"What of that?" cried he. "I am ruined, and I will ruin all that can remind me of her. Fru Holle! Fru Holle! Thou heathenish woman! I will tear down and smash the apple tree, and pull it up by the roots. It shall never blossom or bear fruit more."
But the tree was not destroyed; he himself was knocked down, and lay long in a violent fever. What was to raise him from his sick bed? The medicine that did it was the bitterest that could be—one that shook the languid body and the shrinking soul. Anthon's father was no longer the rich merchant. Days of adversity, days of trial, were close at hand. Misfortune rushed in like overwhelming billows—it surged into that once wealthy house. His father became a poor man, and sorrow and calamity paralysed him. Then Anthon found that he had something else to think of than disappointed love, or being angry with Molly. He had now to be both father and mother in his desolate home. He had to arrange everything, look after everything, and to go forth into the world to work for his own and his parents' bread.
He went to Bremen. There he suffered many privations, and passed many melancholy days; and all that he went through sometimes soured his temper, sometimes saddened him, till strength and mind seemed failing. How different were the world and mankind from what he had fancied them in his childhood! What were now to him Minnesingers' poems and songs? They were gall and wormwood. Yes, this was what he often felt; but there were other times when the songs vibrated to his soul, and his mind became calm and peaceful.
"What God wills is always the best," said he then. "It was well that our Lord did not permit Molly's heart to hang on me. What could it have led to, now that prosperity has left me and mine? She gave me up before she knew or dreamed of this reverse from more fortunate days which was hanging over us. It was the mercy of our Lord towards me. Everything is ordained for the best. Yes, all happens wisely. She could not, therefore, have acted otherwise, and yet how bitter have not my feelings been towards her!"
Years passed on. Anthon's father was dead, and strangers dwelt in his paternal home. Anthon, however, was to see it once more; for his wealthy master sent him on an errand of business, which obliged him to pass through his native town, Eisenach. The old Wartburg stood unchanged, high up on the hill above, with "the monk and the nun" in unhewn stone. The mighty oak trees seemed as imposing as in his childish days. The Venus mount looked like a grey mass frowning over the valley. He would willingly have cried,—
"Fru Holle! Fru Holle! open the hill, and let me stay there, upon the soil of my native home!"
It was a sinful thought, and he crossed himself. Then a little bird sang among the bushes, and the old Minnesong came back to his thoughts:—
"Beyond the wood, in the quiet dale,
Tandaradai!
Sang the melodious nightingale."
How remembrances rushed upon him as he approached the town where his childhood had been spent, which he now saw through tears! His father's house remained where it used to be, but the garden was altered; a field footpath was made across a portion of the old garden; and the apple tree that he had not uprooted stood there, but no longer within the garden: it was on the opposite side of the road, though the sun shone on it as cheerfully as of old, and the dew fell on it there. It bore such a quantity of fruit that the branches were weighed down to the ground.
"It thrives!" he exclaimed. "Yes, it can do so."