Читать книгу Waldfried: A Novel - Auerbach Berthold - Страница 9

Martella did not become attached to any one in the house except Rothfuss, whom she was constantly plying with questions about Ernst's childhood. When in pleasant evenings during the week, and on Sunday afternoons in clear weather, the youths and maidens would march through the village, with their merry songs, she would sit with Rothfuss on the bench by the stable, or, unattended by any companion save her dog, would be up in the woods that lay back of our house.

When she had any special request, she would communicate it through Rothfuss.

Among other things, she wanted to go out into the forest with the wood-cutters. From her thirteenth year she had wielded the axe, and could use it as cleverly as the men. We did not grant this wish of hers.

Her craving for knowledge was insatiable, and I marvelled at the patience and equanimity with which my wife told her everything she wanted to know.

Things to which we had become accustomed were to her occasions of the liveliest surprise. This did not seem to change, for she never could get used to what with us had, through daily habit, become a matter of course. To her all seemed a marvel.

Her glance was full of courage. Her voice seemed so full of sincerity, that her strangest utterances required no added assurance of their truthfulness. Her laughter was so hearty that it seemed contagious.

Rothfuss was quite proud that he could control Martella, just as he did the two bays that he had raised from the time they were foals, and delighted to speak of the fact, that our youngest-as he called Ernst-was the best of marksmen. He had secured the best prize. For there could be no other girl so wise and merry as Martella. And she was so full of merry capers that the very cows looked around and lowed, as if to say, "We, too, would be glad to laugh with you, if we only could. But, alas! we cannot. We have not the bellows to do it with."

She had named her calf "Muscat." She would nurse it as if it were a younger sister. She maintained that it was a perfect marvel of health and wisdom, and that the old cow was jealous, and tried to butt her because she had noticed that the calf had greater love for Martella than for its own mother.

There was one point on which she and Rothfuss always quarrelled. She had an inexplicable aversion to America, of which Rothfuss always spoke as if it were Paradise itself. The manner in which Lisbeth, the locksmith's widow, had been provided for, was his chief argument in its favor. "None but a free state would provide so well for the families of the men killed in battle. How different our Germans are about that."

Towards my wife and myself, Martella was respectful, but diffident.

Ernst came to us but twice during the summer, remaining but a few hours each time.

He wanted Martella to walk or drive around the neighborhood with him, but she refused, saying "that she would not leave home. She had been away long enough."

Ernst was evidently provoked that Martella refused to go with him, but kept his anger to himself.

In that summer, 1865, we had charming harvest weather, and I shall never forget Martella's saying, "I shall help gather the harvest. I was a gleaner once, and know that this is good weather for the farmers. To cut the ears in the morning and carry home the rich sheaves in the evening, without having had a storm during the day, is good for the farmer, but not so pleasant for the poor gleaner. Storms during the harvest time scatter the grain for the poor; for the farmers give nothing away of their own accord."

Rothfuss looked towards me, and nodded approval of her words.

Towards the end of summer, Richard paid us a visit.

Richard had written to us some time before, and had referred to Ernst's conduct in indignant terms. He felt shocked that one who had not yet secured a livelihood for himself, had already linked the fate of another with his own, and had inflicted her presence upon the household. But from the first moment that he saw Martella, he admired her more than any of us had done.

When he offered her his first brotherly greeting, she gazed at him with her brilliant eyes, and said,

"I can see ten years ahead."

"Have you the gift of prophecy?"

"Oh pshaw! I don't mean that. What I mean is that in ten years from now Ernst will look as you now do. But I hope that when that time comes, he will not have to use spectacles."

Richard laughed, and so did Martella quite heartily.

There is nothing better than when two people laugh together at their first meeting.

Later in the season, my daughter Johanna, who is the wife of a pastor in the Oberland who had once been Ludwig's teacher, came with her grown-up daughter to pay us a visit. Johanna's object in coming was to receive the benefit of the milk cure.

