Seldwyla Folks Part 9

From that sinister day on the two peasants sued and countersued each other in court, and neither desisted until both were completely ruined.

The thinking of these two ordinarily shrewd and fair men became fundamentally wrong and fallacious. They were unable to view anything henceforth as unrelated with their quarrel. Their arguments fell short of the mark in everything. The most narrow sense of legality, of what was permitted and what not, filled the head of each of them, and neither was able to understand how the other could seize so entirely without reason or right this bit of soil, in itself so insignificant.

In the case of Manz there was added a wonderful sense for symmetry and parallel lines, and he felt really and truly shortened in his rights by Martins insistence on retaining hold of a fragment of property laid out on different geometrical lines. But both tallied in their conceptions in this that the other must think him a veritable fool to try and get the better of him in this particular manner, in this impudent and unparalleled manner, since to make such an attempt at all was perhaps thinkable in the case of a mere n.o.body, of a man without reputation and substance, but surely not in the case of an upstanding, energetic and able man, of one who was both willing and able to take care of his interests. And it was this consideration above all that rankled and festered in the heart of each of the two once so friendly neighbors.

Each felt himself hurt in his quaint sense of honor, and let himself go headlong in the rush of pa.s.sion and of combativeness, without even attempting at any time to stop the resultant moral and material decay and ruin. Their two lives henceforth resembled the torture of two lost souls who, upon a narrow board, carried along a dark and fearsome river, yet deal tremendous blows at the air, seize upon each other and destroy each other finally, all in the false belief of having seized and trying to destroy their evil fate itself.

As their whole matter in dispute was in itself and on both sides not clean or lucid, they soon got into the hands of all sorts of swindlers and cutthroats, of pettifoggers and evil counselors, men who filled their imagination with glittering bubbles, containing no substance whatever. And especially it was the speculators and dishonest agents of Seldwyla who found this case one after their own heart, and soon each of the two litigants had a whole train of advisers, go-betweens and spies around him, fellows who in all sorts of crooked ways knew how to draw cash money out of them. For the quarrel for that tiny fragment of soil with the stone pyramid on top on which already a perfect forest of weeds, thistles and nettles had grown anew, was only the first stage in a labyrinth of errors that little by little changed the whole character and method of living for the two. It was singular, too, how in the case of two men of about fifty there could shoot up and become fixed an entire crop of new habits and morals, principles and hopes, all of a kind which were foreign to their former natures, how men who all their lives had been noted for their hard common-sense could become day-dreamers and gullible oafs.

And the more money they lost by all this the more they longed to acquire more, and the less they possessed the more persistently they endeavored to become rich and to s.h.i.+ne before their fellows. Thus they easily allowed themselves to be hoodwinked by the clumsiest tricks, and year after year they would play in all the foreign lotteries of which Seldwyla agents were praising to them the splendid chances. But never so much as a dollar came their way in prizes. On the other hand, they forever heard of the big winnings in these lotteries made by others; they also were told that it had hung just by a hair that they would have done as well, and thus they were constantly bled by these leeches of their scantier and scantier means.

Now and then the rascally Seldwylians played a trick on the two deadly enemies which for its peculiar raciness was specially relished by them, the people of Seldwyla, that is. They would sell the two peasants sections of the same lottery tickets, so that Manz as well as Marti would build their hopes of a rich strike on precisely the same fallacious foundation, and also in the end would feel the same despondency from the same source. Half their time the two now spent in town, and there each had his headquarters in a miserable tavern. There they would indulge in foolish bragging and bl.u.s.ter, would drink too much and play the Lord Bountiful to loafers that would flatter the simpletons to the top of their bent, and all the while the dark doubt would a.s.sail them that they who in order not to be reckoned dunces had gone to law about a trifling object, had now really become just that and furthermore, were so reckoned by general consent.

The other half of the time they spent at home, morose and incapable of steady work or sober reflection. Habitually neglecting their farm labor, at times they tried to make up for that by undue haste, overworking their help and thus soon unable to retain any respectable men in their employ.

