The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries Volume Ix Part 135

His brother laughed. "Then that's why the evening you came back you didn't dance with any one but Anne and took her home afterward?"

"I would have danced with your wife," replied Apollonius. "You warned me that she would turn me down because she was so set against me. Then I didn't want to dance at all. You brought Anne up to me, and when you went you asked her if I might see her home. I couldn't do anything else under the circ.u.mstances. I have never thought of Anne in connection with--"

"Marriage?" interrupted his brother laughing. "Well, she's pretty enough to--amuse yourself with too, and it's worth the trouble to make her perfectly mad about you.

"Fritz!" exclaimed Apollonius, displeased. "But you're not in earnest," he added to soothe himself. "I know you know me better; but even in fun it isn't right to jest lightly about a respectable girl."

"Pshaw," said his brother, "if she behaves like that herself! What does she come to the house for and throw herself at your head?"

"She hasn't done that," answered Apollonius hotly. "She is a good girl, and comes here without any thought of wrong."

"Yes, or you would have put her right," laughed Fritz, and there was mockery in his voice.

"Did I know what she thought?" said Apollonius. "You've teased her about me and me about her. I have done nothing that could have awakened any such thoughts in her. I should have thought it a sin."

The men went back the way they had come. It did not occur to Christiane that they might have come along the path where she stood.

All that was open and true in her rose in indignation against her husband. It was not other people who had lied to him; he himself was false. He had lied to her and to Apollonius and she had erred and had hurt Apollonius, Apollonius who was so good that he could not bear to hear Anne made fun of, who had certainly never made fun of her.

Everything had been a lie from the beginning. Her husband was persecuting Apollonius because he was false and Apollonius was good.

Her inmost heart turned away from the persecutor and toward the persecuted. Out of the rebellion of all her emotions a new and sacred feeling rose triumphant, and she gave herself up to it with the complete abandon of innocence. She did not know it. Oh, that she might never learn to know it! As soon as she learnt to know it would become a sin.--And already the steps were rustling through the gra.s.s that were to bring her the bitter knowledge.

Fritz Nettenmair had to erect a new dividing wall before he could bring his brother to his wife. He came for this purpose. His gait was uneven. He was still choosing and could not decide. He became even more uncertain when he stood before her. He read what she felt in her face; it was too honest to conceal anything; it knew too little of what it spoke to think it must hide this feeling. He felt that he could do nothing more with her by repeating the old slanders. He knew that petty absurdities are better fitted to destroy a growing interest than are gross faults. He imitated Apollonius going back along a way along which he had already pa.s.sed with a light, for fear that he might have let a spark fall; he showed how his brother could not rest at night for thinking that perhaps a workman had not deserved the harsh word that he had spoken to him in the heat of the moment, how he sprang up out of bed to straighten the position of a ruler that he had left lying crooked on the table. At the same time Fritz kept on blowing imaginary fluff from his sleeves. He saw indeed that his efforts were having an opposite effect to what he wished. Irritated by this he went on to stronger measures. He pitied poor Anne whom Apollonius had made fall in love with him by hypocrisy, and told how coa.r.s.ely he made fun of her in public.

A dark red had come into his young wife's cheeks. Frank, simple natures have a deep hatred of all duplicity, perhaps because they feel instinctively how defenseless they stand before such an enemy. She was trembling with emotion as she rose and said: "_You_ might do that; he could not."

Fritz Nettenmair was startled. In the sight of the figure that stood before him full of contempt there was something that disarmed him. It was the power of truth, the loftiness of innocence confronting the sinner. He pulled himself together with an effort. "Did he tell you so? Have you got so far already?" he said, forcing the words out between his teeth. Christiane wanted to go into the house; he stopped her. She wanted to tear herself away.

"You have lied about everything," she said. "You have lied to him. You have lied to me. I heard what you said to him just now in the shed."

Fritz Nettenmair drew a breath of relief. So she did not know everything. "Was I not obliged to?" he said, his eye scarcely able to stand the purity of her gaze. "Was I not obliged to in order to prevent your disgrace? Do you want the fluff-picker to despise you?"

Now her eyes made him drop his. "Do you know what you are? Ask him what a woman is who forgets her honor and her duty. Of whom do you think as you should think only of your husband? When you creep about like a wench in love wherever you think you will see him? And you think that people are blind. Ask him what he calls that kind of a woman? Oh, people have fine names for a woman of that sort."

