ANNA (1836)
BY FRIEDRICH HEBBEL
TRANSLATED BY FRANCES H. KING
"Mild the air, and heaven blue,
Fragrant flowers full of dew,
And at even dance and play,
That is quite too much, I say."
Anna, the young servant maid, was gaily singing this song one bright Sunday morning, while busily engaged in washing up the kitchen and dairy crockery. At that moment Baron Eichenthal, in whose service she had been for the last six months, passed by, wearing a green damask dressing-gown. He was a decrepit young man, full of spleen and whims. "What's the meaning of this yodelling!" he demanded haughtily, pausing in front of her—"You know that I cannot bear frivolity."
Anna blushed violently: she remembered that her severe master would have been very pleased to find her frivolous a few evenings ago in the summerhouse. A sharp retort was on the tip of her tongue, but forcibly suppressing it, she started to take up a white porcelain soup-tureen, and, in a violent struggle with her natural fearlessness, let it fall to the ground. The valuable dish broke and the Baron, who had already taken a few steps forward, turned around, his face flaming with anger.
"What!" he exclaimed loudly, and strode up to the girl, "would you cool your temper on my mother's kitchen crockery, you little sneak, because your stubborn spirit will not allow you to accept a well-merited reproof quietly, as becomes you?" And with that, scolding and storming, he gave her, right and left, box after box on the ear, while she, stunned, gazed at him, like a child, bereft of speech, indeed almost of her senses, still holding the handle of the tureen in one hand, and involuntarily pressing the other against her breast.
She was first aroused from this state, which bordered on a swoon, by the mocking laughter of the chamber-maid Frederika, who, more easy going than she, gladly allowed the Baron to trifle wantonly with her and pinch her cheeks or play with her curls. The insolent wench looked at her derisively, and called out, "That will give you a good appetite for the kermess, Miss Prude."
The Baron, however, laughed loudly and placing his arms akimbo, said: "You might just as well give up all desire for dance and play; I withdraw the permission accorded by my mother, you shall take care of the house. Is there nothing then for her to do today?" he continued, talking to himself. Frederika whispered something to him. "Right," he shouted, "she shall comb the flax until late at night; do you hear?" Anna, completely bewildered, nodded her head, and then sank down powerless on her knees; at the same time, however, she instinctively snatched up a brass utensil, and, while the hot, uncontrollable tears overflowed her eyes, she began to scour it bright.
The gardener had witnessed the foregoing scene from a distance. Fresh and blooming as she was, he had long pursued her with attentions, but in vain; coming up at that moment, he greeted her and asked maliciously how she was? "Oh, oh," she moaned, quivering spasmodically, and springing, up she clutched at the sneering fellow's breast and face.
"Madwoman," he cried, growing frightened, and, defending himself with all his masculine strength, pushed her away. She stared after him with wide-open eyes as though not realizing what she had done; then, as if coming to her senses, returned to her work, which she continued without interruption, except at times unconsciously heaving a loud sigh, until at midday she was called to the kitchen to dinner. Here nothing but faces expressing malicious joy at her discomfiture awaited her, and more or less suppressed laughter and tittering, which grew stronger and more pitiless as she continued to gaze down at her plate with burning cheeks, and replied not a word to the volley of allusions.
The maids, already partly decked out in their finery, exchanged bantering remarks, bearing unmistakable reference to her, on the score of the lovers whom they had found, or hoped to find, and the flat-nosed scullion, encouraged to commit the impertinence by the winks of the head farm-hand and the coachman, asked Anna if he might not borrow her red-flowered apron and the hat with the gay-colored ribbons that Frederick, the Major's man, had given her at Christmas. She would certainly not need these things in the flax-room, he said, and he hoped by means of them to win the good graces of a girl who had no finery.
"Boy," she cried with white trembling lips, "I'll not cook you any milk soup another time when you are sick in bed, and no one bothers himself about you!" and shoving back her plate, she snatched up the empty water-pails, which it was her duty to fill afresh at the well, and went out.
"Fie," said John, an old servant, who, having grown gray in the service of his lordship's father, was now eating the bread of charity in the house of Baron Eichenthal. "It is wrong to spoil the wench's food and drink with bitter words."
