.

Lenz hurried down into the town, and back again to the inn. The landlord kept walking solemnly up and down the great public room, saying, with dignity: "This, too, must I bear like a man," – like a man of honor, he had almost said.

The landlady wrung her hands, and cried that she had known nothing of it all, that she was ready to kill herself.

"Father-in-law," said Lenz, "is my money lost too?"

"In the common pile, there is no distinguishing one man's money from another's," answered the landlord, oracularly. "But a compromise can be made. Give me three years, and I will pay fifty per cent. Take a seat. There is no use wringing your hands. Lisbeth!" he called out into the kitchen, "my dinner!" The cook brought in a regular dinner, such as was served on ordinary days. Mine host took off his cap, put it on his head again, settled himself comfortably in his arm-chair, poured out some water, and began to eat, with the composure of true wisdom. "Draw up a chair, wife," he said, looking up from his second plateful. "These are the best horses for pulling up a steep hill; a good piece of meat in your stomach is a great help on a hard journey. Has all the wine been sealed, or can you get me a draught?"

"It is all sealed."

"Then let me have a cup of strong coffee to wind up with; there is comfort in that."

Lenz pressed his hands to his head. Was he out of his senses? Can this man, in whose fall the fate of hundreds is involved, be actually sitting down, with a good appetite, to his dinner? The landlord was condescendingly talkative, and bestowed high commendations upon Annele for not rushing down too, and swelling the chorus of senseless lamentations. "You have a clever, capable wife, – the cleverest of all my children. It is a pity she is not a man, to turn her enterprise to account. The world would look up if she were at the head of affairs. My Annele ought to be the mistress of a great establishment, a great public-house; she would make it the first in the country."

Lenz was indignant at these ready compliments, and at the landlord's whole bearing in such an hour as this. But he fought down his anger, and the very struggle made his voice sound hesitating, almost submissive, as he said: "Father-in-law, take care, above all things, that the wood behind my house shall not be cut down. I have heard axes at work there the whole morning, which must not be."

"Why not?" cried the landlord, with all the more vehemence for Lenz's meekness. "Why not? Whoever owns the wood has the right to do with it what he will."

"Father-in-law, you promised me the wood."

"But you did not take it. The wood is sold to the lumber-merchant from Trenzlingen."

"You had no right to sell it; it is the roof of my house. A few trees can perhaps be cut down, but not the whole forest. That has been the agreement for a hundred years. My grandfather has often told me so."

"It is none of my business. I have other things to attend to now."

"Good Heavens!" cried Lenz, with tears, "what have you done? You have robbed me of the dearest possession I had in the world."

"Indeed! Is money everything? I did not know that your heart, too, was in your breeches pocket."

"No, no! not that. You have robbed me of my second parents."

"I should think you were big enough to stand alone. But you are that sort of fellow that when he is a grandfather will cry out for his mother, 'Mamma! mamma! your little boy is hurt!' You said once you were a man, but what a man! One that can establish a union in which all shall stand by each other like the trees in a forest, – a forest of miserable clockmakers! Ha, ha! Go on with your union, then, that shall take care of yourself and the rest of your set." This malice was a new feature of the landlord's character.

Lenz was the only one of his creditors that placed himself in the breach, and upon his head broke the full force of the ruined man's fury.

Lenz grew red and pale by turns; his lips trembled. "Father-in-law," he said, "you are the grandfather of my children. You know how much you have robbed them of. I would not have your conscience. But the wood must not be cut down. I shall go to law about it."

"Very well; do as you like," returned the landlord as he poured out his coffee. Lenz could stay in the room no longer.

