Edelweiss: A Story
The minister saw his bait was taking. As a physician wins the confidence of his patient by describing to him all his aches and pains, till the sick man looks up joyfully and says, "the doctor knows my whole case; he will surely help me," so the minister described to Annele all her mental sufferings, and wound up with saying: "You have often seen blood flow from a wound, from a blow or a bruise, and know how the black blood gradually takes on all the seven colors. So it is with the soul's wounds. An injury, an offence, like that black blood gradually takes on all the colors, – hate, contempt, anger, self-pity, pain at the wrong, a desire to return evil for evil, and again to let all go to wreck and ruin."
It seemed to Annele that she was holding her heart in her hand, and showing how it had been bruised and lacerated and beaten to pieces. The good-for-nothing barrelmaker, he would have his full deserts now! "O, help me, sir!" she cried.
"I will; but you must help yourself. You do not need to change your nature. Alas for you, if you did! I am old enough to know how easy that is to say, and how hard to do. You only need to shake off something foreign to yourself that has taken possession of you. There is goodness in you, only you have forgotten it, wilfully forgotten and ridiculed it, and prided yourself on your sharpness of tongue. Have done with all pride and ambition. Where is no oneness of heart is a continual wearing upon each other."
The little man's figure dilated, and his voice gathered strength as he laid bare before Annele her false pride and her hard-heartedness towards Franzl. Annele's eyes flashed at the mention of Franzl.
So the secret was out. It was she, the thievish, hypocritical old woman, who had brought this upon her, and turned all against her. No cat ever mangled a mouse with greater pleasure than Annele now pulled to pieces old Franzl.
"If I could but have her once in my clutches!" she snarled.
The minister waited till her fury had spent itself. "You make yourself out to be wicked and vindictive," he said; "but I still maintain you are not so at heart."
Then Annele cried to think she should be so sadly changed; it was not like her to be so angry. It was all because she had nothing to do; was not allowed to be earning anything. She was not made to keep house for a petty clockmaker; she was made to be a landlady. If the minister would only help her to be landlady, she promised he should never see another spark of anger or cruelty in her.
The minister admitted that she had all the requisite qualities for a landlady, and promised to do everything in his power to make her one; but implored her, as she kissed his hands in gratitude, not to trust for her improvement to any external circumstances.
"You are not yet subdued by your grief and humiliation. Your pride is your sin, the cause of unhappiness to you and yours. God forbid you should need the loss of husband or children to bring you to your better self!"
Annele's seat was opposite the mirror, and as she caught the reflection of her face in the glass there seemed to be a cobweb floating before it. She passed her hand several times across her face.
The minister got up to go, but Annele begged him to sit with her a little longer; she could think better when he was by.
The two sat in silence. No sound was heard except the ticking of the clocks. Annele's lips moved, but no voice came from them. She kissed his hand devoutly when he at last departed, and he said: "If you feel yourself worthy, if your heart is softened, really softened, come to the communion to-morrow. God bless you!"
She wished to accompany him part of the way. "No courtesies now," he said; "be first pure and humble in heart. Judge not, that ye be not judged, says the Saviour. Judge yourself; look into your own heart. Accustom yourself to sit quiet and think."
Annele remained sitting where the minister had left her. She found it hard, for sitting with her hands before her and thinking was not her habit. She forced herself to it now. One sentence of the minister's kept ringing in her ears: "You have often good and pure thoughts, – thoughts of penitence; but they visit you as guests, drink their glass, and are gone. You put the chairs in place again, wipe off the table, and all is as if they had not been."
Annele reflected upon it and acknowledged it was true.
She could be hard upon herself as well as upon others. Why have you thus misused your life? she asked herself.
The child woke up and cried. "The minister has no children; it is very well for him to tell me to sit and think, but I must quiet my child."
She took the little girl out of bed and fondled her more tenderly than usual. The child helped to drive away her solitary thoughts.
