Edelweiss: A Story

by Berthold Auerbach

CHAPTER XXIII.

THE FIRST NAIL IS DRIVEN.--PEACE ON THE HEIGHTS,
AND THE FIRST SUNDAY GUEST.

The next morning Annele was again on friendly terms with Franzl, and complimenting her good management. "I have never given you anything, Franzl," she said; "would you rather have a gown or some money?"

"Money would please me best."

"Then here are two crowns for you."

Lenz gladly added the same amount when Franzl showed him Annele's present. How thoughtful she is, he said to himself, and how careful always to do just the right thing! It never would have occurred to me to make Franzl a present; and yet only yesterday she was talking of sending her away. "She is a dear, foolish, hasty child," he added aloud. "Just like our young burgomaster's wife at home," interposed Franzl; "who, as the weight-manufacturer's wife once said, always planned for seven visitors when there were but six chairs, so that one had to go bobbing about while the others were seated." Lenz laughed. "We Knuslingers know a thing or two, I assure you. See now how quickly your wife has brought everything to order. Most women would have been three days about it, and have stumbled a dozen times and broken half the things to pieces. Your wife has no left hand. She is right hand all over,"--a compliment which much pleased Annele, when Lenz repeated it to her.

She showed now a new accomplishment. Lenz asked her to drive a nail above his father's file. She struck it firmly and squarely on the head at the first blow, and on the nail thus first driven in her new home he made her hang his mother's picture.

"That is good," he said. "If it is not just like her, it has her eyes, and, please God, they shall look down on a fair, good, happy life. We will make it such a life that she may always have pleasure in beholding it."

Only do not make a saint of her, Annele wanted to say, but checked herself.

This was Wednesday of their wedding week, the whole of which was to be kept as a time of holiday. Lenz worked a few hours daily, chiefly for the sake of reminding himself that he had an occupation; he was happier, too, after having worked a couple of hours. The wedding festivities were, of course, lived over again, and very funny it was to see Annele mimic the peculiarities of the different guests. She made you actually see and hear the landlady of the Bear and of the Lamb and of the Eagle, while her imitation of Faller's trick of rubbing his hand over his mustache was so perfect that you could almost fancy a growth of bushy hair above her roguish lip. There was no ill-nature, nothing but harmless fun, in it all. She was thoroughly happy. "O, how beautiful, how good and wholesome it is up here!" she cried, in the morning; "and how still! I never could have believed there was such quiet in the world. Sitting here, as I do, seeing and hearing nothing of what goes on below, and not having to give an answer to anybody, it seems to me I must be sleeping with my eyes open,--and such a pleasant sleep! Down in the village, life is like a mill-wheel; here I am in another world. I can almost hear my heart beat. For the next fourteen days I do not mean to go down into the town. I will wean myself from it altogether; I know I can. The people that live there have no idea how good it is to be out of the world,--out of the hurry and hubbub and stir. O Lenz, you do not know how well off you have been all your life!"

Thus in a hundred different ways did Annele express her delight as she sat in the morning by Lenz's side. "I knew you would like living here," he answered, his face beaming with joy; "and you may be sure I am thankful to God and my parents for having been allowed to pass my life in this place. But, dear little wife, we cannot stay up here a fortnight all by ourselves. Next Sunday, at the farthest, we must go to church, and I think we ought to pass even a little of to-day with our parents."

"As you like. Happily, we cannot take this blessed rest away with us, but shall find it waiting when we come home."

"And you, my mother," interrupted Lenz, looking up at his mother's picture, "you are our angel of rest; your pure eyes say, as they look down upon us, Thank God, children, that it is so with you, and so shall continue your life long."

"It seems impossible I have been here so little while," continued Annele; "I feel as if I had lived here forever. These quiet hours are better than years anywhere else."

"How prettily and cleverly you describe it! Only remember your words, if ever this place should seem too lonely for you. Those who did not believe you could be happy in such a solitude will be surprised."

"Who didn't believe I could be happy? I know,--your Pilgrim, your great artist. He is a pretty fellow. Whoever is not an angel he sets down as a devil. But one thing I tell you, he shall never cross this threshold."

"It was not Pilgrim. Why will you try to find any one now to hate? A hundred times I have heard my mother say, 'We can have no peace of mind if we do not feel kindly towards our fellow-men.' If she had but lived a year longer, that you might have learned of her! Was not that a good saying? You know how it is if you hate any one, or know you have an enemy. I experienced it once, and remember how hard it was. Wherever you go, or whatever you do, you feel an invisible pistol pointed at you. My greatest happiness is, that there is no one in the world whom I hate, and no one, so far as I know, who hates me."

Annele had but half heard him. "Who could have said so if it were not Pilgrim?"

"No one. I have only feared so sometimes myself."

