Edelweiss: A Story

CHAPTER XX.

THE FIRST DRIVE

The next morning was the longed-for day. The sun shone joyfully upon the earth, and Lenz's heart grew light again. He sent his apprentice early to Annele to tell her she must be ready for him in an hour. At the end of that time he was dressed in his Sunday clothes, and on his way to the Lion. Annele was not ready. She yielded to his prayers and entreaties so far as to give him her hand through the chamber door, but would not let him see her. She handed him out some red ribbons and cockades, which he was to give to the boy to tie in the whip and about in the harness. After keeping him waiting a long, long time, she appeared, beautifully dressed.

"Is the wagon harnessed?" was her first question.

"No."

"Why did you not see to it? Tell Gregory to put on his postilion's uniform, and take his horn."

"O no! what is the use of that?"

"We have a perfect right to show ourselves before the whole world, without anybody's leave or license. I mean people shall look out when we drive by."

At last they took their places. As they passed the doctor's house, Annele called out: "Blow your horn now, Gregory; blow loud! The doctor's daughters shall look out, and see how we drive together. Look! there is not a soul to be seen. They have shut the window in the corner room. There they are, I know, dying of spite; they will have to tell about us, for I can hear the old mayoress asking, What is that horn-blowing? I should like to be behind the door, and hear it all."

"Annele, you put on strange airs to-day."

"And why not? you please me specially to-day. People are right in praising your eyes. How true and clear they are! I did not know they were so beautiful. You are really a handsome fellow!"

Lenz looked yet handsomer from the glow of pleasure which overspread his face. "I will have some new clothes made in the latest fashion, – shall I not?"

"No, stay as you are. You look much more comfortable and respectable so."

"Not only look so, but am so."

"Are so, to be sure. Don't treat every word as if it were a tooth in a clock-wheel."

"You are quite right."

They drove through the neighboring village.

"Blow, Gregory; blow loud!" commanded Annele. "See, there is where my cousin Ernestine lives. She was our maid a long while, and afterwards married a tailor, who now keeps shop here. She cannot bear me, nor I her. Her green face will turn blue with rage when she sees us drive by without stopping. There she comes to the window. Yes, stare your little pig's eyes out of your head, and open your mouth till you show your bunchy gums! It is I, Annele, and this is my Lenz. Do you see him? How is your appetite now? It is dinner-time. I wish you joy of your last year's herring."

She snapped her tongue in triumph as they went by.

"Do you take pleasure in that, Annele?" asked Lenz.

"Why not? It is right that we should show evil to the evil and good to the good."

"I don't think I could."

"Then be thankful you have me. I will make them all crawl into a mouse-hole before us. They shall be grateful for every look we bestow on them."

As they approached the town, Annele gave her bridegroom directions as to his behavior. "If the engineer is here, my brother-in-law's brother, you must be on your dignity with him. He will want to have some fling at you, because he is frightfully cross at my not accepting him. But I don't like him. And if my sister begins her complaints, listen to her tranquilly. It is not worth while trying to comfort her, and does no good either. She lives in gold, and has nothing to do but cry. The truth is, she is not very strong. The rest of us are perfectly healthy, as you can see by me."

The lovers were not successful at their sister's. She was ill in bed, and neither her husband nor his brother was at home. They had both gone down the Rhine on a large raft. "Won't you stay with your sister? I have business to attend to in the town."

"Can't I go with you?"

"No; it is about something for you."

"Then I had certainly better go too. You men don't know how to choose."

"No, I cannot have you," insisted Lenz. He took from under the seat of the wagon a package of considerable size, and set off with it to the town. Babette's house was a little way out of the town, near a great lumber-yard by the brook. Unobserved by Annele, Lenz brought back the same package somewhat enlarged, and restored it to its place under the seat.

"What have you bought me?" asked Annele.

"I will give it to you when we get home."

Annele thought it hard she could not show her beautiful ornaments to her sister, but had already learned there were some things in which Lenz would have his own way in spite of entreaties and remonstrances.

They dined at the hotel. The landlord's son, Annele said, an excellent man, who now kept a great hotel at Baden-Baden, had also been one of her suitors; but she had refused him.

"Why need you have told me?" said Lenz. "I am almost jealous of the past, never of the future, that I promise. I know your truth, Annele, but it pains me to think that others have so much as raised their eyes to you. Let bygones be bygones. We begin our life anew."

