Читать книгу Problematic Characters - Spielhagen Friedrich - Страница 34

Table of Contents

The farm-buildings and tenant-houses which belonged to the estate lay beyond the wall, and in order to make the communication between the castle and the farm-yard easier, a door had been broken through the wall. A wooden grating which could not be moved, and a bridge which could not be raised, bespoke the peaceful disposition of the descendants of those warlike barons who had built the massive gates on the other side, with its ponderous drawbridge suspended by iron chains. The intercourse between the castle and the farm was, however, generally limited to the exchange of energetic notes between the steward and the housekeeper, as the two officials were often at variance with each other as to the quantity and quality of provisions which the former had to send to the latter. The farm itself was, like all the other estates of the family, rented out; the tenant, a Mr. Bader, lived on one of the other farms, which he had also rented, and rarely came to Grenwitz, which he left to the management of his steward.

Oswald, to whom farming was as new as the life in the country itself, frequently went to the farm-yard, in order to be shown by the steward over the barns and stables, and to be introduced by him into the mysteries of agriculture and cattle-raising. The steward, whose name was Wrampe, was a giant who always went about in huge top-boots, and who seemed to cherish the superstitious belief that he would lose his strength if he were to trim his immense black beard, or ever deprive the rain of its exclusive privilege to wash his face. The broad jargon of that region was his native and his only tongue; he hated the pure German of the educated classes, and in his heart suspected all who spoke it of being dishonest; his voice sounded, when heard from afar, like the roaring of a slightly hoarse lion. His enemies accused him of the bad habit of getting drunk every now and then; but as he did so only once a month, and then always for several days at once, in order to show all the more energy during the rest of the time, his friends winked at it, and even his employer preferred to ignore his little foible. Oswald liked to talk with the man, who was a fair representative of the people of that region in his blunt good-nature, his straightforward though often rude speech, and his fondness for proverbs.

Thus he had one afternoon taken a walk towards the farm-yard with the two boys. They found it deserted. The men and the horses were all in the fields. In the stables nothing was left but the baron's four bays, who played a melancholy quartette on the iron chains of their halters. The silent coachman was sitting at the door, gazing at the blue sky, as he had nothing on earth to do when the horses had been fed. A big black cat was wandering slowly around his feet; it was his spiritus familiaris, which accompanied him everywhere, and even on the box sat between his feet under the apron. In the cow-stables they found but a single cow, who was trying to shape her new-born calf, by industrious licking, into that form which may appear most desirable to a respectable cow-mother of certain pretensions. On the dungheap the chickens were scratching industriously, utterly unmindful of a battle royal between two young roosters, who had fallen out with each other about a little beetle, that lay on its back quietly awaiting its fate. An old cock, who might possibly have been the father of the two hostile brethren, was perched on the pole of a wagon, and crowed again and again, either from joy at the chivalrous nature of his offspring, or in order to report a cloud which was coming up above the roof of the barn. At one end of the roof sat a stork on her nest. The husband was just coming home, bringing the trophy of his hunt, a small snake, in his bill. The wife rattled her bill to give voice to her delight, and the stork, proud of having done his duty, was not slow to answer. From the little pond near the big stable a lot of ducks had begun their single file march across the yard, under the command of a majestic drake; they had evidently received an authentic report that behind the barn a sack of corn had burst, and the grains were lying about.

Oswald had been looking with much pleasure at this still-life picture of a farm-yard during a warm summer afternoon, while Bruno had tried to engage the reticent coachman into a conversation on the only two topics on which he could hope for success--his horses and his cat. Malte was tired, as there were few things anywhere in which he could take much interest, and ducks and chickens surely were not among them, at least as long as they were wandering about in the light of the sun. He asked, therefore, that they should go on; and so they passed through the yard, and a little cluster of miserable huts, into the open field. At some distance before them, on the road lined with willow trees, a servant seemed to have upset his wagon. The horses were standing across the road, and he was pulling at them, and cursing fearfully, as people of his class are apt to do under such circumstances. At last he seemed to have lost the little patience which nature had given and which liquor had left him. He seized the bridle of one of the horses and kicked it unmercifully with his heavy feet, encased as they were in immense boots. Oswald hardly noticed all this, till Bruno flew at the man like an arrow, crying out: "What a barbarian! what a brute!"

In an instant he was by his side, and ordered the man to stop his ill-treatment; his voice trembled, but more from indignation than from the effort of running.

"I know what I am doing!" replied the servant, and kicked the horse, which had become entangled in the traces, harder than ever.

"Let the horse go this instant, or----"

"Oh!" replied the servant, "or what?"

"Or I stab you with this knife."

The man started back and gazed at Bruno with amazement. It was not the fear of the knife which the boy held in his uplifted right hand--for the servant was a large, powerful man, who might have felled the boy with a single blow, and was, moreover, half drunk--but it was the fear of the demon that showed himself in Bruno's flashing eye, the fear of the terrible passion which made the boy's blood flow back from his cheeks to his heart, and caused his nostrils to tremble and his lips to quiver.

