Читать книгу The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Volume 08 - Коллектив авторов, Ю. Д. Земенков, Koostaja: Ajakiri New Scientist - Страница 8

Accordingly, when her uncle came the next morning, Amrei declared that she would remain where she was. There was a strange mixture of bitterness and benevolence in her uncle's reply:

"Yes, you certainly take after your mother—she would never have anything to do with us. But I couldn't take Damie alone along with me, even if he wanted to go; for a long time he wouldn't be able to do anything but eat bread, whereas you would have been able to earn it too."

Amrei replied that she preferred to do that here at home for the present, but that if her uncle remained in the same mind, she and her brother would come to him at some future time. Indeed, the interest her uncle now expressed for the children, for a moment, almost made her waver in her resolution, but in her characteristic way she did not venture to show any signs of it. She merely said:

"Give my love to your children, and tell them I feel very sorry about never having seen my nearest relatives; and especially now that they are going across the seas, since perhaps I shall never see them in my life."

Then her uncle stood up quickly, and commissioned Amrei to give his love to Damie, for he himself had no time to wait to bid him farewell. And with that he went away.

When Damie came soon afterward and heard of his uncle's departure, he wanted to run after him, and even Amrei felt a similar impulse. But she restrained herself and did not yield to it. She spoke and acted as if she were obeying some one's command in every word she said and in every movement she made; and yet her thoughts were wandering along the road by which her uncle had gone. She walked through the village, leading her brother by the hand, and nodded to all the people she met. She felt just as if she had been away and was now returning to them all. Her uncle had wanted to tear her away, and she thought that everybody else must be as glad that she had not gone, as she was herself. But she soon found out that they would not only have been glad to let her go, but that they were positively angry with her because she had not gone. Crappy Zachy opened his eyes wide at her and said:

"Child, you have an obstinate head of your own—the whole village is angry with you for spurning your good fortune. Still, who knows whether it would have been good fortune? But they call it so now, at any rate, and everybody that looks at you casts it up to you how much you receive from the parish. So make haste and get yourself off the public charity lists."

"But what am I to do?"

"Farmer Rodel's wife would like to have you in her service, but the old man won't listen to it."

Amrei very likely felt that henceforward she would have to be doubly brave, in order to escape the reproaches of her own conscience, as well as those of others; and so she asked again:

"Don't you know of anything at all?"

"Yes, certainly; but you must not be ashamed of anything—except begging. Have you not heard that foolish Fridolin yesterday killed two geese belonging to a farmer's wife? The goosekeeper's place is vacant, and I advise you to take it."

It was soon done. That very noon Amrei drove the geese out to the Holderwasen, as the pasture on the little hill by the King's Well was called. Damie loyally helped his sister in doing it.

Black Marianne, however, was very much put out about this new service, and declared, not without reason:

"It's something that's remembered against a person an entire lifetime to have had such a place. People never forget it, and always refer to it; and later on every one will think twice about taking you into their service, because they will say: 'Why, that's the goose-girl!' And if any one does take you, out of compassion, you'll get low wages and bad treatment, and they'll always say: 'Oh, that's good enough for a goose-girl.'"

"I won't mind that," replied Amrei; "and you have told me hundreds of times about how a goose-girl became a queen."

"That was in olden times. But who knows?—you belong to the old world. Sometimes it seems to me that you are not a child at all, and who knows, you old-fashioned soul, if a wonder won't happen in your case?"

This hint that she had not yet stood upon the lowest round of the ladder of honor, but that there was a possibility of her descending even lower that she was, startled Amrei. For herself she thought nothing of it, but from that time forth she would not allow Damie to keep the geese with her. He was a man—or was to be one—and it might do him harm if it were said of him, later on, that he had kept geese. But, to save her soul, she could not make this clear to him, and he refused to listen to her. For it is always thus; at the point where mutual understanding ends, vexation begins; the inward helplessness translates itself into a feeling of outward injustice and injury.

Amrei, nevertheless, was almost glad that Damie could remain angry with her for so many days; for it showed that he was learning how to stand up against the world and to assert his own will.

Damie, however, soon got a place for himself. He was employed by his guardian, Farmer Rodel, in the capacity of scarecrow, an occupation which required him to swing a rattle in the farmer's orchard all day long, for the purpose of frightening the sparrows away from the early cherries and vegetable-beds. At first this duty appealed to him as sport, but he soon grew tired of it and gave it up.

It was a pleasant, but at the same time a laborious office that Amrei had undertaken. And it often seemed especially hard to her that she could do nothing to attach the creatures to her; indeed, they were hardly to be distinguished from one another. And it was not at all an idle remark that Black Marianne made to her one day when she returned from Mossbrook Wood:

"Animals that live in flocks and herds," she said, "if you take each one separately, are always stupid."

"I think so, too," replied Amrei. "These geese are stupid because they know how to do too many different things. They can swim, and run, and fly, but they are not really at home either in the water, or on land, or in the air. That's what makes them stupid."

"I still maintain," replied Marianne, "that there's the making of an old hermit in you."