She suddenly remembered the tune that Lenz had played the first time she was at the house, and she sang her baby to sleep by it now: "Love it is the tender blossom." She still sang on after the child was asleep and lying quiet in her arms, and as she sang the words she thought: Whom have I ever loved? whom? – I wanted to marry the landlord's son and the engineer in order to have a good position; but as for loving any man with my whole heart, I never did. And my husband? I married him because one of the doctor's daughters would have taken him, and because I wanted to get away from home, and because he was good-tempered and everybody spoke well of him.
Annele started as the child turned in her sleep. She quieted her again, but felt uneasy at being thus alone with her thoughts. There seemed ghosts lurking in all the corners, even in broad daylight. If only some one were here to cheer me up! Come, Lenz; come home! Be kind, and all will go well. We need no priest to help us; we can help ourselves. We are helped; I love you.
It was noon, and the sun was shining warm out of doors. Annele wrapped the child carefully up and carried it out in front of the house. Perhaps Lenz was on his way home; she would give him a cordial greeting, bid him the good morning he had forgotten to say, and tell him all should henceforth be peace between them. At this hour, five years ago, they had been married, and now they would be married again.
The figure of a man, still too far off to be recognized, was seen coming up the hill. "Call father!" she said to the child.
"Father! father!" the little thing cried.
The man came nearer. It was not Lenz, but Faller, hurrying up with an extra hat in his hand. "Is Lenz at home yet?"
"No."
"Good Heavens! this is his hat. My brother-in-law picked it up in the gully where he was cutting wood. If Lenz should have done himself any violence!"
Annele's knees shook; she pressed the child to her till it cried. "You are mad, and want to make me mad!" she exclaimed. "What do you mean?"
"Is that not his hat?"
"Good Heavens, it is!" she shrieked, and fell to the ground with the child.
Faller raised them both.
"Has he been found? dead?" asked Annele.
"No, thank Heaven! Come into the house. Let me take the child. Be calm, he has only lost his hat."
Annele staggered into the house, waving her hands before her face to brush away the mist that dimmed her sight. Was it possible? Lenz dead now, – now, when her heart had opened to him? It cannot be, it is not so. "Why should my Lenz kill himself?" she asked as she sank upon a seat. "What do you mean by it?"
Faller made no answer.
"Can you only talk when you are not wanted to?" she asked angrily. "Sit down, sit down, and tell me what has happened."
As if he could punish Annele by not doing her bidding, Faller remained standing, though his knees shook under him. The look he turned upon her was so full of sorrow and bitter upbraidings, that her eyes fell beneath it. "How can I sit in your house?" he said at last. "You have taken the comfort out of every chair."
"I do not need your admonitions. I told you that long ago. If you know anything of my husband, tell it. Has he been found dead? where? Speak, you-"
"No, thank Heaven. God forbid! The shingle-maker from Knuslingen, Franzl's brother, reported him as having been with Franzl, and she lives almost two leagues beyond the place where his hat was picked up."
Annele breathed more freely. "Why did you frighten me so?" she asked again.
"Frighten you? Can you still be frightened?"
Faller told how Lenz had been everywhere, trying to borrow money to pay the security on his house, and added that that need burden him no longer, as Don Bastian had just advanced the required amount.
Annele drew herself up as he spoke. The old spirit of wrath and bitterness rose again within her, mightier, more vengeful than ever. He has deceived you, he has lied to you, her every feature said. He lives, he must live to atone for it. He told you he had withdrawn his security. Come home, you liar, you hypocrite! Annele went into her chamber, and Faller was obliged to depart without seeing her again. Gone was all sorrow, all contrition, all love. Lenz had deceived her, had told her a lie, and he should pay for it. Just like these good-natured milksops who, because they cannot stand up like men for their own rights, must be handled like a soft-shelled egg! Let me alone, and I will let you alone; refuse me nothing, and I will refuse you nothing, though you make me a beggar. Come home, you pitiful milksop!
Annele put no food on the fire, to be ready for her husband's return. A very different kind of cooking was going on.
CHAPTER XXXII.
A NIGHT OF STORMS
Lenz went up the hill, after parting from the doctor, with a light and happy heart. From one of two sources help must certainly come, – from his uncle or the factory.
