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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




How the birds are rejoicing in the trees! And beneath them a sad maiden
is passing, thinking how unhappy it must make her brother to see all
these things again, and how badly things must have gone with him, if he
had no other resource but to come home and live upon her earnings.

"Other sisters are helped by their brothers," she thought to herself,
"and I--but I shall show you this time, Damie, that you must stay where
I put you, and that you dare not stir!"

Such were Barefoot's thoughts as she hurried along; and at last she
arrived at Coaly Mathew's. But there she saw only Coaly Mathew himself,
who was sitting by the kiln in front of his log cabin, and holding his
wooden pipe with both hands as he smoked it; for a charcoal-burner is
like a charcoal kiln, in that he is always smoking.

"Has anybody been playing a trick on me?" Barefoot asked herself. "Oh,
that would be shameful! What have I done to people that they should
make a fool of me? But I shall soon find out who did it--and he shall
pay for it."

With clenched fists and a flaming face she stood before Coaly Mathew,
who hardly raised his eyes to her--much less did he speak. As long as
the sun was shining he was almost always mute, and only at night, when
nobody could look into his eyes, did he like to talk, and then he spoke
freely.

Barefoot gazed for a minute at the charcoal-burner's black face, and
then asked impatiently:

"Where is my Damie?"

The old man shook his head. Then Barefoot asked again with a stamp of
her foot:

"Is my Damie with you?"

The old man unfolded his hands and spread them right and left, implying
thereby that he was not there.

"Who was it that sent to me?" asked Barefoot, still more impatiently.
"Can't you speak?"

The charcoal-burner pointed with his right thumb toward the side where a
foot-path wound around the mountain.

"For Heaven's sake, do say something!" cried Barefoot, fairly weeping
with indignation; "only a single word! Is my Damie here, or where is
he?"

At last the old man said:

"He's there--gone to meet you along the path." And then, as if he had
said too much, he pressed his lips together and walked off around the
kiln.

Barefoot now stood there, laughing scornfully and, at the same time,
sadly over her brother's simplicity.

"He sends to me and doesn't stay in the place where I can find him; now
if I go up that way, why should he expect me to come by the foot-path?
That has doubtless occurred to him now, and he'll be going some other
way--so that I shall never find him, and we shall be wandering about
each other as in a fog."

Barefoot sat down quietly on the stump of a tree. There was a fire
within her as within the kiln, only the flames could not leap
forth--the fire could merely smolder within. The birds were singing, the
forest rustling--but what is all that when there is no clear, responsive
note in the heart? Barefoot now remembered, as in a dream, how she had
once cherished thoughts of love. What right had she to let such thoughts
rise within her? Had she not misery enough in herself and in her
brother? And this thought of love seemed to her now like the
remembrance, in winter, of a bright summer's day. One merely remembers
how sunny and warm it was--but that is all. Now she had to learn what it
meant to "wait,"--to "wait" high up on a crag, where there is hardly a
palm's breadth of room. And he who knows what it means, feels all his
old misery--and more.

She went into the charcoal-burner's log cabin, and there lay a cloth
sack, hardly half full, and on the sack was her father's name.

"Oh, how you have been dragged about!" she said, almost aloud. But she
soon got over her excitement in her curiosity to see what Damie had
brought back. "He must at least still have the shirts that I made for
him out of Black Marianne's linen. And perhaps there is also a present
from our uncle in America in it. But if he had anything good, would he
have gone first to Coaly Mathew in the forest? Would he not have shown
himself in the village at once?"

Barefoot had plenty of time to indulge in these reflections; for the
sack had been tied with a cord, which had been knotted in a most
complicated way, and it required all her patience and skill to
disentangle it. She emptied out everything that was in the sack and said
with angry eyes:

"Oh, you good-for-nothing! There's not a decent shirt left! Now you may
have your choice whether you'll be called 'Jack in Tatters' or 'Tattered
Jack.'"