On the stone bench before the inn sat Pröbler, a wretched object, forcing every passer-by to hear his story. He was waiting, he said, for the arrival of the officers, because his best work, containing all his inventions, had been pledged to the landlord, and was now in the house. It must not be sold, and sent out into the world for every one to copy and cheat him out of his profits. The officers must get him a patent from government which should make him a rich and famous man. Lenz used all his influence to pacify the poor old fellow, assuring him that he was the only one whom the landlord had treated honestly; that he had already received the full value of his works, all of which were utterly unsalable and still on his patron's hands; that they had not been pawned at all, but sold outright. Pröbler, however, was neither to be reasoned out of his belief nor induced to stir from his place.

Lenz went on, having enough to do in looking after his own affairs. He hastened to his uncle Petrovitsch. "Did I not tell you so?" was the old man's triumphant greeting. "Did I not tell you here in this very room, when you asked me to further your suit for Annele, that the landlord was in debt for the velvet cap on his head and the boots on his feet? Here he has been all this while filling his big paunch with other men's goods."

"Yes, yes, uncle, you were quite right, you foretold it all; but now help me."

"There is no help possible."

Lenz told of the forest, and the circumstances connected with it.

"Perhaps something can be done in that direction," said Petrovitsch.

"Thank Heaven! If I could but get the forest!"

"That is out of the question; the wood is sold. But it can only be cleared, not destroyed. It is the safeguard of your house, and no one has a right to remove it. We will show the wood-flayer from Trenzlingen who is master."

"O God, my house!" cried Lenz. It seemed already falling in; he must be at home to save it.

"Your house? You don't seem to be much at home here certainly," said Petrovitsch, laughing at his own wit. "Go to the mayor and enter a protest. One thing more, Lenz; I never in my life again will believe in a human being. I told you then your wife was the only honest one in the house. You see I was not mistaken in the other two. But Annele knew of this all along. She has known for years, known to a certainty, the state of her father's affairs. You were the make-shift, because the doctor's son-in-law would not have her, luckily for him."

"Why do you tell me this now, uncle?"

"Why? because it is true. I can prove it by witnesses."

"But why now?"

"Is there any time when the truth should not be told? I thought you and your Pilgrim were such heroes of romance! But I tell you you were very nearly as poor as you could be before you lost your money; for a man so full of complaints and regrets has ever a hole in his pocket. You are always crying for what you did yesterday, and thinking, 'O poor me! and yet I meant so well!' A man who wants to be pitied is no man; only women beg for pity."

"You are hard upon me, uncle."

"Because you are so tender with yourself. Show yourself now a man. Do not visit this upon your wife. Deal gently with her; her sorrow is greater than yours."

"You think so?"

"Yes. It will be hard for proud Annele of the Lion to find that a greeting from her is no longer the honor it used to be."

"She is not Annele of the Lion now; she is my wife."

"She is, before God and man. It was your own choice; I warned you."

Lenz hurried to the doctor's, who, as we have said, also filled the office of mayor; he was not at home. Thorns beset him on every side. His friends were not to be found, and his enemies let out all their secret venom against him, choosing his moment of helplessness to mock and torture him. He hastened up the hill again, past his house and into the wood beyond, where he ordered the wood-cutters to stop their work.

"Will you pay us our day's wages?"

"Yes."

"All right." They shouldered their axes and went home.

In the house Lenz found Annele embracing the children, and crying: "O my poor children! You will have to beg your bread, poor little ones!"

"Not while I have life and health. I am the head; only be calm and pleasant!"

"I have never been otherwise. You are mistaken, if you think that, because my father has failed, I am going to crawl at your feet, and let you do what you will with me. Not a bit of it! I don't give way an inch. Now show your boasted good-nature! Now show how you can support your wife."

"I am most ready to; but how give to one with closed hands?"

"If you had taken my advice, and bought the Lion, we should have been provided for, and the house would not have passed into strange hands. Don't tell me a word about the money. Exactly where you are sitting now you were sitting that day, and I here, and there stood the glass close to the edge of the table, – so close that I pushed it further in. Do you remember? I said to you then plainly and honestly, a business man never gives his money in that careless way, even to his own father."

"Did you know as long ago as that how matters stood?"

