The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Volume 11
And Claus Janssen related that, in the early morning, when it had grown light enough, a yacht, now anchored, had run in and brought the news that a ship was aground at the Gruenwald Oie, and was flying a signal of distress. There was such a high surf at that point that they could see only the masts and occasionally the hull and that there were people on it, hanging to the riggings. The ship – a small Dutch schooner – seemed to be well built, and could hold out a few hours or so, as it was on smooth sand, if the waves didn't wash the men overboard in the meantime. From the Oie no one could get to the ship – an ordinary boat would capsize immediately in the surf; half an hour later the life-boat was launched by the Commander, and they could follow it for three hours as it held its course against the storm, and they had finally seen it in the surf off the Oie. But the surf must have been very heavy, and the fog too dense, for they had lost sight of it then – even from the crow's nest, with the strongest glass – and they didn't know whether the Commander had got aboard – it was certainly a hard bit of work, because it had lasted so long; but the Commander – he would pull through. And now the young lady should go in and have Mrs. Rickmann make her a cup of tea; they would give her notice when the boat was in sight, and so far as the others were concerned the young lady should be quite at ease; the Commander understood his business, and the six who were with him understood their business, too!
And Else smiled, but not because the man said the same thing over again in the same words that the women had said, but because, after the assurance from the mouths of experienced men, a sweet peace came into her heart! she shook the hands of the speakers, the others, and then returned home with the escort of women and children, and repeated to herself, while she spoke to them in words which the storm for the most part dissipated – "He understands his business, and the six who are with him, they understand their business, too!" – as if it were a petition which she dared not express, and a song of joy which she was ashamed to sing aloud.
Then she had been in the house which was soon to be her home; had drunk tea with her aunt and pacified the exhausted creature in a room where they heard as little as possible of the storm, and had gone through the entire house with a throbbing heart, like a child led by its mother to the Christmas dinner, accompanied by Mrs. Rickmann – the granddaughter, no longer young – of old Claus Rickmann, a pilot's childless widow, who kept house for Reinhold. It was a modest house and modestly furnished; but she marveled at it all, as if she were wandering through an enchanted castle. And how orderly and neat it was! And how tasteful, where Mrs. Rickmann's domain in the kitchen and rooms stopped and that of the Commander began; the furniture, as if she had been asked for advice in the selection of each piece! And the great study table covered with books and carefully arranged documents and papers, and the large bookcases with glass doors, full of beautifully bound books, and another case filled with mysterious nautical instruments, and a third with beautiful shells, corals, and stuffed birds! And then Mrs. Rickmann opened a little room adjoining the study of the Commander, and Else almost shouted aloud! It was her room, next to the great salon – the same carpet, the same blue rep covering of the same sofa, the same chair, the same high wall-mirror, with gilded mantel! And it had only one window, too, in which a small armchair stood, and a sewing-table before the chair – so pretty! And Else had to sit down in the chair, because her knees shook, and lay her head on the table to weep a few tears of joy and give the table a kiss for him whose gentle concern enveloped her here as in a soft mantle, and who was now being tossed about out there on the raging sea, of which one had a full view from the window, risking his precious life for the lives of others!
Meanwhile the clock had struck four – although it was already as dark as if it had been six – and Mrs. Rickmann thought it was high time to get dinner for the Commander, if the ladies would not take anything but tea and zwieback. She spoke as calmly as if the Commander had been a little belated in his row-boat on a smooth sea, instead of hearing the storm raging more violently than ever at that moment and shaking the little house to its foundations. Aunt Valerie, not having slept a wink, came terrified from her room, to learn from Mrs. Rickmann that there was no reason to fear, as the house could withstand such a shock and that Wissow Hook broke the worst of it; and, as for the flood, the house lay like the others, forty feet higher than the sea, and they would wait to see if the flood could rise that high! Then Mrs. Rickmann went out into the kitchen, after paying her respects to the ladies in the Commander's study, and here they sat at the window, which also looked out on the sea, each trying to direct her thoughts upon the subject that each knew was agitating the heart of the other, exchanging from time to time a cheering word or pressure of the hand, till Else, noticing the increasing uneasiness in the face of her aunt, insisted upon immediate departure, because the darkness was rapidly thickening and they could not possibly find their dangerous way home by night.
