Edelweiss: A Story

by Berthold Auerbach

CHAPTER XXVIII.

A BEGGAR'S HAT, AND AN OLD MAN'S EARNINGS.

In this part of the country the frost, when it has once set in, holds on unrelentingly for many months. The Morgenhalde alone makes a happy exception to the rule. There the sun has sufficient power to make a dripping from the roof, when all elsewhere is hung with heavy icicles. But this winter even the sun in heaven failed to treat the Morgenhalde with its wonted friendliness. There was no thawing outside the house nor in.

Not only was the cold greater than it used to be,--that was easily accounted for by the cutting down of the forest, whose tall trunks lay scattered about, waiting for the spring floods to carry them down into the valley,--but a weight as of frost lay heavy on the hearts of the dwellers upon the Morgenhalde. Annele seemed to have lost the power of rousing herself to life. Something had frozen up within her, which no warm breath could have melted, had any such breath reached her.

Annele, the only child who had remained near her parents, felt herself now the most cruelly deserted by their removal. The secret mortification of being the only poor one of the whole family of sisters seemed more than she could bear. She could do nothing to help her father and mother; nay, might even be reduced to asking charity of her sisters, to begging their children's cast-off clothes for her own little ones.

She moved silently about her work, her love of talking all gone, answering whatever question might be put to her, but nothing beyond. She scarce ever left the house. Her former restlessness seemed to have passed into Lenz. He so wholly despaired of accomplishing anything by his old quiet industry that the chair on which he sat and the tools he held in his hand seemed coals of fire to him. Petty creditors whom he was unable to pay, and was obliged to put off with fair words, were constantly annoying him. He, the Lenz who had only needed to say, "Thus and thus it is," to command instant confidence, now had to make solemn promises to this man and that, that his money should be paid him. The greater was his anxiety lest he should be unable to redeem his word, and the more did he exaggerate the danger that threatened his honor. The thought of the various persons here and there who were waiting for the receipt of their money haunted his sleeping and waking hours and increased his restlessness. He had always been considered a man who could be perfectly depended upon; now he frequently disappointed hopes that he had raised, and even failed to keep his engagements. He had trusted that the mere knowledge of his distress would be a sufficient protection against outside annoyances; he soon learned that men accept no excuses in lieu of their ready money. The ring of that is better than the echo of any good name; the best have too often proved a poor dependence.

Annele saw that Lenz was tormenting himself unreasonably. She was often tempted to turn his importunate creditors out of doors, and bid him not yield so meekly to their cruel exactions. It was the way of the world, as she knew, to trample upon those who cringed to it. But she kept her thoughts to herself. His distress should drive him to adopt her cherished plan of buying a hotel. Then, and not till then, would matters assume a different aspect.

In his anxiety and despair Lenz felt keenly the desolation at his heart, and his sidelong glance at Annele often said, as plainly as words could have done: You are right. You have often reproved me for being shiftless and good-for-nothing. Your words are coming true; I am good-for-nothing. My heart is consumed with anxieties, and this unloving life is wearing me away. I am like a candle that is kept burning at both ends. May it soon be burned out!

Many persons brought him articles to be repaired, and obliged him to work off part of his debt in that way. Now, now when bread was needed for to-day, and there was no provision for the future, it was hard to have to work for the past.

Some sat by him while he did their little jobs, keeping him thus a prisoner in his own house; others with complaints and revilings took away again the commissions he had failed to execute.

Such an existence was not to be endured. He must find some remedy, some lasting remedy. His present state was neither living nor dying. "It is intolerable to hang thus suspended by the hair of my head. I am resolved once more to have solid ground under my feet," he said to Annele. She vouchsafed a scarce perceptible nod of assent, but the mere exercise of his will gave him new strength.

Early the next morning he set off across the mountain to visit his mother's relations in the next valley. He had always been a favorite with them, and felt sure they would not look on and see him perish.

The stars were just fading in the light of approaching day, when he reached the top of the mountain-ridge. He looked abroad over the snow-covered world. Nowhere a sign of life; why must he be living?

A phrase that had haunted him in one of his sleepless nights came now into his mind: "The white sleep," this was it.

