The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Volume 09 / Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig

by Unknown

"No, not that one," said Valentine. "But the other seat that was there, and the tackle belonging to it."

"And was that cut too?" she asked with ever increasing fear. He replied: "I do not know. But the man who did it had no idea which one Master Apollonius would take with him."

The woman trembled so violently that the old man forgot his fears concerning Apollonius in his fear concerning her. He had to support her to prevent her from falling. She pushed him away and half imploringly, half threateningly, cried: "Oh, save him, Valentine, save him. Oh God, it is I who have done it!" She prayed to God to save him, and then moaned that he was dead and that it was her fault. She called Apollonius by the tenderest names and entreated him not to die. Valentine, in his distress, sought for words to comfort her and in so doing found comfort for himself; or if there were no real comfort, at least there was the hope that Apollonius was already on his way home. He had certainly examined the tackle again. If he had met with an accident they would have heard of it by now. He had to repeat this a dozen times before she understood what he meant. And now she began to expect the bearer of the terrible tidings, and started at every sound. She even imagined her own sobbing to be his voice. Finally Valentine, infected by her desperate terror and not knowing what else to do, ran to fetch the old gentleman, thinking that he might know how to save Apollonius, if it were still possible.

The old gentleman sat in his little room. As he withdrew deeper and deeper into the clouds that separated him from the outer world, even his little garden finally became strange to him. Especially the eternal question: "How are you, Herr Nettenmair?" had driven him to the house. He felt that people no longer believed his: "I am somewhat troubled with my eyes, but it is a matter of no consequence," and in every question he heard only a mockery. Much as Apollonius suffered with him, his father's isolation and increasing unsociability were not altogether unwelcome to him; for the deeper his brother sank, the more difficult it had become to conceal from the old gentleman the condition of the house; and to exclude busybodies from the garden was impossible. Apollonius did not know that his father suffered tortures in his room equal to those from which he wanted to protect him. Here the old gentleman sat the livelong day, crouched down in his leather chair behind the table, and brooded over all the possibilities of dishonor that might come to his house; or he strode up and down with hasty step, the flush in his sunken cheeks and the vehement gestures of his arms betraying all too plainly how in his thoughts he did his utmost to avert impending calamity. His was a condition which would eventually lead to complete insanity, if the external world did not throw a bridge across to him and force him to leave his isolation.

This was what happened on that day. Force of habit compelled old Valentine, without his being conscious of the fact, to open the door gently, and gently to step in; but the old gentleman, with his morbidly acute perception, discerned at once the unusual. His anticipation naturally took the same course which all his thoughts pursued. Some disgrace must be threatening the house so to alter Valentine's usual manner; and it must be a terrible one indeed thus to upset the old fellow and break through his assumed composure. The old gentleman trembled as he arose from his chair. He struggled with himself as to whether he should ask. It was not necessary. The old fellow confessed, unasked. With nervous haste he related his fears and his reasons for them. The old gentleman was startled, in spite of the fact that his imagination had prepared him for the truth; but Valentine observed none of this in his exterior, he listened to him as always, as if he were relating matters of the utmost indifference. When Valentine had finished, the sharpest eye could no longer have perceived the slightest tremor in the tall, stately figure. The old gentleman had the firm ground of reality under his feet once more; he was again the old gentleman in the blue coat. He stood as austere as of yore before his servant; so austere and so quiet was he that his bearing inspired Valentine with courage. "Imagination!" he exclaimed in his old grim manner. "Are none of the journeymen around?" Valentine called one who was just about to fetch slate. The old gentleman despatched him to Brambach to bid Apollonius return home at once. "If you think he won't go quickly enough for you, you fussy old woman, tell him to hurry so that you may soon learn that you've worked yourself into a state about nothing. But no word of this to anybody and lock up the wife so that she can't do anything silly." Valentine obeyed. The old gentleman's assurance, and the fact that something had really been done, had a more powerful effect upon him than a hundred good arguments. He imparted his encouragement to Christiane. He was in too great haste to tell her upon what grounds it was based. If he had had time for that he would probably have left her less reassured. Nothing was further from himself than the suspicion that the old gentleman, while characterizing his fears as idle fancies, and pretending to send the messenger only to reassure him and the young wife, was inwardly convinced of the guilt of his elder son and of the danger, if not actual death, of his younger son.

"Now," said Herr Nettenmair, when Valentine had returned to him, "the old fool has of course told our neighbor the fairy-tale that he spun out of thin air, and the young wife has confided it to all the gossips in town!"