This was not a happy frame of mind in which to greet her brother for the
first time. And Damie seemed to realize this; for he stood at the
entrance of the log cabin and looked on, until Barefoot had put
everything back into the sack. Then he stepped up to her and said:

"God greet you, Amrei! I bring you nothing but dirty clothes, but you
are neat, and will make me--"

"Oh, dear Damie, how you look!" cried Barefoot, and she threw herself on
his neck. But she quickly tore herself away from him, exclaiming:

"For Heaven's sake! You smell of whisky! Have you got so far already?"

"No, Coaly Mathew only gave me a little juniper spirit, for I could not
stand up any longer. Things have gone badly with me, but I have not
taken to drink--you may believe that, though, to be sure, I can't prove
it."

"I believe you, for you surely would not wish to deceive the only one
you have on earth! But oh, how wild and miserable you look! You have a
beard as heavy as a knife-grinder's. I won't allow that--you must shave
it off. But you're in good health? There's nothing the matter with you?"

"I am in good health, and intend to be a soldier."

"What you are, and what you are to be, we'll think about in good time.
But now tell me how things have gone with you."

Damie kicked his foot against a half-burnt log of wood--one of the
spoilt logs, as they were called--and said:

"Look you--I am just like that, not completely turned to coal, and yet
no longer fresh wood."

Barefoot exhorted him to say what he had to say without complaints. And
then Damie went off into a long, long story, setting forth how he had
not been able to bear the life at his uncle's, and how hard-hearted and
selfish that uncle was, and especially how his wife had grudged him
every bit he ate in the house, and how he had got work here and there,
but how in every place he had only experienced a little more of man's
hard-heartedness. "In America," he said, "one can see another person
perishing in misery, and never so much as look around at him."

Barefoot could hardly help laughing when there came again and again, as
the burden of his story,--"And then they turned me out into the street."
She could not help interrupting him with:

"Yes, that's just how you are, and how you used to be, even as a child.
When you once stumbled, you let yourself fall like a log of wood; one
must convert the stumble into a hop, as the old proverb says. Cheer up.
Do you know what one must do, when people try to hurt one?"

"One must keep out of their way."

"No, one must hurt them, if one can--and one hurts them most by standing
up and achieving something. But you always stand there and say to the
world: 'Do what you like to me, good or bad; kiss me or beat me, just as
you will.' That's easy enough; you let people do anything to you, and
then pity yourself. I should like it right well myself, if some one
would place me here and there, and do everything for me. But you must
look out for yourself now. You've let yourself be pushed about quite
enough in the world; now you must play the master for awhile."

Reproof and teaching often seem like hardness and injustice in the eyes
of the unhappy; and Damie took his sister's words as such. It was
dreadful that she did not see that he was the most unhappy creature on
earth. She strongly urged him not to believe that, and said that if he
did not believe it, it would not be so. But it is the most difficult of
all undertakings to inspire a man with confidence in himself; most
people acquire it only after they have succeeded.

Damie declared that he would not tell his heartless sister a word more;
and it was only after some time that she got from him a detailed account
of his travels and fortunes, and of how he had at last come back to the
old world as a stoker on a steamboat. While she reproved him for his
self-tormenting touchiness, she became conscious that she herself was
not entirely free from that fault. For, as a result of her almost
exclusive association with Black Marianne, she had fallen into the habit
of thinking and talking so much about herself, that she had acquired a
desponding way. And now that she was called upon to cheer her brother
up, she unconsciously exerted a similar influence upon herself. For
herein lies the mysterious power of cooperation among men, that when we
help others we are also helping ourselves.

"We have four sound hands," she said in conclusion, "and we'll see if we
cannot fight our way through the world together. And to fight your way
through is a thousand times better than to beg your way through. And
now, Damie, come with me--come home."

Damie did not want to show himself in the village at all; he dreaded the
jeering that would be vented upon him from all sides, and preferred to
remain concealed for the present. But Barefoot said:

"You go with me now--on this bright Sunday; and you must walk right
through the village, and let the people mock at you, let them have their
say, let them point and laugh. Then you'll be through with it, then it
will be over, and you will have swallowed their bitter draught all at
once, and not drop by drop."

Not without long and obstinate resistance, not until Coaly Mathew had
interfered and sided with Barefoot, was Damie induced to comply. And
there was, indeed, a perfect hailstorm of jeering, sometimes coarse,
sometimes satirical, directed at Barefoot's Damie, whom people accused
of having taken merely a pleasure-trip to America at the expense of the
parish.