"I don't believe that. Some one put it into your head. But you ought not to have repeated it to me. I might tell what persons have said to me about you,--persons you would never suspect of speaking so. You have your enemies, like the rest of us, but I know better than to make you uncomfortable by repeating their stupid talk."

"You only say that to pay me back. It is all fair; I have deserved it. But now we are quits, and let us be merry."

The two were, indeed, full of happiness again. Franzl in the kitchen often moved her lips, as she was wont to do when thinking to herself. That is natural and right; thank God they feel so. Such would have been my life with Anton, if he had not proved faithless, and married a black woman!

On Sunday morning Lenz said, "I had quite forgotten to tell you that I had invited a guest to dinner with us today. You have no objection?"

"No; who is it?"

"My good Pilgrim."

"You should have invited your uncle too; it would be no more than proper."

"I thought of it, but did not venture to, he is such a queer man."

For the first time they heard the bells in the valley ringing. "Is that not beautiful?" said Lenz. "I have heard my mother say, a thousand times, that we did not hear the bells themselves, but only their echo from the wood behind the house, so that it is like hearing bells from heaven."

"Yes; but we had better be starting now," returned Annele. On the way she began: "Lenz, I do not ask from curiosity; I am your wife, and have a right to know. I swear by those bells not to repeat it."

"You need never swear; I have a horror of oaths. Tell me what it is you want to know."

"You and your uncle seemed to understand each other perfectly on the day of the wedding; what has been settled about the inheritance?"

"Nothing; we have never exchanged a word on the subject."

"And yet you acted as if all were signed and sealed."

"I did nothing. I only said my uncle and I understood each other, and so we do. We never speak of such things. He is free to do as he will."

"He was pushed into a corner, that day, that he could not have got out of but for you. Such a chance will hardly occur again. He might have been made to leave us a handsome legacy."

"I cannot bear to have strangers meddling in our family matters. I am driven into no corner. If he leaves me nothing, I am quite able to take care of myself."

Annele was silent; in her heart was no ringing of bells such as were pealing clear over mountain and valley. They entered the church together, and after the service stopped to see their parents before going home. Not far from the open meadow Pilgrim called after them, "Admit a poor soul into your paradise." They turned round, laughing. Pilgrim was in excellent spirits on the way up, and still gayer at table, where he finished by drinking a full glass to the health of his future godson, and insisting on Annele's drinking with him. Her whole manner towards her guest was friendly in the extreme. At first she was disconcerted by occasionally meeting her husband's eye fixed upon her with an expression of wonder at her powers of dissimulation. Even when she refused to look his way, she fancied his glance of disapproval behind her back, and grew positively angry. On looking round at last, however, and seeing by his beaming face that he thought her perfectly sincere in her assumption of friendliness, she became so in earnest, and exclaimed heartily to Pilgrim: "How happy you and Lenz are in your friendship! from this day let me make one with you."

Pilgrim was loud in his praises of Annele, as Lenz accompanied him part of the way down the hill.

"Never has a dinner tasted so good as to-day's," exclaimed the husband, joyfully, as he re-entered the little room. "What greater happiness can there be in the world than to earn your meat and drink by honest toil, and have a darling wife and a faithful friend to enjoy it with you?"

"Yes, Pilgrim is an entertaining fellow," returned Annele.

"I am so glad you have converted him," added Lenz. "He was not quite inclined to like you; but you are a perfect witch; you can do what you like with everybody."

Annele was silent, and Lenz began to feel almost sorry he had told her that: there was no occasion for it. But honesty never can come amiss. He repeated that she ought to feel particularly happy at having turned an enemy into a friend. She still made no answer; and afterwards, when Pilgrim's name was mentioned, kept a resolute silence.

Annele despaired of doing anything with Lenz until she could make him give up his cheerful views of human nature. As time went on, she gained many a victory by showing him, on every possible occasion, how mean, how wicked and deceitful, men were.

"I never knew that such were the ways of the world. I have lived like a child," said Lenz.

"I have been abroad in the world for you, Lenz," Annele answered. "I have known thousands and thousands of persons in their business and other relations. I have heard how differently they talk behind a man's back from what they do to his face, and have seen them laughing at him for being taken in by fair professions. Hardly anybody says what he really believes. I can tell you more of the world than you would have learned in ten years of travel."

"But of what use is it?" asked Lenz. "I don't see that it does any good. If we keep on our own straightforward way, the world about us may be as bad as it will, it can do us no harm. Besides, there are plenty of honest persons in it. A child brought up in an inn is, as you say, at home among strangers. You told me that evening when we first talked together how keenly you felt your position. You must be glad to have at last a little home of your own, where every passer-by has not the right to come in, and defame himself and his neighbors over his mug of beer."

"Certainly," answered Annele, in no very cordial tone. Lenz had vexed her again by undervaluing her former life. He seemed to fancy she had not known what happiness was till he revealed it to her.