Mrs. Rickmann came in with her frank face red from the kitchen fire, and took a modest part in the discussion. The ladies could still wait another short hour, it would not be any darker before sunset, and the Commander must return at any moment, if his dinner was not to burn.
Mrs. Rickmann had hardly said this when a heavy hand rapped on the window, and a harsh voice cried, "Boat in sight!"
And now Else ran, as if in a confused happy dream, to the strand by the side of a man in high wading boots and a queer hat, who told her all sorts of things which she did not understand, and then was at the place where she had been on her arrival, and now up on the dune, upon which the beacons flickered in the evening air, in the midst of many other men in wading boots and queer hats, who pointed toward the sea, and addressed her, though she did not understand a word, and one of whom threw a woolen jacket around her shoulders, although she did not ask him for it, nor thank him. Then suddenly she saw the boat quite close, which she had looked for somewhere in the thick atmosphere, God knows where, and which was then at quite another place, where the shore was flat and the surf did not rage so furiously; then she saw the boat again, looking twice as large as before, rise with its entire keel out of the white foam, and sink again in the foam and rise again, while some dozen men ran into the white foam which broke above their heads. And then one of them came through the rolling swell, in high wading boots, with such a queer hat on his head, and she gave a cry of joy and rushed toward him and clung to him, and he lifted her up and carried her a short distance till she could again set her foot on the sand; but whether he carried her farther, or they flew together, or walked, she did not know, and did not really see him till he had changed his clothes and was sitting at the dinner table, and was laughing because she filled for him one glass of port wine after another, while her aunt sat by smiling, and Mrs. Rickmann came and went, bringing mutton chops, steaming potatoes, scrambled eggs, and ham; and he, without taking his eyes from her, devouring it all with the hunger of one who had not eaten a morsel since seven o'clock in the morning. There had been no time to eat; it was hard work to get to the stranded ship; still harder to bring the poor sailors from the midst of the breakers; but it had been accomplished; they were all rescued, all eight of them. He had to put them ashore at Grünwald, which, too, was a difficult feat, and detained him long; but nothing else was to be done, as the poor sailors, who had hung in the rigging all night, were in a wretched condition; but they would survive.
Intoxicated as by the blissful fragrance of a marvelous, beautiful flower which they had plucked from the edge of an abyss, they only now noticed that Aunt Valerie had left them. Else, who kept no secret from her Reinhold, told him in hasty words what was the matter with the most miserable woman, and how they must now not lose a moment in taking the bad road homeward.
"Not a moment!" exclaimed Reinhold, rising from the table; "I shall make the necessary arrangements at once."
"It is already arranged," said Valerie, who had overheard the last words as she entered; "the carriage is at the door."
The happy lovers had not heard the noise of wheels in the deep sand, nor had they heard the hoofs of the horse of the rider whom Aunt Valerie had seen through the window, and whose message she had gone out of the room to receive.
He was there; he had commanded her to come! – She knew it, before she opened the letter which François handed her. She read the letter in the little room to the left, standing at the open window, while François stood outside, and then in the inclosure, and she had laughed aloud as she read it, and torn the sheet to pieces and hurled them out of the window into the storm, which carried them away in an instant.
"Madame laughs," François had said – in French, as usual when he wanted to speak emphatically. – "But I assure Madame that it is not a laughing matter, and that if Madame is not at the castle by six o'clock it will be a great misfortune."
"I shall come."
François bowed, mounted his horse again – he still held his bridle in his hand – and, giving his horse the spurs and bowing almost to the saddle, hurried away to the breathless astonishment of the children of the pilots, who had been attracted by the unusual spectacle of a horseman – while Valerie asked Mrs. Rickmann to have the carriage brought from the stable of the chief pilot in the village, and then – with heavy heart – went to separate the happy lovers. But she decided upon the last meeting with the detestable despised man, only because of those she loved and for whom she wished to save, in the impending catastrophe, what remained to be saved! It would not be much – she knew his avarice full well – but yet perhaps enough to secure the future for Else and free poor Ottomar from his embarrassments. And she smiled as she thought that even Else could believe that all this was for her sake, for her future! – Great God!
