The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries Volume Viii Part 32

[Uli requests the mistress to be allowed to sit in the house on Sunday afternoons. Freneli, Joggeli, and especially Elsie are put out, the latter because she is wont to spread out her finery on the table and Uli is in her way. But Uli wins her over by admiring the finery, and Elsie begins to set her cap for him. Uli cleans up about the house, and effects many an improvement in yard and field. This vexes Joggeli, and still more so when Uli forces him to plan the spring work. Joggeli makes Uli's life a burden, blows hot and cold, refuses to give orders to the servants, and censures Uli to the others for taking the reins in his hands.]

CHAPTER XVI

ULI GETS NEW COWS AND NEW SERVANTS

[Uli is sent to market to sell two cows and bring back two others. On the way a man catches up with him and buys his cows at a higher price than Uli expected to get. At the market he makes two excellent purchases, and comes away with more money than he had before. He is tempted to conceal this profit from the master, and keep it for himself, but better counsels prevail. Joggeli bids him share the profit with the milker, and reluctantly pays Uli's expenses out of his own pocket. He boasts to his wife that he has tested Uli by sending a man to him to buy the old cows; she upbraids him for this underhandedness. Uli forces Joggeli to be the first farmer with his haying, but cannot get him to supply decent tools. The other servants are lazy and slack--the milker and carter especially so. Although Uli urges and drives him in vain, Joggeli takes malicious enjoyment in his distress. At last Uli loses all patience and demands the instant dismissal of the carter and the milker, his own departure being the alternative. Joggeli is with difficulty persuaded to take this step; but once taken, the good results are immediate and permanent. The carter and the milker, at first expecting to be taken back in a day or two, finally beg for their old places; but Uli is firm. New men are engaged, with instructions to take their orders from Uli.]

CHAPTER XVII

HOW FATHER AND SON OPERATE ON A SERVANT

[Things now run like a newly oiled machine; but Joggeli is discontented and constantly seeks cause for complaint against Uli. He arranges with the miller to have the latter attempt to bribe Uli, to see what he will do. Uli dresses down the miller, and the latter, to clear himself, betrays the instigator of the plan. Uli at once begins to pack up, while the mistress, informed by the miller, chides her husband. With great difficulty the latter is induced to beg Uli's pardon and a.s.sure him that the offense will not be repeated. The harvest goes on this year as never before. Joggeli's son Johannes comes with his wife Trinette and three children for the harvest festival. Trinette is the same kind of fool as Elsie; they think of nothing but their finery, their ailments, and their supposedly fine manners. This annual visit is always a torment. Trinette plays the grand lady, the children are a constant nuisance, and the whole house is in an uproar. Johannes takes a fancy to Uli, and offers him any amount of pay to take a place with him. Freneli overhears the conversation and tells the mistress, who is enraged with Johannes.

Joggeli bursts out into a tirade against Freneli.]

CHAPTER XVIII

HOW A GOOD MOTHER STRAIGHTENS OUT THE CROOKED, AND TURNS EVIL INTO GOOD

[Joggeli sows in Uli's mind suspicion of Freneli, intimating that she is injuring him behind his back. Uli is deeply wounded, and shows it; but neither Freneli nor her aunt knows the reason, and Joggeli is silent.

Finally the mistress asks Uli, discovers the trouble, and undeceives him as to Freneli; Joggeli wonders at the restored peace, but dares not ask about it.]

CHAPTER XIX

A DAUGHTER APPEARS AND WOULD EDUCATE ULI

[The other servants had been wondering at Uli's good behavior, and, not being able to understand it from their viewpoint, had sought for the explanation in self-interest; for Elsie had begun to be very silly with Uli. As time goes on, this becomes more and more noticeable, and Uli him self is not a little put out by it. Elsie proposes to visit her brother, and Uli is to drive her. On the open road, where there is none to see, she bids him sit beside her; when they come to a village she sends him back to the front seat, and it is "My servant" this and "My servant"

that. Uli is offended, but Elsie excuses herself and finally weeps until Uli yields and joins her again. She coaxes him and flirts with him all the way. Johannes welcomes them cordially enough. The "visit," however, consists princ.i.p.ally in a clothing contest between Elsie and Trinette, from which the latter, by a shrewd stroke, issues victorious, and thus accelerates Elsie's discomfited departure. Johannes's mismanagement is mercilessly exposed, and his ultimate ruin clearly foreshadowed. On the homeward road Elsie waxes affectionate, and spends most of the time after nightfall in kissing Uli, who, however, is indifferent to her advances.]

