“My John,”—so she called her son,—“My John,” was heard in every sentence from her lips. The little Amrie, she said, she had taken not out of compassion, but because she would have a living being near her. She was rough and cross outwardly, and to other people, and enjoyed secretly the pride of being kind, and doing right.
Exactly the opposite of this was Krappenzacher, with whom Dami had found a shelter. Before the world he showed himself one of the most good-humored benefactors; in secret he ill treated his dependants and especially Dami, for whom he received but a very small compensation. His true name was Zacharia. He received his nickname because he once brought home to his wife what he called a daintily-prepared roast, of a pair of doves. They were but a pair of plucked ravens, here in the country named Krappen. Krappenzacher spent the most of his time knitting woollen stockings and jackets, and sat with his knitting-needles in any part of the village where tattling was to be had. This gossip in which he heard every thing, served him to meddle with the business of his neighbors. He was the so-called match-maker of the place. When any of his marriages were really brought about, he played the violin at the wedding. In this he was really a country amateur. He also played the clarionet and the horn, when his arm was weary with the fiddle. He was, indeed, a “Jack-of-all-trades.”
Thus were both scions, which had sprung from the same root, transplanted into very different soil. Position and culture, and the nature which they severally possessed, would lead them to very different fortunes.
CHAPTER IV.
OPEN THE DOOR.
ALL SOULS’ DAY, it was dark and foggy. The children were among the people collected in the churchyard. Krappenzacher had led little Dami by the hand, but Amrie had come alone without Brown Mariann. Many of the people scolded at the hard-hearted woman, and some touched upon the truth, when they said, “Mariann could gain nothing by a visit to the churchyard, for she knew not where her husband was buried.”
Amrie was quiet, and shed no tears; while Dami, through the pitying speeches of the people, wept freely, and especially because Krappenzacher secretly scolded and cuffed him.
Amrie stood a long time dreamily forgetting herself, looking fixedly at the lights at the head of the graves, how the flame consumed the wax, the wick burnt to coal, till at last the light was wholly burnt down.
Among the people, there moved around a man in a respectable city dress, with a ribbon in his button-hole. It was Severin, the Inspector of Buildings—upon a journey, who had come to visit the graves of his father and mother. His sister and her family surrounded him continually with a certain reverence, and indeed the attention of every one was directed towards this respectable visitor.
Amrie observed him, and asked Krappenzacher, “If he were a bridegroom?”