Hammer and Anvil: A Novel

by Friedrich Spielhagen

The blood rose hot to my brow as I came to this conclusion, and a new feeling rose within me and obtained a complete mastery of me. It had always been an easy thing for me to forgive heartily those who had injured me; so easy indeed that I often called myself a weakling, a man with neither heart nor gall; why then was that which I usually found so easy, so difficult for me now? Why did every oblique glance that had been directed at me across the table, the neglect, the indifference which had been suddenly exhibited, now all recur even in their minutest details to my memory? And why did I feel as if I should suffocate at that which I had hitherto borne with such apparent equanimity? I had suddenly struck a new vein in my own nature, a vein from which a bitter, black, poisonous stream flowed into the current of my healthy blood. I felt as an actual physical change what was really only a change in my disposition; the first violent emotion of ambition; the hot desire for personal revenge; the humiliation, the disgrace, if this were baffled; the desperate final resolution to emerge from the contest as victor, to attain my aim in spite of all and everything.

My aim! What was it then? The same which I had in view when I came here, or another? Or this and that both at once? Well might I at this moment have heard the warning voice of that stern wisdom which says that we cannot serve God and Mammon.

I had taken my seat upon a bench which stood in a thick copse of bushes. It was a quiet secret nook. The birds twittered pleasantly, a gentle breeze blowing over the garden brought sweet odors on its soft pinions, and a warm reviving sun beamed from the clear blue sky. The spot was so sweet and the hour so lovely that I had to yield to its soft solicitations, resist them as I might. My blood began to flow more calmly: I commenced to take an interest in a pair of finches that had just set up housekeeping in a knot-hole of a tree, recently transplanted here from the Rossow park, and were incessantly hurrying in and out of their little door. It was a peaceful pretty picture; the little creatures were in such a hurry, and were so unwearyingly busy, and evidently out of mere love--the world after all was not so wretched a place as it had just seemed to me.

With these thoughts flitting through my mind, I must have closed my eyes and fallen asleep; for I saw the bushes in front of me, and behind which ran a walk, bend apart, and a face appear between them; a lovely girlish face upon which the sunbeams and shadows of the leaves were playing, and partly from this, and partly because I was dreaming, I could not see clearly enough to decide if the light in the eye was anger or love. When at last I opened my eyes fairly, I could see the place in the bushes, but the sweet face was no longer there, but at the same moment I heard ringing laughter with shouts and the cracking of a whip, and mingled with the rest, piteous cries as of some one entreating, then suddenly a loud shriek of terror, which caused me to spring from the bench and hurry to the spot.

It was a circular space surrounded with shrubbery, which was used as a race-course and which I had myself used as a riding-school several times during my stay here as I endeavored to improve my imperfect horsemanship under the guidance of the coachman, Anthony, an old cavalryman. My lessons had been taken secretly in the very early morning, because I knew that Hermine, who was passionately fond of riding, was in the habit of practising here for an hour or two in the forenoon. Recently Anthony had told me that Fräulein Duff was also taking lessons, at the request of her young lady, who had suddenly taken into her head to have in her expeditions and visits in the neighborhood, another escort beside her groom, whom she frequently dispensed with anyhow. The thing appeared to me absolutely incredible, although old Anthony, who had nothing of the quiz about him, assured me with the most serious face that it was a literal fact; now I was to have my doubts removed by the evidence of my own eyesight.

In the middle of the track stood Arthur, who kept cracking a long whip incessantly, Hermine, who was laughing in great amusement, the two Eleonoras, in virginal white, clinging to each other as usual, and Anthony, who plainly hesitated whether to obey Arthur's repeated orders to keep away, or yield to the piteous supplications of Fräulein Duff, and help that unhappy lady off the horse. It seemed that for the first time they had let go the halter-rein, and the unskilful and excessively timid rider had been seized with sudden panic. In her desperation she had clasped both arms around the neck of the horse, a small shaggy-maned animal not much larger than a pony, who on his part plunged, kicked, and did his best to throw her entirely out of the saddle, as she was already half out of it. The spectacle was certainly indescribably ludicrous, but I could not bear to see for an instant my good friend in this predicament without coming to her assistance, and in a moment I had sprung to her side, caught the horse's head, and, as she held out her arms to me, lifted her from the saddle. I wished to place her gently on the ground, but in vain did I whisper to her to control herself and not make a scene. As she had previously clung to the horse's neck, so she now clung to mine, and seemed to find the greatest pleasure in swooning in my arms and upon my breast. If a situation of this sort under some circumstances is not destitute of charms for the cavalier, it assumes another character when his fair burden has fully reached those years when she can stand alone, and becomes perfectly intolerable when the spectators instead of commiserating him and hastening to his relief, only move their hands to applaud like mad, and break into inextinguishable laughter.

At least this was what Hermine and Arthur did, while of the two Eleonoras the second only looked at the first to see if she might laugh.

"Duffy, Duffy," cried Hermine, "I have always told you to beware of him!"

"Fräulein Duff," exclaimed Arthur, "do you want to tighten the curb-chain?"

"May I?" signalled the second Eleonora more urgently, and the first replied in the same way, "Laugh, thou innocent cherub!" and herself set the example.