CHAPTER XX

ULI HAS THOUGHTS AND BECOMES A CALCULATOR

So the trip went off safely and innocently, but not without consequences. Little by little the thought began to turn Uli's head that he could easily make himself happy by getting a rich wife; for, unreasonable as it is, in our ordinary speech to get happiness and to get wealth are synonymous. So often we hear it said, "He's lucky; he made a fine marriage and got over ten thousand gulden with his wife. Of course she's a fool and gives him lots of trouble; but what's the odds if you've got money? Money's all that counts." Uli was not free from this general and yet so baseless notion; for did he not wish to become a rich man himself? When he thought of Elsie's utterances, which, to be sure, were made in the rain and mist, it seemed more and more probable to him that she would take him if he tried hard to get her. The brother had treated him so amicably and shown him so much confidence that he probably would really not greatly oppose it; if Elsie was to marry somebody, Uli might suit better than many another. The parents, he thought, wouldn't like it at first, and would make a fuss; but if Elsie managed it and the thing was done, he wasn't afraid of not winning them over. The thought of one day living on Slough Farm and being his own master there, was infinitely pleasant to him. In twenty years, he sometimes calculated, he would easily double his wealth; he would show the whole district what farming could bring in. One plan after the other rose before him--how to go about it, all the things he would do, what the pastor would say when he published the banns, what the people in his home district would say when some day he would come along with his own horse and wagon and it would be noised around that he had six horses in his stable and ten of the finest cows. To be sure, when he saw Elsie lolling around lazily there were blots on his calculation. He realized that she was no housekeeper, and was moreover queer and extravagant. The last fault she might overcome, he thought, if she had a husband. He could afford to have servants then; other folks got along without the wife doing anything, and with such wealth it wouldn't matter much. There was something the matter with every woman; he'd never heard of any that was so perfect that one wouldn't wish for anything else. Rich, rich!

That was the thing. And still, when he saw Elsie, his calculations came to a sudden stop. This fading, languis.h.i.+ng, sleepy thing seemed too unpalatable to him. When she touched him with her clammy hands he shuddered; he felt as if he must wipe the spot she had touched. And then when he heard her talk, so affected and stupid, it almost drove him out of the room, and he had to reflect: No, you can't stand living with this woman; every word she said would shame you. But when he was away from Elsie again he saw the handsome farm, heard the money clink, imagined himself looked up to, and he felt as if Elsie were not so bad after all; so he would gradually persuade himself that perhaps she was cleverer than she seemed, and, if she loved a man and he talked sensibly to her, something might yet be done with her, and with a proper man she might yet turn out a very sensible woman.

All this merely went on in Uli's head; but murder will out. The trip had made Uli and Elsie more familiar; they used a different tone in speaking to each other, Elsie regarded him with the peculiar glance of a certain understanding. Uli, to be sure, tried to avoid her eyes, especially when they were in sight of Freneli; for just as Elsie's riches allured him more strongly every day, so Freneli seemed to him ever handier and prettier. The best thing, he often thought, would be to have Freneli stay with them and manage the household. But Elsie ran after Uli more than ever, and when on a Sunday afternoon she was alone with him for an instant in the living-room, she would not rest until they got to kissing. She would have given anything to take another drive with him; but she did not know where to go, and when they went to market her father and mother went along. Just the same, if Uli had had bad intentions and had wanted to secure a marriage by an evil road--of which there are cases enough with men worse than Uli--Elsie would have given plenty of opportunity, nor would she have done anything to s.h.i.+eld herself. "Uli, don't be so timid!" she would perhaps have said. But Uli was honest and desired no evil; so he shunned such opportunities, and often avoided the chances Elsie gave him, much preferring to deserve her than to seduce her. He worked all the harder, took especial pains with every detail, and tried to earn the commendation that, if he were not rich already, he could not fail to become so with such apt.i.tude; this, he thought, would have as much weight with the parents as many thousand francs. He did not think of that terrible saying--"Only a servant." But, his fellow-servants had eyes in their heads, too, and long before Uli had begun to think of anything, they had noticed Elsie's indiscreet conduct and had teased Uli about it. More and more they ascribed his activity to the intention of becoming son-in-law. The change since the trip was not hidden from them. They invented divers accounts of what had happened, taunted Uli to his face and calumniated him behind his back.