Annele's face beamed with unwonted softness as he spoke. A portion of his own purity and candor fell upon her, and made her gentle and loving. She knew not how better to express this new sentiment in her than by saying: "Lenz, you need not have bought me any bridal present. You have no need to do as others do. I am sure of you. There is something better than all the gold chains in the world."

The tears stood in her eyes as she spoke, and Lenz was happier than ever.

The church clock was striking five when they took their places in the wagon and set out for home.

"My dear father made that clock," said Lenz, "and Faller helped him. By the way, that luckily reminds me. Faller says you took offence at some awkward speech of his; he will not tell me what it was. You must forgive him. He is a plain-spoken soldier, and often says awkward things, but he is a good fellow at heart."

"Maybe so. But see here, Lenz, you have too many burrs clinging to you. You must shake them off."

"I shall not give up my friends."

"Heaven forbid that I should ask you to! I only mean you must not let every one get hold of you, and persuade you into everything he likes."

"There you are quite right. That is a weakness of mine, I know. You must warn me whenever you see me in danger, till I am thoroughly cured of it."

At these words, so pleasantly and humbly spoken, Annele suddenly stood up straight in the carriage.

"What is the matter? what is it?" asked Lenz.

"Nothing, nothing. I don't know why I got up. I believe I don't sit quite right. That is better. Does not our carriage ride nicely?"

"Yes, indeed. We sit in an easy-chair, and yet are abroad in the world. It is right pleasant driving. I never before drove in my own carriage, for your father's is the same as mine."

"Certainly."

They passed Pröbler on the road. He stood still as the lovers passed, and saluted repeatedly.

"I should like to take the old man in with us," said Lenz.

"What an absurd idea!" laughed Annele. "Pröbler on a bridal drive!"

"You are right," answered Lenz. "We should not be so cosey all by ourselves here with a third person sitting opposite, seeing and hearing everything. It is not being unkind not to invite anybody to drive with us now. This is a time when we need to be happy all by ourselves. How beautiful it is! The whole world seems to laugh. Pröbler laughed too, and I am sure was not offended. He would understand that I could not give away a second of this hour."

Annele answered with a searching look, then cast her eyes down, and silently clasped her bridegroom's hand. Their first drive had not begun as merrily as they had expected, but both came home with a peculiar joy in their heart. Annele said little. A new experience was passing within her. It was still broad daylight when Lenz helped her out of the wagon at the door of the Lion, and left her to go up the steps alone, he following with the carefully covered parcel which he took from under the carriage-seat. He called her into the sitting-room, and there solved the mystery by saying: "Annele, I give you with this the best and dearest possession I have. My good Pilgrim painted it for me, and it shall be yours."

Annele stared at the picture for which Lenz had so mysteriously provided the gilt frame in the city.

"You cannot find words to describe the look my mother turns upon you, – can you?"

"So that is your mother? I see her gown and her neckerchief and her hood; but your mother! it might just as well be the carpenter's Annelise or Faller's old mother. In fact, it looks rather more like old Mrs. Faller. Why do you look so pale, as if you had not a drop of blood left in your cheeks? Dear Lenz, can I say what is untrue? You surely do not wish that. What fault is it of yours? Pilgrim is no artist. He can't paint anything but his church-towers."

"It is like losing my mother over again to hear you speak so," said Lenz.

"Don't be so sad," prayed Annele, tenderly. "I will honor the picture. I will hang it up at once over my bed. You are not sad now, – are you? You have been so kind and good to-day! I assure you, the picture will help me recall your mother whenever I look at it."

Lenz turned hot and cold by turns. Thus could Annele at her pleasure raise him to the highest happiness or wound him in his tenderest affections. Weeks and months passed in this way. Joy predominated, however, for a softness had come over Annele never known in her before. Even Pilgrim said one day to Lenz: "Most men are glad to be proved in the right, but I rejoice to see I was mistaken."

"So? In what?"

"There is no learning a woman. Annele has that in her which may make your life happy. Very likely it is all the better she should not be as dreamy and soft-hearted as you are."

"Thank you. Heaven be praised for bringing this to pass!" cried Lenz.

The two friends held each other long and closely by the hand.

CHAPTER XXI.