He saw how she started, shocked. Her arm quivered in his hand. He saw she was beginning to understand him, was beginning to understand herself. He had feared her obstinacy--and behold, she was breaking down! The angry red faded in her cheek and a blush of shame flushed wildly over its pallor. He saw her eyes seek the ground as if she felt the gaze of all men fixed upon her, as if the shed, the fence, the trees all had eyes and they were all staring into hers. He saw how in the suddenness of her perception she called herself one of the women for whom people have such fine names.

The pain poured its rain over her burning cheeks that bled with shame and her tears were like oil; the fire grew when a voice sounded from the shed and his tread was heard. She tried to tear herself violently away and looked up with a half wild, half imploring glance that, dying, sank again to the ground before the thousand eyes that were fixed upon her. He saw that the eye of the man who was coming through the shed was the most terrible of all to her. He was again in possession of all his courage.

"Tell him,"--he forced the words out softly--"what you want of him. If he is as you think he is he must despise you."

Fritz Nettenmair held the struggling woman fast with the strength of the victor until he had beckoned to Apollonius, who stepped questioningly out of the shed, to come over to him. He let her go and she fled into the house. Apollonius, shocked, stopped halfway up to him.

"You see how she is," Fritz said to him. "I told her you wanted to ask her. If you like we will go after her, and she must confess to us.

I'll see whether my wife can safely insult my brother, who is so good."

Apollonius had to restrain him. Fritz would not consent at first.

Finally he said: "Well, now you see, at least, that it is not my fault. Oh, I am so sorry!"

There was an involuntary dismay in the last words which Apollonius connected with the failure at a reconciliation. Fritz Nettenmair repeated them softly, and this time they sounded like a mockery of Apollonius, like mocking regret at the failure of a sly trick.

Christiane had rushed into the living-room and bolted the door behind her. She was not thinking of Fritz; but Apollonius might come in. She turned over and over the feverish thought of fleeing out into the world. But wherever she thought of herself, on the steepest mountain, in the deepest valley, he met her and saw what it was that she wanted and he had to despise her. Little Annie was in the room; she had not noticed the child. All the mother's life was engaged in her inward struggle; Annie could not tell from her mother's look what was going on within her. She drew her mother onto a chair, threw her arms round her in her usual fas.h.i.+on and looked up into her face. Her gaze struck her mother as if it came from Apollonius' eyes. Little Annie said:

"Do you know, Mother, Uncle 'Lonius"--the mother jumped up and pushed the child away from her as if it had been he himself. "Don't tell me anything more about--don't tell me anything more about him!" she said with such angry fear that the little girl stopped speaking and began to cry. Little Annie did not see the fear, she saw only the anger in her mother's action. It was anger at herself. The little girl lied when she told her uncle of her mother's anger at him. He did not need to be told. Had he not seen her red cheek himself, when she fled from his and his brother's question; the same red of angry dislike with which she had received him when he came home? Oh, from then on life was curiously sultry in the house with the green shutters for days and weeks.

Fritz Nettenmair was very little at home. From early in the morning till late at night he sat in a public house from which the door in the church roof and the hanging seat on the tower could be seen. He was more jovial than ever, and treated everybody in order to forget himself in their insincere admiration.

In the shed and in the slate quarry the disagreeable-looking workman took his place. Until he came home late at night, the workman wandered back and forth in the pa.s.sage leading from the living-room to the shed. There had been some cases of theft in the neighborhood, and the workman stood watch; Fritz Nettenmair had become a very anxious man about his home. Other people wondered at Fritz Nettenmair's confidence in the workman. Apollonius warned him repeatedly. Of course! He had good reason not to desire any watch kept, least of all by this workman who did not like him. And that was just why Fritz Nettenmair trusted the workman and would not listen to warnings. When Fritz Nettenmair said to his brother: "I am so sorry," he had just caught sight of the workman. The latter's grin showed him that the workman saw through him and knew what it was that he feared. He ground his teeth; half an hour later he intrusted him with the watch and his place in the shed and the quarry. It needed but few words. The workman understood what Fritz told him that he must do; he also understood what Fritz did not tell him and what he must do nevertheless. Fritz Nettenmair had as little confidence in the fellow's honesty in the business as had Apollonius; but the man's dishonesty there secured him his honesty where he needed it more.

The old gentleman in the blue coat had worse dreams than ever; he listened more anxiously than ever to every fleeting sound, heard more in it, and added ever greater loads to what lay on his breast. But he did not ask.

It was late one evening. From the tavern window Fritz Nettenmair had seen Apollonius leave his hanging seat and tie it to the scaffold.

