CHAPTER VI.
The sight which met Mamsell Westphalen's eyes when she went into her room; and the reason why she let Corlin slap her twice on the back. How Fritz Sahlmann smashed the Herr Amtshauptmann's pipes, and the French Colonel nearly drew his sword.
If you wish to tell a story properly, you must do as the husbandman does when he tills a field: you must keep the furrows straight, clearing everything as you go along, and leaving no stubble standing. But do this as carefully as you may, there will always be some few bits left untouched here and there, and you must go back and finish them off. Even so must I go back a little way in my story to finish off Herr Droi's and Mamsell Westphalen's ends, that I may be able once more to work straight on.
On the same morning that the Miller, with his headache, looked into his boot-tops, Mamsell Westphalen dressed herself, and was just going to put on her cap, when she saw it was rather out of shape; so she went into her room to get a fresh one, but tapped first at the door and asked, "Herr Droi, are you quite dressed?" The watchmaker said he was. She opened the door--merciful heavens, what a sight! Anything like it she had never seen in her life; for in the night she had only been as far as the door, and had not even glanced into the room. The top of the bed was broken in, and right across the door lay one of the Frenchmen rolled up in the white bed-curtains, and smoking a clay pipe, with her beautiful red-and-white-striped pillow under his head; the other was sitting in her easy chair, and had wrapped his feet up in her new gingham gown; Herr Droi sat at the foot of the bed, and from under his bearskin peered a face that spoke only of sorrow and woe. What a sight her poor room was! It had been her pride, her jewel-box; here she had reigned supreme; here she had sat with everything round her clean and in order. She had dusted and polished everything with her own hands. No one else had dared to touch or alter anything--not even her oracle the Frau Meister. "No," she had said, "the Frau Meister is all very well in her way, but since she let my amber earrings fall, I cannot trust her any more."
And now everything was turned upside down, the room was blue with tobacco-smoke, her clothes had been taken out of the closet and were lying beside Herr Droi's gun, and the French Chasseur's helmet; and her bed--her beautiful bed--stood out in the middle of the room. The bed was her own; her godfather, the joiner Reuss (the old Reuss, not the young one) had made it for her from the same block of wood from which he made her coffin; she had spun the yarn for the sacking herself, and the Meister Stahl had woven it "pretty well," she said, "but two inches too small each way, and that was stupid of him, for I am a well-grown woman, and that he might have known." The Frau Amtshauptmann had wished to make her a present of the feathers, but she had not accepted the offer, and had paid for them herself; "for, Frau Meister," she said, "it's my pride to earn my earthly and my heavenly rest." And when the bed was so far on, she bought two sets of snow-white curtains, and put them up, and then she drew back a few paces, and, nodding her head complacently, said, "Frau Meister, 'the last touch crowns the work.'" And now the bedding lay scattered about in disorder, and the crown lay levelled in the dust.
At first she stood as if thunderstruck, and looked through the tobacco-smoke like the full moon through the evening mist; then she advanced a couple of paces towards Herr Droi, her face as red as the inside of the great copper washing-kettle in her kitchen, and her cap shaking with anger; but she merely said, "What's this?" Herr Droi stuttered and stammered, and stammered and stuttered; but, looking him sharply in the face, she said, "Lies, Herr Droi. You lied last night, and you are lying again this morning. I gave up my room and my own bed to you out of pity, and this is the thanks I get." So saying, she went to her chest of drawers, and took out a clean cap, and then, without casting another glance at Herr Droi, she sailed out of the room like Innocence going to the block. The two Frenchmen laughed and joked, but she paid no heed to them.
As she passed down the corridor, the Colonel stepped out of the blue room in full uniform, with his adjutant, and made her a polite bow. She was not exactly in the mood for civilities, but if you are asked a question you must give an answer; and, besides, man is a creature that must have his sausages cooked, so she answered him with a low curtsey, "Good morning, Herr Colonel von Toll," and walked on.
But the Colonel stopped her. "I beg your pardon," he said, "but I must speak to the Herr Amtshauptmann. Where shall I be likely to find him?"
Mamsell Westphalen felt as if she should go into a fit. "What do you want?" she asked, quite dumbfoundered.
The Frenchman repeats his question.
"Is it possible," exclaims she, "that you want to speak to the Herr Amtshauptmann--our Herr Amtshauptmann at half-past seven o'clock in the morning?"
Finding he was not to be shaken, she said: "Herr Colonel von Toll, everything was turned topsy-turvy in my room last night. Unfortunately I must put up with it as well as I can, but no one shall ever say of me that I lent a hand to overturn the laws of nature. And, though it's no Christian sleep that the old gentleman takes, still he is a gentleman, and can sleep like a gentleman, and do as he pleases. No king, no emperor--no, not even our Duke Friedrich Franz himself shall drag me into a conspiracy against the laws of this house."
"Then I will do it myself," said the colonel, and politely put her on one side and went up-stairs.
"Lord, save us!" said Mamsell; and her hands fell down helplessly by her side. "I do believe he'll do it;" and when she heard him go into the old Herr's room, "He has!" said she.
The adjutant went into her room to Herr Droi. "You long-legged donkey!" thought Mamsell Westphalen, "Must you poke yourself in there too;" and she went into the kitchen and said to the two maids, "Corlin and Hanchen, this God-given day has begun badly; and if it goes on so, Heaven only knows how it will end. We will put the clothes in soak to-morrow--I have my reasons for it; to-day we'll go about our work just as if nothing had happened."
And, so saying, she took the coffee-mill and turned and turned, and the mill rattled and rattled; but when she came to take the drawer out, there was nothing in it; for she had forgotten to pour any coffee-beans in at the top.