Thus things went from bad to worse little by little, and within less than ten years both of them were overburdened with debts, and stood like storks with one leg upon their farms, so that the slightest change might blow them over. But no matter how else they fared, the hatred between them grew more intense every day, since each looked upon the other as the cause of his misfortune, as his archenemy, as his foe without rhyme or reason, as the one being in the world whom the devil purposely had invented to ruin him. They spat out before each other when they saw the adversary approaching from afar. n.o.body belonging to them was permitted to speak to wife, child or servants of the other, on pain of instant brutal punishment. Their wives behaved differently under these circ.u.mstances. Marti's wife, who came of good family and was of a fine disposition, did not long survive the rapid downfall of her house and family, sorrowed silently and died before her little daughter was fourteen. The wife of Manz, on the other hand, altered her whole character. Only for the worse, of course. And to do that all she needed to do was to aggravate some of her natural defects, let them go on, so to speak, without bridling them at all. Her pa.s.sion for tidbits and sweets became boundless; her love of gossip deteriorated into a veritable craze, and she soon became unable to tell the truth about anything or anybody. She habitually spoke the very contrary of what was in her thoughts, cheated and deceived her own husband, and found keen pleasure in getting everybody by the ears. Her original frankness and her harmless delight in satisfying her feminine curiosity turned into evil intrigue and the inclination to make mischief between neighbors and friends. Instead of suffering patiently under the rudeness and changed habits of her husband, she fooled him and laughed behind his back in doing so. No matter if he now and then behaved with cruelty to her and his household, she did not care. She denied herself nothing, became more luxurious in her tastes as his money affairs grew steadily more involved, and fattened on the very misfortunes that were rapidly leading to complete ruin.

That with all that the two children fared any better was scarcely to be expected. While still mere human buds and incapable of meeting the harsh fate slowly preparing for them, they were done out of their youth and out of the hopes and advantages incident to their tender years.

Vreni indeed was worse off in this respect than Sali, the boy, since her mother was dead and she was exposed in a wasted home to the tyranny of a father whose violent instincts found no check whatever. When sixteen Vreni had developed into a slender and charming young girl. Her hair of dark-brown naturally curled down to her flas.h.i.+ng eyes; her swiftly coursing blood seemed to s.h.i.+mmer through the delicate oval of her dusky cheeks, and the scarlet of her dainty lips made a strikingly vivid contrast, so that everybody looked twice when she pa.s.sed. And despite her sad bringing-up, an ardent love of life and an inextinguishable cheerfulness were trembling in every fibre of Vreni's being. Laughing and smiling at the least encouragement she forgot her troubles easily, and was always ready for a frolic and a romp if domestic weather permitted at all, that is, if her father did not hinder and torture her too cruelly. However, with all her lightheartedness and her buoyant temperament, the deepening shadows over the house inevitably enshrouded her all too often. She had to bear the brunt of her father's soured disposition, and she had hardly any help in trying to keep house for him after a fas.h.i.+on. On her young shoulders mainly rested the embarra.s.sments of a home constantly threatened by importunate creditors and wild boon companions of her dissolute father. And not alone that. With the natural taste of her s.e.x for a neat and clean appearance her father refused her nearly every means to gratify it. Thus she had great trouble to ornament her pretty person the way it deserved. But somehow she managed to do it, to possess always a becoming holiday attire, including even a couple of vividly colored kerchiefs that set off marvelously her darksome beauty.

Full of youthful animation and gaiety she found it hard to mostly have to renounce all the social pleasures of her years; but at least this prevented her from falling into the opposite extreme. Besides, young as she was, she had witnessed the declining days and the death of her mother, and had been deeply impressed by it, so that this had acted as another restraint on her joyous disposition. It was almost a pathetic sight to observe how notwithstanding all these serious obstacles pretty Vreni instantly would respond to the calls of joy if the occasion was at all favorable, as a flower after drooping in a heavy rainstorm will raise its head at the first rays of the reappearing sun.

Sali was not faring quite so ill. He was a good-looking and vigorous young fellow who knew how to take care of himself and whose size and physical strength alone would have forbidden harsh bodily mistreatment.

He saw, of course, how his parents were sliding down-hill more and more, and he seemed to remember a time when things had been otherwise.

He even carried in his memory the picture of his father as that of an upstanding, determined, serious and energetic peasant, while now he saw before him all the while a man who was a gray-headed dolt, a quarrelsome fool, who with all his fits of impotent rage and all his brag and bl.u.s.ter was every hour more and more crawling backwards like a crawfish. But when these things displeased him and filled him with shame and sorrow, although he could not very well understand how it all had come about, the influence of his mother came to deaden this feeling and to fill him with an unjustified hope of improvement. She would flatter her son in the same extravagant and wholly unreasonable manner which had become her second nature in dealing with the new troubles that were gradually overcoming the whole family. For in order to lead her life of self-indulgence the more easily and to have one critical observer the less, and to make her son her partisan, but also as a vent for her love of display, she contrived to let her son have everything he had a desire for. She saw to it that he was always dressed with care, and entirely too expensively for the means of the family, and indulged him in his pleasures. He on his part accepted all that without much thought or grat.i.tude, since he noticed at the same time how his mother was juggling with and tricking his father, and how she was continually telling untruths and vainly boasting. And while thus allowing his mother to spoil him without paying much attention to the process itself, no great harm was yet done in his case, since he had so far not been much tainted by the vices and sins of mother or father.

