The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries Volume Viii Part 16

Barefoot now stood there, laughing scornfully and, at the same time, sadly over her brother's simplicity.

"He sends to me and doesn't stay in the place where I can find him; now if I go up that way, why should he expect me to come by the foot-path?

That has doubtless occurred to him now, and he'll be going some other way--so that I shall never find him, and we shall be wandering about each other as in a fog."

Barefoot sat down quietly on the stump of a tree. There was a fire within her as within the kiln, only the flames could not leap forth--the fire could merely smolder within. The birds were singing, the forest rustling--but what is all that when there is no clear, responsive note in the heart? Barefoot now remembered, as in a dream, how she had once cherished thoughts of love. What right had she to let such thoughts rise within her? Had she not misery enough in herself and in her brother? And this thought of love seemed to her now like the remembrance, in winter, of a bright summer's day. One merely remembers how sunny and warm it was--but that is all. Now she had to learn what it meant to "wait,"--to "wait" high up on a crag, where there is hardly a palm's breadth of room. And he who knows what it means, feels all his old misery--and more.

She went into the charcoal-burner's log cabin, and there lay a cloth sack, hardly half full, and on the sack was her father's name.

"Oh, how you have been dragged about!" she said, almost aloud. But she soon got over her excitement in her curiosity to see what Damie had brought back. "He must at least still have the s.h.i.+rts that I made for him out of Black Marianne's linen. And perhaps there is also a present from our uncle in America in it. But if he had anything good, would he have gone first to Coaly Mathew in the forest? Would he not have shown himself in the village at once?"

Barefoot had plenty of time to indulge in these reflections; for the sack had been tied with a cord, which had been knotted in a most complicated way, and it required all her patience and skill to disentangle it. She emptied out everything that was in the sack and said with angry eyes:

"Oh, you good-for-nothing! There's not a decent s.h.i.+rt left! Now you may have your choice whether you'll be called 'Jack in Tatters' or 'Tattered Jack.'"

This was not a happy frame of mind in which to greet her brother for the first time. And Damie seemed to realize this; for he stood at the entrance of the log cabin and looked on, until Barefoot had put everything back into the sack. Then he stepped up to her and said:

"G.o.d greet you, Amrei! I bring you nothing but dirty clothes, but you are neat, and will make me--"

"Oh, dear Damie, how you look!" cried Barefoot, and she threw herself on his neck. But she quickly tore herself away from him, exclaiming:

"For Heaven's sake! You smell of whisky! Have you got so far already?"

"No, Coaly Mathew only gave me a little juniper spirit, for I could not stand up any longer. Things have gone badly with me, but I have not taken to drink--you may believe that, though, to be sure, I can't prove it."

"I believe you, for you surely would not wish to deceive the only one you have on earth! But oh, how wild and miserable you look! You have a beard as heavy as a knife-grinder's. I won't allow that--you must shave it off. But you're in good health? There's nothing the matter with you?"

"I am in good health, and intend to be a soldier."

"What you are, and what you are to be, we'll think about in good time.

But now tell me how things have gone with you."

Damie kicked his foot against a half-burnt log of wood--one of the spoilt logs, as they were called--and said:

"Look you--I am just like that, not completely turned to coal, and yet no longer fresh wood."

Barefoot exhorted him to say what he had to say without complaints. And then Damie went off into a long, long story, setting forth how he had not been able to bear the life at his uncle's, and how hard-hearted and selfish that uncle was, and especially how his wife had grudged him every bit he ate in the house, and how he had got work here and there, but how in every place he had only experienced a little more of man's hard-heartedness. "In America," he said, "one can see another person peris.h.i.+ng in misery, and never so much as look around at him."

Barefoot could hardly help laughing when there came again and again, as the burden of his story,--"And then they turned me out into the street."

She could not help interrupting him with:

"Yes, that's just how you are, and how you used to be, even as a child.

When you once stumbled, you let yourself fall like a log of wood; one must convert the stumble into a hop, as the old proverb says. Cheer up.

Do you know what one must do, when people try to hurt one?"

"One must keep out of their way."

"No, one must hurt them, if one can--and one hurts them most by standing up and achieving something. But you always stand there and say to the world: 'Do what you like to me, good or bad; kiss me or beat me, just as you will.' That's easy enough; you let people do anything to you, and then pity yourself. I should like it right well myself, if some one would place me here and there, and do everything for me. But you must look out for yourself now. You've let yourself be pushed about quite enough in the world; now you must play the master for awhile."

Reproof and teaching often seem like hardness and injustice in the eyes of the unhappy; and Damie took his sister's words as such. It was dreadful that she did not see that he was the most unhappy creature on earth. She strongly urged him not to believe that, and said that if he did not believe it, it would not be so. But it is the most difficult of all undertakings to inspire a man with confidence in himself; most people acquire it only after they have succeeded.