Whenever he required anything new of them they interpreted it to mean that he wanted to get himself valued at their expense; therefore they took it ill, became unruly, and said they would take him down a peg.

They lay in wait for Uli and Elsie wherever they could, tried to disturb or to witness their accidental or intentional meetings, and to play all kinds of tricks on them; and they would have dearly loved to uncover some serious scandal, but Uli gave them no opportunity. With him the scale still hung in the balance. At times Elsie and his life on Slough Farm became so bitter to him that he would have liked to be a hundred miles away. But the girl grew more and more in love with him, bought him gifts at every opportunity, gave him more than he wanted to accept, and acted in such a silly way with him that it finally attracted her parents' attention. Joggeli grumbled: there you had it now; now you could see the scheme Uli was working; but he would put a spoke in his wheel. At the same time he did nothing; and in secret he thought that his son, who so often tricked his father, would be served just right if Elsie played the fool and disgraced him by having to marry a servant.

But the mother took it very much to heart and talked to Elsie: she should not be so silly with Uli; she must think what folks would say and how they would gossip about her. It was truly not seemly for a rich girl to treat a servant like a sweetheart. No, she had nothing against Uli, but still he was only a servant, and Elsie surely didn't want to marry a servant.

Then Elsie blubbered: everything she did was wrong; in G.o.d's name, they were always complaining of her; now they accused her of being too stuck up, now of making herself too cheap; when she said a kind word to a servant, folks made such a to-do that it couldn't be worse if she had lost her good name; n.o.body wanted her to have any pleasure, and everybody was down on her; it would be best for her if she could die soon. And Elsie blubbered more and more vehemently, until she was all out of breath, and her mother had to undo her bodice hastily, thinking in all seriousness that Elsie was going to die. Then the good mother held her peace again; for she did not want to scold Elsie to death. She merely complained at times to Freneli that she didn't know what to do.

If she scolded, Elsie was capable of doing something foolish; but if she let things go and something really did happen, then she would get the blame for everything, and people would ask why hadn't she done something in time. Of Uli she couldn't complain; he was acting very sensibly, and she even thought the whole thing was disagreeable to him. And she would be sorry to send him off packing without notice, before they had more grounds of complaint; for, if she did, Joggeli would be the first to accuse her of dismissing through groundless anxiety the best servant they had ever had. But that was the way he always did--when she wanted him to speak he would keep still, and when she wanted him to keep still he would always meddle. She, Freneli, should keep her eyes open, and if she saw anything out of the way she was to tell her. But from Freneli the old woman got little comfort; she acted as if the whole affair were none of her business. Elsie could not refrain from talking to Freneli about Uli--how fine and handsome he was, and how she wouldn't take her oath that she wouldn't marry him yet; if her people angered her by refusing to do what she wanted, they'd just see what she'd do. She wouldn't take long to think about it, and she'd only have to say the word and Uli would go and have the banns published. Then, when Freneli would say little to all this, Elsie would accuse her of being jealous.