Indeed, in his youthful pride he had the strong wish to become, if possible, a man such as he recalled his own father once to have been, a man of substance and of rational and successful conduct of his life.

Sali was really very much as his father knew himself to have been at his own age, and a queer remnant of respectability urged the father to treat his son well. In honoring him he seemed to honor his old self.

Confused reminiscences at such times drifted through his beclouded soul, and they afforded him a species of subconscious delight. But although in this manner Sali escaped some of the natural consequences of the process of domestic decay which was going on around him, he was not able to genuinely enjoy his life and to make rational plans for an a.s.sured future. He felt well enough that he was resting on quicksand, that he was neither doing anything much to bring himself into a position of independence nor to look for any secured future; nor was he learning much towards that end in the broken-down household and on the neglected farm of his father. The work done there was done haphazard style, and no systematic and orderly effort was made to get things done in season. His best consolation, therefore, was to preserve his good reputation, to work with a will on the farm when he could, and to turn his eyes away from a threatening future.

The sole orders laid upon him by his father were to avoid any sort of intercourse with all that bore the name of Marti. All he knew about the matter personally was that Marti had done wrong to his father, and that in Marti's house precisely the same bitter enmity was felt towards the Manz family. Of the details involved in this state of affairs, of the manner in which the old-time good-neighborliness and friends.h.i.+p existing for so many years between the two families had been turned into hatred and scorn Sali knew nothing, these things having shaped themselves at a period of his life when his boyish brain had been unable to grasp their true meaning. He had perforce been content with the verdict of his father, obeying the latter's prohibition to further consort with the Marti people without attempting to ascertain the underlying causes of the quarrel. So far he had not found it difficult to do as his father told him, and he did not meddle in the least with the whole business. He made no effort to either see or avoid Marti and his daughter Vreni, and while he a.s.sumed that his father must be in the right of it, he was no active enemy of the Martis. Vreni, on her part, was differently const.i.tuted from the lad. Having to suffer much more than Sali at home and feeling more deeply than he, woman-fas.h.i.+on, her almost total isolation, she was not so ready to let a sentiment of declared enmity enter her young and untried heart. In fact, she rather believed herself scorned and despised by the much better clad and apparently also much more fortunate former playmate. It was, therefore, only from a feeling of embarra.s.sment that she hid from him, and whenever he came near enough to perceive her, she fled from him. He indeed never troubled to glance at her. So it happened that Sali had not seen the girl near enough for a couple of years to know what she was like. He had no notion that she was now almost grown-up, and that she was distinctly beautiful. And yet, once in a while he would remember her as his little playmate, as the merry companion of his carefree boyhood, and when at his home the Martis were mentioned he instinctively wondered what had become of her and how she would look now. He certainly did not hate her. In his memory she lived in a shadowy sort of way as a rather attractive girl.

It was his father, Manz, now who first had to go under. He was no longer able to stave off his creditors and had to leave farm and house behind. That he, though somewhat of better means originally than his neighbor and foe, was first to collapse was owing to his wife, who had lived in quite an extravagant style, and then he, too, had a son who, after all, cost him something. Marti, as we know, had but a little daughter who was scarcely any expense to him. Manz did not know what else to do but to follow the advice of some Seldwyla patrons and move to town, there to turn mine host of an inn or low tavern. It is always a sad sight to see a former peasant of some substance, a man who has been leading for many years a life of unremitting toil, it is true, but also one of independence and usefulness, after growing old among his acres, seek refuge from ill-fortune in town, taking the small remnants of his belongings with him and open a poor, shabby resort, in order to play, as the last safety anchor, the amiable and seductive host, all the while feeling by no means in a holiday mood himself. When the Manz family then left their farm to take this desperate step, it was first apparent how poor they had already grown. For all the household goods that were loaded on a cart were in a deplorable state, defective and not repaired for many years. Nevertheless the wife put on her best finery, when seating herself on top of the crazy old vehicle, and made a face of such pride as though she already looked down upon her neighbors as would a city lady of taste and refinement, while all the while the villagers peeped from behind their hedges full of pity at the sorry show made by the exodus. For Mother Manz had settled it in her foolish noddle to turn the heads of all Seldwyla by her fine manners and her wheedling tongue, thinking that if her boorish husband did not understand how to handle and cajole the town folks, it was vastly different with herself who would soon show these Seldwyla people what an alluring hostess she would make at the head of a tavern or inn doing a rus.h.i.+ng business.