According to his custom, he hurried out of the restaurant so as to get home before Apollonius. He found his wife in the living-room, busy about her household work. The workman came in and made his customary report. Then he whispered something to his master and went.

Fritz Nettenmair sat down at the table with his wife. He usually sat there until the sound of the workman's shuffling tread in the hall told him that Apollonius had gone to bed. Then he went back again to his tavern; he knew that the house was safe from thieves, the workman was on the watch.

The feeling that he had his wife in his hand and that she resigned herself to the situation with suffering had until now aided the wine to cast over him a faint reflection of the jovial condescension which formerly had shone like the sun from every b.u.t.ton of his clothes.

Today the reflection was unusually faint--perhaps because her eye had not sought the ground when it met his glance. He put a few indifferent questions, and then said: "You have been merry today." He wanted her to feel that he knew everything that went on in the house even when he was not there. "You were singing."

She looked at him calmly and said: "Yes, and tomorrow I'll sing again.

I don't know why I shouldn't."

He got up noisily from his chair and walked up and down with heavy steps. He wanted to intimidate her. She rose quietly, and stood there as if expecting an attack that she did not fear. He stepped close to her, laughed hoa.r.s.ely and made a gesture which he intended to frighten her into stepping back. She did not do so. But the crimson of hurt feelings spread over her cheeks. She had grown keen-sighted, distrustful of her husband. She knew that he had her and Apollonius watched.

"And did he tell you nothing more?" she asked. "Who?" shouted Fritz.

He raised his shoulders and thought he looked like the old man in the blue coat. His wife did not answer.

Presently she said softly, "I have come to be at peace with myself,"

and this was written so brightly in her eyes that the man began to walk up and down again in order not to have to look at them. "I am at peace with myself. The thoughts came to me; I was not to blame for that, and I did not call them into my mind. I did not know they were evil. Then I fought with them and I will not tire as long as I live.

In my soul I went to my dear mother's bed where she died, and I saw her lying there and laid three fingers on her heart. I promised her that I will do and suffer nothing dishonorable and I begged her with tears to help me not to do or suffer anything dishonorable. I promised and begged until all my fear had gone away, and I knew that I was an honorable woman and would remain an honorable woman. And no one may despise me. Whatever you may do to me, I am not afraid and will not defend myself. But you shall not do anything to the child. You do not know how strong I am and what I can do. I will not have it; that I tell you."

His glance pa.s.sed fearfully by the slender figure without touching her pale, beautiful countenance; he knew that an angel stood there and threatened him. Oh, he realized, he felt how strong she was; he felt how powerfully the resolution of an honest heart protects. But only against him! His weakness made him feel that. He felt that no one who had the power of belief could fail to believe her. He had gambled away this right in the crooked game. He would have had to believe her, if he had not known that what must come, would come. Not she nor any one could prevent it. He had fallen into the hands of the spirit of his guilt, the thought of retribution, which drove him irresistibly to bring about what he wished to prevent; the long steady habit of thinking this thought had buried him too deep. Hope and trust were alien to the thought; hate was more akin to it. And it was hate that he called to his aid.--Outside the workman's feet shuffled on the sanded floor of the hall. The house was safe from thieves: he could leave it again.

Fritz Nettenmair was as jovial in the tavern that night as he could possibly be. His flatterers were thirsty, and pleased with his condescension. He drank, pushed the guests' hats down over their ears, performed many another tender caress with his stick and his hand, and laughed admiringly at them as brilliant jokes. He did everything to forget himself; but he did not succeed.

If he could only have changed with his wife, who during this time was sitting solitary at home! The thing for which he longed--to forget himself--was the very thing against which she must be on her guard.

What he must do, what he could not avert by any effort, was the thing for which she strove unavailingly--to remember herself. All her thoughts spoke to her of Apollonius. She thought she was avoiding him, and now she saw that he had fled from her. She ought to be glad, and it hurt her. Her cheeks burned again. It was peculiar that she herself regarded her position more sternly or more mildly according to whether Apollonius in her thoughts judged it more sternly or more mildly. He had become to her the involuntary standard by which to measure things.

Did he know what she was, and despise her? He was so gentle and indulgent; he did not ridicule Anne, did not despise her. Even before he came, did she already have thoughts that she should not have had and did he guess them? And he was sorry for her, and that was why he looked after her with such a sad glance when she went? Yes! Of course!

