Joseph in the Snow, and The Clockmaker. In Three Volumes. Vol. III.

Lenz was startled out of his reverie, by the wind carrying away his hat down a steep precipice. Lenz was hurrying after it, but he suddenly saw that he was rushing to certain death. It crossed his mind that it would be a good thing if he were to lose his life by an accident; but he shuddered at such cowardly thoughts.

The hail and snow continued incessantly, almost blinding him; even the crows in the air could scarcely guide their flight, being first hurled upwards, and then again dashed down, and those birds, usually flying along so steadily, fluttered their wings in wild terror and dismay.

Lenz struggled manfully along against snow and wind, and at last he breathed freer. There the smoke from houses is rising.

Lenz entered the first farmhouse.

"Oh! Lenz! welcome! how glad I am that you have not forgotten me!" said a tall, stout woman, as he came in; she was standing at the hearth, and had just broken up a thick branch of a tree; "what have you done with your hat?"

"Oh! now I recognize you – so it is you, Kathrine? You are grown stout. I come to you as a beggar."

"Oh! Lenz, not so bad as that I hope?"

"But it is indeed," said Lenz, smiling bitterly. He can even jest on such a subject. "You must lend me, or give me, an old hat, for the wind has carried off mine."

"Come into the next room with me. My husband will be so sorry not to see you; he is gone to superintend timber being carted down the hill from the wood."

Kathrine – for it was the Bailiff's daughter Kathrine – threw open the door of the adjoining room, and begged Lenz politely to go in first.

The room was warm and comfortable. Kathrine was not offended by Lenz frankly owning that he had not come on purpose to see her, for he did not even know that she lived here; but he was heartily glad that chance had brought him to her house.

"All your life long you were a truly good and honest man, and I am thankful to see that you are still the same," said Kathrine. She fetched an old grey hat, and a military cap of her husband's, and begged Lenz to take the cap, as the hat was too shabby, and not fit for him to wear; but Lenz chose the hat, though it was much crushed, and had no hatband. As Lenz was so positive, Kathrine brought her Sunday's cap with broad black ribbons, and cutting off one of the strings, she put it on the hat. In the meanwhile she spoke of her former home, and forgot no one.

Lenz looked in surprise at the active, energetic woman, who was so ready to oblige him, and who spoke in such a kind and straightforward manner; she insisted on Lenz taking a cup of coffee, which she made ready in a few minutes, and while he was drinking it, Kathrine said, probably recalling the many memories connected with old times: – "Franzl often comes to see me, we have always remained the best of friends."

"You look indeed, as if you were prosperous," said Lenz.

"I am thankful to say that I have no cause to complain; I am always well and healthy, and we have enough for ourselves, and something to spare for others; besides my husband is honest and industrious. We are not so merry here, to be sure, as we used to be at home; they can't sing here, but I should be as happy as the day is long, if we only had a child; but my husband and I have agreed, that if we have not one by the time our fifth wedding day arrives, we are to adopt one – Faller, we think, might spare us one of his, we hope you will help us in this."

"I will, gladly."

"You are sadly altered; you look so wasted away – Is it then really true that Annele is become so cross, and bad tempered?"

Lenz's face became as red as fire, and Kathrine exclaimed: – "Oh! dear, how stupid I am! don't take it amiss; I beg your pardon a thousand times over, I had no intention to offend you, and no doubt there is not a word of truth in the report: when the days are long, people talk for ever, and when they are short, they chatter all night too. I beg and pray you will think no more of it, and forget what I said; I was so glad to see you again, and now all my gladness is gone, and I shall be quite unhappy for weeks to come – you were right, and the Landlady of the 'Lion' too, in saying to Franzl that I was too stupid to be your wife. Pray, pray, give me back my officious words."

She stretched out her hand to him, as if he could really place her words in it again.

Lenz grasped her hand cordially, and assured her that so far from being angry with her, he was most grateful for her kind welcome. He wished to go away immediately, but Kathrine detained him, talking on at a great rate, in the hope of making him forget her unlucky question, and when at last he left the house, she called after him: – "Give my love to Annele, and come together soon to see me."

Lenz pursued his way, wearing the hat he had borrowed; "I have a regular beggar's hat on now;" said he, with a sad smile.

Kathrine's incautious speech pursued him no doubt in many other houses as well as here: he was now an object of compassion. This idea tended to soften his heart, but he would not give way to this weakness, saying to himself, that it was his own fault for not being more callous.

His stick fell out of his hand at least a hundred times, and each time that he bent down to pick it up, he could scarcely stand upright again.

Thus it is when a man goes along lost in thought; if his hands were loose, he would drop them by the way. Collect your thoughts, Lenz!

He made a violent effort, and walked on briskly. The sun was now shining warm and bright, the icicles hanging from the rocks, glittered and dropped; the gay song, "Wandern, wandern," that he had sung so often with his friends, recurred to his mind, but he dismissed it at once; the man who once sung that in gaiety of heart, must have been a very different man then.

