What the Swallow Sang: A Novel

by Friedrich Spielhagen

CHAPTER II.

The long village-street was empty. Here and there an old woman appeared in the doorway of one of the low straw-roofed huts, or a few half-naked children played behind the tangled hedges in the neglected gardens; every one else had gone to the fields, for this was the first day of the rye-harvest.

The village-street was empty, and the swallows had free course. Up and down they moved in their arrowlike flight, now on the ground, now rising in graceful circles, straight lines, or zig-zag course, chirping, twittering, and unweariedly fluttering their slender wings.

Gotthold paused, pushed back his hat, which he had drawn over his eyes, and gazed as if absorbed in thought at the graceful little creatures, which he had loved from his earliest childhood. While he stood watching them, the angry displeasure roused by the Pastor's words gradually yielded to a strange melancholy.

"What the swallow sang, what the swallow sang," he murmured. "Yes, yes, it echoes through the village just as it did then:--

When I went away, when I went away,

I left well-filled chests behind,

But returning to-day, but returning to-day,

Naught I find.

"I thought I understood it--but I had only read it with my eyes, not my heart, the heart of a lonely man, who after an absence of ten years returns to the sacred scenes of his youth to find what I have found to-day--the most painful memory of that which was once mine."

Up and down flew the swallows, now close to the earth, and now in a lofty curve over a loaded harvest-wagon which had turned into the principal street from an adjoining lane, and disappeared in a barn.

"How does it go on," said Gotthold:--

Back the swallows dart, back the swallows dart,

And the chests again run o'er;

But an empty heart, but an empty heart,

Fills no more.

He passed his hand over his eyes to brush away the tears which constantly sprang into them, while a mournful smile played around his lips.

"It would be an amusing spectacle to my Roman friends if they could see me standing here crying like a schoolboy; and what would you say, Julia? The same thing that you did when I translated the song: That is all nonsense, my dear friend. How can a heart be empty? My heart has never been empty since I knew I had one, and now it is full of love for you, as yours is for me, you German dreamer. Then you stroked the hair from my brow, and kissed me as only you can kiss. And yet, and yet! If I loved you, Julia, it was only a feeble semblance of the passion I once felt, as the pale East just gleamed with rosy light from the reflection of the sunset glow in the western sky. I have parted from you, and my heart did not quiver as it did just now when I read on her children's gravestones the name of one now dead to me."

He extended his hands as if in benediction.

"Sing on your sweet sad song, innocent swallows! Go and return, bringing Spring to the barren fields and empty human hearts! May Heaven watch over you, my dear native meadows and beloved birthplace! In spite of all, you are as sacred to me as the memories of my youth!"

The carriage was waiting at the door of the village-inn. The coachman had merely loosened the curbs on the horses' necks, that they might eat the bread chopped into little squares more easily. He now pushed aside the movable crib, hastily gave them a drink from the half-emptied pail, and when Gotthold came up was already standing with the reins in his hand beside the door, which he opened with a friendly grin.

It was the first time he had shown his passenger such an attention. They had passed over the long road across the island--Gotthold, contrary to his usual custom, absorbed in gloomy thoughts, and by no means dissatisfied with the taciturnity of the driver, who sat motionless before him, hour after hour, his broad shoulders covered with a blue linen coat, somewhat white in the seams, stooping carelessly, and smoking a short pipe, which Gotthold did not forbid, unpleasant as the sickly odor of the weed often was.

He might therefore have some reason to be surprised when, just after they had left the village and were driving slowly along between the cornfields, on the narrow by-way that led to the main road, the broad-shouldered man suddenly turned, and showing his large white teeth, said in his Platt Deutsch accent:

"Don't you know me, Herr Gotthold?"

"No," said Gotthold, laughing, as he looked into the smiling face of the driver, "but you seem to be better acquainted with me."

"I've been thinking all the way whether it was you or not," said the man; "sometimes I thought it was, and then again that it wasn't."

