Hammer and Anvil: A Novel

by Friedrich Spielhagen

A new time had come altogether. In what brilliant newness glittered the tiled roofs between the young poplars! To the right, where formerly wide fallow lands had in vain waited for cultivation, broad fields, green with young grain, now shone in the sunlight; and further to the right--a strange and almost incredible sight in this region--further still to the right was a cluster of red brick buildings, from the midst of which sprang a gigantic chimney sending out a black cloud of smoke against the bright morning sky. This was the distillery, built about two years before, and for which we had delivered some machinery in the course of the past winter. As I judged, the park must formerly have extended to that spot; and now there was not a tree to be seen, not a tree anywhere, as I satisfied myself by walking around the house until I reached that part of the grounds which I had seen from my window. I convinced myself that this must have been the place of the great lawn; but in vain did my eye seek for the circle of magnificent beeches surrounding this expanse of waving grass. As far as the hills which one crossed to reach the promontory all the woods had been cleared away, and the stumps, which were everywhere left standing, gave the ground the look of a vast neglected graveyard. Here and there were well-cleared spaces where they had begun new plantations, but the young trees looked poorly, and by no means promised to yield such trunks as those which were still lying in some places among the stumps, but already cut into lengths.

I went on along the well-kept road which ascended the hills towards the promontory, following nearly the direction of the old path which led through the forest to the tarn. This, then, must have been its place; this circular hollow, at the bottom of which, nearly overgrown with grass, were still some small pools of black water. The story used to run that this gloomy tarn was of unfathomable depth, and now behold at the deepest place it was not over thirty feet! They had simply cut the bank on the side towards the coast and let the water off, in order to obtain the compost formed by the leaves which for centuries had fallen into it and sunk to the bottom. The manure was doubtless very serviceable to the exhausted fields; but they had made a frightfully ugly place of what used to be, in its mysterious loneliness and seclusion, the sweetest spot in all the forest. A single one of the old giants had been left standing midway up the slope. It was an immense beech, the growth of centuries, which I believed I recognized again, though it looked strangely standing there alone. And I was not mistaken: upon its bark I found in letters nearly overgrown, but still legible, my name and a date, the date of the day on which, in that sunny autumn morning, I first saw Constance von Zehren under this very tree.

It was a singular chance that of all the stately trees just this one had been left standing.

A feeling of sadness begun to arise in my breast, but I suppressed it, and looked up to the cheerful blue sky. That morning was fair, but the leaves were already falling, and the winter that was to sweep away all the beauty already stood at the door; while to-day the morning was as fair, and it was spring, and the long sunny summer days were coming, the days of work of which the harvest would not fail.

"Yes," I said to myself, as I strode actively up the hill and along the crest of the promontory, "yes, that world had to pass, with its rustling forests, its mysterious dark lakes of ancient time, its crumbling castles, its ruinous courts, and fields all lying fallow. Even you had to go, old ruin of a tower, gray with antiquity, and make way for this little pavilion, from whose windows there must be a lovely outlook over the unchangeable sea."

Here it was the tower had stood. A gay butterfly had alighted on the spot where the fierce eagle had so long had its eyrie. I walked around the pretty little building, of which the door was fastened and the silk curtains of the windows lowered. On the south side the roof projected, boldly, and under it were several tables and benches.

While I sat here, leaning my head on my hand and gazing at the landscape, the sun rose--rose out of the sea in a blaze of tremulous light; but it was not this dazzling brilliancy that compelled me to close my eyes. From this spot I had seen the sun rise once before, and here, where I was sitting, sat a corpse with glazed eyes, on which lay the everlasting night, staring sightless at all the splendor.

Once more I resisted the sadness that threatened to unman me. This was all past; it should not return to darken the day, the bright day, which I had long been in the habit of meeting and welcoming as a precious boon from heaven.

I arose and went to the ravine which I had climbed with the Wild Zehren that night by scarcely accessible paths, and where now a long flight of stairs led easily down to the sawmill of which the commerzienrath had spoken to me the evening before, and whose clatter I could now hear coming up from the depths. It was a small but admirably planned arrangement, and had done its duty so well that the whole Zehrendorf forest, except a very trifling remainder, had been cut up by its saws.

"I wish we had not gone ahead quite so fast," said the foreman, whom I found in the mill; "for in cutting down the forest we cut off the water also, so that we can only work one day out of three, and cannot begin to fill the orders that come in from all quarters. Now the commerzienrath has set the example, all are following it, and are felling timber at such a rate that soon there will not be a tree to be seen on this part of the island. I have often told the commerzienrath what would be the result; but he would not listen to me, and now he must suffer for it."