The relations whom he went to visit were rejoiced to see him on his arrival, and he recounted the adventure of his hat repeatedly, in order to account for the shabby appearance it gave him, but when he saw that his hat never seemed to have been remarked, he made no further allusion to the subject; and yet precisely where they said nothing they inwardly thought – "He must be sunk low indeed, to wear such a hat!"

In some houses they were civil, in others rude: "How can you expect us to help you? you are connected with so grand a family, such rich connexions through your father-in-law, and an uncle wallowing in wealth: they are the people who ought to assist you!"

Where people wished to be more kind, they said: "Unluckily we stand in need of all our money ourselves – we must build, and we have just bought some land;" or again: "If you had only come to us eight days ago, we had money, but now we have lent it out on mortgage."

Lenz went on his way with a heavy heart, and when he thought of returning home, a voice said within him: "Oh! if I might only never see the Morgenhalde more! To lie down and die in a ditch, or in the wood, – there are plenty of places to die in, – that would be best for me!"

An irresistible impulse, however, urged him onwards. "There is Knuslingen, where Franzl lives with her brother; there is still one person in the world who will rejoice to see me."

No one in the world could, indeed, be more rejoiced than Franzl when she saw Lenz. She was sitting at the window, spinning coarse yarn, but when Lenz came in, she flung the spindle into the air. She carefully dusted the chair twice over, on which she invited Lenz to sit down, and kept lamenting that things did not look tidier; she only now remarked how dull and smoky her room was. She wished to hear all Lenz's news, and yet she never let him open his lips, she was so busy talking herself, and saying: —

"When I first came here I thought the cold would have been my death; for I had been so used to our fine bright sunshine on the Morgenhalde. There is not a single ray of sun there of which we don't get our share. Now, however, I have at last become accustomed to do without it; but Lenz, you look very ill? There is something strange in your face that I never saw there before – that is not natural to you – Oh! when you smile like that, I see your old face again – your kindly face. I have prayed every morning and every evening, since I left you, for you and your family. I hope you got some good from it. I am no longer angry with Annele – not in the least: she was quite right; I am regular old lumber. How are your children? What are they like? What are they called? If I am still alive next spring, I must see them, even if I creep on my hands and feet the whole way." And then Franzl went on to say that she had three hens of her own, and two geese, and a patch of potato land, also her own. "We are poor," said she, crossing her hands on her breast, "but, thank God! we have never yet had occasion to see how other people live; we have always had enough for our own wants, and if it be God's will, I mean to get a goat next spring." She praised her geese highly, but still more her poultry. The hens, who had taken up their winter quarters in a coop near the stove, cackled as if in gratitude, and turning their red combs first to the right and then to the left, looked sideways at the man who was hearing all their good qualities detailed by Franzl. Indeed, the speckled golden Hamburg hen, whose name was Goldammer, stretched out her wings from joy, and flapped them cheerfully.

Lenz could not succeed in getting in a word, and Franzl thought she was consoling him, when she attacked the former Landlady of the "Lion" fiercely, and then branched off to tell how kind her old acquaintance Kathrine had been towards her, and the good she did to all the poor round her. "She gives me food for my hens, and they give me my food in return."

Franzl could not help laughing at her own joke. At last Lenz managed to say that he must leave her. Annele is right, he lets himself be detained too long by anyone, or everyone; even when he is in an agony to be off, he cannot cut short any person, especially if they are telling him their sorrows. He felt the justice of Annele's reproaches at this moment; she seemed to stand behind him to urge him away. He looked round, as if he really expected to see her, and seized his hat and his stick; then Franzl begged him to go up with her to her attic, for she had something to say to him.

Lenz was inwardly troubled. Has Franzl also heard of the discord in his house? and is she going to talk to him about it? She, however, made no allusion whatever to such a thing, but she brought forth from the centre of the straw mattress on her bed, a heavy, well filled shoe, knotted together with many fastenings, and said: —

"You must do one thing for love of me – I can't sleep at my ease till then – I implore you to take care of this for me, and to do with it whatever you choose; there are a hundred gulden and three crown dollars. I know you will do it, and let me get back my sound sleep."

Lenz would not be persuaded to take the money. Franzl cried bitterly when he wished to say goodbye to her; she still detained him saying: —

"If you have anything particular to say to your mother, let me know; for, please God, I shall soon go to her. I will give your message faithfully, whatever it may be. You may rely on me."

Franzl kept fast hold of Lenz's hand repeating: —

"There was something I had to say to you; I have it on the tip of my tongue, but I can't remember it, but I am sure to recall it the moment you are fairly gone. I was to remind you of something – you don't know what it could be?"

Lenz could make no guess, and at last went away quite reluctantly. He turned into an alehouse on his way, and was greeted by a shout of – "Hurrah! capital! it is famous to see you here!"