The Holderwasen was not one of those lonely, sequestered spots which the world of fiction seems to select for its gleaming, glittering legends. Through the centre of the Holderwasen ran a road to Endringen, and not far from it stood the many-colored boundary-stakes with the coats-of-arms of the two sovereign princes whose dominions came together here. In rustic vehicles of all kinds the peasants used to drive past, and men, women, and children kept passing to and fro with hoe, scythe, and sickle. The gardes-champêtres of the two dominions also used to pass by often, the barrels of their muskets shining as they approached and gleaming long after they had passed. Amrei was almost always accosted by the garde-champêtre of Endringen as she sat by the roadside, and he often made inquiries of her as to whether this or that person had passed by. But she was never able to give the desired information—or perhaps she kept it from him on purpose, on account of the instinctive aversion the people, and especially the children, of a village have for these men, whom they invariably look upon as the armed enemies of the human race, going to and fro in search of some one to devour.

Theisles Manz, who used to sit by the road breaking stones, hardly spoke a word to Amrei; he would go sulkily from stone-heap to stone-heap, and his knocking was more incessant than the tapping of the woodpecker in Mossbrook Wood, and more regular than the piping and chirping of the grasshoppers in the neighboring meadows and cloverfields.

[And so Amrei spent day after day at Holderwasen, watching the geese and the passers-by, studying the birds and the flowers and the trees, dreaming of her father and mother, and wondering what was in store for Damie and herself. There was a trough of clear, fresh water by the roadside, and Amrei used to bring a jug with her in order to offer it to thirsty people who had nothing to drink out of.]

One day a little Bernese wagon, drawn by two handsome white horses, came rattling along the road; a stout, upland farmer took up almost the entire seat, which was meant for two. He drew up by the roadside and asked:

"Girlie, have you anything one can drink out of?"

"Yes, certainly—I'll get it for you." And she went off briskly to fetch her pitcher, which she filled with water.

"Ah!" said the farmer, stopping to take breath after a long draught; and with the water running down his chin, he continued, talking half into the jug: "There's after all no water like this in all the world." And again he raised the jug to his lips, and motioned to Amrei to keep still while he took a second long, thirsty draught. For it is extremely disagreeable to be addressed when you are drinking; you swallow hurriedly and feel an oppression afterward.

The child seemed to realize this, for not until the farmer had handed back the jug did she say:

"Yes, this is good, wholesome water; and if you would like to water your horses, it is especially good for them—it won't give them cramps."

"My horses are warm and must not drink now. Do you come from Haldenbrunn, my girl?"

"Yes indeed."

"And what is your name?"

"Amrei."

"And to whom do you belong?"

"To nobody now—my father was Josenhans."

"What! Josenhans, who served at Farmer Rodel's?"

"Yes."

"I knew him well. It was too bad that he died so soon. Wait, child—I'll give you something." He drew a large leather bag out of his pocket, groped about in it for a long time, and said at last: "There, take this."

"No, thank you—I don't accept presents—I'll take nothing."

"Take it—you can accept it from me all right. Is Farmer Rodel your guardian?"

"Yes."

"He might have done something better than make a goose-girl of you.

Well, God keep you."

Away rolled the wagon, and Amrei found herself alone with a coin in her hand.

"'You can accept it from me all right.'—Who was he that he could say that? And why didn't he make himself known? Why, it's a groschen, and there's a bird on it. Well, it won't make him poor, nor me rich."

The rest of that day Amrei did not offer her pitcher to any one else; she was afraid of having something given to her again. When she got home in the evening, Black Marianne told her that Farmer Rodel had sent for her, and that she was to go over to him directly.

Amrei hastened to his house, and as she entered, Farmer Rodel called out to her:

"What have you been saying to Farmer Landfried?"

"I don't know any Farmer Landfried."

"He was with you at the Holderwasen today, and gave you something."

"I did not know who he was—and here's his money still."

"I've nothing to do with that. Now, say frankly and honestly, you tiresome child, did I persuade you to be a goose-keeper? If you don't give it up this very day, I'm no guardian of yours. I won't have such things said of me!"

"I'll let everybody know that it was not your fault—but give it up is something I can't do. I must stick to it, at any rate for the rest of the summer—I must finish what I have begun."

"You're a crabbed creature," said the farmer; and he walked out of the room. But his wife, who was lying ill in bed, called out:

"You're quite right—stay just as you are. I prophesy that it will go well with you. A hundred years from now they will be saying in this village of one who has done well: 'He has the fortune of Brosi's Severin and of Josenhans' Amrei.' Your dry bread will fall into the honey-pot yet."

Farmer Rodel's sick wife was looked upon as crazy; and, as if frightened by a specter, Amrei hurried away without a word of reply.

Amrei told Black Marianne that a wonder had happened to her; Farmer Landfried, whose wife she so often thought about, had spoken to her and had taken her part in a talk with Farmer Rodel, and had given her something. She then displayed the piece of money, and Marianne called out, laughing:

"Yes, I might have guessed myself that it was Farmer Landfried. That's just like him—to give a poor child a bad groschen!"

"Why is it bad?" asked Amrei; and the tears came into her eyes.

"Why, that's a bird groschen—they're not worth full value—they're worth only a kreutzer and a half."

"Then he intended to give me only a kreutzer and a half," said Amrei decidedly.

And here for the first time an inward contrast showed itself between Amrei and Black Marianne. The latter almost rejoiced at every bad thing she heard about people, whereas Amrei put a good construction on everything. She was always happy, and no matter how frequently in her solitude she burst into tears, she never expected anything, and hence everything that she received was a surprise to her, and she was all the more thankful for it.

[Amrei hoped that her meeting with Farmer Landfried would result in his coming to take her to live with him, but she hoped in vain, for she watched the geese all summer long, and did not see or hear of him again.]