"When is the child coming?" asked Fausch after a while, speaking over his shoulder. Obediently she put her hand to her forehead and thought. "It will be in the summer," she said humbly.
Stephen got up. He took off his leather apron and went into the next room. After a time he came back in his Sunday coat, passed his wife without a word, and went out of the door. He made his usual trip to the tavern as his custom was on Sundays. It was late when he came home.
Chapter II
Maria, the smith's wife, had not been spoiled. At home her father and her brothers had beaten her, and now that they were all dead, although indeed, as Fausch's wife, she had no more blows to endure, yet her life with Stephen was none the easier because he did not strike her, as others might have done; for Stephen was a violent man--though his will was violent rather than his fists. No one else had a will of such a bull-like obstinacy. For this reason many pitied his wife, and this was why she cringed; she had grown used to cringing.
In Waltheim, the village to which the smithy belonged, a bit of news had been traveling about for some time: Ludwig Fausch was gone, and had been sent away by his brother, the smith, on account of Maria, his wife. She was going to have a baby! Finally--Ludwig--
More they would not say. The love of gossip is so mean. They only hinted, and never spoke out plainly.
All the life of the great country road passed by the smithy, a road that came from far away, and went on and on, to vanish in the far, far distance. Heavy teams came by on working days, as well as the lighter traveling carriages of country doctors or commercial travelers and the rumbling carts of the peasants. They knew of the smithy on their way, and used to give Stephen Fausch work. His best customers were the cattle and horse dealers, who used to travel to North Germany, and also southward toward Italy. They called the smithy their halfway house and always had Fausch attend to their wagons and their animals. Moreover, they had a certain weakness for the stubborn fellow, or perhaps this weakness was only fear of him, since he had gradually come to be a sort of master over the stretch of road on which he dwelt. Among the traders, little Moritz Hallheimer was the one who came from the greatest distance. He was a wiry, thin old man, neat and active, with gray beard and hair, bad teeth, and weak eyes hidden behind dark glasses. He was shrewd and talkative and knew a great many people, and because he thought Stephen one of the most unusual men among his acquaintance, he always stopped a while at the smithy and watched him with wonder, but could never understand him.
One evening in early summer, Moritz Hallheimer arrived from Waltheim. He was sitting in his small open wagon, driving his brown trotting horse without any whip. On both sides and at the back of the wagon were tied six horses that he had for sale. Their hoofs and legs were white with dust, for they had made a long journey. The trader came onward from the woods toward the smithy through the golden light of the setting sun. So bright was this golden haze between him and the blacksmith shop, that the horses and wagon could not be seen, and Stephen, the smith, who was hammering at a wagon in front of his workshop, suddenly saw him appear with his trotting horses as if coming out of a fire. Fausch shaded his eyes with his swarthy arm, then he bent once more over his work and let the trader come up to him. Hallheimer found other customers already there. For a time the road was blocked with vehicles. Two peasants stood watching Stephen, who was mending their broken pole with a metal ring. Beyond them, a woman sat, on a wagon loaded with vegetables, waiting for the smith to shoe her mare who had gone lame.
"Good evening, Stephen," said the trader, and received a curt greeting in return. Then Fausch drove the last nail into the pole of the peasants' wagon. As he stood erect again, the brilliant purity of the evening seemed, as it were, to recoil from his grimy figure. No brightness appeared on his swarthy face surrounded with the thick black beard. His flannel shirt, trousers and leather apron, and even his arms and hands were as dark as the inside of his workshop, whose dinginess he seemed, as it were, to wear on his person. And the grimy fellow, who seemed really an insult to the sunset glow, stood there like a tree trunk, taller and broader than any one else on the road.
"You can harness up," said he to the peasants, who at once went to bring their poor old nags from a hitching post near by. The vegetable woman began to unharness her little horse; but Stephen did not concern himself about her. He turned to the trader.