Kitabı oku: «Edelweiss: A Story», sayfa 2

CHAPTER III.
WORK AND BENEFACTION

The bailiff, Lenz's nearest neighbor, though not a very near one, had sent in food, as was the custom in that part of the country when a death occurred, in the supposition that the mourners might not have thought of preparing any. Moreover, during a funeral, and for three hours after, no fire was allowed to be kindled on the hearth.

The bailiff's daughter brought the food into the room herself.

"Thanks to you and your parents, Katharine. Take away the food; when I am hungry, I will eat; I cannot now," said Lenz.

"But you must try," said Franzl; "that is the custom; you must put something to your lips. Sit down, Katharine; you should always sit down when you visit a mourner, not keep standing. Young people nowadays don't know what the custom is. And you must say something, Katharine; you should talk to a mourner, not be dumb. Say something."

The sturdy, round-cheeked girl flushed crimson. "I can't," she stammered out, bursting into a passion of tears, and covering her face with her apron, as she became conscious that Lenz's eyes were fixed upon her.

"Don't cry," he said, soothingly. "Thank God every day that you still have your parents. There, I have tasted the soup."

"You must take something else," urged Franzl. He obeyed with an effort, and then rose from the table. The girl rose too. "Forgive me, Lenz," she said. "I ought to have comforted you, but I-I-"

"I know; thank you, Katharine. I can't talk much yet myself."

"Good by. Father says you must come and see us; he has a lame foot, and cannot come to you."

"I will see: I will come if I can."

When she was gone, Lenz walked up and down the room with outstretched hands, as seeking to grasp some form, but he found no one. His eye fell upon the tools, and was chiefly attracted by a file that hung on the wall by itself. A sudden idea seized him as he raised his hand to take it.

This file was his choicest heirloom. His father had used it constantly for forty-seven years, till his thumb had worn a groove in its maple-wood handle. "Who would believe," the old man was fond of saying, "that many years' work of a man's hand would wear a wooden handle like that?" The mother always exhibited this wonderful file to strangers as a curiosity.

The doctor down in the valley had a collection of old clocks and tools, and had often asked for this file to hang up in his cabinet; but the father never would give it. Since his death, the mother and son naturally set a great value on the heirloom. After the father's funeral, when mother and son were sitting quietly together at home, she said, "Now, Lenz, we have wept enough; we must bear our burden in silence. Take your father's file, and work. 'Work and pray while yet it is day,' runs the proverb. Be glad you have an honest trade, and do not need to brood over what is past. A thousand times has your father said, 'What a help it is to get up in the morning and find your work waiting. When I file, I file all the useless chips out of my brain; and when I hammer, I knock all heavy thoughts on the head, and away they go.'

"Those were my mother's words then, and they ring in my ears to-day. Would I could always be as sure of her counsel!"

Lenz set himself industriously to work. Without stood Franzl and Katharine. "I am glad you were the first to bring the food," said the old woman; "it is a good sign. Whoever brings the first morsel at such a time- But I have said nothing: no one shall say I had a hand in it. Only come back this evening, and be the one to bid him good night. If you bid him good night three times, something is sure to come of it. Hark! what is that? Saints in heaven, he is working now, on such a day as this! What a man! I have known him ever since he was a baby, but there is no telling what queer thing he will do. Yet he is so good! Don't tell he was working, will you? it might make people talk. Come yourself for the dishes this evening, and be composed, so that you can talk properly. You can generally use your tongue well enough."

Franzl was interrupted by Lenz's voice, calling from the door, "If any visitors come, Franzl, I can see none but Pilgrim. Are you still there, Katharine?"

"I am going this minute," said she, and ran down the hill.

Lenz returned to his seat, and worked without intermission, while Franzl as busily racked her brain to make out this extraordinary man, who, a moment before, was crying himself sick, and now sat quietly at work. It could not be from want of feeling, nor from avarice, but what could it mean?