Or when Freneli would talk to her and tell her not to make a fool of Uli, whom she didn't really want, or would tell her not to grieve her parents in this way, Elsie would accuse her of wanting Uli herself and of trying to entice her away from him in order to climb up in the world; but Uli wouldn't take such a penniless pauper as she--he was too shrewd for that. She needn't imagine that she could get a husband so easily; the poorest servant would think twice before he'd take a poor girl, and twice again before he'd take a b.a.s.t.a.r.d--that was the greatest disgrace there was.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE BATH BENJAMIN VAUTIER]

Although Freneli felt such speeches deeply she would give no sign of it, would neither weep nor scold, but say at most, "Elsie, that you're not a b.a.s.t.a.r.d too isn't your fault; and that you haven't one by now isn't your fault either."

The hardest thing for Freneli was to regulate her conduct toward Uli.

The more Elsie's money went to his head, the more he felt himself drawn to Freneli; he could not bear to have her give him short answers or to seem angry with him, and tried in every way to pacify her and win her favor. He often fled from Elsie, and never sought her out; he never fled from Freneli, but often looked for her; while Freneli fled from him and Elsie ran after him. Freneli wanted to be short and dry with Uli, and still, with the best intentions, she often could not but be friendly with the friendly lad, and at times forgot herself and would spend two or three minutes chatting and laughing with him. When Elsie happened to see this there were terrible scenes. First she would make the wildest accusations against Freneli, until she could talk no more and was completely out of breath; when in this state she would sometimes rush at her, and would have tried to beat her if she had had the strength. Then she would pitch into Uli; a hundred times he would have to hear that he was a filthy fellow and only a servant; that she saw what she had to expect if she was such a fool as folks thought; but, thank heaven, there was still time enough, and she wouldn't be such a fool as to bring her money to a man who she was afraid would waste it all on women. Then she would begin to bawl at such false statements, and say she was going to die either by hanging or shooting herself. Often she would become reconciled in the midst of her tears, and Uli had to promise not to run after others any more, and not to say another good word to that old Freneli, who just wanted to lead him on and astray. Again, the quarrel would continue and Elsie would sulk. Then Uli would think: a girl that was so jealous, and so often told him he was a servant, and bawled and sulked so much, wouldn't be the most agreeable kind of wife; it would be hard living with her, and it would be better if he drove the whole thing out of his mind. But as soon as he became indifferent to her sulks, Elsie grew anxious and sought a reconciliation; then she would buy him something, or seek some other opportunity to flatter Uli, and beg him to love her, for she had no other joy in life. And when she made him so angry he mustn't take it ill of her; she only did it because her love was so great and she didn't want anybody else to have him--etc., etc.

When she once had him to herself she wouldn't be jealous any more; but so long as she was all in the air and didn't know where she stood, she often felt as if she'd rather die. And she didn't really know whether Uli loved her, either; sometimes it seemed to her that, if he loved her very much, he'd go at it quite differently, and take hold of things better; but he was just like a wooden doll and never lifted a hand. Then when Uli would say that he didn't know how to do any better, that he too didn't exactly know whether Elsie really wanted him, and if she was in earnest about it she should speak with her parents, or they would go to the pastor and announce their engagement and then see what would come of it, Elsie would say that there was no hurry about it; they could get married any time; the chief thing was that he should love her, and then a year would be soon enough, or if he went at it right (that depended on him, she would see about it), six months; but with that Freneli he must have nothing more to do or she would scratch both their eyes out and the hussy would have to leave the house.

Of course the affair made talk for miles around, and people told much more than there was to tell. There were two parties: one thought the parents were rightly served, the other thought Uli would get his deserts with his rich wife. The longer it lasted, and it was over a year now, the more probable seemed his success; the more the servants submitted to Uli and ranged themselves on the side of the presumptive son-in-law, so that the farm took on a more and more prosperous appearance and Uli became more and more indispensable. Even Joggeli, into whose money-bags the cash profit flowed, and who could easily figure what twenty additional cords of fodder and a thousand sheaves of grain meant, choked down his anger and shut one eye, comforting himself by saying that he would use Uli as long as possible; and if matters ever got serious, why then there would still be time enough. Once when Johannes, having heard the gossip, came along, and cursed and swore and demanded that Uli be discharged, Joggeli would not hear to it; as long as he lived he would give orders here, and Johannes would be glad to have Uli if he could get him; what went on here was none of his business, and if they wanted to give Elsie to Uli that was none of his business either. He needn't think he'd inherit everything; for the time being everything that they still had and that he hadn't wormed out of 'em was theirs; the more Johannes carried on, the sooner Elsie would have to marry--not that it would have to be Uli; there were others too. They knew well enough how much he loved them; if he just had the money he'd never ask again after father and mother and Elsie; and they could all marry again for all he cared, and if to tramps or gipsies it would be all one to him.

