Meanwhile the uproar in the house continued; by the zeal with which all nooks and corners were searched he could judge what store the farmer set upon his discovery, and at the same time how hot a reception was awaiting him if he were found. Time seemed endless until the peasant came back into the room shivering with cold, and declared—to Paul’s infinite relief, “Those Rottenstein fellows shall pay dearly for this hubbub! Thunder and lightning! Those fools! It’s clear as day that Paul Schülzle is not in this house. Like as not he got away from them while they were thumping on the door for dear life! He can’t crawl into a rat’s hole, I take it, and he’s not invisible—we should have found him sure as pop if he were in the house. Every corner has been searched—every room except the rafenetle, and there he can’t—humph, the devil! There is no knowing! Never say die!”
Terror took Paul’s breath away—whither, oh whither? He heard the old man’s wife say fretfully, “Go along with you! Have you lost your senses? How could anybody get into this room, not to mention the rafenetle?”
But he did not wait to hear the result of this intervention, and with an alacrity worthy of a better cause he crawled under the bed nearest him. This was no easy thing to do; first his boots and his trumpet hindered him, and then he found under the bed a collection of band-boxes, jars, and baskets filled with eggs, which he cautiously pushed aside, arranging them in such fashion that in case of need they might serve as a barrier to screen him from view. One round basket of eggs he very nearly knocked over; the eggs were still rolling and rumbling about in their receptacle as the farmer entered the rafenetle saying, “That’s all very well, but there is no knowing!”
The farmer examined the clothing hanging along the panels, then, sure enough, he put his candle on the floor and looked under the beds—but for the boxes and baskets the poor devil had been lost. So the farmer went back into the sitting-room grumbling, and Paul heard him say, “There’s nothing to be seen of him! Now I’ll have a word to say to those Rottenstein lads!”
Thereupon a heated debate took place in the hall and in the courtyard, which Paul could not understand. At last the farmer clapped the window to, sent the servants to bed, and came back into the room panting with ire.
“So there!” he roared, “we are well rid of the musician, and of that fellow Martin as well! It is well—quite well so! About Martin I am rather sorry, but you never cared for him much, Eva Barbara, so let him go—there’ll be no lack of suitors. And now, stop crying, child! Go to bed and sleep! But there’s one thing you must promise me, Eva Barbara: be sure you don’t so much as look at that trumpeter again,—that’s all over, d’ye hear me? Eh, will you promise me that?”
“Now hush, don’t say another word, and leave the poor lass in peace!” interrupted his wife. “Have you forgotten that this whole business is your fault? Now go to bed, dear child. Don’t you be troubled; I’ll let no harm come to ye! Go now, the Lord will turn it all to a blessing!”
To lose no word of this conversation, which made Paul’s heart beat faster, he had kept quite still, and now it was too late to leave his uncomfortable place under the bed. The maids left the room and the old people hastened to get into bed.
Shame, rage, fear, and contrition joined to raise Paul’s bitter indignation against himself. So this was what his stubbornness had brought him—to lie in fear and trembling, shaking with cold, under the bed of the man whose son he might have been! To hide like a thief, to be so disgracefully situated that he dared not stir for fear of discovery. Paul ground his teeth. Suppose to-night’s adventures should become known! Holy Virgin! to think of the laughter and the scoffs!
The peasant threw himself from side to side in a restless manner, greatly to the discomfort of his guest, who was vastly alarmed every time the bedstead creaked. And when his wife on the other side began to sigh audibly, the farmer said, “I say, old woman, I can’t sleep. I can’t for the life of me get that vile affair out of my head!”