"My old head is not wise enough," said Franzl. Her first impulse was to go to her mistress and ask what she could make of it; but she checked herself, and covered her face with her hands as she remembered the mother was dead. To Franzl's consternation, visitors began now to arrive, – various members of the Liederkranz, besides some of the older townspeople. In great embarrassment she turned them away, talking all the time as loud as if they were deaf. She would gladly have stopped their ears, if she could, to keep them from hearing Lenz at work. "If Pilgrim would only come," she thought. "Pilgrim can do anything with him; he would not mind taking the tools out of his hand." But no Pilgrim came. At last a happy thought struck her. There was no need of her staying at home. She would go a little way down the hill, beyond the sound of hammer and saw, and prevent visitors from coming up.

Lenz meanwhile was recovering composure and firmness over his work. When he left off, towards evening, he descended the hill, and, taking the path behind the houses, proceeded in the direction of his friend Pilgrim's. Halfway down he turned about as suddenly as if some one had called him; but all was still. Only the blackbird's ceaseless twittering was heard in the bushes, and the yellowhammer's monotonous whistle from the fresh pine-tops. There are no larks down in the valley and meadows, but on the upland fields you hear them chattering in the wide stretches of corn. The mists were rising from the meadows, too light to be seen just about him, but plainly visible in the distance behind and before.

Lenz walked rapidly up the valley, till the sun set behind the Spannreute and turned the lowland mist into flaming clouds. "It is the first time it has set upon her grave," he murmured. He stood still a moment, took off his hat at the sound of the evening bells, and went on more slowly. At a turn in the valley, just below a solitary little house, from which a thick bush screened him, he paused again. Upon a bench before the house sat a man whom we have seen before, the clockmaker Fallen. He was dancing a child on his knee, while beside him his sister, whose husband was abroad, sat nursing her baby, and kissing its little hands.

"Good evening, Faller!" cried Lenz in his old, clear tenor voice.

"It is you, – is it?" called back Faller's bass. "We were just talking of you. Lisbeth thought you would forget us in your sorrow; but I said, on the contrary, you would not fail to remember our need."

"It is about that I am come. Henzel's house is to be sold to-morrow, as you know; and if you want to buy it, I will be your security. It will be pleasant to have you for neighbor."

"That would be fine, glorious! So you stay where you are?"

"Why not?"

"I was told you were going abroad for a year or two."

"Who told you?"

"Your uncle, I think, said so. I am not quite sure."

"Did he? maybe so. If I do go, you must move into my house."

"Better stay at home. It is too late to go abroad."

"And marry soon," added the young mother.

"Yes, that will tie you down, and put an end to your roving. But, Lenz, whatever you do must prosper. Your mother in heaven will bless you for remembering me in your time of grief. Not a moment goes by that I do not think of her. You come honestly by your goodness, for she was always thoughtful of others. God bless you!"

"He has already. The walk here and our plan together have lightened my heart. Have you anything to eat, Lisbeth? I feel hungry for the first time to-day."

"I will beat you up a couple of eggs."

"Thanks."

Lenz ate with an appetite that delighted his hosts.

Faller's mother, much against her son's will, asked Lenz for some of his mother's clothes, which he readily promised. Faller insisted on walking part way home with him; but hardly had they gone twenty steps before he gave a shrill whistle, and called back to his sister, who inquired what was wanted, that he should not be at home till morning.

"Where do you spend the night?" asked Lenz.

"With you."

The two friends walked on in silence. The moon shone bright, and the owls hooted in the forest, while from the village came the sound of music and merry voices.

"It were not well that all should mourn for one," said Lenz. "Thank God that each of us can bear his own sorrow and his own joy."

"There spoke your mother," returned Faller.

"Stop!" cried Lenz; "don't you want to let your betrothed know you can buy the cottage?"

"That I do. Come with me, and let me show you the happiest household in all the world."

"No, no; you run up alone. I am not fit for joy, and am wofully tired besides. I'll wait for you here. Run quick, and be quick back again."

Faller ran up the hill, while Lenz sat down on a pile of stones by the roadside. As the refreshing dew was shed upon tree and shrub and every blade of grass, so a pure influence as of dew from heaven sank into the heart of the lonely mourner; a light flashed from the little house on the mountain-side, which had been dark before, and light and joy shone in hearts that had long desponded.

Faller came back breathless to tell of the great rejoicing there had been. The old father had opened the window, and shouted down the valley: "A thousand blessings on you, kindest of friends," and the dear girl had laughed and wept by turns.

The friends walked on again, each silently busied with his own thoughts. Faller's step was firm, and his whole bearing so steady and erect that Lenz involuntarily straightened himself up as he kept pace with him. When the path began to ascend again, he cast another glance back at the churchyard, and sighed.

"My father lies there too," said Faller, "and was not spared as long as yours." They went on up the mountain, Lenz taking the lead. What does he see white moving above him? Who is it? Can it be- His mother is not dead! She cannot keep away from him, she has come back!

The mourner gazed with an inward fear.

"Good evening, Lenz," cried Katharine's voice.

"What are you doing there?"

"I have been with Franzl. She sent for our maid to keep her company, for she is old and timid. I should not be afraid if your mother herself came back. Good night, Lenz! good night! good night!"

She said good night three times, as Franzl had bidden her. There must be some charm in the words. Who knows what may come of them?

CHAPTER IV.
EACH BEFORE HIS OWN DOOR

The cool evening following the excessive heat of the day had tempted the villagers out of doors. Some families sat on the bench before their houses, but more were gathered about the stone railing of the bridge, always a favorite place of evening resort for rest or social chat after the day's work. Thence can be seen the passing on both sides, while the babbling of the brook provokes conversation. Various woods were lying seasoning in the water below. The clocks were less likely to warp or shrink when the wood of which they were made had been thoroughly drained of its juices. But the people on the bridge understood the process of seasoning in all its branches. The subject of their talk now, even as late in the day as this, was the morning's funeral, which naturally led to a discussion of young Lenz and the necessity of his making a speedy marriage. The women were lavish of their praises of him, not a few of their encomiums being meant as hints to the men that they might profitably follow his example, since virtue, when seen, was so readily appreciated. The men, however, pronounced him a good sort of fellow enough, only too soft-hearted. The young girls, with the exception of those who had declared lovers, said nothing; especially as the suggestion had been started that Lenz was to marry one of the doctor's daughters. Some even asserted that it was a settled thing, and would be publicly announced as soon as the proper time of mourning was over. Suddenly, no one knew how or where it originated, the report circulated from house to house, and among the persons on the bridge, that Lenz had spent that day, the very day of his mother's funeral, in uninterrupted work. The women lamented that avarice should mar a character in other respects so good. The men, on the other hand, tried to excuse him. But the conversation soon turned upon the weather and the course of events, – both fruitful subjects, as nothing can be foretold of either. They were none the less comfortably discussed, however, till it was time to bid good night, and leave the stars in heaven and the affairs of the world to go on their appointed courses.

But the pleasantest resting-place of all was the doctor's pretty garden, further down the valley, whence a wonderful fragrance arose on the evening air. And yet not wonderful either, for the garden was stocked with all manner of medicinal plants in full blossom, the doctor being a mixer of drugs as well as physician. He was a native of the village, the son of a clockmaker. His wife came from the capital, but had made herself so completely at home in her husband's native valley, that her mother-in-law, the old mayoress, as she was called, who lived with them, used to say she must have led a previous existence as a child of the Black Forest, so naturally did she adopt its customs. The doctor, like his father before him, was mayor of the village. He had four children. The only son, contrary to general expectation, did not learn a profession, but preferred to study the science of clock-making, and, at the time of our story, was absent in French Switzerland. The three daughters were the most aristocratic ladies in the place, at the same time that they were unsurpassed in industry by any of their humbler neighbors. Amanda, the eldest, acted as her father's assistant, besides having the charge of the garden. Bertha and Minna took an active part in the housekeeping, and occupied their leisure in plaiting those fine straw braids that are sent to Italy and come to us in the shape of Leghorn hats.

This evening, the family in the garden had a visitor, – a young machinist, called in the village, for convenience, the engineer. His two brothers married daughters of the landlord of the Lion. One of them was a rich wood-merchant in the next county town, the other the owner of one of the most frequented bathing establishments in the lower Black Forest, as well as of a considerable private estate. It was said that the engineer was to marry the landlord's only remaining daughter, Annele.

