Seldwyla Folks Part 16

He caressed her feverish cheeks, while she kept pressing herself against his bosom. "Let us only consider your own case. You, Vreni, are still so very young, and quite likely you will fare well enough after a short while."

"And you also--you ancient man," she said, smiling wistfully.

"Come!" now said Sali, and dragged her along. But they only went on a few steps, and then they halted once more, the better to embrace and kiss. The deep quiet of the world ran like music through their souls, and the only sound to be heard around them was the gentle rush and swish of the waves as they slowly went on further down the valley below.

"How beautiful it is around here! Listen! It seems to me there is somebody far away singing in a low voice."

"No, sweetheart; it is only the water softly flowing."

"And yet it seems there is some music--way out there, everywhere."

"I think it is our own blood coursing that is deceiving our ears."

But though they hearkened again and again, the solemn stillness remained unbroken. The magic effect of the light of a resplendent full moon was visible in the whole landscape, as the autumnal veil of fog that rose in semi-transparent layers from the river sh.o.r.e mingled with the silvery sheen, waving in grayish or bluish bands.

Suddenly Vreni recalled something, and said: "Here, I have bought you something to remember me by."

And she gave him the plain little ring, and placed it on his finger.

Sali, too, found the little ring he had meant for her, and while he put it on her hand, he said: "Thus we have had the same thought, you and I."

Vreni held up her hand into the silvery light of the moon and examined the little token curiously.

"Oh, what a fine ring," she then said, laughing. "Now we are both betrothed and wedded. You are my husband, and I'm your wife. Let us imagine so, just long enough until that small cloud has pa.s.sed the moon, or else until we have counted twelve. You must kiss me twelve times."

Sali was surely fully as much in love as was Vreni, but the marriage problem was, after all, not of such intense interest to him, not such a question of Either--Or, of an immediate To Be or Not To Be, as it was in the case of the girl. For Vreni could feel just then only that one problem, saw in it with pa.s.sionate energy life or death itself. But now at last he began to see clearly into the very soul of his companion, and the feminine desire in her became instantly with him a wild and ardent longing, and his senses reeled under its potency. And while he had previously caressed and embraced her with the strength and fervor of a devoted lover, he did so now with an incomparably greater abandonment to his pa.s.sion. He held Vreni tightly to his beating heart, and fairly overwhelmed her with endearments. In spite of her own love fever, the girl with true feminine instinct at once became aware of this change, and she began to tremble as with fear of the unknown. But this feeling pa.s.sed almost in a moment, and before even the cloud had flitted over the moon's face her whole being was seized by the whirlwind of his ardor, and engulfed in its depths. While both struggled with and at the same time fondled the other, their beringed hands met and seized the other as though at that supreme moment their union was consummated without the consent of their will power. Sali's heart knocked against its prison door like a living being; anon it stood still, and he breathed with difficulty and said slow and in a whisper: "There is one thing, only one thing, we can do, Vreni; we keep our wedding this hour, and then we leave this world forever--there below is the deep water--there is everlasting peace and fulfilment of all our hopes--there n.o.body will divorce us again--and we have had our dearest wish--have lived and died together--whether for long, whether for short--we need not care--we are rid of all care--"

And Vreni instantly responded. "Yes, Sali--what you say I also have thought to myself--not once but constantly these days--I have dreamed of it with my whole soul--we can die together, and then all this torment is over--Swear to me, Sali, that you will do it with me!"

"Yes, dearest, it is as good as done--n.o.body shall take you from me now but Death alone!" Thus the young man in his exaltation. But Vreni's breath came quick and as if freed from an intolerable burden. Tears of sweetest joy came to her eyes, and she rose with spontaneous alacrity and, light as a bird, flew down towards the river side. Sali followed her, thinking for a moment she wanted to escape him, while she fancied he would wish to prevent her. Thus they both sprang down the steep path, and Vreni laughed happily like a child that will not allow her playmate to catch her.

"Are you sorry for it already?" Thus they both apostrophized the other, as they in a twinkling had reached the river sh.o.r.e and seized hold of each other. And both answered: "No, indeed, how can you think so?"