Else was ready at once, and Reinhold did not try to detain her with a word or a look. He would have been so glad to accompany them, but that was not to be thought of. He could not now leave his post an hour; duty might call him any moment!
And Else hadn't her wrap on when a pilot came in, bringing news of a boat which had gone out at two o'clock to a steamer signaled from Wissow Hook and flying the signals of distress. They were launched in ten minutes, and in half an hour were past the Hook, but they hadn't found the steamer, which had reached the open sea around Golmberg, as they had seen after passing there on their return – it was half-past four; they had been terrified at the surf, which had risen along the dunes between the Hook and Golmberg, and held to as long as possible to ascertain whether the sea had broken through as Reinhold had predicted. They were not able to determine that at first because of the heavy surf; but as they came nearer, in order to be sure about it, Claus Lachmund first, and then the others, saw two persons on the White Dune, one apparently a woman, who did not stir, the other a man who made a sign. But, in spite of all efforts, they had not been able to get over there – indeed they were lucky to get afloat again after sailing so close to the White Dune – and had then seen that the breach had been made by the sea – certainly to the north and south of the White Dune, and possibly at other places – for they had seen nothing but water landward – how far they could not say – the fog was too dense. It must be bad in Ahlbeck, too; but they did not approach nearer, because those there, with the Hook near by, could not be in peril; but the situation of the two on the White Dune would be very serious if they were not rescued before night.
"Who can the unfortunate ones be?" asked Valerie.
"Shipwrecked sailors, Madame – who else!" replied Reinhold.
"Farewell, my Reinhold," said Else; and then with her arms around his neck, half laughing, half crying – "Take six men again who know their business!"
"And promise me," said Reinhold, "that the carriage shall not go down from the village to the castle unless you can see the road clearly through the hollow when you are on the height!"
The ladies had gone; Reinhold prepared for his second trip. It was not really his duty – any more than it had been in the morning; but none of the sailors – even the best of them – quite understood how to manage the new life-boat.
The two people on the Dune – he did not wish to tell Else about it – were certainly not shipwrecked, because a ship, if stranded, would have long since been signaled from the Hook. They could hardly be from Pölitz's house, although that was nearby, because Mrs. Rickmann had told him, when he went to change his clothes, that Pölitz had sent back word by the messenger that he was dispatching little Ernst and the men with the stock to Warnow; that he himself could not leave, nor could Marie, and least of all his wife, who during the night had given birth to a boy; and that it probably wouldn't be very bad, after all.
But now it had become serious, very serious; and even though the chief pilot, Bonsak, might have exaggerated a little, as he sometimes did on such occasions, in any case, there was peril – peril for the poor Pölitz family, whom the most sacred duties confined to the house; greater peril for the two of whom he knew nothing except that they were people who must be lost unless he rescued them.
In the great bar-room of the inn at Warnow, filled with the smoke of bad tobacco and the foul odor of spilt beer and brandy, were the boisterous carters who had come that morning, and a few cattle traders who had joined them in the course of the afternoon, and who were now bent upon remaining. The innkeeper stood near them, trimming the tallow candles, and was talking more boisterously than his guests, for he must know better than anybody else whether a railroad direct from Golm past Wissow Hook to Ahlbeck, rather than by way of Warnow, was nonsense or not. And the Count, who had ridden out himself in the afternoon, would open his eyes when he saw the fine kettle of fish; but if one is determined not to hear, he must learn to feel. In Ahlbeck there is said to be a horrible state of things, and murder and slaughter, too; that didn't matter to the Ahlbeckers; they had lately put on airs enough with their shore railroad station, naval post. Now they would have to creep back into their hole again!