"Pshaw!" retorted the gardener, "it will not hurt her. Since that lean-bodied toady, Frederick, has been running after her, she's as proud as though she had angled a nobleman!"
"Pride comes before a fall!" said Lizzie, the buxom little cook, with a tender glance at the phlegmatic head farm-hand. "Do you know that she laces?"
"Why shouldn't she be proud," interjected the coachman, "isn't she the schoolmaster's daughter!"
Frederika, the chambermaid, came into the kitchen with a heated face. "Isn't Anna here?" she asked, drying her forehead with her silk handkerchief. "The master has just gone to bed, he joked a good deal"—here she coughed, as the others cast significant glances at one another and laughed—"and I am to tell her that she is to begin combing the flax right away, and"—this she added on her own authority—"she must not stop work until ten o'clock."
"I'll give her the message, Rika!" answered Lizzie. Frederika tripped out again.
"Doesn't she lace too?" asked the head farm-hand.
"Chut! Chut!" whispered John, and jingled his fork against his plate in embarrassment. Anna entered the kitchen with her load of water.
"Anna," began Lizzie officiously, "I am to tell you—"
"I know all about it already," answered Anna drily, in a steady voice.
"I met the messenger. Where is the key to the flax-room hanging?"
"Over there on the nail!" replied the cook, and pointed with her finger to the place.
Anna, composed, because inwardly crushed, took the key, and while the others went off to their trunks in order to complete their toilet before a three groschen mirror, she went hastily into the flax-room, the windows of which looked out upon the castle courtyard and the high-road. She sat down, her face turned toward the windows so that she could see all the merry-makers on their way from the village to the kermess and hear their gay talk. She began to work with gloomy industry. Although at times she unconsciously sank into a fit of brooding, she would immediately start up again terrified, as though bitten by a snake or tarantula, and continue her labor with increased, indeed, with unnatural zeal. Only once during the entire long afternoon did she get up from her low, hard, wooden stool, and that was when her fellow servants drove quickly down the castle yard in comfortable rack wagons drawn by fast horses. But with a loud laugh, as though in self-derision, she sat down again, and, although she grew so thirsty in all the heat and dust that her tongue clove to the roof of her mouth, she did not even drink the coffee that old Bridget, who on an occasion like this of today used to take care of the house for the maids, compassionately brought her toward four or five o'clock.
When night gradually came on she went into the kitchen, without smoothing back the locks of hair that hung wildly about her face. Making no answer to Bridget's friendly invitation to remain there and share with her a tempting dish of baked potatoes, she took a candle out of the candle box, and holding her hand over it to protect it against the draught, went back into the flax-room. It was not long before there was a knock at the window, and when she had opened the door Frederick entered hastily, dripping with perspiration.
"I must see what is the matter," he said, almost breathless and tearing open his waist-coat, "they are whispering all kinds of things."
"You see!" answered Anna quickly, then stopped short and arranged her bodice, which had been pushed somewhat awry.
"Your master is a scoundrel!" blustered Frederick, gnashing his teeth.
"Yes, yes!" said Anna.
"I should like to meet him up there on the cliff," cried Frederick, "oh, it's abominable!"
"How hot you are," said Anna, gently taking his hand. "Have you been dancing already?"
"I have been drinking wine, five or six glasses," rejoined Frederick. "Come, Anna, dress yourself, you shall go with me in spite of every devil who tries to interfere."
"No, no, no!" said Anna.
"But I say yes," Frederick flared out in a passion, and put his arm around her waist, "I say yes!"
"Most certainly not!" Anna answered softly, embracing him affectionately.
KRIEMHILD ACCUSES HAGEN OF THE MURDER OF SIEGFRIED
From the painting by Schnorr von Carolsfeld [Illustration]
"You shall, I wish it," cried Frederick, releasing her.
Anna, without making any answer, took up the flax-comb and looked down on the ground before her.
"Will you, or will you not?" persisted
Frederick, and stepped right in front of her.
"How could I?" returned Anna, looking confidingly in his eyes, and laying her hand on her heart.
"Very well," cried Frederick. "You will not. God damn me if I ever see you again!" He rushed out like a mad man.
