This was the news the messenger brought from Vent, and again there was much talking about Joseph Hagenbach, and all the folks wondered that he should never come up here after Wally. The mistress of the Sonnenplatte had so many suitors--only Joseph seemed to wish to have nothing to do with her.
Wally left her place by the hedge: the words brought a hot blush of shame to her brow. Thus it was then that people spoke of her,--that Joseph would have nothing to say to her? And it was Afra that he was following? That was the same girl that he had brought with him over the Ferner the year before, and had been so careful of even then.
She sat down on a stone and covered her face with both hands. A storm raged within her, a storm of love, admiration, jealousy. Her heart was as though torn in pieces. She loved him--loved him as she had never done before, as though the panting breath with which she had followed the narration of his deed had fanned the glimmering spark into a glowing flame. Again, then--again he had done what no other could accomplish, but she had no part in it--for Afra's master it had been done, for love of Afra! Was it possible? must she give way to a maid-servant--she, the daughter of the Strommingers? Was not she the richest, and as all the young men told her, the most beautiful maid in all the land? Far and wide, was there one that could compare with her for strength and power? Was not she, and she alone, his equal, and should they two not come together? There was but the one Joseph in the world, and should he not belong to her? Should he throw himself away on Afra, on a miserable beggar girl? No, it could not be, it was impossible. Why, after all, should he not go to the Lamb, without its being for Afra's sake? He wandered about so much in the course of hunting, and the Lamb was at Zwieselstein, exactly where all the cross roads met. "O Joseph, Joseph, come to me," she moaned aloud, and threw herself with her face upon the ground, as if to cool its burning heat in the little dewy leaves. Then all at once she remembered how the messenger had said that Afra had thrown herself on Joseph's neck when he came back to the inn. She shuddered at the thought. And suddenly she pictured to herself how it would be if she were Joseph's wife, and if, when after such a struggle he came home weary, wounded, and bleeding, she had the right to receive him in her arms, to refresh him, to comfort him. How she would wash his hot brow and bind his wounds and lay him to rest on her heart till he fell asleep under her caresses! She had never thought of such things before, but now, as they crowded on her, she was thrilled by a hitherto unknown sense--as an opening flower trembles when it bursts the encasing bud.
In this moment she ripened into a woman, but, wild and ungovernable as all her feelings were, that which made her womanly stirred up all the hidden and sleeping powers of evil in her soul, and a fearful tempest raged within her.
The evening breeze swept coldly over her, she felt it not; night came on, and the ever-peaceful stars looked down with wondering eyes on the writhing form, as she lay on the earth in the night dews and tore her hair.
"The mistress wasn't in again all last night," said the housekeeper next morning to the underservants. "What is it, think you, that she does all night?" And they laid their heads together and whispered to each other.
But they all scattered like spray before the wind when Wally came towards them across the courtyard from the kitchen-garden; she was pale, and looked prouder and more imperious than ever. And so she continued; from that day forth she was changed, unjust, capricious, irritable, so that no one dared speak to her but old Klettenmaier, who always had more influence with her than any one else. And withal she carried her haughtiness in everything to the farthest point; her last word was always "the mistress"--for "the mistress" nothing was good enough--"the mistress" would not be pleased with this or with that--"the mistress" might permit herself things which no one else could venture on, and many another such provocation.
Every day she dressed herself as if it were Sunday, and had new clothes made, and even a silver necklace brought from Vent with all sorts of pendants in filigree-work, so heavy and costly that the like had never before been seen in the valley. At the feast of Corpus Christi she left off her mourning for her father and appeared in the procession so resplendent with silver and velvet and silk that the people could hardly say their prayers for gazing at her. It was the first time that she had joined in a procession, and indeed no one knew exactly what kind of a Christian she might be; but it was clear that she only went now to show her new clothes and her necklace, because most of the people of the canton from as far up as Vent, and as far down as Zwieselstein, were assembled there.
When she knelt down there was a rustling and jingling of stiff silks and plaitings and tinkling silver, and it seemed to say, "See, no one can have all this but the mistress of the Sonnenplatte!"
It happened that as the last Gospel was being read a slight confusion arose in the procession, and some people who had been behind were now walking before her. They were the hostess of the Lamb at Zwieselstein and the pretty slim Afra; she found herself close to Wally, and nodded to her, then looked back at Joseph, who was walking behind with the men--so at least it seemed to Wally. Afra looked so lovely at this instant, that for sheer jealousy Wally forgot to return her salute. Then she heard Afra say to her companion, "See there, that is the Vulture-maiden, that let her vulture tear Joseph to pieces nearly! Now she'll not even take my good-day--and yet I've said many a Pater Noster for her."