He saw the glimmer of a lamp as he approached his house. Thank Heaven, all is waiting for the good news, he said to himself. Poor Annele! you are more to be pitied than I, for you see the bad side of human nature, while I have only to go abroad to find the world full of kindness. I will help to lighten your burden.
Suddenly, like a burning arrow, came the thought: You have been a traitor to-day in your heart, – twice and thrice a traitor. At Katharine's, and again at the doctor's, you entertained the sinful thought that your life might have been different. Where is the honor you pride yourself upon? You have been five years married, and are the father of two children. Good Heavens! this is our wedding day.
He stood still listening to the voice within him: "Annele, dear Annele! This one day has seen my first and last unfaithfulness. May my parents in heaven refuse to pardon me if I ever give way to such thoughts again! From this time forth we will keep a new wedding day."
In this feeling of self-accusation, and of joy that all things would henceforth be well, Lenz entered his house.
"Where is my wife?" he asked as he saw the two children in the sitting-room with the servant.
"She has just lain down."
"Is she ill?"
"She complained of nothing."
"Annele," he said, going into the sleeping-room; "I am come to wish you good evening and good morning; I forgot it early to-day. I have good news, too, for you and for me. Please God, all things shall go well with us from this day forward."
"Thank you."
"Is anything the matter? Are you ill?"
"No; I am only tired, tired almost to death. I will be up in a minute."
"No; keep in bed if it does you good. I have news for you."
"I don't want to keep in bed. Go into the sitting-room; I will be out in a minute."
"Let me tell my news first."
"There is time enough for that; it won't spoil in a couple of minutes."
A shadow fell on Lenz's happiness. Without a word he returned to the sitting-room and fondled the children till Annele came out. "Will you have anything to eat?" she asked.
"No. How came my hat here?"
"Faller brought it. I suppose you gave it to Faller to bring to me, did you not?"
"Why should I have done that?" he answered. "The wind blew it off my head."
He told in few words his chance visit to Katharine. Annele was silent. She kept her charge of falsehood ready to launch at him when occasion offered. She could bide her time.
Lenz sent the maid into the kitchen, and, holding the boy in his lap, gave a full account of his day's experiences, all but of those thoughts of infidelity which had risen in his heart.
"Do you know the only one point of consequence in the whole story?"
"What?"
"The hundred florins and three crown-pieces that Franzl offered you. The rest is nothing."
"Why nothing?"
"Because your uncle will not help you. Do you see now the mistake you made in letting him off five years ago?"
"And the factory?"
"Who is to be admitted besides yourself?"
"I know of no one yet but Pröbler, whose ingenious inventions have certainly earned him a place."
"Ha, ha! that is too good; you and Pröbler! You are capital yokefellows. Did I not always tell you you would come down to his level? But you are more pitiful than he, for he at least has not dragged down a wife and children. Out of my sight, you poor, miserable milksop! Let yourself be yoked to the same team with Pröbler!" She snatched the child from its father's knee and, turning the torrent of her words upon the terrified boy, continued, passionately: "Your father is a pitiful milksop, who needs to have the bottle always held to his lips. Pity his mother is not alive to make his pap for him! Oh, how low have I fallen! But one thing I insist upon, you shall not enter the factory; I will drown myself and my children first. When I am dead you can go and ask the doctor's crooked daughter to leave her weeds and marry you."
Lenz sat motionless, chilled with horror.
"Mention not my mother's name," he cried at last. "Leave her to her eternal rest."
"I have no objection to leaving her. I neither want nor have anything of hers."
"What? Have you no longer that sprig of edelweiss? Tell me, have you not kept it?"
"Stuff and nonsense! of course I have kept it."
"Where? Give it to me!"
Annele opened a drawer and showed it.
"Thank God! you have it still; it will still bring us its blessing."
"The man has actually lost his senses with his superstition. The idea of pinning his faith to a wretched bit of dried grass instead of trying to help himself! Just like these beggars to go tearing about the world distracted."
Annele poured forth all this venom with her back upon her husband, as if calling the world to witness his degradation. Her utter ignoring of his presence, and thus speaking of him in the third person, was a keener stab than even her cruel epithets.
With great self-control he said: "Do not speak so, Annele; it is not yourself, but a devil speaking in you. And do not crush the little flower; keep it sacred."