An icy wind from the mountains blew against his fevered checks, and rudely recalled him to his senses by tearing the hat from his head and whirling it down the abyss on whose brink he stood. His first impulse was to rush after it; but a look showed him that it would be rushing to certain death. One instant the thought flashed through his brain that a happy accident might thus end his life forever; the next he had put the cowardly suggestion behind him.

The blinding snow drifted ceaselessly across the ridge. The very raven scarce was able to guide his flight, but, with fluttering wings, was driven now high aloft, now deep into the abyss.

Lenz plodded painfully through snow and wind, till at last his eyes were greeted by the sight of human habitations. The smoke, beaten down by the wind, was spread in light clouds above the roofs of the houses. Chimneys were almost unknown in this part of the country.

Lenz sought shelter at the first farm-house. "Welcome, welcome, Lenz! I am glad you have not forgotten me," exclaimed a tall, handsome woman standing by the hearth, with the pieces of a stout bough she had just broken still in her hand.

"What have you done with your hat?"

"I did not recognize you at first. You are Katharine, are you not? How strong you have grown. Katharine, I am come begging."

"Not so bad as that, I hope, Lenz."

"Yes, but it is though," said Lenz, with a bitter smile. He felt this was no subject for joking. "You must lend or give me an old hat; mine has been blown away by the wind."

"Come into the sitting-room. My husband will be sorry not to have been at home to see you. He is carting wood in the forest."

The bailiff's daughter opened the sitting-room door, and politely invited Lenz to precede her into the warm, cosey parlor.

He told her frankly when they were seated together that he had had no intention of coming to see her; that in fact he did not even know where she lived; but was glad that chance had led him to her door. She took the confession in good part, saying, "You always were a true, honest fellow, and I am glad you keep so." She brought out an old gray hat and a soldier's cap of her husband's for him to take his choice between, recommending the cap, as the hat was really too shabby to wear. It was very much crushed and wanted a ribbon besides. He chose the hat, however, and Katharine, finding he could not be induced to change his mind, cut off one of the broad black ribbons from her Sunday hood, and made it serve as a hatband, talking all the while of the people and things in her old home,--everything connected with which she held in fond remembrance.

"Do you remember throwing your hat up into the air one night as we were coming home from the musical festival at Constance, and my running down to the meadow to pick it up for you?"

"To be sure I do. I don't throw my hat up into the air nowadays; the wind blows it up."

"The summer is sure to follow the winter," said Katharine, comfortingly.

Lenz looked in wonder at the handsome woman so ready to help with hand and tongue. She soon had a cup of coffee ready which she insisted upon his drinking, sitting by him while he did so and talking over old days and old acquaintances. "Franzl often comes to see us," she said; "we are still the best of friends."

"I can see that life has prospered with you," said Lenz.

"Thank God, I have nothing to complain of. I have good health, money enough for myself, and something to spare for others. My husband is honest and industrious. It is not quite so merry here as it used to be at home, for we have no singing. I would not mind that, if only I had a child. My husband and I have agreed that, if we still have none of our own on the fifth anniversary of our marriage, we will adopt one. Faller must let us have one of his. You will try to persuade him, will you not?"

"Gladly."

"How old you have grown, Lenz! You look all fallen away. Is it true that Annele has turned out such a bad wife?"

Lenz's face flushed crimson. "Good Heavens!" cried Katharine; "how stupid I am! I beg your pardon, Lenz, a thousand times. I did not mean to wound you. I know it is not true. People will talk as long as the day lasts, and when the days are short they take the night for it. I pray you again and again to forget I ever said such a thing. I have been so happy at having you see me in my own home, and now all my pleasure is gone; I shall be miserable for weeks. You and the landlady said I was too stupid, and I really am. Please give me back my heedless words, Lenz."

She held out her hand as if expecting him to lay the words in it.

Lenz grasped her hand, assuring her that he was not offended, but, on the contrary, grateful to her from his very heart. The hands of both trembled. Lenz said it was time he was on his way again, but she held him fast, and seemed anxious, by talking of all manner of other topics, to efface the remembrance of her heedless speech. When he left at last, she cried out after him: "Remember me to your Annele, and bring her soon to see me."

Lenz went on his way with the borrowed hat; a beggar's hat, as he called it, sadly.