Black Marianne alone received him kindly; her first question was:

"Have you heard nothing of my John?" But he could give her no
information.

In a double sense Damie was doomed to be scratched that day; for that
very evening Barefoot had the barber come and shave off his wild beard,
and give him the smooth face that was the fashion of the country.

The next morning Damie was summoned to the Courthouse; and inasmuch as
he trembled at the summons, he knew not why, Barefoot promised to
accompany him. And that was good, though it was not of much use; for the
Council declared to Damie that he was to be sent away from the place,
that he had no right to remain there, perhaps to become a burden on the
community once more.

All the members were astonished when Barefoot answered "Yes, you can
send him away--but do you know when? When you can go out to the
churchyard, where our father and mother lie buried, and say to them:
'Up, go away with your child!' Then you can send him away. No one can be
sent away from the place where his parents are buried; for he is more
than at home there. And if it is written a thousand times in your books
there, and a thousand times again,"--and here she pointed to the bound
government registers,--"and wherever else it may be written, it cannot
be done, and you cannot do it."

One of the councilors whispered to the schoolmaster:

"Barefoot has learned to talk in that way from nobody else but Black
Marianne."

And the sexton leaned over to the magistrate and said:

"Why do you allow the Cinderella to make such an outcry? Ring for the
gendarme and have him shut her up in the madhouse."

But the magistrate only smiled, and explained that the community had rid
itself of all burdens that could ever accrue to it through Damie by
paying the greater part of his passage money.

"But where is his home now?" asked Barefoot.

"Wherever they will receive him, but not here--at present nowhere."

"Yes, I have no home," said Damie, who almost enjoyed being made more
and more unhappy; for now nobody could deny that he was the most
unfortunate person in the world.

Barefoot continued to fight, but she soon saw that nothing could be
done; the law was against her. She now declared that she would work her
fingers to the bone rather than take anything more from the parish,
either for herself or for her brother; and she promised to pay back all
that had been received.

"Shall I put that down on the minutes?" asked the clerk of those who sat
around. And Barefoot replied:

"Yes, put it down; for with you nothing counts except what's written."

Barefoot then put her signature to the entry. When this was done, it was
announced that Damie, as a stranger, had permission to remain in the
village for three days, but that if within that time he had not found
some means of subsistence, he would be sent away, and in case of
necessity, would be removed by force across the frontier.

Without another word Barefoot left the Court-house with Damie, who
actually shed tears because she had compelled him to return to the
village to no purpose. It would have been better, he declared, if he had
remained out in the woods and spared himself the jeering, and the
humiliation of hearing himself banished as a stranger from his native
place. Barefoot wanted to reply that it was better to know the worst,
however bitter it might be; but she restrained herself, realizing that
she had need of all her strength to keep up her own courage. She felt as
if she had been banished with her brother, and understood that she had
to fight with a world that had law and might to fall back upon, while
she herself was empty-handed and helpless.

But she bore up more bravely than ever; she did not allow Damie's
weaknesses and adversities to weigh upon her. For that is the way with
people; if any one has a pain of his own which entirely occupies him, he
will bear a second pain--be it ever so severe--more easily than if he
had this second pain alone to bear. And thus while Barefoot had a
feeling of indescribable sorrow against which she could do nothing, she
was able to bear the definite trial against which she could strive, the
more willingly and freely. She allowed herself not a minute more for
dreaming, and went to and fro with stiff arms and clinched fists, as if
to say: "Where is there work to do? Be it ever so hard, I will gladly
undertake it, if only I can get myself and my brother out of this state
of forsaken dependency."

She now cherished the idea of going with Damie to Alsace, and working in
a factory there. It seemed terrible to her that she should have to do
this, but she would force herself to it; as soon as the summer was over,
she would go. And then, "Farewell home," she said, "for we are strangers
even here where we were born."

The one protector the two orphans had had on the Village Council was now
powerless to do anything for them; old Farmer Rodel was taken seriously
ill, and in the night following the stormy meeting he died. Barefoot and
Black Marianne were the two people who wept the most at his burial in
the churchyard. On the way home Black Marianne gave as a special reason
for this fact that old Farmer Rodel had been the last survivor of those
with whom she had danced in her youth. "And now," she said, "my last
partner is dead."