"You might have asked."

"Yes, you may well say so, but I didn't think of it; that would certainly have been the simplest way. Well, it don't matter now; I know you--by that!" said the driver, drawing the handle of his whip over his face to mark the course of Gotthold's scar. "You ought to have been known by it this morning, for one don't see such things every day; but it's a long time ago, and such things often happen in war; besides, with your thick beard and brown, face, you look just exactly as if you had come from Spain, where no doubt they are fighting again; but when you stopped just now in Rammin, and went up to the parsonage without even asking a question, I said at once, 'Yes, it's certainly he.'"

"And you are--you are Jochen--Jochen Prebrow!" exclaimed Gotthold, cordially extending his hand, which Jochen, turning half-round on his seat, clasped no less heartily in his huge palm.

"To be sure," said he, "and you really didn't know me."

"How could I," replied Gotthold. "You have grown so tall and stout, although indeed in this respect you have only fulfilled the promise of your boyhood."

"Yes, that's so," replied Jochen, "but my sergeant in Berlin always said it was no vice."

Jochen Prebrow turned back to his horses. He had established the identity between his stately passenger and the slender playfellow of his childhood, upon which he had been reflecting all day, and was perfectly satisfied. Gotthold too was silent; it moved him deeply to think he could have travelled nearly all day with worthy Jochen, as if he had been a total stranger.

Jochen Prebrow, the son of the Dollan blacksmith! The pleasant days again rose before him when he left P. with Curt Wenhof for the holidays, which must always be spent in Dollan, and Jochen stood on the moor where the road branched off from the highway, waiting for them, and waving his cap; Jochen, who was well aware that his good times were coming with the pair, times of catching fish and snaring birds under the care of old Cousin Boslaf, to say nothing of a thousand wild, thoughtless pranks on land and sea for which Curt always undertook to be answerable to his good-natured father.

"And the young master is dead too," said Jochen Prebrow, again turning half-round on his seat, in token that having settled the principal matter, he was now ready to proceed to details.

Gotthold nodded.

"Drowned sailing on the Spree," continued Jochen, "and yet he was skilful as any sailor, and could swim like a fish; it was very queer, but he told me that he should come to such an end some day." He filled his pipe afresh.

"When did he tell you so?"

"He had come from Gr. to his sister's wedding, and afterwards was to go to Berlin and show whether he had learned his lessons, and he would probably have come off badly, for our young master was never fond of study. So he told me about it when we came back from P., where the wedding took place. I drove the carriage because old Christian was sick, and then we went at full speed to Dollan, where a great breakfast was served, and our young master had probably been drinking a little too much when he came out to the stable, threw himself down on the straw, and began to sob pitifully.

"What's the matter, young master?" said I.

"Ah! Jochen," he answered, "it's all up. I begged my father to let me be a farmer, for he would never make a lawyer of me; but he says we have nothing, nothing at all; he can't even pay my sister's dowry."

"Well, young master," said I, "that's not so very bad; you have a rich brother-in-law now who can certainly give you some money."

"But he started up, sprang upon me, seized me by the throat, and shook me till I was afraid for my life, crying: If you ever say another word about that,--well, it was an ugly word for a man to call his brother-in-law, especially our young master, who had always been so good-natured, but I said to myself, He's been drinking too much; for he wanted me to upset them when I drove them to Dahlitz; you know the place, Herr Gotthold, just before you get to the smithy, when the moor lies below you on the left, as you come down the hill. It's very easy to upset a carriage there so that the people inside will never get up again; but it's pretty queer business to upset your master's daughter on her wedding-day, and even if I'd wanted to do it I didn't drive them, after all, for Herr Brandow had ordered his own carriage with four horses; and Hinrich Scheel, who was his coachman then and is now, wouldn't upset them, for nobody can deny that he knows how to drive and ride."

Jochen Prebrow cracked his whip, and the horses, which had been advancing along the narrow by-way at a walk, trotted rapidly over the smooth broad high-road.