"Ha, ha!" laughed Annele. "That is too much. I won't give way to such miserable superstition. Out of the window, Edelweiss, and take this precious bit of writing with you."
A tempest of wind was raging without.
"Come, Wind," she cried, as she threw open the window; "come, take all this sacred trumpery." She let go flower and letter. The wind whistled and howled, and whirled them high in the air over the bald mountain-top.
"What have you done, Annele?" groaned Lenz.
"I am not superstitious like you, nor am I yet fallen so low as to make an idol of such trash."
"It is no superstition. My mother only meant that so long as my wife honored the memory of my parents, a blessing would rest upon the house. But nothing is sacred to you."
"I do not hold you sacred, nor your mother either."
"That is too much, too much!" cried Lenz, his voice choked with the passion he in vain endeavored to repress. "Leave the room and take the boy with you. I have heard enough. Go, or you will drive me mad! – Hush! There is some one at the door."
Annele withdrew with the child into the inner chamber, just as the doctor entered the room.
"It is as I feared," he said. "Your uncle will not lift a hand to help you. He says you married against his will, and not another word can I get from him. I have used every argument in my power; all was vain. He at last almost turned me out of the house."
"And all because of me! I must bring evil on all who love me and try to serve me. Forgive me, doctor. I cannot help it."
"Why, how you talk; of course you cannot help it. I have known plenty of strange men in my life, but never one like your uncle. He opened his whole heart to me, and a tender heart it is; he is not a jot behind the rest of your family in that. I thought I surely had him and could guide him like a child; but when it came to money, off he was again." Here the doctor gave an expressive snap of his fingers. "Nothing more was to be got out of him. In fact, I don't believe he has anything besides a trifling annuity from some insurance office. Let us put him out of the question altogether. I shall talk the matter over with my sons, and if you prefer not to enter the factory, we can make some arrangement by which you shall employ five or six workmen here, or more, if you can accommodate them, to be paid by our establishment."
"Not so loud, please. My wife can hear us from the next room. I was prepared for the result of your interview with my uncle; there was little else to be looked for. As for the factory, the mere mention of the word has thrown my wife into such a state as I never saw her in before. She will not hear of it."
"Take time to consider it. Will you not come a little way down the hill with me?"
"Pray excuse me; I am so tired! My knees bend under me. Since four o'clock this morning I have scarcely sat down, and I am not used to such long tramps. I almost fancy I am going to have a fit of illness."
"Your pulse is feverish, as is natural after so much fatigue and excitement. A good night's sleep will set you right again. But you must be careful of yourself for some little time to come. You may really work yourself into a serious fit of illness if you don't rest more and husband your strength. Tell your wife from me," he continued, raising his voice so that his words could not fail to be heard in the adjoining room, "that she must take very good care of the father of her children during this season of thaw, and make him keep housed. A clockmaker, used to such constant sitting, gets to be delicate. Good night, Lenz; pleasant dreams to you!"
The doctor had a hard walk down the hill, often sinking deep into the melting snow, on whose surface lay a treacherous covering of stones and gravel. He was obliged to divest his mind of its anxiety for Lenz, and concentrate all his thoughts on the path he was treading. A remark of Pilgrim's constantly recurred to his memory, that Lenz could make as much of life as any man, but he craved joy and love; the dry companionship his home afforded was killing him.
Lenz meanwhile sat alone in his room. He was tired out, yet could find no rest. He paced the room like a wild beast in its cage. Racked with pains, and sick in body and mind, his heart cried out: Alas, to be sick and at the mercy of a cruel wife! to have no escape, to lie under the scourge of her tongue, to hear your fevered fancies blamed as evil passions, to be cut off from your friends; sick and dependent upon an unloving woman! – rather death by my own hand!
The wind put out the fire, filling the room with smoke. Lenz opened the window and gazed out. No light now in the blacksmith's house; he is buried in the dark ground. Would I too were at rest from my many sorrows!