But she soon spoke a very different elegy concerning him; for it
appeared that Farmer Rodel, who had for years been raising Barefoot's
hopes concerning his will, made no mention at all of her in that
document--far less did he leave her anything.

When Black Marianne went on with an endless tirade of scolding and
complaining, Barefoot said:

"It's all coming at once. The sky is cloudy now, and the hail is beating
down upon me from all sides; but the sun will soon be shining again."

The relatives of Farmer Rodel gave Barefoot a few garments that had
belonged to the old man; she would have liked to refuse them, but
realized that it would not do to show a spirit of obstinacy just now. At
first Damie also refused to accept the clothes, but he was finally
obliged to give in; he seemed fated to pass his life in the clothes of
various dead people.

Coaly Mathew took Damie to work with him at the kiln in the forest,
where talebearers kept coming to Damie to tell him that he had only to
begin a lawsuit; they declared that he could not be driven away, for he
had not yet been received at any other place, and that this was always a
tacit condition when any one gave up his right of settlement. These
people seemed to derive a certain satisfaction from the reflection that
the poor orphans had neither time nor money to begin a legal process.

Damie seemed to like the solitude of the forest; it suited him exactly,
the fact that one was not obliged to dress and undress there. And every
Sunday afternoon Barefoot experienced great difficulty in getting him to
clean himself up a little; then she would sit with him and Coaly Mathew.

Little was said, and Barefoot could not prevent her thoughts from
wandering about the world in search of him who had once made her so
happy for a whole day, and had lifted her above the earth. Did he know
nothing more about her? Did he think of her no more? Could people forget
other people with whom they had once been so happy?

It was on a Sunday morning toward the end of May, and everybody was at
church. The day before it had rained, and now a strong, refreshing
breeze was blowing over the mountains and valleys, and the sun was
shining brightly. Barefoot had also intended to go to church, but while
the bells were ringing she had sat as if spell-bound beneath her window,
until it was too late to go. That was a strange thing for her, and it
had never happened before. But now that it was too late, she determined
to stay at home by herself and read her hymn-book. She rummaged through
her drawers, and was surprised to find all sorts of things that belonged
to her. She was sitting on the floor, reading a hymn and humming the
tune of it to herself, when something stirred at the window. She glanced
up; a white dove was sitting on the ledge and looking at her. When the
eyes of the dove and of the girl met, the bird flew away. Barefoot
watched it soar out over the fields and alight again.

This incident, which was a very natural one, filled her heart with
gladness; and she kept nodding to the mountains in the distance, and to
the fields and woods. The rest of that day she was unusually cheerful.
She could not explain to herself why, but it seemed to her as if a
joyous spirit were singing within her, and she knew not whence it came.
And as often as she shook her head, while she leaned against the
door-post, wondering at the strange excitement she felt, the feeling did
not pass away.

"It must be, it must be that some one has been thinking kindly of me,"
she said; "and why should it not be possible that the dove was a silent
messenger who came to tell me so?--Animals, after all, live in the
world, where the thoughts of men are flying about, and who knows if they
do not quietly carry those thoughts away?"

The people who passed by Barefoot could have no idea of the strange life
that was moving within her.




CHAPTER XIII

OUT OF A MOTHER'S HEART


While Barefoot was dreaming and working and worrying in village, field,
and wood, sometimes feeling a strange thrill of joy, at other times
thinking herself completely deserted, two parents were sending their
child forth into the world, in the hope, to be sure, that he would
return to them the richer. Yonder in Allgau, in the large farm-house
known, by the sign over the door, as the "Wild Clearing," sat Farmer
Landfried and his wife, with their youngest son. The farmer was saying:

"Listen, John; it's more than a year since you came back, and I don't
know what's gotten into you. You came home that day like a whipped dog,
and said that you would rather choose a wife here in the
neighborhood--but I don't see any signs of your doing it. If you will
follow my advice once more, then I won't say another word to persuade
you."