A short distance on the left appeared Dahlitz, the fine estate once the property of the ancient noble family to which Cecilia's mother belonged, but which had long since passed into the possession of the plebeian Brandow, and was now Carl Brandow's inheritance.

The highway, as Gotthold remembered, led directly through the estate, and for a considerable distance farther ran close by the wall of the park. His heart began to beat violently; his eyes wandered timidly towards the house, whose white front was already partially visible between the out-buildings. To pass so near her home, to let the only opportunity he might ever be offered escape thus, never, never to see her more!

Gotthold leaned back in the corner of the carriage, drawing the broad brim of his hat farther over his eyes; he would fain have ordered Jochen to turn back again. Meantime Jochen was driving on at a slow trot; it would soon be over. But just as they were passing the gates an empty harvest wagon came out so rapidly that the horses almost struck Jochen's. The latter swore, the farm hand swore, and some one standing in the courtyard swore also, Gotthold could not understand whether at his own man or the strange coachman--probably at both; but it was not Carl Brandow's clear voice, and the coarse fat man in top boots, who strode heavily forward to the gate, certainly bore no resemblance to Carl Brandow's slight, elastic figure.

Then Jochen again had a free passage for his frightened horses, which he reined in with considerable difficulty as they passed at full gallop by the low park wall, over which now and then one could obtain through the trees and shrubs a view of the pleasure-grounds, and even distinguish a broad handsome lawn which lay on one side of the mansion. On this piece of turf was a swing, in which two little girls were just being carefully pushed to and fro by their nurse, while a half-dozen other children of all ages gambolled upon the grass, their fresh voices ringing merrily on the quiet evening air. A stately lady moved among the group, with a little man dressed in black beside her, apparently the boys' tutor.

The picture was only visible a few seconds, but Gotthold's keen eye had seized it down to the smallest detail, and it was still in his mind when the carriage moved more slowly along the broad highway. His heart had trembled causelessly; she no longer lived here. Where was she now? He had not heard a word from home for so long--was she dead? She was to him, of course, and yet, and yet--

"That Redebas is a coarse fellow," said Jochen taking the reins in his left hand, "but he understands his business; he'll come out all right."

"So Dahlitz does not belong to Herr Brandow?" said Gotthold.

"Well, I declare," replied Jochen, pointing back with the handle of his whip into the gathering twilight, "didn't you hear anything yonder about what has been happening in this neighborhood?"

"Nothing, nothing at all, my dear Jochen. Who was to tell me?"

"To be sure," said Jochen, "writing isn't everybody's business, not mine for instance, and where you have been I suppose there were very few mails, and not much opportunity. My sergeant--he was one of the old soldiers--was in Spain too in 1807 and"--

"But I have never been in Spain," said Gotthold, "I was in Italy."

This objection was both unexpected and unwelcome to Jochen. He had fully made up his mind during the long hours that he had been reflecting whether his passenger was the son of the Pastor at Rammin or not, that if so, he must at any rate have come straight from Spain; for he had heard that Gotthold had given up "preaching" and was now living in a foreign country, and Spain was the only foreign country of which he had ever heard. So he sank into a profound revery, puffing huge clouds of smoke from his short pipe, and Gotthold, difficult as it was for him to do so, was compelled to repeat his question, as to where Herr Brandow was now living, several times.

"Why, where should he live except in Dollan?" said Jochen at last. "He has come down from a horse to a donkey, but that's always so when people want to sit so high in their saddles."

"And--and--his wife?"

It must be asked; but Gotthold's lips quivered as he put the question.

"Our poor young lady," said Jochen; "yes, when I drove her with four horses to P. for the wedding, she didn't dream the splendor would so soon be over. Yes, she is now in the old place again, and our old master and the young master are both dead, and her two oldest children too; she has only one left."

