Danira Part 22

Edith turned hastily away toward the window.

"There is the signal for the train! We have only a few minutes; let us bid each other farewell! Don't look so mournful, Danira, and don't grieve about me. I have no intention of going into a convent or sorrowing all my life. It must be delightful to devote yourself heart and soul to the man of your choice, but that destiny isn't allotted to everybody. It can't be done, as George says."

Just at that moment Gerald entered to tell them that the train was coming. He saw a bright face and heard only gay, cordial parting words.

A few minutes after, Edith was seated in the car, nodding one more farewell through the window; then the train rolled on again and instantly disappeared from the gaze of those left behind.

George had quitted the station with Jovica to take her to his lieutenant's lodgings, where she was to wait for Danira.

There was an immense throng in the great open square outside. All the country people had flocked thither, each one trying to find his or her relatives among the returning soldiers. Everywhere were joyous meetings, shouts of delight, clasping of hands, and embracing, and whoever got into the midst of the residents of his native village, who usually went in troops, was almost stifled with tokens of friends.h.i.+p.

George had hitherto escaped this fate, but now a portly farmer and his equally corpulent wife, worked their way through the throng straight toward him, shouting his name while still a long distance off.

"By all the saints! there are my parents!" cried the young Tyrolese, joyously. "Did you really take the long journey here? Yes, here I am, alive and kicking, and have brought my whole head back with me! That's saying something, when a fellow returns from Krivoscia."

The farmer and his wife instantly seized upon their son and wanted him to walk between them, but Jovica, who, during the exchange of greetings, had remained behind him, now suddenly appeared. She had been frightened by the noise and crowd that surrounded her on all sides, and when she saw that her George was to be taken away she clung to his arm, beseeching him in the Slavonic tongue not to leave her.

The parents looked greatly surprised at the sudden appearance of the young girl who clung so confidingly to their son. Luckily Jovica's extremely childish figure prevented them from suspecting the real relation between the pair.

Yet the farmer frowned, and his wife said slowly: "What does this mean?"

"This means--this is what I've brought back from my journey," replied George, who saw a storm rising which he wished for the present to avoid. Yet he did not release "what he had brought," but held her firmly by the hand.

"What does this mean? How came you by the child?" cried the farmer angrily, and his wife sharply added:

"The girl looks like a gipsy! Where did you pick her up! Out with the whole story."

Jovica, who during the journey had greatly enlarged her knowledge of the language, understood that the people before her were George's parents, but she also perceived their unkind reception. Tears filled her dark eyes, and she timidly repeated the words of greeting she had been taught "How do you do?" But the foreign accent completely enraged the mother.

"She can't even speak German," she cried furiously. "That's a pretty thing! Do you mean to bring her to us at the Moosbach Farm?"

"I won't have it!" said the farmer emphatically. "We want no foreign gipsies in the house. Let the girl go, and come with us; we're going home."

But George was not the man to leave his Jovica in the lurch. He only drew her closer to his side and answered with resolute defiance:

"Where the girl stays I shall stay, and if she cannot come to the farm I'll never return home. You must not scold me about Jovica, my dear parents, for, to tell the truth, I have chosen her for my wife."

His parents stood as if they had been struck by a thunderbolt, staring at their son as though they thought people might lose not only their heads but their wits in Krivoscia. Then a storm burst forth on both sides; it was fortunate that, in the general rejoicing, each person was absorbed in his own friends, and everybody was shouting and talking as loud in delight as Farmer Moosbach and his wife in their wrath, or there would have been a great excitement.

At last George, by dint of his powerful lungs, succeeded in obtaining a hearing.

"Give me a chance to speak for once!" he cried. "You don't know Jovica at all; she's a splendid girl, and even if she is still a pagan--"

He went no further. The thoughtless fellow had used the worst possible expedient. His mother fairly shrieked aloud in horror at the fatal word, and the farmer crossed himself in the face of his future daughter-in-law.

"A pagan! Heaven help us! He wants to bring a pagan into the house.

George, you are possessed by the devil!"

Jovica was trembling from head to foot. She saw only too plainly that she was the object of this aversion and began to weep bitterly, which destroyed the last remnant of George's patience.

"My dear parents," he shouted, with a furious gesture, as if he longed to knock the "dear parents" down, "I've always been an obedient son, but if you receive my future wife so, may a million--"

"George!" cried Jovica, anxiously seizing his uplifted arm with both hands. "George!"

"Yes, indeed--with all filial respect of course," growled George, instantly controlling himself when he heard her voice; but his parents were not soothed, and the quarrel was just kindling anew when Father Leonhard appeared, the crowd reverently making way for him. He hurriedly answered the joyous greetings proffered to him on all sides, and walked hastily up to the disputing family; for he saw that his presence was most needed there.