The air was warm, unnaturally warm. The water dripped from the roof; from the bare mountain-top to the valley below, the wind was rushing and roaring as if one gust were driving hard upon another. There was a rattling and rumbling on the heights behind the house. The tempest, in rage at the loss of its playground in the forest, seemed to be wreaking its vengeance on the chestnut and pines in the garden, twisting them till they creaked and groaned. It was well that his house was firm in its stout oaken beams, else the wind might sweep it away with all in it. "That would be gay travelling," laughed Lenz, bitterly, starting at the same time and casting a frightened look behind him, as the old timbers cracked in ghostly sympathy with the misery within the dwelling. Such words were never heard within these walls before, nor did ever dweller here live through such a night in such a mood; neither father, nor grandfather, nor great-grandfather.
He turned to get his writing materials, and, as he passed the mirror, stopped involuntarily and gazed at the figure whose swollen and bloodshot eyes were reflected there. At last he sat down and began to Write, pausing often and pressing his hand to his eyes, then dashing his pen along the paper again. He rubbed his eyes, but no tears fell from them. "You have lost the power to weep," he said, hoarsely; "best so; you have wept too much already for a man."
He wrote: -
"Dearest Friend and Brother: My heart is breaking as I write, but I must talk with you once more. I think of the days and the many summer nights I have spent in happy walk's with you, my one ever-loving friend. It could not have been I; it was some one else. God is my witness, and so is my mother in heaven, that I never wilfully wronged a fellow-being. If I ever wronged or grieved you, dear brother, forgive me. I did it not intentionally, and humbly beg your forgiveness. I am not fit to live.
"Here is my confession; I see no escape but death. I know that to kill myself is a sin, but to live is a greater. Every day I am a murderer. I can bear it no longer. I spend my nights in weeping, and all the time despise myself for it. I might have been a quiet, honest, upright man, had I been allowed to remain in the beaten track; but I was not made for contest. I weep to think of what I have become; I who was once so different! If I live, my life will be a greater shame upon my children than my death. That will be soon forgotten; the next season the grass will be growing on my grave. By your faithful heart, and by all the acts of kindness you have ever done me, I conjure you to be a father to my forsaken children. My poor children, – I dare not think of them. I was foolish enough once to fancy I could make a good father; but I cannot; I can be nothing. If love is not freely given me, I cannot win it; that is my misery, that is my ruin. A wall of glass is about me that I try in vain to surmount. My mother was right in saying we can sow and plant and force a harvest by our industry, but one thing must grow of itself, and that is love. It will not grow for me where I had a right to look for it.
"Take my children out of the village when I am buried. I would not have them see me. Pray the mayor and the minister to have me laid beside my parents and my brethren. They were happier than I. Why was I alone left to live for such an end as this?
"You are my little William's godfather, – take him now for your own child. You always said he had a taste for drawing; take him to your own home and teach him. If it be possible, be reconciled with my uncle Petrovitsch. Perhaps he will do something for my children when I am gone, for I am sure he likes you; I would not tell you now what I did not know to be true. You may still be good friends together. His heart is kinder than he will acknowledge, as my mother always said. My wife-but I will say nothing of her. If my children are happy, let her be forgiven for my sake.
"I have been driven to hearing and saying such words as I had never imagined tongue could utter.
"I am in prison and must escape. I have lived through days and watched through nights that were as years. I can endure no more; I am tired, tired even to death. For months I have not closed my eyes and tried to sleep, without being assailed by visions of horror that pursue me through the day. I can bear this black and haunted sleep no longer; I must have the quiet sleep of death.
"In return for the money I owe you, take the watch which you will find on my body. It will tick on against your faithful heart when my heart shall have ceased to beat. When my effects are sold, buy my father's file and keep it for my son. I have no legacy to bequeath to him. Teach him that his father was not a bad man. He has my unhappy sensitiveness; drive it out of him, make him strong and self-reliant. And the baby-.
"It is hard-hard that I must die; I am still so young; but better now. The doctor must see that my body is not carried to Freiburg for the students to dissect. Give to him and all his household my cordial greeting. He has long known how things were with me; but they were past any doctor's help. Bid our comrades good by for me, especially Faller and the schoolmaster. My dearest, dearest brother, I have still much to say to you, but my head swims. Good night. Farewell.