Damie declared that he would not tell his heartless sister a word more; and it was only after some time that she got from him a detailed account of his travels and fortunes, and of how he had at last come back to the old world as a stoker on a steamboat. While she reproved him for his self-tormenting touchiness, she became conscious that she herself was not entirely free from that fault. For, as a result of her almost exclusive a.s.sociation with Black Marianne, she had fallen into the habit of thinking and talking so much about herself, that she had acquired a desponding way. And now that she was called upon to cheer her brother up, she unconsciously exerted a similar influence upon herself. For herein lies the mysterious power of cooperation among men, that when we help others we are also helping ourselves.

"We have four sound hands," she said in conclusion, "and we'll see if we cannot fight our way through the world together. And to fight your way through is a thousand times better than to beg your way through. And now, Damie, come with me--come home."

Damie did not want to show himself in the village at all; he dreaded the jeering that would be vented upon him from all sides, and preferred to remain concealed for the present. But Barefoot said:

"You go with me now--on this bright Sunday; and you must walk right through the village, and let the people mock at you, let them have their say, let them point and laugh. Then you'll be through with it, then it will be over, and you will have swallowed their bitter draught all at once, and not drop by drop."

Not without long and obstinate resistance, not until Coaly Mathew had interfered and sided with Barefoot, was Damie induced to comply. And there was, indeed, a perfect hailstorm of jeering, sometimes coa.r.s.e, sometimes satirical, directed at Barefoot's Damie, whom people accused of having taken merely a pleasure-trip to America at the expense of the parish.

Black Marianne alone received him kindly; her first question was:

"Have you heard nothing of my John?" But he could give her no information.

In a double sense Damie was doomed to be scratched that day; for that very evening Barefoot had the barber come and shave off his wild beard, and give him the smooth face that was the fas.h.i.+on of the country.

The next morning Damie was summoned to the Courthouse; and inasmuch as he trembled at the summons, he knew not why, Barefoot promised to accompany him. And that was good, though it was not of much use; for the Council declared to Damie that he was to be sent away from the place, that he had no right to remain there, perhaps to become a burden on the community once more.

All the members were astonished when Barefoot answered "Yes, you can send him away--but do you know when? When you can go out to the churchyard, where our father and mother lie buried, and say to them: 'Up, go away with your child!' Then you can send him away. No one can be sent away from the place where his parents are buried; for he is more than at home there. And if it is written a thousand times in your books there, and a thousand times again,"--and here she pointed to the bound government registers,--"and wherever else it may be written, it cannot be done, and you cannot do it."

One of the councilors whispered to the schoolmaster:

"Barefoot has learned to talk in that way from n.o.body else but Black Marianne."

And the s.e.xton leaned over to the magistrate and said:

"Why do you allow the Cinderella to make such an outcry? Ring for the gendarme and have him shut her up in the madhouse."

But the magistrate only smiled, and explained that the community had rid itself of all burdens that could ever accrue to it through Damie by paying the greater part of his pa.s.sage money.

"But where is his home now?" asked Barefoot.

"Wherever they will receive him, but not here--at present nowhere."

"Yes, I have no home," said Damie, who almost enjoyed being made more and more unhappy; for now n.o.body could deny that he was the most unfortunate person in the world.

Barefoot continued to fight, but she soon saw that nothing could be done; the law was against her. She now declared that she would work her fingers to the bone rather than take anything more from the parish, either for herself or for her brother; and she promised to pay back all that had been received.

"Shall I put that down on the minutes?" asked the clerk of those who sat around. And Barefoot replied:

"Yes, put it down; for with you nothing counts except what's written."

Barefoot then put her signature to the entry. When this was done, it was announced that Damie, as a stranger, had permission to remain in the village for three days, but that if within that time he had not found some means of subsistence, he would be sent away, and in case of necessity, would be removed by force across the frontier.

Without another word Barefoot left the Court-house with Damie, who actually shed tears because she had compelled him to return to the village to no purpose. It would have been better, he declared, if he had remained out in the woods and spared himself the jeering, and the humiliation of hearing himself banished as a stranger from his native place. Barefoot wanted to reply that it was better to know the worst, however bitter it might be; but she restrained herself, realizing that she had need of all her strength to keep up her own courage. She felt as if she had been banished with her brother, and understood that she had to fight with a world that had law and might to fall back upon, while she herself was empty-handed and helpless.

But she bore up more bravely than ever; she did not allow Damie's weaknesses and adversities to weigh upon her. For that is the way with people; if any one has a pain of his own which entirely occupies him, he will bear a second pain--be it ever so severe--more easily than if he had this second pain alone to bear. And thus while Barefoot had a feeling of indescribable sorrow against which she could do nothing, she was able to bear the definite trial against which she could strive, the more willingly and freely. She allowed herself not a minute more for dreaming, and went to and fro with stiff arms and clinched fists, as if to say: "Where is there work to do? Be it ever so hard, I will gladly undertake it, if only I can get myself and my brother out of this state of forsaken dependency."