Seed-time and Harvest: A Novel

by Fritz Reuter

So they drove home, and when he got out Johann stood by the two good browns: "So, the two wheel-horses were driven to death before, and now the leaders are ruined; we have a span of cripples."

Axel went up to his room with heavy steps, it was broad daylight; in his room everything was as usual, and usually he found himself very comfortable there, and the old use and wont appealed softly to his heart; but his heart was not the old heart, heart and mind were changed, and use and wont no longer harmonized with them. He was restless and troubled; he opened the window, that the fresh morning air might cool his heated brow; he threw himself into the chair, that stood before his writing table, and pressed his head in both hands, as if it were held in a vice. Then his eyes fell upon a letter, the writing seemed familiar, he must have seen it before; he opened it; yes, it was from his sister. What had his brother-in-law, Breitenburg, called him? Yes, that was it! He looked out of the window; behind the Rexow firs the sun was rising.

He looked at the letter again; it contained friendly words, but what did words avail, he had no money. He looked out of the window again, before him lay a field of wheat; ah, if it were ripe and threshed out, and had borne twenty-fold, then--no! no! even then it could not help him. And again his eyes returned to the letter; friendly words! but soon the words became more earnest, and looked at him sternly, he could not turn his eyes away; he read them to the end, and there it stood: "On this account, I have written to Frida also, for, dear, dear brother, if you have not safely invested our capital, we poor girls are utterly ruined!"

"Yes, ruined!" he cried, "ruined!" and sprang from the chair, and strode about the room, He went to the window; before him lay nature in her fullest splendor, and nature has power over every heart, but the heart must harmonize with nature, it must open itself fully and freely to the sunlight, and receive into itself the green earth and the blue heavens and the golden beams. But his heart was not open to these influences, his situation had overpowered him, and his thoughts turned solely and miserably to the most pitiable human resources. Money, money! He could coin no louis-d'ors from the sunbeams.

He threw himself into his chair again; so she knew it, too. He had told her many lies, which she could not prove false; there was no use in lying now, she knew it. And she seemed to stand before him with her child in her arms, and to look at him sternly, and her clear gray eyes asked, "Have we deserved this at your hands?" and his three sisters stood around him, with sunken cheeks and pale lips, saying, "Yes Axel, dear Axel, utterly ruined!" And behind the old maids stood a darker form, in guise that was not of this earth, and that was his father, who called to him, "Thou shouldst have been a prop for my old house, but thou hast taken away stone after stone, and my house is falling to the ground." He could endure it no longer, he started up,--the ghosts vanished,--he ran up and down, and when he recollected himself, he was standing before a closet where he kept his fire-arms. Ah, he knew a place, so lonely, so still, it was the Lauban pond in the Rexow firs; he had often been there with the chase, when the brave old forester, Slang, was hunting; he could do it there. He opened the closet, and took out the revolver which Triddelsitz had procured for him, to shoot at the day-laborers. He tried it; yes! it was loaded. He went out of the door, but as he crossed the landing, he saw the door which led into Frida's room, where his wife and his child lay sleeping; he was startled, he tottered back; all the joy he had experienced in the faithful affection of his wife, in the lovely awakening nature of his child, came back to him; he fell upon the threshold before the door, and burning tears started from his eyes, and these tears, this earnest prayer to God, may have saved him,--we shall see how,--for the Lord holds us by slender, invisible threads.

He rose up, the prayer had not been for his own soul, but for others; he walked away, he went to the lonely Lauban pond. He threw himself down under the firs, behind a bush, took the revolver from his pocket, and laid it beside him; he looked once more, eagerly, mournfully, at the world around him; he looked once more at the sun, God's beautiful sun, for the last time; soon, night would fall upon him forever. The sun blinded him, he took out his handkerchief, and covered his eyes, and now the last, the most terrible thoughts overcame him. He sighed deeply; "It must be!" he exclaimed.

"A fine morning, Herr von Rambow!" cried a friendly, human voice, close by. Axel tore the cloth from his eyes, and threw it over the revolver.

"You are up early!" said Zachary Bräsig, for it was he, and he threw himself down by Axel, on the grass. "Have you come out fishing, too?" With that, he laid his hand on the handkerchief and the revolver: "Ah, so! You were going to practise pistol-shooting a little. I used to be a very good shot, myself, could shoot out the ace of hearts and the ace of clubs, without fail."

Then he stood up, with the revolver in his hand: "You see that mark on the fir yonder,--they are getting ready to fell timber,--I will wager four groschen, I never bet higher,"--bang! the shot went wide of the mark,--bang I missed it again, and yet again, and so on with the six shots.

"Who would have thought it? All missed! Who would have thought it? Well, I have lost. Here are the four groschen. That is such an old fool of a pistol!" he cried, and tossed the revolver far out into the pond, "children and young people might hurt themselves with it."