At their very first meeting, she unintentionally affronted Martella. Johanna always wore black silk netted gloves, and when, with too evident an air of assumed kindness, she offered her hand to Martella, the latter said to her:

"There is no need for a fly-net on your hand. I do not sting."

After this trifling circumstance, there was many a heart-burning between Martella and Johanna. They were always at cross purposes. Rothfuss was provoked, as he was unable to satisfy Martella that the pastor's wife had not intended to affront her. Martella refused to be convinced, and persisted in calling Johanna a "fly-net."

When she had once conceived an aversion for any one, she was immovable. And when Johanna came to the cow stables, which she did twice every day at milking-time, she would always in an ironical tone say, "Good-day, madam sister-in-law."

Johanna found in this a cause for continued ill-feeling, to which, in her discontented and susceptible condition, she readily gave way.

Johanna imagined that she had found the way to Martella's heart, by assuring her how much she pitied her. But that only served to make matters worse; for Martella resented any manifestation of pity.

As our household was conducted on a generous scale, there was much that, in Johanna's eyes, contrasted unpleasantly with her own home. She frequently alluded to the small pay her husband was earning, and often gave us cause to remember that he would have been advanced much more rapidly, if he had not been the son-in-law of a member of the party in opposition to the government. She, in fact, made no concealment of her belief that I was the cause of her husband's and her daughter's infirm health. If it were not that I was in such great disfavor with the government, they would long ago have been stationed in a more genial climate, and would thus have recovered their health.

She maintained that our mode of living was not pious enough, and thought it most atrocious that we indulged Martella in her heathenish ways.

She did not care to go to the village pastor, with whom we had but little intercourse, for she was angry at him. His position brought him little work but generous pay, and she therefore coveted it for her own husband. But then, the wife of our pastor happened to be the daughter of a member of the consistory, which, of course, explains the whole matter.

One peculiarity of Martella's afforded Johanna many an opportunity to read us homilies on our neglect of the child. No matter whether you did her a service or gave her a present, Martella never uttered a word of thanks.

I am unable to explain the trait. It may have been the result of the simple life of nature in which she had been reared.

My son Richard, who passed a portion of the autumn holidays with us, was of that opinion.

Richard had a way of laying aside his spectacles after he had been with us for a day or two, and getting along without them until the day of his departure. He thus, with every succeeding year, did much to strengthen his overtasked eyes. I think he used to put his spectacles in the keeping of Rothfuss, who would return them to him on the day he left home.

On this occasion, however, he retained his spectacles, and spent less of his time with Rothfuss than with Martella, who seemed to have become fonder of him than of any of us. In the evenings and on Sundays, she would take long walks with him in the woods, and would talk unceasingly.

One evening Richard said:

"I received the great academical prize to-day. Martella said to me: 'I can hardly believe that you are a professor; you are so-so wise, and have so much common-sense, and can talk like-like a wood-keeper's servant.' Can you imagine greater praise than that?

"And let me tell you, moreover, that Martella is full of wisdom. She knows every creature, the beasts of the field and the birds of the air. And besides that, she can read the human heart thoroughly. I could not repeat some of her opinions to you without committing a breach of confidence. But I can tell you that she has split many a log, and knows how to swing her axe to the right spot.

"Yes, Ernst is a lucky fellow; I am only fearful that he may not understand her simple nature. She is too wayward. I trust that he may learn to see in her a real incarnation of undefiled holiness and majesty. It is true that in her case they manifest themselves in the form of a girl not given to blissful tears, but the very embodiment of joy itself.

"While walking along the road, she was chewing twigs of pine, and handed a few to me, with the words: 'Taste them; there is nothing half so good as these.'

"When I told her that, as she could get better and more regular fare, she had better give up this habit of chewing pine needles, especially as it excited her nerves, she answered: 'I think you are right. They always excite me terribly.'

"We were about to cross a meadow. I was afraid of the wet places. 'Follow me,' said she, 'and be careful to look out for the molehills, for there is always dry soil underneath them.'"

While Richard was thus discoursing with unwonted enthusiasm, Johanna had risen from the table and had beckoned to her daughter to follow her.