"I knew nothing, nothing at all; I only know what is business-like. Now let me alone."

"Will you not go to your mother? She is grieving sorely."

"Why should I go to her? to have her set out crying again at sight of me? Do you suppose I am going down there to be stared at and commiserated by everybody? to hear the doctor's charming daughters sing and laugh as I go by? I am sufficient for myself here in my solitude: I need no one."

"Perhaps it is all for the best," said Lenz, consolingly; "perhaps from this day you will be happier and better alone here with me. Such days may, must come again as those when you said, 'Up here we are in heaven, and may leave the world to drive and bustle as it will.' Let us hold to that. We were happy once, and shall be again. If you will be but kind and loving, I will do the work of three. Have no fear; I did not marry you for your money."

"Neither did I marry you for your money; it would not have been worth the trouble. If riches had been my object, I might have chosen a very different husband."

"We have lived together too long to be talking of marrying," interposed Lenz. "Let us have dinner."

At table he related the affair of the wood. "Do you know what the result will be?" asked Annele.

"What?"

"Nothing but your having to pay the wood-cutters' wages."

"That remains to be proved," said Lenz, and immediately after dinner went again in search of the mayor, whom he had failed to find earlier in the day.

On the way he was joined by poor Faller, pale as death, and crying: "Oh, this is horrible, horrible! A thunder-bolt from a clear sky!"

Lenz tried to reassure him. Two and a half thousand florins was something of a loss, to be sure, but he hoped to stand under it. He thanked his faithful comrade for his sympathy.

"What!" cried Faller, stopping short on the road, "are you involved too? He owes me thirty-one florins. He had that amount of mine in good clocks, that I left with him as I should have left them in the bank, meaning to pay off an instalment upon my house. Now I am put back at least two years."

Lenz hurried on. He could not stop with his friend, but must be off to the mayor's.

Faller looked sadly after him, almost forgetting his own misfortune in that of his friend.

The doctor was shocked at the blow which had fallen on the landlord. His own loss was insignificant, but he felt the disastrous effect the failure would have on the whole district. The news of Lenz's loss filled him with consternation. "Has he involved you also in his ruin? Nothing now will surprise me. Is it possible? is it possible? How does your wife bear it?" he asked, after a pause.

"She lays it all at my door."

Lenz brought up the matter of the forest, and prayed for speedy help, that his house might not be exposed to the force of the storms, and perhaps be buried by the mountain itself. The doctor acknowledged he had right on his side. "To make a clean sweep of the forest would be an injury to the whole district; perhaps destroy utterly our best spring of water, that by the church, which is fed from the forest. Some of the trees, at least, should be left standing on the crest of the mountain, but I fear we are powerless to insist upon it. It is a great misfortune that the owners are at liberty to cut down the trees at their pleasure. To try to make a law against it now, however, would be the old story of locking the barn door when the cow has escaped."

"But, Mr. Mayor, I shall be the first victim. Is there no help for me?"

"Hardly, I fear. At the time that the restrictions on the tenure of land were removed, during the mayoralty of your father-in-law, the authorities neglected to protect your rights as well as those of the community. You may say, to be sure, that nobody would have built a house where yours stands, if the forest behind it could be cleared; but you have no legal document guaranteeing you its permanent shelter. Your only chance is to lay your case before the court. Perhaps something can yet be done. I will give you a paper that may be of service."

Lenz felt his strength forsaking him. He could hardly stir from the spot, but the case admitted of no delay. No cost must be spared. He hired a wagon, and drove to the city.

At the Morgenhalde, meanwhile, appeared in gorgeous attire an almost forgotten figure. The shopkeeper's wife from the next village, that cousin Ernestine whom Annele had so mercilessly ridiculed on the occasion of her first drive with Lenz, now came to call on her, resplendent in a new silk gown, and a gold watch hanging at her waist. She had been in the village to put some money in the bank, being, she was happy to say, very well off. Her husband was doing a good business in rags, besides being a real-estate broker and the agent of a fire and hail insurance company, whose beautifully printed advertisements were at all the shop windows, and which paid him a regular salary without exposing him to any risks. She had been collecting some back pay, and could not find it in her heart to be in Annele's neighborhood without coming up to see her.