"Yes, I will," said the young man, without looking up. "Well then, make
one more trial--one trial is no better than no trial. And I tell you,
you will make me and your mother happy if you choose a wife from our
region. I may say it to your face, wife; there's only one good breed of
women in the world, and they come from our part of the country. Now, you
are a sensible lad, John, and you will be sure to pick out a good one,
and then you'll thank us on your death-bed for sending you to our home
to find a wife. If I could get away, I would go with you--together we
would find the right one surely--but I can't go. I've spoken to our
George, however, and he says he'll go with you if you ask him. Ride
over, and speak to him then."

"If I may say what I think," answered the young man, "when I go again,
I'd rather go alone. You see, it's my way; in such a matter a second
pair of eyes is superfluous--I should not like to consult any one else.
If it were possible, I should even like to make myself invisible while I
am looking around; but if two of us went together, we might as well have
it proclaimed abroad, so that they would all dress themselves up to
receive us."

"As you will," said the father; "you always were a strange fellow. Do
you know what? Suppose you start at once; we want a mate for our white
horse, so do you go out and look for one--but not in the market, of
course. And when you are going about from house to house, you can see
things for yourself; and on your way home you can buy a Bernese
chaise-wagon. Dominic, in Endringen, they say, has three daughters as
straight as organ-pipes; choose one of them--we should like to have a
daughter from that house."

"Yes," the mother observed, "Ameile is sure to have nice daughters."

"And it would be well," continued the father, "if you went to
Siebenhofen and took a look at Amrei, the Butter Count's daughter. She
has a farm of her own that one could easily sell; the farmers of
Siebenhofen have got their eyes on it, for they want to have more land.
But it's a question of cold cash, and none of them can raise it. But
I'll say nothing more, for you have eyes of your own. Come, set out at
once, and I'll fill the money-belt for you--two hundred crowns will be
enough, but if you should have to have more, Dominic will lend you some.
Only make yourself known; I could never understand why you did not tell
people who you were that time at the wedding. Something must have
happened then--but I won't ask any questions."

"Yes, because he won't answer them," said the mother, smiling.

The farmer at once set about filling the money-belt; he broke open two
large paper rouleaux, and it was manifest that he enjoyed counting out
the big coins from one hand into the other. He made twenty piles of ten
dollars each, and counted them over two or three times to be sure that
he had made no mistake.

"Well, I am ready," said the young man, standing up as he spoke.

He is the strange dancer whose acquaintance we made at the wedding in
Endringen. He went out to the stable, and presently returned with the
white horse already saddled. And as he was fastening his valise to the
bolster, a fine, large wolf-hound began jumping up at him and licking
his hands.

"Yes, yes, I'll take you with me," said the lad to the dog; and for the
first time his face looked cheerful, as he called out to his father:

"Father, can I take Lux with me?"

"Yes, if you like," sounded the answer from within, amid the jingling of
coins. The dog seemed to understand the question and the answer, for he
ran around the yard in circles, barking joyously. The young man went
into the house, and, as he was buckling on the money-belt, he said "You
are right, father; I feel better already, now that I am getting myself
out of this aimless way of living. And I don't know--people ought not
to be superstitious--but somehow I was glad when the horse turned around
and neighed to me when I went out into the stable just now--and that the
dog wants to go too. After all, they're good signs, and if we could ask
animals, who knows if they could not give us good advice?"

The mother smiled, but the father said:

"Don't forget to look up Crappy Zachy, and don't go ahead and bind
yourself until you have consulted him. He knows the affairs of all the
people for ten miles around, and is a living information bureau. And
now, God be with you! Take your time--you may stay away as long as ten
days."

Father and son shook hands, and the mother said:

"I'll escort you part of the way."

The young man, leading his horse by the bridle, then walked quietly
beside his mother until they were out in front of the yard, and it was
not until they reached the turn in the road that the mother said,
hesitatingly:

"I should like to give you some good advice."

"Yes, yes, let me have it--I'll listen to it gladly."

The mother then took her son's hand, and began:

"You must stand still--I can't talk while I am walking. Look; that she
should please you is, of course, the first thing--there's no happiness
without love. Well, I am an old woman, and so I may say what I think to
you, may I not?"