Seldwyla Folks: Three Singular Tales

by Gottfried Keller

They all laughed at this odd statement, but the mother took Dietegen's hand and led him to the child, saying: "Come, make up with her and let her kiss you once more. Later on you, also, shall be her master, and shall do as you see fit in such matters."

Blushing deeply because of the many onlookers, Dietegen offered his mouth to the girl, and she seized him by his curls, quite in a frenzy, and kissed him hard, more in wrath than in love, and then, having once more thrown him a look that betrayed anger, she quickly turned on her heels and dashed away in such haste that her golden ringlets fluttered in the night air and in passing brushed his face.

But now the reluctant fire of love had also been kindled in his own young soul, and soon after he left the throng and went in search of rash Kuengolt, striding rapidly and gazing all about for her. At last he discovered her on the other side of the house where she sat dreamily at the well, and was playing with the amber beads of her necklace. Advancing quickly he seized both her hands, compressed them in his vigorous right, and then laid his left on her shoulder so that she shuddered, and said: "Listen, child, I shall not permit you to trifle with me. From to-day on you are just as much my own property as I am yours, and no other man shall have you living. Keep that in mind when some day you will be grown up."

"Oh, you big old man," she murmured slowly and smiled at him, but pallor had overspread her features. "You indeed are mine, but not I yours. However, you need not mind that, because I don't think I'll ever let you go!"

So saying she rose and went, without first looking at her old playfellow once more, over to the other side of the house.

But this was not all. The forester's wife caught a cold in the suddenly chilled air of this very May night, and an insidious disease grew out of it which carried her off within a few months. On her deathbed she grieved much about her husband and her child, and expressed great anxiety on their behalf. She also denied till her last breath the real cause of her illness and death, deeming it scarcely a fit thing for a housewife and a mother to thus go out of life merely because of a surfeit of riotous pleasure.

But while she thus lay lifeless in the house, all that had loved her mourned for her; indeed the whole town did so, for she had not had a single enemy in the world. Her widowed husband wept at night in his bed, and at daytime he spoke never a word, but only from time to time stepped up to the coffin in which she lay so still and peaceful, looking and looking at his sweet partner, and then, shaking his head, slowly walking off again.

He had a heavy wreath of young pine twigs fashioned for her and placed it on the bier. Kuengolt heaped a perfect mountain of wildflowers on top of that, and thus the graceful form of the dead was borne down from the hillside to the church below, followed by the bereaved family and a crowd of relatives, friends and members of the household.

After the burial the chief forester took all the mourners to the tavern, where he had caused a bounteous meal in honor of the dead to be prepared, according to ancient custom. The roast venison for it, a capital roebuck, and two fine grouse, he had shot himself, grieving all the while at the loss he had sustained. And when the gorgeously feathered birds now appeared on the long board he minded him again of the dense grove of mighty oak and maple, high up on the mountain side, in which she had sat awaiting his return from the chase, and in which he, his heart full of love of her who now rested in the cool ground, had many a time been stalking the deer. The image of her stood before his thoughts like life itself. But yet he was not to be left long to brooding, for strict laws of custom called for his active services as host on this occasion. When the claret from France and the golden malmsey had been uncorked and poured into capacious goblets, and the heavy table been loaded with sweets and cakes that scented the precious spices from the Indies, the guests grew lively and clamorous, and he had to propose and answer many a toast, despite his sincere mourning, and the noise soon drowned the still voice within him. Life and death were twin brothers in those days of our forbears.

The forester was seated at table between Kuengolt and Dietegen, and these two because of his tall and broad-backed person were unable to catch a look of one another save by bending over or behind him, and this neither of them wished to do for decency's sake, for they were the only ones who among this crowd of buzzing guests remained sad and serious. Across the board from him sat a cousin, a lady of about thirty named Violande.