Great was her disenchantment, however, when she actually set eyes on this inn vaunted so much in advance by her addled spirits. For it was located in a small side-street of a rather disreputable quarter of Seldwyla, and the inn itself was one in which the predecessor, one of several that had gone the same way, had just been forcibly ousted because of being unable to pay his debts. His Seldwyla patrons had, in fact, rented this mean public house for a few hundred dollars a year to Manz in consideration of the fact that the latter still had some small sums outstanding in town, and because they could find n.o.body else to take the place at a venture. They also sold him a few barrels of inferior wine as well as the fixtures which consisted in the main of a couple of dozen gla.s.ses and bottles, and of some rude and hacked pine tables and benches that had once been painted a hue of deadly scarlet and were now reduced to a dingy brownish tint. Before the entrance door an iron hoop was clattering in the wind, and inside the hoop a tin hand was pouring out forever claret into a small shoppen vessel. Besides all these luxuries there was a sun-dried bunch of datura fastened above the door, all of which Manz had noted down in his lease. Knowing all this Manz was by no means so full of hopes and smiling humor as his spouse, but on the contrary whipped up his bony old horses, lent him by the new owner of his farm, with considerable foreboding. The last shabby helper he had had on his farm had left him several weeks before, and when he left the village on this his present errand he had not failed to note Marti who, full of grim joy and scorn, had busied himself with some trifling task along the road where his fallen foe had to pa.s.s. Manz saw it, cursed Marti, and held him to be the sole cause of his downfall.

But Sali, as soon as the cart was fairly on the way, got down, speeded up his steps and reached the town along by-paths.

"Well, here we are," said Manz, when the cart had reached its destination. His wife was crestfallen when she noticed the dreary and unpropitious aspect of the place. The people of the neighborhood stepped in front of their housedoors to have a look at the new innkeeper, and when they saw the rustic appearance of the outfit and the miserable trappings, they put on their Seldwyla smile of superiority. Wrathfully Mother Manz climbed down from her high seat, and tears of anger were in her eyes as she quickly fled into the house, her limber tongue for once forsaking her. On that day at least she was no more seen below. For she herself was well aware of the sorry show made by her, and all the more as the tattered condition of her furniture could not be concealed from prying eyes when the various articles were now being unloaded. Her musty and torn beds, particularly, she felt ashamed of. Sali, too, shared her feelings, but he was obliged to help his father in unloading, and the two made quite a stir in the neighborhood with their rustic manners and speech, furnis.h.i.+ng the curious children with food for laughter. These little folks, indeed, amused themselves abundantly that day at the expense of the "ragged peasant bankrupts." Inside the house, though, things looked still more desolate; the place, in fact, had more the looks of a robbers' roost than of an inn. The walls were of badly calsomined brick, damp with moisture, and beside the dark and poorly furnished guest room downstairs there were but a couple of bare and uninviting bedrooms, and everywhere their predecessor had left behind nothing but spider's webs, filth and dust.

That was the beginning of it, and thus it continued to the end. During the first few weeks indeed there came, especially in the evenings, a number of people anxious to see, out of sheer curiosity, "the peasant landlord," hoping there would be "some fun." But out of the landlord himself they could not get much of that, for Manz was stiff, unfriendly, and melancholy, and did not in the least know how to treat his guests, nor did he want to know. Slowly and awkwardly he would pour out the wine demanded, put it before the customer with a morose air, and then make an unsuccessful attempt to enter into some sort of conversation, but brought forth only some stammered commonplaces, whereupon he gave it up. All the more desperately did his wife endeavor to entertain her guests, and by her ludicrous and absurd behavior really managed, for a few days at least, to amuse people. But she did this in quite a different way from that intended by her. Mother Manz was rather corpulent, and she had from her own inventive brain composed a costume in which to wait on her guests and in which she believed herself to be simply irresistible. With a stout linen skirt she wore an old waist of green silk, a long cotton ap.r.o.n and a ridiculous broad collar around the neck. Out of her hair, no longer abundant, she had twisted corkscrew curls ornamenting her forehead, and in the back she had stuck a tall comb into her thin braids. Thus made up she mincingly danced on the tips of her toes before the particular guest to be entranced, pointed her mouth in a laughable manner, which she thought was "sweet," hopped about the table with forced elasticity, and serving the wine or the salted cheese she would exclaim smilingly: "Well, well, so alone? Lively, lively, you gentlemen!" And some more of such nonsense she would whisper in a stilted way, for the trouble was that although usually she could talk glibly about almost anything with her cronies from the village, she felt somewhat embarra.s.sed with these city people, not being acquainted with the subjects of conversation they liked to touch on. The Seldwyla people of the roughest type who had dropped in for something to laugh at, put their hands before their mouths to prevent bursting out in her face, nearly suffocated with suppressed merriment, trod upon each other's feet under the table, and afterwards, in relating the matter, would say: "Zounds, that is a woman among a thousand, a paragon!" Another one said: "A heavenly creature, by the G.o.ds. It is worth while coming here just to watch her antics.