So she still lived, and lived in Dollan again, dear Dollan, the forest-girdled, sea-washed spot where he had spent the happiest and most wretched hours of his youth, the sacred and yet accursed place to which his dreams had so often led him in joy or sorrow, so that he woke with a happy smile on his lips, and also so often with tears in his eyes! For a moment it seemed as if she had been restored to him, as if the old days had returned. He saw the slender figure gliding through the shrubs in the garden at twilight, while he stood at the little gable window with a throbbing heart, hearing Curt repeat "mi" till he threw the grammar on the table, declaring that he should never understand the stuff, and they had better go down to the garden with Cecilia. Gotthold passed his hand over his brow and eyes. Had he spoken the loved name aloud? Had Jochen, who had resumed his interrupted story in the old monotonous tone, mentioned her name? Jochen did not know exactly how it had all happened, for he had been in Berlin with the army when Herr Wenhof died, and young Herr Brandow came in possession of Dollan in addition to his own estate of Dahlitz: then when Jochen was released from military duty, as his father and older brother were enough to attend to the business of the smithy, he took service as a groom with Peter the innkeeper at Altefähr, and only left the place when he drove travellers to Stubbenkammer or some other part of the island, which did not occur very often. Besides, it had never happened that his way led to Dollan, or very near it, for what stranger would want to travel so far away from the main road? He had not seen even the smithy since, and if his brother had not come to Altefähr once or twice, would have known nothing about how things were now going in Dollan. True, now he came to think the matter over, his brother had not told him much more than he had already learned from others; for Herr Brandow was famous for having the finest horses in all Rugen and Upper Pomerania, and came every autumn to the races at Str.; the noblemen would have hard work to beat him if he was only a plain citizen; and he would be sure to win the prize among all the gentlemen riders this year; for Hinrich had trained a horse for him whose match could not be found. One thing was certain, Hinrich knew more about horse-flesh than all the English trainers who cost the other gentlemen so much money put together, while others hinted that there was something not quite right about the matter, and Hinrich's squint eyes could make horses do anything he pleased. That there were such things, he being a blacksmith's son, knew very well; but it made a great difference whether they were honest arts, such as his father understood for instance, or whether another person he would not mention more plainly had a finger in the pie. People don't cross mountains with him; he makes them pay too dear for his extra horses. It had already cost Herr Brandow his fine estate, and they said he could not even keep Dollan much longer, and that the devil's horses were eating the hair from his head. Did Herr Gotthold believe in such things?

"No, no, no," said Gotthold, starting from his corner and sitting erect.

Jochen was obliged to fill his pipe, in order to think over quietly an answer so different from what he had expected. Gotthold did not disturb his meditations, but sat in silence, absorbed in thought, dreaming of what was, what might have been and never would be! Never? Yes, but not because fate does not will it; it is because human beings bring on this destiny, because they prepare it for themselves, because in dreams which thicken into realities, in wishes which become acts, they mould their own fate. Did she not, on the evening when she, her father, Curt, and himself, had made an excursion from Dollan to Dahlitz, return home with the wish to become mistress of the place her mother's family had so long possessed; How silently she walked through the stately apartments, while her large sparkling eyes wandered thoughtfully over the dark pictures on walls hung with faded silken tapestry, and the numerous carved ornaments on the chimney-piece, which seemed to her unaccustomed eyes a marvel of costliness! How softly she passed her hand over the damask curtains in the sleeping-rooms, how she buried her glowing face again and again among the flowers in the hot-house, as if intoxicated by the heavy perfume. With what interest she listened to that squint-eyed Hinrich, as he expatiated upon the merits of the noble horses whose light chain halters clanked against the marble cribs, and said it was such a pity for the young master to waste his time at the agricultural school, when he could employ it to so much better advantage here! And how indignantly she looked at the friend who fancied himself so dear to her, when with jealous malice he observed that Carl Brandow might come back all the sooner, since from all accounts he showed the same industry at the college as he had formerly done at school! Afterwards she had haughtily bantered the two friends as they stood on the lawn, but when she sat down in the large wooden swing--the same one where he had just seen the children--resting her beautiful head on one hand, while she carelessly played with the scarlet ribbons on her white dress with the other, and Gotthold approached to put it in motion, she started up and said, laughing, that such an ignorant girl ought not to trouble so learned a gentleman. He did not suspect what bitter earnest was concealed under the jest, and the next morning, when he was obliged to return with Curt to their institution of learning, he slipped under her chamber-door a bit of paper, on which he had written a free translation of one of Anacreon's odes:--