A GREAT WEDDING WHICH LEAVES A BITTER TASTE BEHIND

Lenz of the Morgenhalde is to be married! This is the wedding day of Annele of the Lion! Through the whole valley and far beyond its limits this was the one subject of conversation. The same household talked at one time of Annele only, and then only of Lenz. Their names had not yet been joined together. Not till the wedding was fairly over would Annele of the Lion be called Annele Lenz.

The day was clear after a heavy fall of snow, and the sleighing excellent. The jingling of bells and cracking of whips sounded from every hill and valley. At least a hundred sleighs stood before the Lion inn on the wedding morning. Strange horses were quartered in every stall. Many a solitary cow was startled by a visit from a span of noble horses. It is not for the like of a poor cow, shut up in her solitary winter quarters, to know what is going on in the world; that privilege is reserved for men. Such an event was indeed seldom witnessed in the village. Even the sick old grandmothers who lived on side streets, where they could see nothing and hear nothing but the whips and the sleigh-bells, insisted on being dressed and set up at the window.

Ernestine, the shopkeeper's wife, had been at the Lion for days beforehand helping on the preparations. This was no time to be sensitive at not having been visited or specially invited. The great house entertains, and the vassals must come of themselves.

Ernestine had left her children in charge of a neighbor and her husband to see to the house, tend the shop, and do his own cooking while she was away. When the Lion calls, no other duties must be regarded.

She knew all the arrangements of the house, and could put her hand on whatever was wanted. She presided over kitchen and cellar, enjoying her importance. The dressing of Annele, too, on the wedding morning, fell to her share, as there was no more intimate friend to claim the right.

The Lion showed that day what a wide circle of friends and patrons it had. The whole first-floor, running the entire width of the house, was turned into a single hall. The partition walls, which were nothing but boards, were taken down, so that the space was now really a great market-place with a fire in it.

Lenz would naturally have preferred a quiet wedding, but Annele was quite right in arranging otherwise. "I know what you would like," she said; "but we have no right to deprive our acquaintances of their good time. Besides, we are only married once in a lifetime. These people give us trouble enough the year through, we ought to let them have a chance to show their gratitude. Where is there a wedding anywhere about that we don't carry presents? Two thousand florins is the least we have spent in that way. Now let them give us a share. I ask no favors, only to be paid back a portion of what is owed us."

The wedding presents were, indeed, rich and abundant, both in money and in money's worth. Two days had to be given up to the marriage festivities, – one for neighbors and relations, the second for more distant acquaintances.

Pilgrim appeared at Lenz's house, on the wedding morning, with well-sleeked hair, and a bunch of rosemary in his button-hole. "I bring you no wedding present," he said.

"My mother's picture was present enough."

"That counts for nothing. I cannot do what I very well know custom requires of me on such an occasion. The truth is, Lenz, I have made myself a present on your wedding day. Do you see this paper? It makes me like the Siegfried we used to read about. I am proof against all the thrusts of fortune, with this hard shell about me."

"What is the paper?"

"It is an annuity. From my sixtieth year I begin to receive a hundred florins annually, till which time I shall manage to scratch through. When I am no longer able to live alone, you must fit up a little room for me in your house, – a warm corner behind the stove, where I can play with your grandchildren, and draw them pictures that to their eyes at least will seem beautiful. I had to work hard to pay the first instalment. My painting, stupidly enough, just gets me a living, with not a copper over. So for the last year I have done without my breakfast. The landlord noticed that I took my breakfast and dinner together. In that way I saved up enough. By and by I shall get used to doing without my dinner, and so on, by degrees, till I learn to do without anything. It would be fine to put up the shutters one after another, and with the last one, bid the world good night."

All the while he was talking, he had been helping Lenz on with his new clothes, – spic and span new from head to foot. He thanked his friend for making him, too, a family man; for, as he pleasantly explained, the annuitants were members of the same household, only they did not keep one another's birthdays. The omission proceeded from no ill will, but simply from their not being acquainted. Pilgrim had all the statistics of the matter at his tongue's end, and reeled them off for Lenz's entertainment, for the sake of warding off any unnecessary excitement or emotion on his friend's part.

When Lenz's toilet was made, came Petrovitsch, of his own free-will, to escort him to the wedding. "You get no wedding present from me, Lenz," he said, with an expression of mystery and cunning on his face; "you know the reason. You will have it in good time." By thus holding out the hope that Lenz should be his heir, though he made no actual promise, Petrovitsch secured for himself the place of chief importance at the wedding festivities. He liked to be the central figure, with all revolving about him, and enjoy the consciousness of having his keys in his pocket, and his fire-proof safe at home. That was a pleasure after his own heart. Two such merry days made a pleasant break, too, in the winter's monotony.