Such a funny one we haven't had here for a long while."

Her husband noticed these goings on, with a mien of thunder, and he would perhaps punch her in the ribs and say: "You old cow, what is the matter with you?"

But then she gave him a superior glance, and would murmur: "Don't disturb me! You stupid old fool, don't you see how hard I am trying to please people? Those over there, of course, are only low fellows from among your own acquaintance, but if you don't interfere with me I shall soon have much more fas.h.i.+onable guests here, as you'll see."

These illusions of hers were illuminated in a room with but two tallow dips, but Sali, her son, went out into the dark kitchen, sat down at the hearth and wept about father and mother.

However, these first guests had soon their fill of this kind of sport, and began to stay away, and then went back to their old haunts where they got better drink and more rational conversation, and there they would laughingly comment on the queer peasant innkeepers. Only once in a while now a single guest of this type would drop in, usually to verify previous reports heard by him, and such a one found as a rule nothing more exciting to do than to yawn and gaze at the wall. Or perhaps a band of roystering blades, having heard the place spoken of by others, would wind up a jolly evening by a brief visit, and then there would be noise enough, but not much else, and the old couple could often not even thus be roused from their melancholy. For by that time both wife and husband had grown heartily sick of their bargain.

The new style of living felt to him almost as lonesome and cold as the grave. For he who as a lifelong farmer had been used to see the sun rise, to hear and feel the wind blow, to breathe the pure air of the country from morning till night, and to have the suns.h.i.+ne come and go, was now cooped up within these dingy, hopeless walls, had to draw in his lungs with every breath the contaminated atmosphere of this miserable neighborhood, and when he thus dreamed day-dreams of the wide expanse of the fields he once owned and tilled, a dull sort of despair settled down on him like a pall. For hours and hours every day he would stare in a dark humor at the smoke-begrimed ceiling of his inn, having mostly little else to do, and dull visions of a future unrelieved by a single ray of hope would float across his saturnine mind. Insupportable his present life seemed to him then. Then a purposeless restlessness would come over him, when he would get up from his seat a dozen times an hour, run to the housedoor and peer out, then run back and resume his watch. The neighbors had already given him a nickname. The "wicked landlord," they dubbed him, because his glance was troubled and fierce.

Not long and they were totally impoverished, had not even enough ready money left to put in the little in drink and provisions needed for chance customers, so that the sausages and bread, the wine and liquor that were ordered by guests had to be got on trust. Often they even lacked the wherewithal to make a meal of, and had to go hungry for a while. It was a curious tavern they were keeping. When somebody strolled in by accident and demanded refreshment they were forced to send to the nearest compet.i.tor, around the corner, and obtain a measure of wine and some food, paying for it an hour or so later when they themselves had been paid. And with all that, they were expected to play the cheerful host and to talk pleasantly when their own stomachs were empty. They were almost glad when n.o.body came; then each of them would cower in a dark corner by the chimney, too lethargic to stir.

When Mother Manz underwent these sad experiences she once more took off her green silk waist, and another metamorphosis was noticed. As formerly she had shown a number of feminine vices, so now she exhibited some feminine virtues, and these grew with the evil times. She began to practice patience and sought to cheer up her morose husband and to encourage her young son in trying for remunerative work. She sacrificed her own comfort and convenience even, went about like a happy busybody, and chattered incessantly merrily, all in an attempt to put some heart into the two men. In short, she exerted in her own queer way an undoubted beneficial influence on them, and while this did not lead to anything tangible it helped at least to make things bearable for the time being and was far better than the reverse would have been. She would rack her poor brains, and give this advice or that how to mend things, and if it miscarried she would have something fresh to propose.

Mostly she proved in the wrong with her counsel, but now and then, in one of the many trivial ways that her petty mind was dwelling on she was successful. When the contrary resulted, she gaily took the blame, remained cheerful under discouragement, and, in short, did everything which, if she had only done it before things were past repair, might have really cured the desperate situation.

In order to have at least some food in the house and to pa.s.s the dull time, father and son now began to devote their leisure time to the sport of fis.h.i.+ng, that is, with the angle, as far as it is permissible to everybody in Switzerland. This, be it said, was also one of the favorite pastimes of those decrepit Seldwylians who had come to grief in the world, most of them having failed in business. When the weather was favorable, namely, and when the fish took the bait most readily, one might see dozens of these gentry wander off provided with rod and pail, and on a walk along the sh.o.r.es of the river you might see one of them, every little distance, angling, the one in a long brown coat once of fas.h.i.+onable make, but with his bare feet in the water, the next attired in a tattered blue frock, astride an old willow tree, his ragged felt hat shoved over his left ear. Farther down even you might perceive a third whose meagre limbs were wrapped in a shabby old dressing gown, since that was the only article of clothing he had left, his long tobacco pipe in one hand, and an equally long fis.h.i.+ng rod in the other. And in turning a bend of the river one was apt to encounter another queer customer who stood, quite nude, with his bald head and his fat paunch, on top of a flat rock in the river. This one had, though almost living in the water during the warm season, feet black as coal, so that it looked from a distance as if he had kept his boots on.

