Seldwyla Folks: Three Singular Tales

by Gottfried Keller

After paying all this, Dietegen took his wife by the hand and left with her the place of execution.

Since he had to take her, however, just as she was, and she was not only barefooted but merely clad in her death shift, the season also being early and the weather chilly, she was suffering from this and unable to keep step with her husband. He lifted her, therefore, from the ground to his arms, pushed his hat back from his forehead, and then she put her arms around his neck, leaned her head against his, and immediately fell asleep, while he used his long spear as a staff in his other hand. Thus he walked swiftly along on the mountain path, all alone by himself, and he felt how in her sleep she was weeping softly, and how her breath grew less agitated. At last her tears ran along his own face, and then a strange illusion as though blessed bliss were baptising him anew came over him. And this rough, war-hardened man, for all his self-command, felt his own tears staining his ruddy bearded chin. His was the life he bore in his arms, and he held it as if God's whole world were in his keeping.

When they arrived on the spot where he himself, a small child, had sat among the women in his scanty garb and where more recently poor Kuengolt had been taken prisoner, the March sun shone clear and warm, and he concluded to take a short rest. Dietegen sat down on the boundary stone, and let his burden slowly glide down on his knees. The first glance which she gave him, and the first poor words which she stammered, were proof to him that he not only had truly fulfilled a sacred duty towards her by what he had done, but that in addition he had undertaken another, an even more sacred one, namely, to conduct himself through life in such a manner as to be worthy of the happy lot that had fallen to him in becoming the husband of the charming creature at his side. And this he silently vowed to do.

The soil around the boundary stone was already thickly speckled with primroses and wild violets, the sky was cloudless, and not a sound broke the still air but the cheery song of the finches in the wood.

So they spoke no more for some time, but both breathed the soft air that filled their lungs with new hope and life, but at last they rose, and because from now on there was but the velvety moss-covered ground to traverse which led through the beeches down to the forestry lodge, Kuengolt was able to walk by his side. Suddenly she touched her golden hair, being afraid that it had been shorn by the headsman. But as she still found it unharmed, she halted for a moment, saying: "May I not have a little bridal wreath?" And she looked at her husband with a half-roguish smile.

He let his eyes roam all about him, and discovered a bunch of snowdrops in full bloom. Quickly he went and cut off enough of the flowers to weave into a coronet for his bride, and then he carefully placed it on her head, saying: "It is not much. It is out of fashion. But let this wreath be a token to us and all the world that our domestic honor will remain as spotless as these. Whoever by word or deed will harm it, let him pay the penalty!"

Then he kissed her once, firmly and with a look that boded ill to any disturber of his peace, right under the wreath, and she looked up at him, satisfied and with confidence, and then they two resumed again their walk.

The forestry lodge they found empty and deserted. The house servants had left it unguarded, partly from mourning Kuengolt whose death on the scaffold they had assumed as certain, partly from neglect of their duty. None of them returned under its roof that day. But Kuengolt and Dietegen did not miss them. She now with every minute recovered more and more from the numbing effects of her recent miseries, and to feel herself at last in truth the mistress of this house and clothed with wifely dignity poured balm into her soul. Like a squirrel she busied herself, hurried from chamber to chamber, from closet to closet, counting her treasures, investigating all. Soon she returned dressed in the splendid bridal costume of her mother, the one she had told Dietegen about that night when they, both small children, had shared the same cot on the night of his first arrival, and she shone like a queen in it. But next she set the table, using the linen which her mother had always reserved for festive occasions, and placed in platters and dishes on the snowy surface what she had been able to find in the house.

All by themselves, with no noise from the outside world to disturb them, they then sat down, she in her wreath, and he with weapons laid aside, and ate the simple meal prepared by her. And then they went to bed just as peacefully.

"Thus luck may turn!" she said, the second time that day, as she lay content by the side of her beloved. For after all there was a bit of roguishness left in her heart, despite all she had gone through.