Richard and my wife had noticed this as well as I had done. They did not allude to it, however, but continued their conversation, agreeing that it was best for the present to let Martella have her own way. They thought that she would in due time undoubtedly awaken to a longing for life's nobler forms, and the deeper meaning that lay beneath them.

My wife had no set plan on which to educate Martella.

"She is to live with us, and that of itself will educate her. She sees every one of us attending to his appointed labor. That will, of itself, soon teach her where her duty lies, and will help to make her orderly and methodical. She sees that our lives are sincere, and that, too, must do her good."

My wife was careful to caution Richard against teaching her any generalities, as they could be of no use to her.

Martella was not gentle in her disposition. She was severe towards herself as well as towards others. She had no compassion for the sufferings of others. Her idea was that every one should help himself as best he could.

She had never cared or toiled for another being. Like the stag in the forest, she lived for herself alone. My wife nodded silent approval when Richard observed, "In a state of nature, all is egotism; gentleness, industry, and the disposition to assist others are results of culture."

On the very day on which Richard had to leave us, the Major arrived at our house. He was on a tour of inspection, and had been examining the horses which the law required the farmers to hold ready for government uses.

Our village was not included in his district, and he had gone out of his way to pay us this visit. He was in full uniform. His athletic, hardy figure presented quite a stately appearance, and his honest, cheerful manner was quite refreshing.

He was glad to be able to inform us that the ill-will of his superior officers, in which even the minister of war had participated, had not injured him with the Prince. Although there had been three competitors for the position, the Prince had selected him, and had personally informed him of his promotion with the words, "I have great respect for your father-in-law, and believe that he is a true friend of the state."

The Major was not wanting in respect and affection for me, and his behavior to my wife was marked by a knightly grace, and filial veneration. When Richard told him how Martella had in himself seen her own betrothed with ten years added to his real age, he replied: "I have never said so, but it has often occurred to me that, when she is older, Bertha will be the very picture of her mother as we now see her."

Richard was an excellent go-between for Martella and the Major, who had brought a necklace of red beads which Bertha had sent to the new sister-in-law.

Although Martella's face became flushed with emotion, she did not utter one word of thanks. She pressed the beads to her lips, and then stepped to the mirror and fastened the necklace on. Then she turned towards us, while she counted us off on her fingers and said, "I am a sister-in-law. Now I know everything, and have everything. I have a pastor, a professor, a major, a forester, a great farmer, and-what else is there? Ah, yes, now I know-a builder."

"Yes, we have one; but he is in America."

"I will have nothing to do with America," said Martella.

The Major ventured the remark that Ernst had acted unwisely in leaving the service; he seemed made for a soldier, and the best thing he could do would be to return to the army. But in that case he would have, for a while at least, to postpone all thoughts of marrying.

"He need not hurry on my account," interrupted Martella; "I am sure I shall put nothing in his way. I, too, shall need some time to make myself fit. I shall have to put many a thing in here," pointing to her forehead, "before I shall deserve to be a member of this family. Now I have the necklace that my sister-in-law sent me, around my neck, and do not mind being tied, and-Good-night!"

She reached out her hand to my wife, and then to each one of us. After which she again grasped my wife's hand, and then retired.

Richard explained Martella's peculiar characteristics to the Major. Both in thought and in action she was a strange compound of gentleness and rudeness.

The Major asked whether we knew anything about her parents. Richard replied that she had imparted facts to him that bore on the subject, but that they were as yet disconnected and unsatisfactory, and that he had given her his word of honor that he would reveal naught, until she herself thought that the proper time had come.

We kept up our cheerful conversation for some time longer. Suddenly it occurred to the Major to observe that the dispute between Prussia and Austria was taking a dangerous shape, and that, according to his views, Prussia was in the right. The military system of the confederation could not last long in its present condition.

Thus we were brought face to face with serious questions.

Of what import was the transformation of a child of the forest, when such weighty matters were on the carpet.

But while the clouds pass by over our heads, and the seasons depart, the little plant quietly and steadily keeps on growing.