Annele politely expressed her thanks, and regretted she had no entertainment to offer. Ernestine protested that it was not for that she had come.

"I believe you there," said Annele, meaningly. She was convinced that Ernestine had come to be revenged upon her, to witness the rage and jealousy of that Annele who had always asserted such superiority over her poorer cousin. But Annele was woman of the world enough to ward off the malice of her visitor with a few stereotyped phrases of politeness, and at the same time to maintain the proper distance between herself, the child of the Golden Lion, and a poor relation who had only lived in the house as her servant, by giving Ernestine to understand that certain employments which were perfectly respectable and profitable for some persons were for others entirely out of the question.

In truth it was not without a certain feeling of malicious exultation that Ernestine had ascended the Morgenhalde. Her fingers often closed with satisfaction on the bag she carried on her arm, in which were a pound of burnt coffee and a pound of sugar for Annele. But at the sight of her cousin her exultation melted into sincere compassion. All the humble deference of former days returned upon her at Annele's assumption of her old superiority. The silk gown and gold watch were utterly forgotten, and the coffee and sugar offered only as samples in the hope of gaining her cousin's custom. If the many whom the Lion had benefited would now only return the favors they had received, Annele's parents would have enough to live upon for a hundred years to come, she said, with heartfelt tears; and added cordially that, if Annele had but married and remained at the Lion, the house would still have been kept up in the good old way.

This praise was more than Annele could resist, and completely effaced from her mind the new clothes and all her old grudges against her despised cousin. They talked over the good old times, – bewailed the present and condemned the ingratitude of mankind, until such perfect sympathy was established between them that they parted as if they had always been the dearest of friends and had lived together like sisters.

Annele accompanied Ernestine a little way down the hill, and commissioned her to tell her husband he must be looking out for a suitable hotel for them, a post station if possible, which they could buy and improve, and sell their house on the Morgenhalde. Ernestine promised the commission should be faithfully executed, and begged Annele repeatedly to be sure and apply to her for whatever groceries and other household goods she might need.

Many thoughts chased one another through Annele's mind as she retraced her steps homeward. Shall our house have supported and raised to prosperity so many humble dependants, and shall we ourselves be nothing? Even that simple Ernestine has had her wits so sharpened by living among us as to be able to carry on a shop and make something of her miserable tailor of a husband. She used to wear my cast-off clothes, and now what a figure she cuts! for all the world like a magistrate's wife, with her pocket full of money. And am I to do nothing but wither away up here and be reduced to receiving favors from Ernestine? It was all a pretence her leaving the coffee and sugar as samples; she meant to make me a present of them if she had dared. No, Mr. Clockmaker, I will wind you up another way and to a different tune.

She rejoiced to think of the commission she had given. If anything should come of it, they would lead a different sort of life. Meanwhile she would keep quiet and say nothing.

Late at night Lenz returned from the city, weary and dejected. No paper had been found guaranteeing him the protection of the forest. When he awoke the next morning, and heard the axes at work on the hill behind his house, every stroke seemed to fall upon his heart. Would I could die! he thought, as he settled down to his work. Not a word did he speak the whole day; only when putting out the lamp at night he said aloud, "I wish I could put out my own life as easily!" His wife pretended not to hear.

Hitherto neither her parents' fate nor her own had drawn a tear from Annele. Except for the one exclamation of distress for her children, she had remained perfectly calm. But the next morning, when no fresh, white bread came up from the village, and she laid the usual coarse loaf on the table, the big tears rolled down her cheeks and fell upon the bread. She cut off the moistened slice before Lenz saw it, and ate it with her tears.