Thus Joggeli talked to his son in his nagging, coughing way, so that the mother grew quite anxious, and interrupted: Johannes needn't be afraid; that wouldn't happen, for she was still at the helm and Elsie wouldn't force them to everything, and Uli was a good lad, and so on. Then Johannes wanted to talk with Uli himself, but he was not to be found; he had gone out to get a cow, it, was said. Trinette, this time much more beautifully sulphur-yellow than Elsie had been, strutted around her with contemptuous mien and turned-up nose, and finally said, "Fie and for shame, how common you're making yourself! To take up with a servant!

It's a disgrace for the whole family! If my folks had known that my husband's sister would marry a servant, they'd have given him the mitten like a flash; they didn't like him any too well as it was; but I was fool enough to want him absolutely. We can't count you as one of the family any more, and then you can see where you'll find a roof for your head; you can't stay here any more--I say this once and for all. Faugh, to have a love-affair with a servant! You give me the creeps; I can't bear to look at you any more. Ugh, aren't you ashamed to the bottom of your soul, and don't you feel like crawling into the ground?"

However, Elsie was not ashamed, but paid Trinette back heartily in her own coin: a girl could choose anybody she wanted for her sweetheart, and could marry a servant or a master; all men were alike before G.o.d. But if once she was a wife she'd be ashamed to have her name connected now with the stable-boy and now with the butcher, now with the herder and now with the carter, and finally with all the peddlers and traders, and to have children with no two noses the same and looking as much alike as Swiss and Italians. But for Freneli and the mother, the two sisters-in-law would have torn the gra.s.s-green and the sulphur-yellow dresses from each other's bodies. When the mother wanted to help out Trinette by speaking for her, Elsie became so excited that they had to put her to bed. Now, she said, when she recovered consciousness and speech--now she surely would do what she wanted; she wouldn't let herself be made into sausages like a fat sow; and it was cruel of her parents to want just one child to inherit and to let the other child pine away without a husband, just so all the money would stay in one pile.

Johannes and his wife did not stay long. Turning in frequently on the homeward road, and giving up all restraint, they spun out at length the whole story to their friends and colleagues, male and female, and their story carried the rumor to complete certainty. The brother and his wife told it themselves, people said, and they ought to know.

Not long afterward Uli drove to market with a horse, but soon saw that he could not sell it for what he was instructed to get, so, as it was bad weather, he took it from the market-place and stabled it in an inn.

Turning a corner to enter the inn, he b.u.mped into his old master. With unconcealed joy Uli held out his hand and told him how glad he was to see him and to be with him for a while. The master was somewhat cool and spoke of much business, but finally named a place where they could drink a bottle in peace. There, after they were seated in a corner fairly well out of sight, they began the preliminaries. Johannes asked whether there had been much hay, and Uli said yes, and asked whether his grain had fallen too; the first wind had felled theirs. "You're doing well,"

continued the master after some further talk, "and what do I hear? Folks say you're soon to be farmer at Slough Farm."

"Why, who says that?" asked Uli.

"Oh, folks say it's being talked about far and wide, and they say it's surely true."

"Folks always know more than those concerned," said Uli.

"There must be something in it," answered the master. "Oh," said Uli, "I wouldn't say that it might not be some time, but it's a long way off yet; nothing has been said about it and it might turn out either way."

"Well," said Johannes, "it seems to me there's been enough talk about it."

"Why, how so?" asked Uli.