Joseph in the Snow, and The Clockmaker. In Three Volumes. Vol. II.. Auerbach Berthold
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thorough contempt for purse-pride, as he calls it, he always seems quite contented and at his ease, and pays no attention to the jeers and gibes of his companions. He arrived naturally, first of all, at the Morgenhalde. The family there were all seated at dinner, and were in the act of saying grace, when Lenz uttered such a cry, that his mother often said if she were to hear it again it would be her death. The two friends embraced eagerly. Pilgrim was soon as merry as ever, and said that he had best luck at home, for he had arrived just as dinner was ready, and no one would make him so welcome as the parents and their son at the Morgenhalde. Old Lenz wished Pilgrim to live in his house altogether, but he is unusually jealous of his independence. He erected a neat workshop near us, at Don Bastian's. At first he took great trouble to introduce new patterns of clock dials. He has a very good idea of colour, but his drawing is sadly defective: his chief mistake, however, was endeavouring to alter the original form of our Black Forest dials – a square with an arch above. When he discovered that he made no progress with his novelties, he resumed making the old fashioned timepieces to order, and is now always cheerful and good humoured. You must know that different countries have peculiar tastes in the dials of clocks. France likes bright colours, and the dial painted all over; North Germany, Scandinavia, and England prefer more simple lines, something architectural, triangular figures, columns, or at most a wreath; America likes no ornamental painting, nothing but a wooden clock case with more or less carving, and the weights resting on pulleys at the sides of the clock – these are called American clocks; Hungary and Russia approve of painted fronts or a landscape. The style of decoration that art would sanction as beautiful has seldom good sale; on the contrary, spirals and flourishes are generally most admired. If you could combine that style with the embellishment of our native clocks, you would find Pilgrim quick at executing a design; and you might, perhaps, thus give a fresh impulse to his life."
"I beg you will make me acquainted with the man."
"Certainly – you may accompany me tomorrow – you heard him invite me; but you must come quite early, and then you can cross the hills with me. I will show you some beautiful points of view, and many good honest men."
The Techniker wished them a cordial good night, and the Doctor went into the house with his family.
The moon shone bright in the sky – the flowers emitted their fragrance for themselves alone – and the stars gazed down on them. All was still around, save here and there, when, in passing a house, a clock was heard to strike.
CHAPTER VI.
THE WORLD STEPS IN
"Good morning, Lenz! – so you slept well? – you are still like a child, who sleeps sound after crying till he is worn out," said Faller, in his deep hollow bass voice, next morning. And Lenz replied – "Ah, my friend! to wake, and wake again, and to remember the events of yesterday, is only fresh misery! But I must take courage, I will first of all prepare the security for you: take it to the mayor before he rides out, and remember me to him. By the bye, it has just occurred to me that I dreamt of him. Go to Pilgrim, too, if you have time, and tell him I am waiting at home for him. May good luck attend you! I am so glad that you will now have a roof of your own."
Faller went with the security into the valley, and Lenz began his work; but he first wound up one of the clocks, and it played a hymn. He nodded in unison, while filing a wheel. "That clock plays well: it was her favourite air – my mother's," thought Lenz. The large clock, in a beautifully carved walnut-wood case, as tall as a clothes press, was called "The Magic Flute," for its principal piece was the overture to that opera of Mozart's, besides five other airs: it was already sold to a well-frequented tea-garden near Odessa. A small clock stood beside it, and Lenz was working at a third. He worked unremittingly till noon. He was very hungry, but when he sat down to table alone, all hunger seemed to leave him.
He begged the old maid to sit down with him. She affected great shyness and modesty; however she allowed her scruples at last to be overcome, and when the soup was finished, she even volunteered the remark – "I really see no reason why you should marry."
"Who says that I have any thoughts of marrying?"
"My opinion is that if you do marry you ought to marry the beadle's daughter, Kathrine: she is come of good people, and has a great respect for you – she can talk of nothing but you. Such a wife would be worth having. It would be a bad business if you got a wife to whom you would have to play second fiddle. Girls, now-a-days, are so stylish in their ideas, and think of nothing but dress and vanity."
"I have no thoughts of marriage, especially at this moment."
"And you are right: it is not at all necessary – you will never better yourself, believe me. And I know how you have been coddled all your life, and I will take care to manage every thing so that you may almost think your mother is still in the world. Tell me, don't you find the beans good? I learned how to dress them from your mother – they are the very same. She understood everything, from the greatest thing to the least. You shall see how well pleased you will be while we live together – as happy as the day is long."
"But, Franzl," said Lenz, "I don't think I shall be long as I am."
"Really? Have you any one in your eye already? Look there! – People had agreed that Lenz had nothing in his head but his mother and his clocks! I only hope she comes of a good family. As I told you, Kathrine would be a wife for Saturdays and Sundays; she can work both in the house and in the fields; and her spinning is so first-rate, that I do believe she could spin the very straw off the roof. She thinks more of you than any one, and all that you do and say is sacred in her eyes. She always says – 'All that Lenz does is right,' even when it appears otherwise, like his working yesterday;' and she will have a nice little nest egg of money, and a property besides from her mother, which will be an ample provision for one of your children."
"Franzl, there is no question of marriage at all. I have some idea – I have not yet quite made up my mind – of selling, or letting all my property, and going to foreign parts."
Franzl stared at Lenz in dismay, pausing halfway in lifting the spoon out of the plate to her mouth. Lenz continued – "I will take care to provide for you, Franzl – you shall never know want; but I have never yet seen the world, and I should like to do so, and to see and learn something, and perhaps I may improve in my own calling; and who knows – "
"I have no right to give an opinion," interrupted Franzl, "I am only a foolish woman, though every one knows that we Kunslingers are far from being jackasses. What do I know of the world! but this I do know, that I have not served seven and twenty years in this house without some profit. I came to this house when you were only four years old: you were the youngest child, and the pet of all the family. As for your brothers and sisters – now lying under the green turf; – however, don't let us talk about them just now. I have been seven and twenty years with your mother. I cannot say that I am as clever as she was – for who could you find, far or near, of whom we could say that? But we shall see her no more till the world is at an end. And how often she said – 'Franzl,' said she, 'men rush out into the world just as if in other lands, beyond the Rhine or across the seas, Fortune ran about the streets welcoming all comers – "Good morning, Hans, Michel, and Christoph; I am so glad to see you," said Fortune to Hans, Michel, and Christoph.' 'My good Franzl,' said your mother, 'he who can't get on at home, will do just as little elsewhere; and wherever you go you will find plenty of men; and if it was to rain gold they would take good care to snap it up, and not wait for strangers to come and take their share; and after all, what great good fortune do you get by going out into the world? No one can do more than eat, and drink, and sleep. Franzl,' said she, 'my Lenz, too,' – forgive me, but it was your mother said so – I don't say it of myself, – 'my Lenz also has got some silly nonsense in his head about travel; but where could he be better off than at home; and he is not a man to strive with the wide world.' A man must be a pirate like Petrowitsch, an audacious, niggardly, miserly, hardhearted creature to get on in the world. But, to tell the truth, she said nothing of the kind, for she never said an ill word of any one; but I think it and I say it – and she often appealed to my good feelings, saying – 'Franzl, if my Lenz were to leave home, he would give away the shirt off his back if he saw some poor creature in want of one: he is so tenderhearted, that any one who chooses can impose upon him. Franzl,' said she, 'when I am no longer in the