Katharine's words pursued him. The same pity that was expressed for him in that house was doubtless felt in many others. The thought almost unmanned him, but he would not give way. He told himself that it was his own fault; he ought to have showed more firmness.

Again and again his stick fell from his hands, and every time he stooped to pick it up, he almost lacked the power to rise.

So much for a man's brooding over his sorrows instead of giving heed to his way! You would lose your hands if they were not fastened to your body. Mind what you are about!

He straightened himself up and walked on more briskly. The sun shone bright and warm; the icicles on the rocks glittered and dripped; joyous mountain songs, that he used to sing with the Liederkranz, began to ring in his ears. Away with them! It could not have been he who once sang such songs out of the gladness of his heart.

The relations he visited gave him a friendly welcome. At first he related everywhere the adventure of the hat as an excuse for appearing in such a dilapidated condition; but, finding that no one seemed to think it required an explanation, he finally ceased to mention it. Of course, in those very houses where he said nothing of the hat, it excited great speculation; and was taken as a proof of the abject poverty into which he had fallen.

His request for money was everywhere refused with more or less civility. Some wondered at his applying to them when he had rich brothers-in-law and an uncle rolling in money; others more politely excused themselves on the plea of having just bought some land and needing all their money for building; or regretted he had not applied a few days ago, before they made their last investment.

Sorely dispirited, Lenz pursued his way. He could not bear to think of home. His one wish was that he might never see the Morgenhalde again, but could lie down in some ditch, or in the wood, or in any one of the many quiet places he passed; lie down and die. Still, an irresistible force drove him ever onward.

Before him lay Knuslingen, where Franzl lived with her brother. There was at least one person in the world who would be glad to see him.

Who indeed could be so happy as Franzl when Lenz entered her room? She was sitting at the window, spinning coarse yarn, and a great bound her distaff gave at the sight of him. Twice she wiped the chair on which he was to sit, uttering all the while many apologies at the untidiness of the room. She had never noticed before how damp and smoky it was. Lenz must tell all about himself, and yet she could not keep still long enough to listen. She began running on in her old way. "At first the cold here was more than I could bear, after being used to our good sun on the Morgenhalde. Whenever there is a ray of sunlight anywhere, we were sure to get it there. Whatever else may go wrong, Lenz, be thankful for so much good sunlight; that no one can rob you of. It is very different here. For seven weeks and five days not a glimmer reached this valley. On the second day after the festival of the Three Kings, at eleven o'clock, the first ray of sun fell on that pear-tree at the edge of the hill, and from that time the sun kept climbing up so that in summer it is warm and pleasant. By this time I have grown to feel quite at home here again. But, Lenz, what makes you look so? There is a something in your face that I never saw before,--something that does not belong there. Ah! that is better; when you smile you have your old look again,--your pleasant look. You must have felt how I have prayed for you and yours every morning and every evening. I bear no grudge against Annele, not the least. She was quite right. I am a poor, worn-out tool. Whom do your children look like? What are their names? When the spring comes again, I must get to see them if I have to creep on my hands and knees." Then Franzl went on to tell how she had three hens and three geese and a potato-patch, all her own. "We are poor," she said, folding her hands on her bosom, "but, thank Heaven, we have never been reduced to looking on and seeing others eat. We have always had something to put in our mouths. Please Heaven, next year I mean to buy myself a goat." She bestowed great praise upon her geese, and greater still upon her hens. The hens, whose winter-quarters were in a coop by the stove, politely clucked their thanks and took as good a view as their space permitted of the man to whom their good qualities were thus set forth. The gold-colored hen, called Yellow-hammer, flapped her wings with delight, and then gave herself a good, comfortable shake.

Lenz had no time to speak, before Franzl, thinking to comfort him, broke out into fierce abuse of the landlady, mixed with commendations of Katharine and her kindness to her, as well as to all the poor in the neighborhood. "She feeds my hens, and they in return feed me," said the old woman, laughing at her own wit.