The innkeeper spoke so loud and heatedly that he did not see his wife come in and take the keys of the guest-chamber from the board by the door, while the maid took the two brass candle-sticks out of the wall cupboard, put two candles in them, lighted them, and followed her mistress. He did not turn around until some one tapped him on the shoulder and asked him where he should put his horses; the servant had said there was no more room.
"And there isn't any," said the innkeeper. "Where did you come from?"
"From Neuenfähr; the guests whom I brought are already upstairs."
"Who are the guests?" asked the innkeeper.
"Don't know. A young gentleman and a lady – persons of quality I think. I couldn't drive fast enough for them; how is one to drive fast in such weather, step by step, two mares or one – it didn't matter! A one-horse rig that came up behind me could have passed me very easily; it must have been somebody from Warnow; he turned off to the right before reaching the village."
"Jochen Katzenow was in Neuenfähr this morning," said the innkeeper; "he has a devil of a mare! Now come along; we will see; don't believe it is possible."
The man from Neuenfähr followed the innkeeper into the court, where they met the gentleman whom he had brought. The gentleman took the innkeeper aside and spoke to him in a low tone.
"That may take some time," thought the man from Neuenfähr. He went out of the door, unhitched his horses from the carriage, led them under the protecting roof of a shed, where they were protected from the worst of the storm, and left the carriage, a light, open Holsteiner, standing outside.
He had just thrown the blankets over the steaming horses, when the gentleman stepped out of the house and came up to him.
"It is possible that I shall not remain here long," said the gentleman; "perhaps only an hour. We shall then go on."
"Whither, sir?"
"To Prora, or back to Neuenfähr; I don't know yet."
"That isn't possible, sir!"
"Why not?"
"The horses cannot stand it."
"I know better what horses can stand; I shall tell you later."
The man from Neuenfähr was vexed at the domineering tone in which the gentleman spoke to him, but did not reply. The gentleman, who now had on a great-coat with white buttons – on the way he had worn an overcoat – rolled up his collar as he now went around the shed toward the street. The light from the bar-room shone brightly upon his figure.
"Aha!" cried the man from Neuenfähr; "I thought so! One gets to be a bully when he has been in the Reserves a while. Let the devil drive the Lieutenant's carriage."
Ottomar had obtained exact information from the innkeeper; the road which led directly through the village was not to be mistaken. He walked slowly and stopped repeatedly – a few times because the storm which was blowing directly in his face prevented him from proceeding, and again because he had to ask himself what business he had in the castle. His brain was so dazed by the long journey in the open carriage through the dreadful storm, and then his heart was so disturbed; it seemed to him as if he no longer had the strength to call him a rascal to his face. And then – it had to be, must be, in the presence of his aunt, if the wretched man was not afterward to deny everything and entangle his aunt further in his web of lies, as he had entangled them all. Or was this all a preconcerted game between him and his aunt? It was, indeed, very suspicious that she had left the castle this very day so early to call the rascal to account, when they were expecting him to come. With Else, to be sure. But could not the love which she seemed to cherish for Else secretly – as everything was done in secret – could it not also be love after Giraldi's prescription; the aunt had undertaken to entice and deceive Else, just as Giraldi had deceived him. And they had both gone into the net, and the sly bird-catchers were laughing at the stupids. Poor Else – who must certainly have depended upon the fair promises, and must now contrive how she could get along as the wife of a pilot commander with a few hundred thalers, over there somewhere in that wretched fishing hamlet! That was not the cradle-song to which she listened! – These – that was to be our inheritance – the castle by the sea, as we called it, when we described our future to each other. We would occupy it together – you one wing, I the other; and, when you married the prince and I the princess, we would draw lots to see who should have it all – we couldn't both occupy it longer, because of the great retinue. And now, dearest, best of maidens, you are so far from me, awaiting your lover, who, perchance, has gone out into the storm to rescue the precious lives of a few herring fishermen, and I —
He sat down upon a rock where the road, passing by the first houses of the village, descended into a narrow ravine, and then rose again through the depression to the castle. The rock on which he sat was on the extreme edge of the ravine, above the depression. It was held firm in its socket by the roots of a fine stately fir-tree, which must once have stood further back from the edge and now bent backward, groaning and creaking under the force of the storm, as if it would avoid falling into the abyss.