Each of these worthies had a pot or a small box at his side, in which were swarming angle worms, and to obtain these they were industriously digging at all hours of the day not actually employed in fis.h.i.+ng.

Whenever the sky began to cloud up and the air became close and sultry, threatening rain, these quaint figures could be seen most numerously along the softly rolling stream, immovable like a congregation of ancient saints on their pillars. Without ever deigning to cast a glance in their direction, rustics from farm and forest used to pa.s.s them by, and the boatmen on the river did not even look their way, whereas these lone fishermen themselves used to curse in a forlorn way at these disturbers of their prey.

If Manz had been told twelve years before when he was still plowing with a fine team of horses across the hillock above the sh.o.r.e, that he, too, one day would join this strange brotherhood of the rod, he would probably have treated such a prophet rather roughly. But even to-day Manz hastened past those fishermen that were rather crowding one another, until he stood, upstream and alone, like a wrathful shadow of Hades, by himself, just as if he preferred even in the abode of the d.a.m.ned a spot of his own choosing. But to stand thus with a rod, for hours and hours, neither he nor his son Sali had the patience, and they remembered the manner in which peasants in their own neighborhood used to catch fish, especially to grasp them with their hands in the purling brooks. Therefore, they had their rods with them only as a ruse, and they walked upstream further and further, following the tortuous windings of the water, where they knew from of old that trout, dainty and expensive trout, were to be had.

Meanwhile Marti, though he had still nominal possession of his farm, had likewise been drifting from bad to worse, without any gleam of hope.

And since all toil on his land could no more avert the final catastrophe, and time hung heavy on his hands, he also had taken to this sport of fis.h.i.+ng. Instead of laboring in his neglected fields he often would fish for days and days at a time. Vreni at such times was not permitted to leave him, but had to follow him with pail and nets, through wet meadows and along brooks and waterholes, whether there was rain or s.h.i.+ne, while neglecting her household labors at home. For at home not a soul had remained, neither was there any need, since Marti little by little had already lost nearly all his land, and now owned but a few more acres of it, and these he tilled either not at all or else, together with his daughter, in the slovenliest way.

Thus it came to pa.s.s that he, too, one early evening was walking along the borders of a rapid and deep brook, one in which trout were leaping plentifully, since the sky was overhung with dark and threatening clouds, when without any warning he encountered his enemy, Manz, who was coming along on the other side of it. As soon as he made him out a fearful anger began to gnaw at his very vitals. They had not been so near each other for years, except when in court facing the judge, and then they had not been permitted to vent their hatred and spite, and now Marti shouted full of venom: "What are you doing here, you dog?

Can't you stay in your den in town? Oh, you Seldwylian loafer!"

"Don't talk as if you were something better, you scoundrel," growled Manz, "for I see you also catching fish, and thus it proves you have nothing better to do yourself!"

"Shut your evil mouth, you fiend," shrieked Marti, since to make himself heard above the rush of waters he had to strain his voice. "You it is who have driven me into misery and poverty."

And since the willows lining the brook now also were shaken by the gathering storm, Manz was forced to shout even louder: "If that is true, then I should feel glad, you woodenhead!"

And thus, a duel of the most cruel taunts went on from both borders of the brook, and finally, driven beyond endurance, each of the two half-crazed men ran along the steep path, trying to find a way across the deep water. Of the two Marti was the most envenomed because he believed that his foe, being a landlord and managing an inn, must at least have food enough to eat and liquor to drink, besides leading a jolly sort of life, while he was barely able to eke out a meal or two on the coa.r.s.est fare. Besides, the memory of his wasted farm stung him to violence. But Manz, too, now stepped along lively enough on his side of the water, and behind him his son, who, instead of sharing his father's grim interest in the quarrel, peeped curiously and amazedly at Vreni. She, the girl, followed closely behind her father, deeply ashamed at what she heard and looking at the ground, so that her curly brown hair fell over her flushed face. She carried in her hand a wooden fishpail, and in the other her shoes and stockings, and had shortened her skirt to avoid its dragging in the wet. But since Sali was walking on the other side and seemed to watch her, she had allowed her skirt to drop, out of modesty, and was now thrice embarra.s.sed and annoyed, since she had not alone to carry all, pail, nets, shoes and stockings, but also to hold up her skirt and to feel humiliated because of this bitter and vulgar quarrel. If she had lifted her eyes and read Sali's face, she would have seen that he no longer looked either proud or elegant as. .h.i.therto his image had dwelt in her mind, but that, on the contrary, the young man also wore a distressed and humbled mien.