"G.o.d be with you. Farmer Moosbach," he said. "You and your wife are doubtless rejoicing to have your son back again. He has done well and fought bravely in the campaign, as you see by the medal on his breast."

"Help us, your reverence!" said the mother piteously. "Our boy is bewitched. He has brought home a pagan, a Turk, a witch, and wants to marry her."

"Look at the brown-skinned creature yonder, your reverence," the farmer chimed in with a wrathful laugh. "That's the future mistress of the Moosbach Farm. Say yourself whether George hasn't lost his senses. That is--"

"My pupil, to whom I taught the Christian religion, and who in a short time will receive the holy rite of baptism," said Father Leonhard with marked emphasis, laying his hand kindly with a protecting gesture, on the head of the weeping girl. "You need not reproach your son so harshly; it is princ.i.p.ally due to him that this young soul has been won over to Christianity."

George's mother listened intently to the last words. She was a pious woman and perceived that, if George had such praiseworthy designs, he certainly could not be possessed by the devil. The farmer too was somewhat softened, and muttered:

"That's a different matter! But the girl doesn't come into my house."

"Then I'll take Jovica and go straight back with her to Krivoscia among the savages!" cried George with desperate energy. "I'd rather keep goats with her all my life than live at Moosbach Farm without her.

True, they'll cut off my nose up there and both ears to boot, that's the custom among these barbarians when a new member is admitted, but no matter--I'll bear it for Jovica's sake."

The threat made some impression, especially on the mother, who now heard of this terrible custom for the first time. She clasped her hands in horror and looked at her George's nose, which suited his face so well, but the father angrily exclaimed:

"You'll do no such thing! You'll stay here in Tyrol among Christian people."

"Silence, George!" said Father Leonhard to the young soldier, who was about to make a defiant answer. "Do you want at the first moment of meeting to irritate your parents against you? Let me talk with them.

Come, Farmer Moosbach, and you, too, dame, we will discuss the matter quietly; you have been speaking so loud that everybody is listening."

The attention of the bystanders had indeed been attracted, and George's last words were heard by a large circle of listeners, in whose minds they inspired positive terror. Father Leonhard now drew the parents aside with him and thus the dispute ended, but the report ran like wildfire from lip to lip that George Moosbach had brought home a Turkish girl, whom he wanted to marry, and he intended to have his nose and ears cut off directly after, because that was the custom at pagan weddings.

George did not trouble himself about all this, for Jovica was still weeping, and he at present was trying to comfort her.

"You and no one else will be the mistress of Moosbach Farm," he protested. "Don't cry, Jovica; you see Father Leonhard has taken the matter in hand, so it is half accomplished. A priest can manage everything in our country."

And the priest did not disappoint the confidence reposed in him. True, Father Leonhard had a hard struggle with the angry parents, and it required all their respect for his office to induce them to permit his mediation at all, but he knew how to strike the right chord at once. He explained to them that the object here was to save a soul for heaven, that it was really very meritorious in George to desire to transform the poor pagan girl whom he had found into a Christian wife, and that a share in this blessed work was allotted to them, the parents.

This produced an effect first on the mother, who was really in mortal terror lest her son might fall into paganism if he returned to the wilderness.

Farmer Moosbach and his wife were pious Tyrolese, and the priest's interposition in behalf of the young lovers had great weight with them.

To have their heir woo a young foreign orphan, a poor girl, seemed to them something unprecedented, impossible. But since he desired at the same time to convert a pagan to Christianity and save a soul for heaven, the whole affair a.s.sumed a different shape. That would be talked of far and wide, and surround the Moosbach Farm with an actual halo of sanct.i.ty.

When, in conclusion, Father Leonhard spoke of Gerald's marriage and his mother's consent--wisely maintaining silence about her previous opposition--both his hearers became very thoughtful. If the proud Baroness von Steinach made no objection to a Krivoscian daughter-in-law, plain peasant-folk might surely agree to it.

After repeated and eager discussions they finally sent for their refractory son and heir, who speedily appeared before the tribunal.

"George, you will now go home with your parents and behave like an obedient son," said Father Leonhard, gravely. "When you have taken off your uniform you must prove yourself to be a capable farmer. Meanwhile Jovica will stay with young Frau von Steinach in order to learn German and become familiar with the customs of our country. Next month I intend to confer upon her the holy rite of baptism--your parents have promised to act as G.o.d-father and G.o.d-mother."

"Yes, your reverence, but you must make it a very grand affair, so that it will be talked of throughout the country," said farmer Moosbach, and his wife added: