The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII by Various

V >> Various >> The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII

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"If I were alone, I know for certain that I should not go; I should
stay here. For it would grieve me too much. Alone I could get along.
Good--remember that; of one thing, then, you are sure--as to yourself
you are decided. But what foolish thoughts are these! How can I imagine
that I am alone, and without Damie? I am not alone--I belong to Damie,
and he belongs to me. And for Damie it would be better if he had a
fatherly hand to guide him--it would help him up. But why do you want
anybody else, Amrei?--can you not take care of him yourself, if it be
necessary? If he once starts out in that way, I can see that he'll be
nothing but a servant all his life, a drudge for other people. And who
knows how uncle's children will behave toward us? Because they're poor
people themselves, they'll play the masters with us. No, no! I'm sure
they're good,--and it would be a fine thing to be able to say: 'Good
morning, cousin.' If uncle had only brought one of the children with
him, I could decide much better--I could find out about things. Oh, good
heavens, how difficult all this is!"

Amrei sat down by the tree. A chaffinch came hopping along, picked up a
seed, looked around him, and flew away. Something crept across Amrei's
face; she brushed it off--it was a ladybird. She let it creep about on
her hand, between the mountains and valleys of her fingers, until it
came to the tip of her little-finger and flew away.

"What a tale he'll have to tell about where he has been!" thought Amrei.
"A little creature like that is well off indeed--wherever it flies, it
is at home. How the larks are singing! They, too, are well off--they do
not have to think what they ought to say and do. Yonder the butcher,
with his dog, is driving a calf out of the village. The dog's voice is
quite different from the lark's--but then a lark's singing would never
drive a calf along."

"Where's the colt going?" Coaly Mathew called out of his window to a
young lad who was leading a fine colt away by a halter.

"Farmer Rodel has sold it," was the reply; and presently the colt was
heard neighing farther down the valley. Amrei, who had heard this,
again reflected:

"Yes, a creature like that can be sold away from its mother, and the
mother hardly knows of it; and whoever pays for it, to him it belongs.
But a person cannot be sold, and he who is unwilling cannot be led away
by a halter. Yonder comes Farmer Rodel and his horses, with a large colt
frisking beside them. You will be put in harness soon, colt, and perhaps
you, too, will be sold. A man cannot be bought--he merely hires himself
out. An animal for its work gets nothing more than its food and drink,
while a person gets money as a reward. Yes, I can be a maid now, and
with my wages I can apprentice Damie--he wants to be a mason. But when
we are at uncle's, Damie won't be as much mine as he is now. Hark! the
starling is flying home to the house which father made for him--he's
singing merrily again. Father made the house for him out of old planks.
I remember his saying that a starling won't go into a house if it's made
of new wood, and I feel just the same. 'You, tree,--now I know--if you
rustle as long as I stay here, I shall remain.'" And Amrei listened
intently; soon it seemed to her as if the tree were rustling, but again
when she looked up at the branches they were quite still, and she did
not know what it was she heard.

Something was now coming along the road with a great cackling and with a
cloud of dust flying before it. It was a flock of geese returning from
the pasture on the Holderwasen. Amrei abstractedly imitated their
cackling for a long time. Then her eyes closed and she fell asleep.

An entire spring-array of blossoms had burst forth in this young soul.
The budding trees in the valley, as they drank in the evening dew, shed
forth their fragrance over the child who had fallen asleep on her native
soil, from which she could not tear herself.

It had long been dark when she awoke, and a voice was crying:

"Amrei, where are you?"

She sat up, but did not answer. She looked wonderingly at the
stars,--it seemed to her as if the voice had come from Heaven. Not until
the call was repeated did she recognize the voice of Black Marianne, and
then she answered:

"Here I am!"

Black Marianne now came up and said:

"Oh, it's good that I have found you! They are like mad all through the
village; one says he saw you in the wood, another that he met you in the
fields, that you were running along, crying, and would listen to no
call. I began to fear that you had jumped into the pond. You need not be
afraid, dear child, you need not run away; nobody can compel you to go
with your uncle."

"And who said that I did not want to go?" But suddenly a gust of wind
rustled loudly through the branches of the tree. "But I shall certainly
not go!" Amrei cried, holding fast to the tree with her hand.

"Come home--there's a severe storm coming up, and the wind will blow it
here directly," urged Marianne.

And so Amrei walked, almost staggered, back to the village with Black
Marianne. What did it mean--that people had seen her running through
field and forest? Or was it only Black Marianne's fancy?

The night was pitch dark, but now and then bright flashes of lightning
illuminated the houses, revealing them in a dazzling glare, which
blinded their eyes and compelled them to stand still. And when the
lightning disappeared, nothing more could be seen. In their own native
village the two seemed as if they were lost, as if they were in a
strange place, and they hastened onward with an uncertain step. The dust
whirled up in eddies, so that at times they could scarcely make any
progress; then, wet with perspiration, they struggled on again, until at
last they reached the shelter of their home, just as the first heavy
drops of rain began to fall. A gust of wind blew open the door, and
Amrei cried:

"Open, door!"

She was very likely thinking of a fairy tale, in which a magic door
opens at a mysterious word.

CHAPTER V

ON THE HOLDERWASEN

Accordingly, when her uncle came the next morning, Amrei declared that
she would remain where she was. There was a strange mixture of
bitterness and benevolence in her uncle's reply:

"Yes, you certainly take after your mother--she would never have
anything to do with us. But I couldn't take Damie alone along with me,
even if he wanted to go; for a long time he wouldn't be able to do
anything but eat bread, whereas you would have been able to earn it
too."

Amrei replied that she preferred to do that here at home for the
present, but that if her uncle remained in the same mind, she and her
brother would come to him at some future time. Indeed, the interest her
uncle now expressed for the children, for a moment, almost made her
waver in her resolution, but in her characteristic way she did not
venture to show any signs of it. She merely said:

"Give my love to your children, and tell them I feel very sorry about
never having seen my nearest relatives; and especially now that they are
going across the seas, since perhaps I shall never see them in my life."

Then her uncle stood up quickly, and commissioned Amrei to give his love
to Damie, for he himself had no time to wait to bid him farewell. And
with that he went away.

When Damie came soon afterward and heard of his uncle's departure, he
wanted to run after him, and even Amrei felt a similar impulse. But she
restrained herself and did not yield to it. She spoke and acted as if
she were obeying some one's command in every word she said and in every
movement she made; and yet her thoughts were wandering along the road by
which her uncle had gone. She walked through the village, leading her
brother by the hand, and nodded to all the people she met. She felt just
as if she had been away and was now returning to them all. Her uncle
had wanted to tear her away, and she thought that everybody else must be
as glad that she had not gone, as she was herself. But she soon found
out that they would not only have been glad to let her go, but that they
were positively angry with her because she had not gone. Crappy Zachy
opened his eyes wide at her and said:

"Child, you have an obstinate head of your own--the whole village is
angry with you for spurning your good fortune. Still, who knows whether
it would have been good fortune? But they call it so now, at any rate,
and everybody that looks at you casts it up to you how much you receive
from the parish. So make haste and get yourself off the public charity
lists."

"But what am I to do?"

"Farmer Rodel's wife would like to have you in her service, but the old
man won't listen to it."

Amrei very likely felt that henceforward she would have to be doubly
brave, in order to escape the reproaches of her own conscience, as well
as those of others; and so she asked again:

"Don't you know of anything at all?"

"Yes, certainly; but you must not be ashamed of anything--except
begging. Have you not heard that foolish Fridolin yesterday killed two
geese belonging to a farmer's wife? The goosekeeper's place is vacant,
and I advise you to take it."

It was soon done. That very noon Amrei drove the geese out to the
Holderwasen, as the pasture on the little hill by the King's Well was
called. Damie loyally helped his sister in doing it.

Black Marianne, however, was very much put out about this new service,
and declared, not without reason:

"It's something that's remembered against a person an entire lifetime to
have had such a place. People never forget it, and always refer to it;
and later on every one will think twice about taking you into their
service, because they will say: 'Why, that's the goose-girl!' And if any
one does take you, out of compassion, you'll get low wages and bad
treatment, and they'll always say: 'Oh, that's good enough for a
goose-girl.'"

"I won't mind that," replied Amrei; "and you have told me hundreds of
times about how a goose-girl became a queen."

"That was in olden times. But who knows?--you belong to the old world.
Sometimes it seems to me that you are not a child at all, and who knows,
you old-fashioned soul, if a wonder won't happen in your case?"

This hint that she had not yet stood upon the lowest round of the ladder
of honor, but that there was a possibility of her descending even lower
that she was, startled Amrei. For herself she thought nothing of it, but
from that time forth she would not allow Damie to keep the geese with
her. He was a man--or was to be one--and it might do him harm if it were
said of him, later on, that he had kept geese. But, to save her soul,
she could not make this clear to him, and he refused to listen to her.
For it is always thus; at the point where mutual understanding ends,
vexation begins; the inward helplessness translates itself into a
feeling of outward injustice and injury.

Amrei, nevertheless, was almost glad that Damie could remain angry with
her for so many days; for it showed that he was learning how to stand up
against the world and to assert his own will.

Damie, however, soon got a place for himself. He was employed by his
guardian, Farmer Rodel, in the capacity of scarecrow, an occupation
which required him to swing a rattle in the farmer's orchard all day
long, for the purpose of frightening the sparrows away from the early
cherries and vegetable-beds. At first this duty appealed to him as
sport, but he soon grew tired of it and gave it up.

It was a pleasant, but at the same time a laborious office that Amrei
had undertaken. And it often seemed especially hard to her that she
could do nothing to attach the creatures to her; indeed, they were
hardly to be distinguished from one another. And it was not at all an
idle remark that Black Marianne made to her one day when she returned
from Mossbrook Wood:

"Animals that live in flocks and herds," she said, "if you take each one
separately, are always stupid."

"I think so, too," replied Amrei. "These geese are stupid because they
know how to do too many different things. They can swim, and run, and
fly, but they are not really at home either in the water, or on land, or
in the air. That's what makes them stupid."

"I still maintain," replied Marianne, "that there's the making of an old
hermit in you."

The Holderwasen was not one of those lonely, sequestered spots which the
world of fiction seems to select for its gleaming, glittering legends.
Through the centre of the Holderwasen ran a road to Endringen, and not
far from it stood the many-colored boundary-stakes with the
coats-of-arms of the two sovereign princes whose dominions came together
here. In rustic vehicles of all kinds the peasants used to drive past,
and men, women, and children kept passing to and fro with hoe, scythe,
and sickle. The _gardes-champetres_ of the two dominions also used to
pass by often, the barrels of their muskets shining as they approached
and gleaming long after they had passed. Amrei was almost always
accosted by the _garde-champetre_ of Endringen as she sat by the
roadside, and he often made inquiries of her as to whether this or that
person had passed by. But she was never able to give the desired
information--or perhaps she kept it from him on purpose, on account of
the instinctive aversion the people, and especially the children, of a
village have for these men, whom they invariably look upon as the armed
enemies of the human race, going to and fro in search of some one to
devour.

Theisles Manz, who used to sit by the road breaking stones, hardly spoke
a word to Amrei; he would go sulkily from stone-heap to stone-heap, and
his knocking was more incessant than the tapping of the woodpecker in
Mossbrook Wood, and more regular than the piping and chirping of the
grasshoppers in the neighboring meadows and cloverfields.

[And so Amrei spent day after day at Holderwasen, watching the geese and
the passers-by, studying the birds and the flowers and the trees,
dreaming of her father and mother, and wondering what was in store for
Damie and herself. There was a trough of clear, fresh water by the
roadside, and Amrei used to bring a jug with her in order to offer it to
thirsty people who had nothing to drink out of.]

One day a little Bernese wagon, drawn by two handsome white horses, came
rattling along the road; a stout, upland farmer took up almost the
entire seat, which was meant for two. He drew up by the roadside and
asked:

"Girlie, have you anything one can drink out of?"

"Yes, certainly--I'll get it for you." And she went off briskly to fetch
her pitcher, which she filled with water.

"Ah!" said the farmer, stopping to take breath after a long draught; and
with the water running down his chin, he continued, talking half into
the jug: "There's after all no water like this in all the world." And
again he raised the jug to his lips, and motioned to Amrei to keep still
while he took a second long, thirsty draught. For it is extremely
disagreeable to be addressed when you are drinking; you swallow
hurriedly and feel an oppression afterward.

The child seemed to realize this, for not until the farmer had handed
back the jug did she say:

"Yes, this is good, wholesome water; and if you would like to water your
horses, it is especially good for them--it won't give them cramps."

"My horses are warm and must not drink now. Do you come from
Haldenbrunn, my girl?"

"Yes indeed."

"And what is your name?"

"Amrei."

"And to whom do you belong?"

[Illustration: AMREI BRISKLY BROUGHT HER PITCHER FILLED WITH WATER]

"To nobody now--my father was Josenhans."

"What! Josenhans, who served at Farmer Rodel's?"

"Yes."

"I knew him well. It was too bad that he died so soon. Wait, child--I'll
give you something." He drew a large leather bag out of his pocket,
groped about in it for a long time, and said at last: "There, take
this."

"No, thank you--I don't accept presents--I'll take nothing."

"Take it--you can accept it from me all right. Is Farmer Rodel your
guardian?"

"Yes."

"He might have done something better than make a goose-girl of you.
Well, God keep you."

Away rolled the wagon, and Amrei found herself alone with a coin in her
hand.

"'You can accept it from me all right.'--Who was he that he could say
that? And why didn't he make himself known? Why, it's a groschen, and
there's a bird on it. Well, it won't make him poor, nor me rich."

The rest of that day Amrei did not offer her pitcher to any one else;
she was afraid of having something given to her again. When she got home
in the evening, Black Marianne told her that Farmer Rodel had sent for
her, and that she was to go over to him directly.

Amrei hastened to his house, and as she entered, Farmer Rodel called out
to her:

"What have you been saying to Farmer Landfried?"

"I don't know any Farmer Landfried."

"He was with you at the Holderwasen today, and gave you something."

"I did not know who he was--and here's his money still."

"I've nothing to do with that. Now, say frankly and honestly, you
tiresome child, did I persuade you to be a goose-keeper? If you don't
give it up this very day, I'm no guardian of yours. I won't have such
things said of me!"

"I'll let everybody know that it was not your fault--but give it up is
something I can't do. I must stick to it, at any rate for the rest of
the summer--I must finish what I have begun."

"You're a crabbed creature," said the farmer; and he walked out of the
room. But his wife, who was lying ill in bed, called out:

"You're quite right--stay just as you are. I prophesy that it will go
well with you. A hundred years from now they will be saying in this
village of one who has done well: 'He has the fortune of Brosi's Severin
and of Josenhans' Amrei.' Your dry bread will fall into the honey-pot
yet."

Farmer Rodel's sick wife was looked upon as crazy; and, as if frightened
by a specter, Amrei hurried away without a word of reply.

Amrei told Black Marianne that a wonder had happened to her; Farmer
Landfried, whose wife she so often thought about, had spoken to her and
had taken her part in a talk with Farmer Rodel, and had given her
something. She then displayed the piece of money, and Marianne called
out, laughing:

"Yes, I might have guessed myself that it was Farmer Landfried. That's
just like him--to give a poor child a bad groschen!"

"Why is it bad?" asked Amrei; and the tears came into her eyes.

"Why, that's a bird groschen--they're not worth full value--they're
worth only a kreutzer and a half."

"Then he intended to give me only a kreutzer and a half," said Amrei
decidedly.

And here for the first time an inward contrast showed itself between
Amrei and Black Marianne. The latter almost rejoiced at every bad thing
she heard about people, whereas Amrei put a good construction on
everything. She was always happy, and no matter how frequently in her
solitude she burst into tears, she never expected anything, and hence
everything that she received was a surprise to her, and she was all the
more thankful for it.

[Amrei hoped that her meeting with Farmer Landfried would result in his
coming to take her to live with him, but she hoped in vain, for she
watched the geese all summer long, and did not see or hear of him
again.]

CHAPTER VI

THE WOMAN WHO BAKED HER OWN BREAD

A woman who leads a solitary, isolated life and bakes bread for herself
quite alone, is called an "Eigenbroetlerin" (a woman who bakes her own
bread), and such a woman, as a rule, has all kinds of peculiarities. No
one had more right or more inclination to be an "Eigenbroetlerin" than
did Black Marianne, although she never had anything to bake; for oatmeal
and potatoes and potatoes and oatmeal were the only things she ever ate.
She always lived by herself, and did not like to associate with other
people. Only along toward autumn did she become restless and impatient;
about that time of the year she would talk to herself a great deal, and
would often accost people of her own accord, especially strangers who
happened to be passing through the village. For she was anxious to find
out whether the masons from this or that place had yet returned home for
the winter, and whether they had brought news of her John. While she was
once more boiling and washing the linen she had been bleaching all
summer long, for which purpose she remained up all night, she would
always be muttering to herself. No one could understand exactly what she
said, but the burden of it was intelligible, for it was always: "That is
for me, and that is for thee." She was in the habit of saying twelve
Paternosters daily for her John, but on this particular washing-night
they became innumerable. When the first snow fell she was always
especially cheerful; for then there could be no more outdoor work, and
then he would be most likely to come home. At these times she would
often talk to a white hen which she kept in a coop, telling it that it
would have to be killed when John came. She had repeated these
proceedings for many years, and people never ceased telling her that
she was foolish to be thus continually thinking of the return of her
John.

This autumn it would be eighteen years since John had gone away, and
every year John Michael Winkler was reported in the paper as missing,
which would be done until his fiftieth year--he was now in his
thirty-sixth. The story circulated in the village that John had gone
among the gipsies. Once, indeed, his mother had mistaken a young gipsy
for him; he was a man who bore a striking resemblance to her missing
son, in that he was small of stature and had the same dark complexion;
and he had seemed rather pleased at being taken for John. But the mother
had put him to the proof, for she still had John's hymn-book and his
confirmation verse; and, inasmuch as the stranger did not know this
verse and could not tell who were his sponsors, or what had happened to
him on the day when Brosi's Severin arrived with his English wife, and
later on when the new well was dug at the town-hall--inasmuch as he did
not satisfy these and other proofs, he could not be the right man. And
yet Marianne used to give the gipsy a lodging whenever he came to the
village, and the children in the streets used to cry "John!" after him.

John was advertised as being liable to military duty and as a deserter;
and although his mother declared that he would have slipped through
under the measuring-stick as "too short," she knew that he would not
escape punishment if he returned, and inferred that this was the reason
why he did not return. And it was very strange to hear her praying,
almost in the same breath, for the welfare of her son and the death of
the reigning prince; for she had been told that when the sovereign died,
his successor would proclaim a general amnesty for all past offenses.

Every year Marianne used to ask the schoolmaster to give her the page in
the newspaper in which her John was advertised for, and she always put
it with his hymn-book. But this year it was a good thing that Marianne
could not read, so that the schoolmaster could send her another page in
place of the one she wanted. For a strange rumor was going through the
whole village; whenever two people stood together talking, they would be
saying:

"Black Marianne must not be told anything about it. It would kill
her--it would drive her crazy."

For a report, coming from the Ambassador in Paris, had passed through a
number of higher and lower officers, until it reached the Village
Council; it stated that, according to a communication received from
Algiers, John Winkler of Haldenbrunn had perished in that colony during
an outpost skirmish. There was much talk in the village of the singular
fact that so many in high departments should have concerned themselves
so much about the dead John. But this stream of well-confirmed
information was arrested before it had reached the end of its course.

At a meeting of the Village, Council it was determined that nothing at
all should be said to Black Marianne about it. It would be wrong, they
said, to embitter the last few years of her life by taking her one
comfort away from her.

But instead of keeping the report secret, the first thing the members of
the Council did was to talk of it in their homes, and it was not long
before the whole village knew about it, excepting only Black Marianne.
Every one, afraid of betraying the secret to her, looked at her with
strange glances; no one addressed her, and even her greetings were
scarcely returned. It was only Marianne's peculiar disposition that
prevented her from noticing this. And indeed, if any one did speak to
her and was drawn on to say anything about John's death, it was done in
the conjectural and soothing way to which she had been accustomed for
years; and Marianne did not believe it now any more than she had
formerly, because nobody ever said anything definite about the report of
his decease.

It would have been better if Amrei had known nothing about it, but there
was a strange, seductive charm in getting as close as possible to a
subject that was forbidden. Accordingly every one spoke to Amrei of the
mournful event, warned her not to tell Black Marianne anything about
it, and asked if the mother had no presentiments or dreams of her son's
death--if his spirit did not haunt the house. After she heard of it
Amrei was always trembling and quaking in secret; for she alone was
always near Black Marianne, and it was terrible to know something which
she was obliged to conceal from her. Even the people in whose house
Black Marianne had rented a small room could no longer bear to have her
near them, and they showed their sympathy by giving her notice to quit.

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