Edelweiss: A Story. Auerbach Berthold
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one of his musical clocks and made it play a choral. The piece goes well, he said to himself, nodding his head approvingly over the wheel on which he was filing. It was her-my mother's-favorite tune. The great musical clock with the handsomely carved nut-wood case, as tall as a good-sized wardrobe, was called "The Magic Flute," from the overture of that opera, which was the longest of five pieces that it played. It was already sold to a large tea-dealer in Odessa. A smaller clock stood beside it, and near that a third, on which Lenz was working. At noon, after laboring uninterruptedly all the morning, he began to feel hungry; but no sooner had he sat down to his solitary meal than all hunger forsook him. He asked the old serving-maid to eat with him, as she used to do in his mother's lifetime. She consented, after a great show of maidenly delicacy at the idea of dining alone with so young a man; but by the time the soup was finished, she had so far recovered her self-possession as to bring up the question of his marriage and gave her advice against it.
"Who says I mean to marry?"
"I think, if you do, you ought to marry the bailiff's daughter Katharine. She comes of a respectable family, and has the greatest respect for you; she actually swears by you. That would be just the right sort of wife, – not one who would treat you like the very ground she walks on. Girls nowadays are so-so exacting, they care for nothing but dress and show."
"I am not thinking of marrying; certainly not now."
"You are quite right. It is not at all necessary you should. Take my word for it, you will never be better off than you are now. I am used to your ways, and I will keep everything so exactly as your mother did that you will think she is alive again. Don't your beans taste good now? Your mother taught me to cook them so. She understood everything from the greatest to the smallest. You will be as comfortable as can be when we are by ourselves. You see if you are not."
"I don't think we shall keep on as we are, Franzl," said Lenz.
"So you have some one already in your mind, – have you? People fancy Lenz thinks of nothing but his clocks and his mother. Much they know about it! If it is only some girl that comes of a good family. Katharine, now, would be a wife for every day in the week, – for working days and for holidays. She can look after the house and the field, and can spin-you'd think she would spin the very straw down from the roof. Then, too, she swears by you; all you say and all you do is perfect. She always says whatever comes from Lenz is right, however it may look, – like your working yesterday, for instance. Besides, she is well off; what she inherits from her mother alone would be a portion for one of your children."
"I have no thought of marrying, Franzl. Perhaps-I don't know, but perhaps-I shall sell or lease my house and go abroad."
Franzl stared at him in speechless amazement, forgetting even to carry her spoon to her mouth.
"I will provide for you, Franzl; you shall want for nothing. But I have never been out into the world, and should like once to see and learn something. Perhaps I may further my art in some way; who knows?"
"It is none of my business," said Franzl; "I am only an ignorant servant-woman, though we Knuslingers have the reputation of keeping pretty good eyes in our heads. I don't know much about the world; but one thing I do know, and that is, that I have not lived in service twenty-seven years for nothing. I came into this house when you were four years old. You were the youngest and dearest of all the children, and your brothers and sisters in their graves, – but no matter for that now. I have lived with your mother twenty-seven years. I cannot say I am as wise as she was; where is the woman, far or near, who can say that for herself? You'll never find her equal as long as the world lasts. But I learned a good deal from her. How often I have heard her say, 'Franzl, people rush out into the world as if somewhere, across the Rhine or over the sea, fortune were running about the streets, and crying to Tom, Dick, and Harry, "Good morning, Tom, Dick, and Harry; I am glad to see you." Franzl,' your mother used to say, 'if a man can't succeed at home, he won't succeed abroad. There are people enough everywhere to pick up gold, if it does rain down, without waiting for strangers to come and help them. What sort of a fortune can a man make in the world? He can't do more than eat, drink, and sleep. Franzl,' she'd say, 'my Lenz,'-excuse me, it was she that said it, not I, – 'my Lenz, like the rest of them, once got into his head that silly notion of travelling; but where can he be better off than here? He is not fitted for the wild world. One must be a robber, like Petrovitsch, a good-for-nothing, stingy, greedy, cruel wretch.' I don't mean she said that; she never said such a thing of anybody; but I say it and think it. 'If my Lenz were to go abroad,' she said, 'he would give the shirt off his body to the first beggar he met; any one could deceive him, he is so kindhearted. Franzl,' says she, 'if the wandering spirit comes over him when I am gone, Franzl,' says she, 'hang on to his coat, and don't let him stir.' But, good gracious! I can't do that; how can I? I can only speak; and I must speak, for she made me solemnly promise. Just think how well off you are. You have a comfortable house, a good living; you are loved and respected. If you go out into the world, who will care for you? who will know you are Lenz of the Morgenhalde? When you have no place to lay your head, and are obliged to spend the night in the woods, you will think of your house at home and the seven well-stuffed beds that are in it, and the plenty of furniture and dishes, and the wine on tap in the cellar. Sha'n't I fetch you a glass? I'll get you one in a minute. Always drink when you're out of spirits. A thousand times your mother has said, 'Wine cheers a man up, and makes him think of other things.'"
So saying, she hurried out of the room and into the cellar, soon returning with a flagon in her hand. Lenz insisted on her bringing a second glass, and filled it for her himself; but she was too modest to do more than touch her lips to it till she had cleared off the table and retreated with her wine into the kitchen.
Lenz worked on again industriously till evening. The wine or something else made him restless, so that he was several times on the point of throwing down his tools and going out for a walk. But upon second thoughts he concluded to stay at home, and receive the friends who would be sure to seek him out and relieve his loneliness. No one came, however, except Pröbler. He liked Lenz for being one of the few who did not make fun of him, nor laugh at his constantly refusing to sell any of his works of art. He would mortgage them till he lost all power to redeem them. It was said that the landlord of the Lion, who carried on a large business as commissioner and wholesale dealer, owed Pröbler quite a handsome sum on the works he had pawned to him.
Lenz used to listen with all attention and seriousness while Pröbler would talk of his great discovery of the perpetuum mobile, and how he wanted nothing further to bring his work to perfection than the twenty-four diamonds on which it needed to move. In return, the old man willingly gave his help in setting up the standard regulator which was to benefit the whole district; and he really contributed some valuable suggestions, which Lenz was very glad publicly to give him credit for.
To-day, however, Pröbler came neither about a new discovery nor the perpetuum mobile, but to offer himself as mediator in case Lenz was desirous of marrying. He proposed to him a whole list of marriageable girls, among them the doctor's daughters. "You are too modest," he added in conclusion; "all houses are open to you. Tell me honestly in what direction your preference leads you, and I will see that you are met half-way." Lenz hardly vouchsafed an answer to his proposition, and the old man finally departed. The idea that he could have one of the doctor's daughters lingered in Lenz's mind. They were three noble girls. There was a thoughtfulness-an almost motherly carefulness-about the eldest, while the second played and sang beautifully. How often Lenz had stood before the house and listened to her! Music was his one passion. He longed for it as a thirsty man for a spring of water. How would it seem to have a wife who could play the piano? She should play him all the pieces he wanted to put into his clocks; he could make them sound a great deal better after he had heard them. But no; such a wife would be too aristocratic for him. One who could play the piano would not look after the house and the garden and the stable, as a watchmaker's wife must. He would wait quietly.
When twilight came on, Lenz changed his clothes and went down into the valley.
All houses are open to him, Pröbler had said. All houses? that is as bad as none at all. Unless you can enter a house without interrupting the inmates in their occupation; unless no glance, no expression asks, What have you come for? what plan is on foot? unless you are made to feel at home, – you have no house open to you. Lenz