"You speak well, Mr. Storr," the doctor was saying, in a voice whose tones showed him to be hale and hearty. "We must not rejoice in the beauties of mountain and valley, and take no thought for the people who inhabit them. There is too much of the superficial, restless spirit of change in the world of to-day. For my part, I have no desire to rove; my own narrow sphere contents me, body and mind. I have even had to give up my old hobby of botanizing, or, rather, I have voluntarily given it up, in order to devote more time to the study of humanity. In the general division of labor, every one should take what best suits his capacities. That is a lesson my country-people will not learn, and our native industry suffers in consequence."

"May I ask you to explain yourself more particularly?"

"The thing is very simple. Our clock-making, like all our home pursuits, is the natural result of the unproductiveness of our soil, and the indivisibility of our large, entailed estates. Younger sons, and all whose whole capital consists in their industry, must make the most of that, if they would earn a living. Hence that natural aptitude for work, that strict, unresting carefulness, that are common among us. Our forests supply the best wood for machinery and cases, and as long as our wooden clocks found a good market, a manufacturer, with the help of his wife and children to paint the dial-plate, could make an entire clock in his own house. But now that metal clocks have been introduced, and have, in a measure, supplanted the wooden ones, a division of labor has become necessary. There is a strong competition in France, in America, and especially in Saxony. We must give up pendulums, and take to springs. These changes cannot be effected without the help of some general and binding association among the workmen. The stone-cutters, in old times, used to form themselves into a guild, presided over by a chosen head, and that is what is wanted here. The workmen, scattered about on the mountains, must enter into a league with one another, and work into each other's hands. The difficulty is to bring about such a league among our people. In Switzerland a watch passes through a hundred and twenty hands before it is finished. But the very perseverance of the good people here, which is undoubtedly a virtue, makes them unwilling to adopt new ways. Only by unexampled frugality and application could our home manufactures have been carried on as long as they have. You would hardly believe what a morbid sensitiveness our people have contracted by their constant and close confinement at their work. They have to be handled as tenderly as their own clocks, which an awkward touch will break."

"It seems to me," answered the young man, "that the first thing wanted now is a better case for your clocks, that they may become more of a parlor ornament."

"I quite agree with you," said Bertha, the second daughter. "I spent a year with my aunt in the capital, and, wherever I visited, I found one of my compatriots, a Black Forest clock, like Cinderella, in the kitchen. In the best room, resplendent with gold and alabaster, was sure to be a French mantel-clock, never wound up, or never right if it was, while my compatriot in the kitchen was always going, and always exact."

"Cinderella needs to be metamorphosed," said the young man; "but she must keep her virtues, and tell the truth, when she gets into the best parlor."

The doctor did not let the conversation follow the turn the young people had given it; but entered into further explanations of the peculiarities of his country-people. A tolerably long residence abroad enabled him to judge them impartially, while yet he had lived years enough at home to know and appreciate their good qualities. He spoke High German, but with a decided provincial accent.

"Good evening to you all," cried a passer-by.

"Ah, is it you, Pilgrim? Wait a minute," cried the doctor. "How is Lenz?" he asked, as the passer-by stopped at the garden gate.

"I have not seen him since the funeral. I am just from the Lion, where I was fool enough to get into a quarrel about him."

"How was that?"

"They were talking about his having been at work all day to-day, and finding fault with him for it, and calling him a miser. Lenz a miser! Nonsense!"

"You should not let it disturb you. You and I know, and so do many others, that Lenz is a good fellow, above all such reproaches. Was not Petrovitsch with him to-day?"

"No. I thought he would be, and therefore did not go myself. Doctor, I wanted to ask if you would have time to come to my house to-morrow for a moment. I should like to show you what I have been doing."

"Certainly I will come."

"Good night to you all."

"Good night, Pilgrim; pleasant dreams."

"Send me back my songs to-morrow," cried Bertha, as he was going.

"I will bring them," returned Pilgrim; and soon after they heard his clear musical whistle in the distance.

"That is a remarkable man," said the doctor. "He is a case-painter, and an intimate friend of Lenz, whose mother was buried this morning. He is quite a hidden genius, and has rather a remarkable history."

"Pray, let me hear it."

"Some other time, when we are by ourselves."

"No, we should like to hear it again," exclaimed his wife and daughters, and the doctor began as follows.