And carefree they now walked briskly along the river bank, and they outdistanced the hastening waves, for thus keenly they sought a spot where they could stay for a while. For in the trance of their enthusiasm they knew of nothing but the bliss awaiting them in the full possession of each other. The whole worth and meaning of their lives just then condensed itself into that one supreme desire. What was to follow it, death, eternal oblivion, was to them a mere nothing, a puff of air, and they thought less of it than does the spendthrift think of the morrow when wasting his last substance.

"My flowers shall precede me," cried Vreni, "only look! They are quite withered and dusty!" And she plucked them from her bosom, cast them into the water, and sang aloud: "But sweeter far than almonds is my love for thee!"

"Stop!" called out Sali. "Here is our bridal chamber!"

They had reached a road for vehicles which led from the village to the river, and here there was a landing, and a big boat, laden high with hay, was tied to an iron ring in the bank. In a reckless mood Sali instantly set to freeing the s.h.i.+p from the strong ropes that held it to the landing. But Vreni grasped his arm, and she shouted laughing: "What are you about? Are we to wind up by stealing from the peasants their hayc.o.c.k?"

"That is to be the dowry they give us," replied Sali with humor. "See!

A swimming bedstead and a couch softer than any royal couple ever had.

Besides, they will recover their property unharmed somewhere near the goal whither it was to travel anyway, and they will hardly trouble their hard heads with the question how it got there. Do you notice, dear, how the boat is swaying and rocking? It is impatient to start on the journey."

The s.h.i.+p lay a few paces off the sh.o.r.e in deeper water. Sali lifted Vreni in his arms high up, and began to wade through the water towards the boat. But she caressed him so fervently and wriggled like a fish on the angle, that Sali was losing his footing in the rather strong current. She strained her hands and arms in order to plunge them in the water, crying: "I also want to try the cool water. Do you remember how cold and moist our hands were when we first met? That time we had been catching fish. Now we ourselves will be fish, and two big and handsome ones to boot."

"Keep still, you wriggling darling," said Sali, scarcely able to stand up in the water, with his sweetheart tossing in his arms and the current pulling at him, "or it will drag me under!"

But now he lifted his pretty burden into the boat, and scrambled up its side himself. Then he hoisted her up to the hay, packed in orderly fas.h.i.+on in the middle, sweet-scented and downy like a vast pillow, and next he swung himself up to her. When they both were thus enthroned on their bridal bed the s.h.i.+p drifted gently into the middle of the stream, and then, turning slowly, it headed sluggishly in an easterly direction.

The river flowed through dark woods, shadowing it; it flowed through the fruitful plain, past quiet villages and hamlets and single homesteads; there it broadened out like a still lake and the s.h.i.+p moved but slightly downwards, and here it turned tall rocks and left the slumbering landscape quickly behind. And when dawn broke there was in sight at some distance a town rising with its age-worn towers and steeples above the silver-gray river. The setting moon, red as gold, cast a quivering track of light upstream towards the dim outlines of the ancient city, and into this luminous bed the s.h.i.+p finally turned its prow. When the houses of the town at last approached closely two pale shapes, locked in a tight embrace, glided in the autumnal frost of early morn from off the dark ma.s.s of the s.h.i.+p into the silent waters.

The s.h.i.+p itself shortly after fetched up near a bridge, unharmed, and remained there. When sometime later the two bodies, still locked in each others' arms, were found, and details about the young man and his sweetheart were learned, one might have read in the newspapers that these two, the children of two ruined and impoverished families that had lived in bitter enmity, had sought death in the water together after dancing with great animation at a kermess. This event probably was connected with the other fact that a boat laden with hay had landed in town without anyone on board. It was supposed that the young couple had cut loose the boat somewhere in order to hold their G.o.dforsaken wedding on it. "Once again a proof of the spread of lawless and impious pa.s.sion among the lower cla.s.ses." That was the concluding paragraph in the newspaper report.

FOOTNOTE:

[Footnote 1: Vreni, Vreneli, Vreeli; Swiss diminutive forms of Veronica.]

THE END