It was Pröbler who welcomed him so boisterously; he was sitting at a table with two companions, and a large measure of wine before them. Pröbler was the spokesman here, and wished to rise to receive Lenz, but his feet evidently considered it better that he should sit still, and so he called out in a loud voice: —

"Come and sit down here, Lenz, and let the world outside become bankrupt, and turn into a mass of snow; it's not worth plaguing one's self about it. Here let us sit till the last day. I want nothing more, I care for nothing more, and when I have nothing more, I will sell the coat off my back and spend the money in good liquor, and then go out and lie down in the snow, and so save all funeral expenses. Look here, my friends! You have in this man an example of the shabbiness of the world. If a man is better conducted than others, he is sure to be ruined. Drink away, Lenz! See! this was once the best and most honest man in the world, and yet, how has it used him? His own father-in-law plundered him, fleecing him in the most shameless way, and causing his very house to be exposed and defenceless in the depth of winter. Oh! Lenz, once on a time I was honest too, but I don't even try to be so now – I am done with it for ever."

Lenz's heart sunk within him, at hearing himself quoted as the most striking example of a man completely ruined; he little thought ever to have won such a reputation as that. He strove to persuade Pröbler that it was no use first to yield to evil courses, and then to exclaim: – "See, world, what you have made me! Don't you repent it?" He endeavoured to point out to Pröbler, that no one has any right to expect the world to do for you, what you ought to do for yourself. A man must preserve his self respect was the idea uppermost in Lenz at this moment, but Pröbler would not listen to him; he took a knife from his pocket, and another from the table, and thrust them both into Lenz's hand, saying wildly: —

"There you have got both knives; I can do you no harm, I don't want to do you any harm: say it out at once, if I am not now a wretched ragamuffin, and if I should not have been good for something if I had a helping hand in the world. Your father-in-law – may the devil weigh him one day, fairly, ounce by ounce in his scale! – has smeared his creaking boots with my life's blood, and a fine polish it made! Say it out – what am I?"

Lenz, of course, acknowledged that Pröbler would have been a master mind if he had kept the straight path. Pröbler struck the table with his clenched fist from joy. Lenz had considerable difficulty in preventing his embracing him.

"I don't want any other funeral sermon, Lenz has preached mine; and now say no more, let us drink away as hard as we can."

Pröbler continued to talk wildly, though sometimes a clear thought flashed through his wandering brain. It was not easy to ascertain whether it was truth or a mere delusion, that he had lost his small savings set aside against the evil day, through the Landlord's ruin, or whether it was the sale of the mysterious work, for which he had expected a patent, that had reduced him to this state of desperation.

Lenz felt quite faint and oppressed by the close atmosphere of the room, and the clamour, and tumult, and his hair stood on end when he saw before his eyes, a living example of the degradation to which a man can sink, who has lost self respect, and whose only resource is to forget himself if possible.

"Your mother had a good saying," said Pröbler – "Did I tell you that this is Lenz of the Morgenhalde? – Yes! Your mother! 'It is better to go barefooted than to wear torn boots,' she always said. Do you know what that means? I have another saying however – 'When the horse is taken to the knacker's yard, his shoes are first pulled off.' A tavern – that is an iron shoe! Wine here!" cried Pröbler, throwing a dollar on the table.

This mention of his mother's name, and her being alluded to at all, even in so strange a way, seemed a warning to Lenz, as if her eye had been sternly fixed on him.

He rose, in spite of Pröbler clinging to his arm. He wished to take Pröbler home with him, but he could not get him to move from the spot, so Lenz requested the landlord not to allow the old man to leave the house tonight, and to give him no more to drink.

When Lenz closed the door behind him, Pröbler threw his snuff box after him, shouting out: —

"I shall never want it again."

Panting for breath, as if he had just escaped from a hot, stifling covering, Lenz went on his way in the open air. Twilight was beginning to fell, the kingfisher was singing on the frozen stream below, the crows were flying towards the woods; a roedeer came out of the wood and stood still, looking fixedly at Lenz till he came quite close, when he sprang hurriedly back into the thicket, and his traces could be followed a long way by the snow that fell from the branches of the young firs.

Lenz stood still several times to listen, for he thought he heard his name shouted out behind him; perhaps Pröbler was following him; he answered in a loud voice, which was caught up by the echo; he retraced his steps a considerable way, but he saw and heard nothing; then he went straight forwards; the trees and the hills seemed to come to meet him, and he saw a female figure on his path, which looked like his mother. If she could see him as he now is!

The old woman who met him nodded kindly, and said he must take good care to be out of the valley before nightfall, for there were black channels visible in the snow, and avalanches were not unfrequent round here, and people were swallowed up in a moment, before they could look round.

The voice of the woman sounded strangely in his ears; it was as if his mother had really spoken – and a good hearted warning it was.

Lenz made a solemn vow, deep, deep, in his heart. He was anxious not to return home quite empty handed, so he went to the nearest town to his brother-in-law, the timber merchant, and was so fortunate as to find him at home. It was difficult for Lenz to explain his purpose, for his brother-in-law either was angry, or affected to be so. He reproached Lenz for not having advised his father-in-law better, and taken the business out of his hands. Lenz was the chief cause of the old man's ruin.

Whether the timber merchant were really displeased or pretended to be so, there is no better mode, at all events, of refusing assistance. Lenz implored him with uplifted hands to help him, or he must be utterly ruined. The brother-in-law shrugged his shoulders, and said Lenz had better apply to his rich uncle Petrowitsch.