Lenz at last made out to say that it was time for him to be going. He heard Annele's sharp words as plainly as if she were standing at his elbow, reproaching him for his foolish waste of time, in sitting listening to any old woman's tale that was poured into his ears. He cast a hurried look behind him to see if she were not actually in the room, and hastily seized his hat and cane. Franzl begged him before he went to mount with her into her little chamber under the roof where she had something to say to him. He trembled inwardly lest Franzl too was about to speak of his unhappiness at home. She did not refer to that, however, but brought out from the straw of her bed a heavy, well-filled shoe, tied with many fastenings, saying: "You must do me a favor; I cannot sleep in peace with this thing here; and I pray you to take it away and do what you please with it. Here are a hundred florins and three crown-pieces. You will take them, won't you? and give me back my quiet sleep." Lenz declined the proffered money, and again prepared to depart; but Franzl wept and held him fast. "If you have any message for your mother, let me know. Please God, I shall soon be with her, and will deliver it faithfully. And if your mother is too timid to tell our Lord God the whole truth, I will do it myself. You can rely upon me."

Still the old woman would not let go of Lenz's hand, and kept saying: "There was something else I wanted to say to you; it has been on my tongue, but now I cannot think what it was. As soon as you are gone I shall certainly remember it. I was to remind you of something; don't you know what it was?"

Lenz did not know what it was, and at last almost reluctantly took his departure.

He entered a wayside inn, where a noisy welcome awaited him. "Hurrah, hurrah! that is jolly to have you here too," cried a voice in greeting; and there at a table, on which stood a great flagon of beer, sat Pröbler with two of his associates. One of his pot companions was the blind musician from Fuchsberg, whose instrument Lenz was in the habit of putting in order every year. An expression of embarrassment and mortification overspread the blind man's face at the sound of Lenz's voice, but he assumed a braggadocio air, and, flourishing his glass above his head, cried out, "Come, Lenz, pledge me out of my glass!" Lenz courteously declined. Old Pröbler tried to get up and advance to meet him, but his legs soon admonished him that he was safer sitting, and he contented himself with calling out: "Take a seat with us, Lenz, and let the bankrupt world without snow itself away as it will. There is no good left in it. Here we will sit till the day of judgment. I want nothing more; when I have spent my last farthing I shall sell my coat for drink, and then lay me down in the snow and save you the cost of burying me. Here you have a proof, comrades, of what a worthless world it is, that can thus bring its best and noblest to ruin. Have a drink, Lenz! That is well. Look at him, the best and bravest fellow in all the world; and how has the world used him? When his mother died, and the whole town was talking of nothing but Lenz's marriage,--why, the sparrows could not be madder after a sack of corn than the girls were for Lenz."

"Enough of that," interposed Lenz.

"No, no; you need not be ashamed to hear the truth. The doctor's daughters, and the paper-miller's only daughter, who was so rich and handsome and married Baron Thingummy,--every one of them would have jumped at him. The paper-miller said to me the day after the betrothal: 'Lenz of the Morgenhalde might have had my daughter and welcome.' And now--Peace, Lenz; I have done--only the Lord or the Devil knows who will get the upperhand. Look at that man! His own father-in-law has robbed him, has sold the very hair off his head, and left his house bare in the middle of winter. I was honest too once, Lenz; but I have had enough of it, and you will see the folly of it presently. Go about the world, if you are in want, and ask of the good and charitable. Take a pinch; take a pinch! their snuff-boxes are open to you, and that is all. Take a pinch!" Pröbler pressed his snuff-box upon him and laughed immoderately.

Lenz shuddered at hearing himself thus held up to view as the most striking example of failure and ruin. Such a notoriety he had never thought to attain. He tried to convince Pröbler that a man had no right to ruin himself, and then cry out against the world for having ruined him. His arguments in favor of every man's helping himself instead of expecting the world to help him greatly strengthened his own confidence, but failed to affect his hearer, who drew a knife from his pocket, and forcing it into Lenz's hand, together with the knife that lay on the table, cried out: "There, you have all the knives; I can do you no hurt. Now tell me honestly, am I a good-for-nothing fellow, or might I have been the foremost man in the world, if the world had helped me? Your father-in-law, whose soul the Devil must weigh out like so much lead, smeared his creaking boots with the marrow of my bones; and capital blacking he found it. Tell me honestly, am I a good-for-nothing fellow, or what am I?"

Of course Lenz had to acknowledge that Pröbler would have been a master in his art, if he had remained in the right road; at which the old man shouted and beat upon the table, and was with difficulty prevented from throwing his arms about Lenz's neck and kissing him.