"There is no help for either of us," said Ottomar. – "It has gradually crumbled away, and we stand like trees with their roots in the air. The rock which would gladly have held us cannot do so. On the contrary – one more heavy storm like this, and we shall both be lying down below! I wish to Heaven we were lying there, and that you had broken my skull in falling, and that the flood had come and washed us out to sea, and no one knew what had become of us!"
And she – she, whom he had just left in the wretched, squalid room of the inn, whose kisses he still felt on his lips, and who, as he went out of the room – she thought surely he would not see it – threw herself upon the sofa, buried her face in her hands, weeping! About what? About her wretched lot, which bound her to one who was weaker than she. She had the power; she would hold out through it come what might, but what could come for her? She had told him a hundred times on the way that he should not worry about the wretched money, that her father was much too proud to deny her request, the first that she had made of him so far as she could remember, the last that she should ever make of him.
And thus she had written to her father from Neuenfähr, where they had to wait half an hour for the carriage. "The matter is all settled," she said, brushing the hair from his brow as a mother from her son who had played pranks while in school.
She was stronger; but what did she lose? Her father? – She appeared never to have truly loved him! Her pleasant life in the beautiful luxurious house? – What does a girl know what and how much belongs to life? Her art? – She took that everywhere with her; she had said with a smile – It is enough for both of us. Of course, she would now have to support him, the dismissed lieutenant!
The fir-tree against which he was leaning creaked and groaned like a tortured beast; Ottomar saw how the roots rose and strained, and the marl wore away the steep slope, while the wind whistled and howled through the cracked branches, like shot and bullets, and a roll of thunder came from the sea as from a ceaseless volley of batteries.
"I had it so easy then!" mused Ottomar. "My father would have paid the few debts I had and would have been proud of me, instead of now sending me a pistol, as if I didn't know as well as he that it is all over with Ottomar von Werben; and Else had spoken often and fondly of her brother, who fell at Vionville. Dear Else, how I should like to see her once more!"
He had heard from the innkeeper that the carriage with the ladies must pass here, along the only still passable road, if they came back in the evening as the coachman had said they would; the shorter way down through the lowlands was no longer intact. Ottomar wondered what the man could have meant by the lowlands. The situation was so entirely different, as he knew it, from the description; the sea appeared to break immediately behind the castle, even though he could no longer distinguish particular objects in the wet gray mist which beat upon him. The castle itself, which certainly lay close below him, seemed to be a quarter of an hour distant; he would hardly have seen it at times if lights had not continually flickered from the windows. Also among the indistinguishable mass of buildings to the left of the castle, which were probably in the court, lights flashed up occasionally, changing their position as when men run to and fro with lanterns. A few times it seemed to him as if he heard human cries and the lowing of cattle. It might all be a delusion of the senses, which began to fail the longer he sat unprotected in the raging storm that froze the marrow in his bones. He must be off if he would not perish here like a highwayman by the roadside!
And yet he remained; but the visions passed in greater confusion through his benumbed brain. There was a Christmas tree with glittering candles, and he and Else went in at the door hand in hand, and his father and mother stood at the table upon which were dolls for Else, and helmet and sabre and cartridge-boxes for him; and he rushed with joy into the arms of his father, who lifted him up and kissed him. Then the Christmas tree became a tall fir, and its crown a gleaming candelabrum beneath which he danced with Carla, scorning the Count, who looked on with anger, while the 'cello hummed and the violins played, and the couples whirled in and out – Tettritz with Amelia von Fischbach, tall Wartenberg with little Miss von Strummin; and then followed the bivouac fires, and the trumpets of Vionville, which sounded the assault upon the batteries thundering a reply, and he called to Tettritz and Wartenberg, laughing – "Now, gentlemen, the bullet through the breast or the cross upon the breast!" and gave his steed the spurs; the horse reared in his onset with wild neighing. —