Skittish foal, I prithee why,
Flashing fear from thy large eye,
Cruel, dost thou mocking flee?
"Fool! he nothing is to me."

Know for thee I soon shall bring
And about thy proud neck fling
The bridle, and with firm, tight rein,
Swift-racing, spur thee o'er the plain.

Tarry now 'mid pasture-ground,
Gayly frolic, lightly bound;
But, my skittish foal, take heed!
Thy right rider comes with speed.

The right rider! Alas! ere six weeks had passed, the right rider came!

It was a dark evening late in Autumn, like the present one. Men, women, boys and girls were all out of doors, for it was Saturday night, and the great wheat-field must if possible be mowed, the sheaves bound up and piled in heaps. They had paused to rest for half an hour, while waiting for the rising moon to disperse the dense clouds of mist and enable them to resume their interrupted task. Curt and he had busily helped the laborers, and even Cecilia tied up a few sheaves; then they carried the people the beer Cousin Boslaf had drawn from the huge cask. There had been shouting, singing, and jesting among the youths and maidens, but all had now become silent, and Herr Wenhof thought if they did not begin again soon the whole company would fall asleep, and then he should like to see the person who could get them on their feet again. But Cousin Boslaf said they must wait ten minutes longer until the moon shone clear, and Cousin Boslaf knew best. It grew more and more quiet, so quiet that the partridges thought every one had gone, and began to call loudly for their scattered families; so quiet that Gotthold fancied he could hear the beating of his own heart, as his eyes rested on the graceful figure that sat close beside him on a sheaf, so near that his hand might have touched her light dress, gazing up at the moon, whose white light made her face look strangely pale. But the dark eyes often flashed brightly from the pallid countenance, and a strange emotion thrilled the youth, as if a ray from the spirit-world had fallen upon him. Yes, from the spirit-world, where he hovered with his beloved, far above all earthly tumult, far as the pure fancy of a youth whose heart is full of a great, sacred love can soar. Oh! God, how immeasurably he loved her! How his whole being was bound up in this affection! How all his thoughts, feelings, emotions were merged into, carried away by, this passion! How every drop of blood that flowed through his throbbing heart glowed with this love! How every breath that passed over his fevered lips ever murmured: I love you, I love you!

And at this moment, when the heavens opened before his enraptured eyes and he gazed into the region of the blest--at this moment the blow was to fall, which closed the gates of the Paradise of his youth forever, and destroyed for years his faith in the sacred feeling that dwells securely in the human breast. "Some one is coming on horseback," old Boslaf said, approaching the group, and pointing towards the forest. No one else perceived anything; but that proved nothing, for the old man could hear the grass grow. Cecilia started up, went forward a few steps, and paused to listen, and Gotthold saw her press her hand upon her heart. His own stood still.

