THE JEW'S BEECH-TREE (1841)
BY ANNETTE ELIZABETH VON DROSTE-HÜLSHOFF
TRANSLATED BY LILLIE WINTER, A.B.
Frederick Mergel, born in 1738, was the son of a so-called Halbmeier or property holder of low station in the village of B., which, however badly built and smoky it may be, still engrosses the eye of every traveler by the extremely picturesque beauty of its situation in a green woody ravine of an important and historically noteworthy mountain chain. The little country to which it belonged was, at that time, one of those secluded corners of the earth, without trade or manufacturing, without highways, where a strange face still excited interest and a journey of thirty miles made even one of the more important inhabitants the Ulysses of his vicinage—in short, a spot, as so many more that once could be found in Germany, with all the failings and the virtues, all the originality and the narrowness that can flourish only under such conditions.
Under very simple and often inadequate laws the inhabitants' ideas of right and wrong had, in some measure, become confused, or, rather, a second law had grown up beside the official, a law of public opinion, of custom, and of long uncontested privilege. The property holders, who sat as judges in the lower courts, meted out punishments or rewards in accordance with their own notions, which were, in most cases, honest. The common people did what seemed to them practicable and compatible with a somewhat lax conscience, and it was only the loser to whom it sometimes occurred to look up dusty old documents. It is hard to view that period without prejudice; since it has passed away it has been either haughtily criticised or foolishly praised; for those who lived through it are blinded by too many precious recollections, and the newer generation does not understand it. This much, however, one may assert, that the shell was weaker, the kernel stronger, crime more frequent, want of principle rarer. For he who acts according to his convictions, be they ever so faulty, can never be entirely debased; whereas nothing kills the soul more surely than appealing to the written law when it is at variance with one's own sense of what is right.
The inhabitants of the little country of which we speak, being more restless and enterprising than their neighbors, certain features of life came out more sharply here than would have been the case elsewhere under like conditions. Wood stealing and poaching were every-day occurrences, and in the numerous fights which ensued each one had to seek his own consolation if his head was bruised. Since great and productive forests constituted the chief wealth of the country, these forests were of course vigilantly watched over, less, however, by legal means than by continually renewed efforts to defeat violence and trickery with like weapons.
The village of B. was reputed to be the most arrogant, most cunning, and most daring community in the entire principality. Perhaps its situation in the midst of the deep and proud solitude of the forest had early strengthened the innate obstinacy of its inhabitants. The proximity of a river which flowed into the sea and bore covered vessels large enough to transport shipbuilding timber conveniently and safely to foreign ports, helped much in encouraging the natural boldness of the wood-thieves; and the fact that the entire neighborhood swarmed with foresters served only to aggravate matters, since in the oft-recurring skirmishes the peasants usually had the advantage. Thirty or forty wagons would start off together on beautiful moonlight nights with about twice as many men of every age, from the half-grown boy to the seventy-year-old village magistrate, who, as an experienced bell-wether, led the procession as proudly and self-consciously as when he took his seat in the court-room. Those who were left behind listened unconcernedly to the grinding and pounding of the wheels dying away in the narrow passes, and slept calmly on. Now and then an occasional shot, a faint scream, startled perhaps a young wife or an engaged girl; no one else paid any attention to it. At the first gray light of dawn the procession returned just as silently—every face bronzed, and here and there a bandaged head, which did not matter. A few hours later the neighborhood would be alive with talk about the misfortune of one or more foresters, who were being carried out of the woods, beaten, blinded with snuff, and rendered unable to attend to their business for some time.
In this community Frederick Mergel was born, in a house which attested the pretensions of its builder by the proud addition of a chimney and somewhat less diminutive window panes, but at the same time bespoke the miserable circumstances of its owner by its present state of dilapidation. What had once been a hedge around the yard and the garden had given way to a neglected fence; the roof was damaged; other people's cattle grazed in the pastures; other people's corn grew in the field adjoining the yard; and the garden contained, with the exception of a few woody rose bushes of a better time, more weeds than useful plants. Strokes of misfortune had, it is true, brought on much of this, but disorder and mismanagement had played their part. Frederick's father, old Herman Mergel, was, in his bachelor days, a so-called orderly drinker—that is, one who lay in the gutter on Sundays and holidays, but during the week was as well behaved as any one, and so he had had no difficulty in wooing and winning a right pretty and wealthy girl. There was great merrymaking at the wedding. Mergel did not get so very drunk, and the bride's parents went home in the evening satisfied; but the next Sunday the young wife, screaming and bloody, was seen running through the village to her family, leaving behind all her good clothes and new household furniture. Of course that meant great scandal and vexation for Mergel, who naturally needed consolation; by afternoon therefore there was not an unbroken pane of glass in his house and he was seen late at night still lying on his threshold, raising, from time to time, the neck of a broken bottle to his mouth and pitifully lacerating his face and hands. The young wife remained with her parents, where she soon pined away and died. Whether it was remorse or shame that tormented Mergel, no matter; he seemed to grow more and more in need of "spiritual" bolstering up, and soon began to be counted among the completely demoralized good-for-nothings.
The household went to pieces, hired girls caused disgrace and damage; so year after year passed. Mergel was and remained a distressed and finally rather pitiable widower, until all of a sudden he again appeared as a bridegroom. If the event itself was unexpected, the personality of the bride added still more to the general astonishment. Margaret Semmler was a good, respectable person, in her forties, a village belle in her youth, still respected for her good sense and thrift, and at the same time not without some money. What had induced her to take this step was consequently incomprehensible to every one. We think the reason is to be found in her very consciousness of perfection. On the evening before the wedding she is reported to have said: "A woman who is badly treated by her husband is either stupid or good-for-nothing; if I am unhappy, put it down as my fault." The result proved, unfortunately, that she had overestimated her strength. At first she impressed her husband; if he had taken too much, he would not come home, or would creep into the barn. But the yoke was too oppressive to be borne long, and soon they saw him quite often staggering across the street right into his house, heard his wild shouting within, and saw Margaret hastily closing doors and windows. On one such day—it was no longer a Sunday now—they saw her rush out of the house in the evening, without hood or Shawl, with her hair flying wildly about her head. They saw her throw herself down in the garden beside a vegetable bed and dig up the earth with her hands, then, anxiously looking about her, quickly pick off some vegetables and slowly return with them in the direction of the house, but, instead of entering it, go into the barn. It was said that this was the first time that Mergel had struck her, although she never let such an admission pass her lips. The second year of this unhappy marriage was marked by the coming of a son—one cannot say gladdened, for Margaret is reported to have wept bitterly when the child was handed to her. Nevertheless, although born beneath a heart full of grief, Frederick was a healthy, pretty child who grew strong in the fresh air. His father loved him dearly, never came home without bringing him a roll or something of that sort, and it was even thought he had become more temperate since the birth of the boy; at least the noise in the house decreased.
Frederick was in his ninth year. It was about the Feast of the Three Kings, a raw and stormy winter night. Herman had gone to a wedding, and had started out early because the bride's house was three miles away. Although he had promised to return in the evening, Mistress Mergel hardly counted on it because a heavy snowfall had set in after sunset. About ten o'clock she banked the fire and made ready to go to bed. Frederick stood beside her, already half undressed, and listened, to the howling of the wind and the rattling of the garret windows.