Valentine noticed nothing of the feverish suspense with which the old gentleman awaited an answer to the question which he had disguised as an exclamation. "I've done nothing of the kind," he replied earnestly. The old gentleman's supposition had wounded him. "In the first place I didn't really think myself that anything was very wrong yet; and Frau Nettenmair has not spoken to a soul since then."

The old gentleman took hope anew. During Valentine's absence he had given way for a moment to all the anguish that a father cannot but feel under such circumstances; but then he reasoned with himself that there was no use in wasting time in idle complaint as long as something might still be done. Even if Valentine and Christiane had told nobody what they knew, other things of the same sort might have become known. Such a criminal thought does not originate by chance; it is the blossom of a poisonous tree with trunk and branches. Valentine had to tell him all that had happened since Apollonius' return home. It was the story of a wanton, inordinate, pleasure-seeking spendthrift who in spite of the efforts of his better brother had sunk to the level of an ordinary libertine and drunkard; of a faithful brother who, compelled by the necessity of rescuing the honor of business and home, had shouldered the care of everything and as a reward was being persecuted unto death by the degraded prodigal.

The old gentleman sat motionless. Only the blush that burned ever warmer on his thin cheeks betrayed what he suffered for the honor of his house. Otherwise he seemed to know it all, already. That was his old manner, which he perhaps made use of now because he thought that Valentine would then be less likely to conceal or alter facts against his better knowledge. His inward agitation prevented him from perceiving in what strong contradiction this semblance of calm stood to his morbid sense of honor. Valentine did not endeavor to deepen the shadows which fell upon Fritz Nettenmair's conduct, but, knowing the old gentleman as he thought he did, he deemed it necessary to place Apollonius' actions in the brightest possible light. But he only half knew the old gentleman after all. He miscalculated the effect that he would produce when he praised the filial tenderness with which Apollonius had withheld all news of danger from his father's ears. Thus he undid what a simple tale, describing the son's efforts to save that which the old gentleman held most dear, had accomplished. The father saw only a realization of the fear which Apollonius' diligence had awakened in him. In unfilial fashion Apollonius had concealed the danger from him in order to be able to take the whole credit for the rescue to himself. Or he looked upon his father as a helpless, blind old man who was not, and could not be anything but an incumbrance. This latter feeling the old gentleman could forgive him less than the former, even in face of his grief over his son's death, which he now deemed a certainty. The more he thought of it, the more convinced he became that things would never have come to such a pass if he had known about it and taken the matter in hand, and that Apollonius in fact had only his own ambitious desires to thank for his death. These thoughts, however, had to give way before immediate necessity. What he knew concerning Fritz was enough to strengthen suspicion once it was aroused, but not to create it in the first place unless there were some additional reason of which he knew nothing. He must learn from his guilty son himself if such existed. He had made up his mind what to do in any case. He called for his hat and cane. At any other time Valentine would have been astonished at this command, perhaps even frightened. But when one is wrought up over something unusual, only the usual seems unexpected, only that which calls to mind the old quiet state of affairs. As the old gentleman made ready to depart, he pointed out to Valentine once more how foolish and groundless his fears were. "Who knows," he said grimly, "what our neighbor saw? How could he recognize anybody at night, so far off? And you with your ax story! If the rope should break by chance or any other accident happen to the boy in Brambach, of course you would be sure and certain that it was your imaginary ax-slashes that had done it, and that the man whom our neighbor pretends to have seen sneaking into the shed, had made them. And if you say a word or make mysterious hints about all that you imagine in your silly pate, the whole town will be full of it in no time. Not because what you have invented is probable enough for any sensible man to believe, but just because people are glad to speak ill of anybody. God will take care that nothing happens to the boy. But of course it might happen, and maybe it has already happened. How easy it is for an accident to happen to anybody, specially to a slater who hovers between heaven and earth like a bird, and yet has not the wings of a bird. That is why the slater's calling is such a noble calling; the slater is the most manifest picture of how Providence holds the man who works at an honest profession safe in its hands. But if Providence lets him fall, there is a reason for it, and nobody has a right to go around spinning yarns which will bring unhappiness and even disgrace on somebody else. I am sure this affair will soon show itself as it really is and not as your fears have led you to imagine. For—"

The old gentleman had reached this point in his speech when some one was heard outside setting down a load. He stood for a moment dumb, petrified. Valentine looked through the window and saw that it was the journeyman tinner unloading.