But while Vreni so entirely ashamed and disconcerted kept her eyes on the ground, and Sali stared in amazement at this dainty and graceful being that had so suddenly crossed his path, and who seemed so weighed down by the whole occurrence, they did not properly observe that their fathers by now had become silent but were both of them striving in increased rage to reach the small wooden bridge a short distance off and which led across to the other sh.o.r.e.

Just then the first forks of lightning were weirdly illuminating the scene. The thunder was rolling in the dun clouds, and heavy drops of rain were already falling singly, when these two men, almost driven out of their senses, simultaneously reached the tiny bridge with their hurried and determined tread, and as soon as near enough seized each other with the iron grip of the rustic, striking with all the power they could summon with clenched fists into the hateful face of the adversary. Blows rained fast and furious, and each of the combatants gnashed his teeth with rage.

It is not a becoming nor a handsome sight to see elderly men usually soberminded and slow to act in a personal encounter, no matter whether occasioned by anger, provocation or self-defense, but such a spectacle is harmless in comparison with that of two aged men who attack each other with uncontrolled fury because while knowing the other deeply and well, now out of the depths of that very knowledge and out of a fixed belief that the other has destroyed his very life, seize each other with their naked fists and try to commit murder from unrequited revenge. But thus these two men now did, both with hair gray to the roots. More than fifty years ago they had last fought with each other as lads, merely out of a youthful spirit of rivalry, but during the half century succeeding they had never laid hands on each other, except when, as good neighbors and fellow-peasants, they had grasped each other's hand in peace and concord, but even that, with their rather dry and undemonstrative ways, but rarely. After the first two or three frenzied blows, they both became silent, and now they struggled and wrestled in all the agony of senile impotence, their stiffened muscles and tendons stretched with the tension, murder in their glaring eyes, each groaning with the supreme effort to master the other. They now attempted, both of them, to end the fearsome fight by pus.h.i.+ng the other over into the rus.h.i.+ng flood below, the slender supports of the rails creaking under the pressure. But now at last their children had reached the spot, and Sali, with a bound, came to his father's help, to enable the latter to make an end of the hated foe, Marti being just about spent and exhausted. But Vreni also sprang, dropping all her burdens, to the rescue, and after the manner of women in such cases, embracing her father tightly and really thus rendering him unable to move and defend himself. Tears streamed from her eyes, and she looked with silent appeal at Sali, just at the moment when he was about also to grasp old Marti by the throat. Involuntarily he laid his hand upon the arm of his father, thus restraining him, and next attempted to wrest his father loose. The combat thus grew into a mutual swaying back and forth, and the whole group was impotently straining and pus.h.i.+ng, without either party coming to a rest.

But during this confused jumbling the two young people had, interfering between their elders, more and more approached each other, and just at this juncture a break in the dark bank of clouds overhead let the piercing rays of the setting sun reach the scene and illuminate it with a blinding flash, and then it was that Sali looked full into the countenance of the girl, rosy and embellished by the excitement. It was to Sali like a glimpse of another, a brighter and more heavenly world.

And Vreni at the same instant, too, quickly observed the impression she had made on her onetime playmate, and she smiled for the fraction of a second at him, right in the midst of her tears and her fright. Sali, however, recovered himself instantly, warned by the energetic struggles of his father to shake off the restraining arm of his son. By holding him firmly and by speaking with authority to his father, he managed to calm him down at last and to push him out of the reach of the other.

Both old fellows breathed hard at this outcome of their desperate fight, and began again to heap insults on one another, finally turning away, however. Their children, though, were now silent in the midst of their relief. But in turning away and separating they for a moment glanced once more at each other, and their two hands, cool and moist from the water and the rain, met and each noticed a slight pressure.

When the two old men turned from the scene, the clouds once more closed, darkness fell, and the rain now poured down in torrents. Manz preceded his son upon the obscured wet paths, bent to the cold rain, and the terrific excitement still trembled in his features. His teeth were chattering, and unseen tears of defeated hatred ran into his stubbly beard. He let them run, and did not even wipe them away, because he was ashamed of them, and had no wish for his son to see them.

But his son had seen nothing. He went through rain and storm in an ecstasy of happiness. He had forgotten all, his misery and the awful scene just witnessed, his poverty and the darkness around him. In his heart there was a happy song. Light and warm and full of joy everything within him was. He felt as rich and powerful as a king's son. He saw nothing but the smile of a second. He saw the beautiful face lit up by the miracle of love. And he returned that smile only now, a half hour later, and he laughed at the beautiful face and returned its gaze, looking into the night and storm as into a paradise, the face s.h.i.+ning through the murk of rain like a guiding star. Indeed, he believed Vreni could not help noticing his answering smile miles away, and was smiling back at him.