And now he fled from her in order to spare her: the sight of him should not arouse thoughts in her that had better sleep till she herself slept in her coffin. Perhaps he himself had said so to her husband, or written; and the latter had chosen dislike as a means of curing her.

Was it chance that at this moment she glanced at her husband's desk?

She saw that he had forgotten to take the key out of the lock. She remembered that he had never been so careless before. Usually she would have taken no notice of it; now she remembered that if he knew her to be there he had never left the room even for a moment without locking the desk and taking the key with him. Apollonius' letters lay in the top right-hand drawer; usually her glance avoided the spot. Now she opened the desk and drew out the drawer. Her hands trembled, her whole form quivered--not for fear that her husband might surprise her in what she was doing. She must know how it stood between her, Apollonius, and her husband; she would have asked the latter, she would not have come to her own aid if she could have trusted him. She trembled in expectation of what she should find. Had she any premonition of what it would be?

There were many letters in the drawer; all of them lay open and unfolded. She touched them all, one after another, before she read them. With each one that she touched a fresh flush spread over her cheeks, as if she touched Apollonius himself, and involuntarily she drew back her hand. Now a little metal box fell from one of the letters back into the drawer; the box flew open and out of it fell a small, dry blossom--a little bluebell. It was just such a one that she had once laid on the bench that he might find it. She was startled.

That one, Apollonius had auctioned off the same evening with ridicule and mockery among his comrades, asking them what they would give and finally, amid the general laughter, solemnly knocked it down to his brother. He had brought it to her and told her about it while they were dancing and Apollonius had looked in at the hall window, mockingly, as his brother had said. That one she had pulled to pieces; all the young people had danced over the ruins. The blossom in the box was another one. The letter must tell from whom it was or to whom Apollonius sent it.

And yet it was the same flower. She read it. What feelings took possession of her as she read that it was the same one. Tear after tear fell on the paper and out of them mounted a rosy haze and veiled the narrow walls of the little room. Oh, it was a world of happiness, of laughing and crying with happiness that rose from the tears; every one shone more like a rainbow, every one cried: "She was yours!" And the last one lamented: "And she has been stolen from you!" The flower was from her; he carried it on his breast in yearning, hope, and fear, until she of whom he thought when he touched it had become his brother's. He was so good that he had thought it a sin to keep the poor blossom away from the man who had stolen the giver from him. And she might have clung to such a man, might have enfolded him in the arms of her yearning and never let him go! She could have done it, might have done it, should have done it! It would not have been a sin; it would have been a sin if she had not done so. And now it was a sin because the other had defrauded him and her, the other who now tormented her about what he himself had made sinful, who forced her to sin--for be forced her to hate him, and that too was a sin and his fault. With terribly sweet fear she thought of the nearness of the man who should be a stranger to her, who was not a stranger to her, from whom in the dread of her weakness she saw no escape. She fled from him, from herself, into the room where her children slept, where her mother had died. There, where such peace had come to her, she heard the slight movement of the innocent little slumberers whose guardian G.o.d had made her, heard their quiet breathing whispering into the still, dark night. She went from bed to bed, sank motionless on her knees before each, and pressed her forehead against the sharp edges of the bedsteads.

From the tower of St. George's the bells rang as the step of time pa.s.sed over her; and he did not cease his march. She lay, her hot hands clasped, a long, long time. Then from the gentle web of her feelings there rose, silvery as the sound of Easter morning bells, the thought: why are you afraid of him? And she saw all her angels kneeling About her and he was one of her angels, the most beautiful and the strongest and the gentlest. And she might look up to him as one looks up to his angels. She rose and went back into the other room. She spread the letters out on the table and then laid herself to rest. She meant their possessor to know, when he came home and found the letters, that she had read them. It was hard for her to part with them; but they did not belong to her. She took away only the little box with the withered flower, and meant to tell him in the morning that she had done so.

Fritz Nettenmair still sat on all alone in the wine-tavern. His head hung wearily down on his breast. He justified to himself his hatred and his course of action. His brother and she were false; his brother and she were guilty, not he who sat here squandering what belonged to his children. He who had stolen her heart away from him might look after them. Just at the moment when he had succeeded in convincing himself, the door of the bedroom at home opened. His wife had got up out of bed again and put back the box containing the flower with the letters. Apollonius had not kept it, neither might she. Her husband had not yet thought of going home when she once more pulled the covers over her chaste limbs. In the thought that thence-forward Apollonius should be her lode-star, and that if she acted as he did she would remain pure and safe from evil, she fell asleep and smiled in her slumber like a carefree child.