Mine host wore his apostle's cap somewhat higher than usual to-day, and was radiant with dignity as he walked to and fro, stroking his freshly shaven chin.

The clear cold winter air rang with music and firing and shouting as the bridal party walked to the church. The building could not hold the numbers that interest and curiosity had brought together. As many stood outside the church as in it. The minister preached a special sermon, – not one taken from a book, that would suit one case as well as another, but one adapted to this particular occasion. He laid great stress upon the sanctity of the home, the mutual dignity of man and wife. A child naturally inherits the virtues of its parents; but if he turns out badly, the parents are justified before God and man if they can say, We did our duty; the rest was not in our hands. A child of depraved parents may work his way up to honor and respect; his life is his own. The brother shares a brother's honorable name, but he may also cut himself adrift from it. Not so with the honor of man and wife. They are, in the truest sense, one flesh. Here should be perfect sympathy, a single end and aim. Where either seeks his own advancement at the expense of the other, there is discord, hell, eternal death. It is by a righteous ordinance that the wife retains her baptismal name, while receiving a new family name from her husband. She bears the husband's name, the husband's honor. The minister praised the good qualities of the two who now came before the altar. Lenz received the warmest commendation, but Annele came in for a goodly share. Yet he warned them not to think too highly of their peculiar merits. The quick and active must prize and honor the slow; the slow, in the same way, the more active. He reminded them that marriage was not merely a communion of worldly goods, according to the laws of the land, but a communion of spiritual gifts, according to the eternal laws of God; that all mine and thine should cease, and everything be ours, – and yet not ours, but the world's and God's.

In general observations, which were yet easy of personal application, he gave a certain degree of expression to the anxiety felt by many of those present with regard to the peaceful and perfect union of two persons so unlike in nature and habits.

Pilgrim, who sat in the gallery among the singers, exchanged winks of intelligence with the leader of the choir.

Faller kept his face hid in his hands, and did not look up. In the same strain did I speak to Annele, he thought. Who knows what words she would give the minister if she dared to speak! May God, who has worked so many miracles in the world, work but this one more, – plant good thoughts in her heart and put good words on her lips for Lenz, who is so good and true!

No voice sounded louder than Faller's in the hymn that followed the marriage service. The leader signed to him to moderate his bass, as the tenor was weak without Lenz's support. But Faller was not to be repressed. His deep, strong voice sounded above the organ and the voices of all the other singers.

After the ceremony the women who had been so fortunate as to see and hear had much to tell those outside. They described how the bridegroom had wept, – harder than any man they ever heard. The minister had been very touching, to be sure; especially when he called down a blessing from Lenz's parents Lenz sobbed as if his heart would break, and the whole congregation wept with him. At the recital the outsiders also began to weep. They had come to the wedding too, and had as good a right as the rest to all that went on, both the weeping and the rejoicing.

"Has any village a curate like ours?" said the men to the visitors from other parishes. "He speaks out so round and plain, and understands one as if every secret had been disclosed to him." Neither men nor women spoke of the personalities of the discourse.

As Lenz, with Petrovitsch on his right hand and the landlord on his left, was leaving the church, he was addressed by Faller's old mother: "I have kept my word, and worn your mother's clothes to the church. She herself could not have prayed for you more fervently than I did."

Lenz's answer was cut short by the landlord scolding the old woman for being the first to address the bridegroom. Though ridiculing the superstition that there was bad luck in having the first greeting come from an old woman, he called up a pretty boy, and made him be the first to shake hands with Lenz.

From this moment all was merry-making. It was hard to believe that any eye could have been dimmed by tears.

While Lenz in the little parlor shook hands with his new sisters, and kissed and embraced his brothers-in-law, and the doctor came with his daughters, – it was kind of them to come to the wedding, – and one person after another passed in and out and offered congratulations, Annele sat still in her chair, holding a fine white handkerchief pressed to her eyes. "I could not help crying as I did," said Lenz; "you know how happy I am. From this hour we will hold the one honor between us firm and true, and, please God, it shall grow with us. I never shall forget what a family you have brought me into. With God's blessing these shall be the last tears we are to shed together. But take your gloves off; I haven't any on."