"Frederick," cried Anna after him, "Do stay, stay a moment, listen how the wind is howling."
She was starting to hurry after him when her dress brushed against the candle placed low down on an oak-block; it fell over and set fire to the flax which burst at once into powerful flames. Frederick, crazed with wine and anger, forced himself, as usually happens in such moments, to sing a song as he strode out into the night, which had turned out to be very stormy. The familiar tones, in wild hilarity, penetrated to where Anna was. "Oh! oh!" she sighed from the depth of her heart. Then for the first time she noticed that half of the room was already on fire. Beating with her hands and stamping with her feet she threw herself upon the greedy flames which, hot and burning, leaped toward her and scorched her. Frederick's voice died away in the distance in a last halloo. "Pshaw, why should I put it out, let it be!" she cried, and slamming the door behind her with all her might, she hurried out with a horrible laugh, involuntarily following the same path through the garden that Frederick had taken.
Soon, however, she sank down, exhausted, almost fainting, in a meadow which adjoined the garden, and groaning aloud pressed her face into the cold, wet grass. Thus she lay for a long time.
Then from far and near the fire and alarm bells sounded, hollow and terrifying. She half raised herself, but did not look around. Above her the sky was blood-red and full of sparks; an unnatural heat was spreading, and increasing from minute to minute. The wind howled and roared, the flames crackled, wails and shouts resounded. She lay down again at full length on the ground, and it seemed to her as though she could sleep. But the next moment she was frightened out of this death-like state by the words of two people hurrying past her, one of whom cried out, "Lord have mercy on us! the village is already burning!" She pulled herself together then with a superhuman effort, and hurried, with flying hair, down to the village, which adjoined the burning side of the castle. There, in more than one place the inflammable straw roofs had already burst into flame.
The wind grew stronger and stronger. Most of the inhabitants, with the exception of the children and decrepit old people, were more than four miles away at the kermess. Had the necessary men been on the spot the miserable fire apparatus could have offered only a vain resistance to the league of the two dread elements. Since the summer had been unusually dry, even water was lacking.
Distress, danger, confusion, increased every minute. A little boy ran about crying, "O God, O God, my little sister!" And when he was asked, "Where is your sister?" he repeated his horrifying cry, as though, incapable of every intelligent thought, he had not understood the question.
One old woman had to be forcibly dragged from her house. "My hen," she moaned, "my poor little hen!" And indeed it was touching to see how the little creature fluttered terrified from one corner to the other in the suffocating smoke, and yet, because in better days it was probably accustomed not to cross the threshold, it would not allow itself to be driven through the open door into the air, even by its mistress.
Anna, weeping, screaming, beating her breast, and then again laughing, rushed into every kind of danger with the reckless daring of despair. She rescued, extinguished, and was an object at once of surprise, admiration, and uncanny mystery to all the others. At last they despaired of being able even to arrest the fire, which, continuing to spread, threatened to reduce the whole village to ashes. It was then that they saw her sink down on her knees in a burning house and gaze up to Heaven, wringing her hands.
The pastor called out, "For God's sake, rescue the heroic girl, the roof is falling in!" Anna, still on her knees, hearing his words, stuck out her tongue at him with a gesture of violent abhorrence, and laughed crazily. At this moment Frederick appeared. Hardly had he perceived the terrible danger in which she was placed than, growing deathly pale, he rushed toward the house which seemed about to collapse. She, however, noticing him at once, sprang up terrified and cried, "Don't, Frederick, don't; I, I am guilty, there—there." She pointed with her hand to the place where the castle lay, and, in order to make any rescue impossible, hurried up the already burning ladder, which led to the garret of the house. The ladder, too far consumed by the fire, broke under her, and at the same moment the roof fell in, forming a wall of flame. They heard one more piercing cry; then there was silence.
Baron Eichenthal arrived. As soon as Frederick caught sight of him he rushed up to him and before the Baron could defend himself kicked him in the abdomen, so that he fell over backward to the ground; then Frederick quietly gave himself up to the peasants, who at the order of the justice of the peace were trying to overpower him.
When the Baron learned next morning what had happened to Anna, he ordered them to search for her bones among the ashes and to bury them in the potter's field. This was done.