Next day his father was stiff and sore and would not leave the house, and to him the whole wretched meeting with his foe and the whole development of the enmity between them, and the long years of misery that had grown out of it suddenly seemed to take on a new form and to become much plainer, while its influence spread around even in his dusky tavern. So much so that both Manz and his wife were moving about like ghosts, out of one room into another, into the cheerless kitchen and the bedchambers, and thence back again into the equally bare and dark guest room, where not a person was to be seen all day. At last they both began to grumble, one blaming the other for things that had gone wrong, dropping into an uneasy slumber from time to time from which a nightmare would waken them with a start, and in which their unquiet consciences upbraided them for past misdeeds. Only Sali heard and saw nothing of all this, for his mind was entirely engrossed with Vreni. Still the illusion was strong with him of being immeasurably wealthy, but beside that he had a hallucination that he was powerful and had learned how to conduct the most complicated and important affairs in the world. He felt as if he knew all the wisdom on earth, everything great and beautiful. And forever there stood before his dreamy soul, clear and distinct, that great happening of the night before, that wonderful creature with her enticing smile, that smile which had shed a blinding flash of happiness on his path. The consciousness of this great adventure dwelt with him like an unspeakable secret, of which he was the sole possessor and which had fallen to his share direct from heaven. It afforded him constant food for thought and wonderment. And yet with all that it seemed also to him that he had always known this would happen to him, and as if what now filled him with such marvelous sweetness had always dwelt in his heart.

For nothing is just like this happiness of love, this sharing of a mystery between two persons, which approaches human beings in the form of unspeakable bliss, yet in a form so clear and precise, sanctioned and sanctified by the priest, and endowed with a name so mellifluously fine that no other word sounds half so sweet as Love.

On that day Sali felt neither lonesome nor unhappy; where he went and stood Vreni's image followed him and glowed in his inner self; and this without a moment's respite, one hour after another. But while his whole being was engrossed with the lovely image of the girl at the same time its outlines constantly became blurred, so that, after all, he lost the faculty of reproducing it clearly. If he had been asked to describe her in detail he would have been unable to do it. Always he saw her standing near him, with that wizard smile; he felt her warm breath and the whole indefinable charm of her presence, but it was for all that like something which is seen but once and then vanishes forever. Like something the potency of which one cannot escape and yet which one never can know. In dreaming thus he was able to recall fully the features of her when still a tiny maiden, and to experience a most p.r.o.nounced pleasure in doing so, but the one Vreni of yesterday he could not recall as plainly. If indeed he had never seen Vreni again it might be that his memory would have pieced her personality together, little by little, until not the slightest bit had been wanting. But now all the strength of his mind did not suffice to render him this service, and this was because his senses, his eyes, imperatively demanded their rights and their solace, and when in the afternoon the sun was s.h.i.+ning brilliantly and warm, gilding the roofs of all these blackened housetops, Sali almost unconsciously found himself on the way towards his old home in the country, which now seemed to him a heavenly Jerusalem with twelve s.h.i.+ning portals, and which set his heart to beating feverishly as he approached it.

While on his way, though, he met Vreni's father, who with hurried and disordered steps was going in the direction of the town. Marti looked wild and unkempt, his gray beard had not been shorn for many weeks, and altogether he presented indeed the picture of what he was: a wicked and lost peasant who had got rid of his land and who now was intent on doing evil to others. Nevertheless, Sali under these radically different circ.u.mstances did not regard the crazed old man with hatred but rather with fear and awe, as though his own life was in the hands of this man and as though it were better to obtain it by favor than by force. Marti, however, measured the young man with a black look, glancing at him from his feet upwards, and then he went his way silently. But this encounter came most opportunely to Sali. For seeing the old man leaving the village on an errand it for the first time became quite clear to him what his own object had been in coming. Thus he proceeded stealthily on by-paths towards the village, and when reaching it cautiously felt his way through the small lanes until he had Marti's house and outbuildings right in front of him.

For several years past he had not seen this spot so closely. For even while he still dwelt in the village itself he had been forbidden to approach the Marti farm, avoiding meeting the family with whom his father lived on terms of enmity. Therefore he was now full of wonder at what, just the same, he had had ample opportunity to observe in the case of his own father's property. Amazedly he stared at this once prosperous and well-cultivated farm now turned into a waste. For Marti had had one section after another of his property sequestrated by orders of the court, and now all that was left was the dwelling house itself and the s.p.a.ce around it, with a bit of vegetable garden and a small field up above the river, which latter Marti had for some time been defending in a last desperate struggle with the judicial power.