"The beast is so savage," stammered the man, as if to excuse himself.

But Bruno did not deign to answer. With quick hands, and as cleverly as if he had managed horses all his life, he undid the traces in which the animal had become entangled. Oswald tried to help him, but his efforts were more distinguished by good-will than by great success. Then the boy ran to the ditch, filled his straw-hat with water, and washed the wounds on the ill-treated legs of the horse.

At that moment a horseman leaped across the same ditch and alighted on the road. It was the steward, Wrampe, who had witnessed the scene from a distance and came galloping up at full speed.

"Now I come," said the slater, as he fell from the roof; "what on earth does that mean? Why do you drive through the ditch, if you have a bridge within ten yards? and to ill-treat brown Lizzie! I will pay you for your laziness, you--" and here followed a curse of two minutes' length.

To deliver this energetic speech, to jump down from his horse, to spit in his hands in order the better to take hold of the heavy riding-whip, and to begin belaboring the broad back of the servant according to rule--all this was the work of a moment for the impetuous steward.

"I will not be beaten, sir," remonstrated the man.

"You won't be beaten, you rascal," replied the other, never stopping for a moment; "I dare say not, but you'll get your beating notwithstanding."

Oswald, who suffered witnessing the scene, although he knew well how fully the man had deserved his punishment, begged Mr. Wrampe to let him go now. The latter gratified his wrath by a few last blows of great energy, and then said, as if concluding a quiet argument:

"Well, now come along, John, we'll get the wagon right again."

Then he put his broad shoulders to the wagon and got it into the road as if it had been a child's carriage; the horses, who had had time to recover, pulled heartily, and the servant could go on his way.

"Drive slowly home, you hear, and don't forget what I have told you," the steward cried after him.

"But you have told him nothing; you have only beaten him," said Oswald, smiling.

"And do you think these people understand any other kind of talking?"

"Have you ever tried it?"

Mr. Wrampe seemed to be slightly embarrassed by this question. He said, in reply: "That has made me warm."

Then he pulled a brandy-flask, which held at least a quart, from his pocket, put his thumb against the place down to which he meant to empty it, drank, held the bottle against the light, and then, as he seemed to think that he had not done the whole of his duty, he took another good pull. After that he mounted his horse, which had stood quietly by him as if accustomed to such scenes, wished them a good evening, leaped once more across the ditch, and rode off at full gallop.

With Bruno everything turned into a passion. The glow of his imagination changed the fictions of poetry into men of flesh and blood. The death of Hector drew tears of sympathy and indignation from his eyes, and the moral disgust which he felt, when he witnessed an act of injustice or of cruelty, was so intense that it caused him a physical indisposition.

Thus, when Oswald the same night approached the bed of his favorite he found him, contrary to his usual habit, still wide awake. His face was paler than ordinarily, and large drops of perspiration stood on his forehead. Oswald was concerned, and learnt, after some hesitation on the boy's part, that the latter had concealed his sickness in order not to trouble his friend, and was now suffering great pain. Oswald was about to wake up everybody in the house and to send for a doctor, but Bruno begged him not to do so, because such a thing was always looked upon at the château as a very grave affair of state, and he disliked excessively to give so much trouble to others; besides, he confessed that the hubbub they made about the matter was apt to make his sickness only worse.

"Moreover," he said, "I am quite used to these attacks, and if you will be good enough to make me some tea, and to give me a few drops of the medicine which the doctor prescribed for me the other day,--the phial is on my desk,--you will see that I shall be right again directly."

Oswald hastened to bring him what he wanted. He gave the boy the medicine, made him drink his tea, arranged the pillows, brought another blanket, and did it all with that thoughtfulness and handiness, in which men of delicate feelings, even when they are not accustomed to sick-rooms, often far surpass professional nurses.

"It is almost a pleasure to be sick when one has you for a nurse," said Bruno, gratefully pressing his friend's hand.

"Hush! hush!" replied the latter; "now do me the favor and get rid of your pain."

"I will do my best," said the boy, smiling.

Oswald's good wishes were soon fulfilled. The cold drops on the patient's brow became warm, and kindly nature lulled him to sleep, in order to restore in silence and secret the disturbed equilibrium of his system. At first, the delicate narrow hand which Oswald held in his own would now and then twitch a little; then all became quiet, and the improvised physician congratulated himself on the good success of his treatment. But he probably had some fears of a relapse; for he quietly slipped his hand from that of the boy, went for an easy-chair to his own room, and then sat down at the head of the bed. He had screwed down the lamp, so that the unusual light should not disturb the sleeper, and thus he sat in the dark, watching the moonlight as it was slowly sinking on the wall through an opening in the curtain, and listened to the regular breathing of the boy until weariness overcame him also and he fell asleep.