"I want no other funeral oration. Lenz has pronounced my eulogy. Drink, drink! empty your glasses!"

Lenz had to drink with the rest, and Pröbler, filling the glasses again, cried out exultingly: "The doctor wants to take me into his hospital, his manufactory. It is too late. The time for doctoring and manufacturing is past. There is Lenz of the Morgenhalde, whom all respect to-day and to-morrow, and how much longer? I was once like him, and now when I go through the town men point their fingers at me and shrug their shoulders and cry, 'Pah, there is that scamp of a Pröbler!' Follow my advice, Lenz. Don't wait till you are as old as I, but make your bow in good season. Hark to me, brother, I have something to tell you. Do you remember our setting up those standard regulators? Do you know what we were then? A couple of pattern fools. Did you want to unite the clockmakers in an association? You might as well try to make them join hands with the Devil. Hark to me, brother! Don't tear yourself away; stay here, stay here! I have something to tell you. I make you my heir. There is a way to buy jollity in the world, and forgetfulness, and good cheer. I know your heart is heavy; I know where the shoe pinches. Old Pröbler knows more than other men; he knows everything. Pour wine on the worm in your heart; wine or brandy. Whatever drowns it is good. Then we shall have no more clocks, no more hours, no day and no night, no more time, but all eternity."

The old man fell into the most frenzied ravings. At times a spark of intelligence shone through his wild utterances, and then again all was delirium. It was impossible to tell whether it was a fact, or only his fancy, that the landlord's failure had robbed him of all provision for his old age, or whether it was the sale of his mysterious work that had reduced him to this state of despair. The burden of his cry was ever "Lenz, drink your life out while you are young, and don't be so long killing yourself as I have been." Lenz turned sick with horror at this living proof of what a man may come to who has lost his self-respect, and whose only refuge is self-forgetfulness.

"Your mother had a good saying," began Pröbler again; "did I tell you that was Lenz of the Morgenhalde? Yes, your mother. 'Better go barefoot than in ragged boots,' she used to say. Do you know what she meant? I have a better proverb: 'Tear off the nag's shoes before you take her to market.' Landlord! here is another horseshoe for you. Wine, wine!" He threw down a dollar.

The mention of his mother's name, though in such an unworthy connection, acted as a warning to Lenz as effectually as if her eye were suddenly and sternly fixed upon him. He rose from his seat, in spite of all Pröbler's efforts to detain him. Gladly would he have taken the old man with him, but it was impossible to stir him from the spot. All he could do was to charge the landlord to keep him where he was till morning, and on no account to give him anything more to drink. "There is my last pinch gone," cried Pröbler, throwing his snuff-box after him as he closed the door.

Drawing his breath hard, as if escaping from a close and burning hell, Lenz staggered out into the free air of heaven.

The night was coming on. The ice-bird twittered by the frozen brook, and the ravens sought the cover of the forest. A buck came out to the edge of the wood, stood with his great eyes fixed on Lenz till he came close up to him, then with a bound vanished again into the thicket, marking his course by the fresh snow he shook from the tender firs as he passed.

Lenz often stopped, thinking he heard himself called. Perhaps Pröbler was following him. He shouted in reply till the echoes rang; he went back a space; but no one did he see or hear. Again he pushed on. The trees, the mountains, seemed dancing to meet him. A woman who looked like his mother came towards him. If his mother should see him thus! The old woman gave him a friendly greeting as she passed, and warned him not to linger in the valley after dark, for there were black gullies in the snow, and avalanches were falling which might bury a man and no one be the wiser.

A wonderful tone there was in the old woman's voice, just like his mother's. Thanks for the friendly warning!

A sacred vow Lenz registered in his heart.--

He also resolved, however, not to go home empty-handed, and, turning his steps to the city, sought the house of his brother-in-law, the lumber-merchant. The rich man was happily at home, but gave him such an ungracious reception that he found it difficult to state his errand. Sister Babette's husband laid all the family misfortunes at Lenz's door; he alone was to blame for not having taken affairs from the beginning into his own hands. Whether the accusation was made in good faith or not, it furnished an excellent excuse for refusing help. In vain did Lenz pray, with clasped hands, to be saved from absolute ruin. The lumber-merchant only shrugged his shoulders and advised him to apply to his rich uncle, Petrovitsch.