Up stairs, in the old Herr's room, the sound of loud talking was now heard, and that silly boy, Fritz Sahlmann, who was filling the Amtshauptmann's long pipes, must of course want to tell them what was going on, and rushed in at the kitchen-door with the pipes in his hand; but Hanchen had that moment put her ear against the door-post to hear a little of what was being said, and--bang! he went up against her, and--smash! went the pipes as they fell clattering on the floor. Mamsell Westphalen's hand was not raised this time; her hands lay on her lap, and she said meekly:
"It's not to be wondered at! If everything is going to rack and ruin, of course clay pipes will be amongst the first; and 'if the heavens fall the sparrows will all be crushed!' It would not surprise me now if some one were to come in and throw the whole of the crockery out at the window."
The quarrel upstairs became louder; the voices resounded over the house and the Amtshauptmann came down stairs into the hall with the Colonel.
The old Herr said, in short, sharp sentences, that he must allow what he could not prevent. The Frenchman must do as he chose, for the power was in his hands.
The Colonel said he knew that. But before he made use of his power he should inquire into things, for there could be no doubt events had happened which there was an attempt to conceal.
He had nothing to conceal, the old Amtshauptmann said. If there was anything to be concealed it was on the part of the French. And was a vagabond like the Chasseur really held in such high esteem and regard by them? For his own part, he knew nothing further than that the fellow had come to him like a robber, had behaved like a pig, and that his servants and the watchmaker Droz had told him the Gielow Miller had taken him away in his waggon.
But where did the watchmaker get his French uniform from, the Colonel asked?
That did not concern him, was the old Herr's reply; the man was not in his district. He had, however, heard it said, that the fellow sometimes put the uniform on for his amusement.
The Colonel said those were merely excuses.
At that the old Herr fired up, and drawing himself to his full height, he looked in his dignified way at the Frenchman, and said--"Excuses are the cousins of lies. You forget my age and rank."
The Colonel became more violent, and said: "In short, the whole story is incredible."
"Indeed!" exclaimed the Amtshauptmann, and from under his grey eyebrows there shot a look full of scorn and anger, like a flash of lightning darting from out of a cloud over a peaceful landscape. "You think it is incredible?"--And he half turned his back upon the Colonel.--"Why mayn't a Frenchman wear the French uniform for his pleasure when so many Germans wear it for theirs?" he added, looking over his shoulder at Colonel von Toll.
The Frenchman turned red as fire, then pale as death; he stepped back a couple of paces and clutched at his sword. The ghost of a fearful deed haunted him for a moment and guided his hand; but, overcoming the dark thought, he turned hastily round and went with long strides down the hall, and Hanchen, who saw it all through a chink in the door, said, ever after, that she had never in her life seen anything like it. "He was a handsome man, and had a pleasant face," she would add, "but when he came striding down the hall, I don't know why, but it reminded me of how once, when I was herding geese, on a fine day in the middle of summer, suddenly there came a fierce wind, and in the twinkling of an eye, all the leaves were blown off from the beautiful oak at the back of the Convent garden and were flying about."
The Colonel turned round again, went up to the Amtshauptmann, and said in a quiet cold voice, that they would discuss the point at a future time; but his duty required that the matter should be probed to the bottom without delay. "Why had the watchmaker slept at the Schloss last night?"
"He did not sleep here," said the old Herr.
"Yes," said the Colonel, "he did sleep here, he slept in that room," and he pointed to Mamsell Westphalen's room.
"Impossible," cried the old Herr, raising his voice as if to defend Innocence before the whole world, "that's Mamsell Westphalen's room. She has been in my house twenty years, and do you mean to say she would let a man be in her room?"
"Corlin;" said Mamsell Westphalen in the kitchen, "give me a couple of blows in the neck, for I feel as if I were going to faint; and my head swims round."
The Colonel threw open the door, and there stood the watchmaker before them. The adjutant had just been examining him, and he had told the adjutant everything--except the truth.
The old Amtshauptmann was quite aghast when he saw the watchmaker before him. "This is inexplicable!" he cried.
The Colonel laughed scornfully, and said he hoped it would not long remain inexplicable; then he whispered a few words to the adjutant and asked for the keys of the state prison.
"I cannot give them out for this prisoner," said the Amtshauptmann, "for he has no right to the state prison; he is a citizen and must go to the town gaol."
"So much the better," replied the Colonel, "for there will be less opportunity there for connivance."
So Herr Droi was marched off between a couple of soldiers--for gradually the courtyard had got filled with French--and was transported to the Rathhaus.
The Colonel also went; but, when he reached the door, he turned round and said that, strictly according to duty, he ought to have the Herr Amtshauptmann arrested, but because the Herr was an old man, and more especially because of the hard words he had used, he should be left in peace. The Colonel would keep himself clear from the slightest suspicion of having wished to revenge himself for those bitter words; but if the presence of the Amtshauptmann or Mamsell Westphalen were necessary at the examination, they must come before him. The old Herr coldly acquiesced, and the Colonel went, but ordered a couple of gensdarmes off to the Gielow Mill, and looked sharply at the Amtshauptmann as he gave the order.
When they were gone, the old Herr went towards the kitchen, and Hanchen started back from her chink in the door, for she thought her master was coming in. But all at once he stood still, turned round and said to himself: "What did the fellow say about 'connivance' and 'keeping himself clear of any appearance of revenge.' What a French Colonel can only talk about, the Amtshauptmann Weber can surely do. I too will keep my name clear. There shall be no appearance of connivance on my part." And he went into his room.