He and Curt had not been to Dollan during the weeks before the examination, now successfully passed, and he had heard nothing of all that had happened there except that one day Curt casually mentioned that Carl Brandow had returned; but now he knew everything. The horse, whose rapid hoof-beats he also distinguished, was not bearing Carl Brandow over the miles that intervened between Dollan and Dahlitz for the first time. Now he knew what the altered expression of her features, which had attracted his attention that day, meant--the dreamy softness that suddenly yielded to a strange excitement; he knew all, all,--that his temple was ruined, his sanctuary profaned. He stood apart, unable to move, while the others surrounded the rider, who had swung himself from his horse,--the slender rider, who now disengaged himself from the group--but not alone! They passed close by without noticing him, he with his arm thrown around her waist, bending down and whispering to her, she nestling to his side, every line in their figures clearly relieved against the bright moonlight; then he saw and heard nothing more, and afterwards could only remember that he lay long in a dull, terrible despair, in a place far from that spot, on the edge of the dark forest, and then started up and staggered through the silent, sultry woods as if in a horrible dream, sometimes crying aloud like a tortured animal, until he at last emerged from them upon the shore of the sea, which stretched before him in a vast, boundless expanse in the shimmering moonlight. Here he again threw himself down on the sand, but now tears came to his relief--burning tears which, however, flowed more and more gently, as if the lapping of the waves was a lullaby to the poor quivering heart. At last he rose to his knees, extended his arms, and in a long, fervent prayer, to which the roaring of the sea murmured an accompaniment, told the universal mother, who will never desert her child, that he would always love her with boundless affection. Just then old Boslaf suddenly stood beside him,--he had not heard his approach, nor did the old man say anything,--and they walked silently along the strand until they reached the old man's lonely little house among the downs. There he made him a rude couch carefully and silently, and mutely smoothed his damp hair with his hand, when he lay down to rest for an hour and looked at the moonlight which shone through the low window on the wall and glimmered upon the weapons, stuffed birds, nets, and fishing-rods, until the rustling of the treetops on the shore and the low murmur of the sea lulled him to sleep.

Gotthold awoke from his dream. The carriage was standing still, and the horses were snorting as they looked into the forest, through which the road led for a short distance. It was perfectly dark, save that here and there a ray from the moon, which had just risen, trembled through the dense foliage of the beeches.

"Why, what's the matter with the cursed jades?" said Jochen.

There was a rustling and crackling in the thick underbrush on the right-hand side of the road; the noise grew louder, approached nearer and nearer, until, like a hurricane, a dark, compact, moving mass burst through the bushes and crashed into the undergrowth on the other side. It was scarcely seen before it disappeared, while the horses, in frantic terror, reared in the harness and swerved aside, so that it was only by the most violent efforts that the two men, who had sprung from the carriage, could control them.

"The confounded wretches," said Jochen, "the same thing happened to me once before in this very spot. The Prince ought to do something about it; but it gets worse every year, and if old Boslaf didn't often thin them out a little it would be unbearable. There, hark!"

The report of a musket rang through the forest at some distance on their left, whither the wolves had taken their flight.

"That was he," said Jochen, in a low tone; "he only needs to whistle and they run straight within reach of his gun. Yes, yes, Herr Gotthold, you said just now that there was nothing of the kind; but you'll make an exception of old Boslaf. He can do more than one trick which no honest Christian can imitate."

"So the old man is still alive?" asked Gotthold as they drove cautiously on through the forest.

"Yes, why shouldn't he be?" replied Jochen, "they say he can live as long as he likes. Well, I don't believe that; his end will probably come some day, though I may not be here; but this I do know, that people who knew him fifty years ago say that he looked just the same then as he does now."

"And he still lives in the house on the beach?"

"Where else should he live?" asked Jochen. They had emerged from the forest and moorland upon the beautiful smooth highway, which, lined with huge poplars, announced to the weary traveller the vicinity of the capital. It was still an hour's journey, but the road sloped gradually downward, and the horses, well aware that their long day's work was over and their cribs close at hand, collected all their strength and trotted briskly onward. The crescent of an increasing moon floated in the deep blue sky, shedding a pure radiance; here and there a flickering reddish light in the dark landscape marked the situation of some mansion house or lonely peasant hut. And now a brighter glow shimmered from the hill up which the road led. Stately houses gleamed forth from amid the dark foliage of the trees and bushes, the horses' hoofs rang upon a stone pavement, and a few moments after the carriage stopped before the "Fürstenhof," whose host welcomed the late arrival with northern cordiality.