Part 17

These silly remarks Sali made because he wanted to keep his hands busy and to have a pretext for the awkward caresses he attempted and which his love for the beautiful girl hungered for. But she continued the childish dialogue willingly enough for some time longer, showing plenty of patience the while, feeling instinctively her lover's mood. And the simple sallies on both sides seemed to them the height of wisdom, so soft and sweet and full of their mutual feelings they were. At last, however, Sali waxed bold and aggressive, and seized Vreni and pressed her down into the scarlet bed of poppies by main strength. There she lay panting, blinking at the sun with eyes half-closed. Her softly rounded cheeks glowed like ripe apples and her mouth was breathing hard so that the snow-white rows of teeth became visible. Daintily as if penciled her eyebrows were defined above those flashing eyes, and her young bosom rose and fell under the working four hands which mutually caressed and fought each other. Sali was beyond himself with delight, seeing this wonderful young creature before him, knowing her to be his own, and he deemed himself wealthier than a monarch.

"I see you still have all your teeth," he said. "Do you recall how often we tried to count them? Do you now know how to count?"

"Oh, you silly," smilingly rejoined Vreni, "these are not the same. Those I lost long ago."

So Sali in the simplicity of his soul wanted to renew the game, and prepared to count them over once more. But Vreni abruptly rose and closed her mouth. Then she began to form a wreath of poppies and to place it on her head. The wreath was broad and long, and on the brow of the nut-brown maid it was an ornament so bewitching as to lend her an enchanting air. Sali held in his arms what rich people would have dearly paid for if merely they had had it painted on their walls.

But at last she sprang up. "Goodness, how hot it is here! Here we remain like ninnies and allow ourselves to be roasted alive. Come, dear, and let us sit among the corn!"

And they got up and looked for a suitable hiding-place among the tall wheat. When they had found it, they slipped into the furrows of the field so that nobody would have discovered them without regular search, leaving no trace behind, and they built for themselves a narrow nest among the golden ears that topped their heads when they were seated, so that they only saw the deep azure of the sky above and nothing else in the world. They clung to each other tightly, and showered kisses on cheeks and hair and mouth, until at last they desisted from sheer exhaustion, or whatever one wishes to call it when the caresses of two lovers for one or two minutes cease and thus, right in the ecstasy of the blossom tide of life, there is the hint of the perishableness of everything mundane. They heard the larks singing high overhead, and sought them with their sharp young eyes, and when they thought they saw one flashing along in the sunlight like shooting stars along the firmament, they kissed again, in token of reward, and tried to cheat and to overreach each other at this game just as much as they could.

"Do you see, there is one flitting now," whispered Sali, and Vreni replied just as low: "I can hear it, but I do not see it."

"Oh, but watch now," breathed Sali, "right there, where the small white cloud is floating, a hand's breadth to the right."

And then both stared with all their might, and meanwhile opened their lips, thirsty and hungry for more nourishment, like young birds in their nest, in order to fasten these same lips upon the other if perchance they both felt convinced of the existence of that lark.

But now Vreni made a stop, in order to say, very seriously and importantly: "Let us not forget; this, then, is agreed, that each of us loves the other. Now, I wish to know, what do you have to say about your sweetheart?"

"This," said Sali, as though in a dream, "that it is a thing of beauty, with two brown eyes, a scarlet mouth, and with two swift feet. But how it really is thinking and believing I have no more idea than the Pope in Rome. And what can you tell me about your lover? What is he like?"

"That he has two blue eyes, a bold mouth and two stout arms which he is swift to use. But what his thoughts are I know no more than the Turkish sultan."

"True," said Sali, "it is singular, but we really do not know what either is thinking. We are less acquainted than if we had never seen each other before. So strange towards each other the long time between has made us. What really has happened during the long interval since we grew up in your dear little head, Vreni?"

"Not much," whispered Vreni, "a thousand foolish things, but my life has been so hard that none of them could stay there long."

"You poor little dear," said Sali in a very low voice, "but nevertheless, Vreni, I believe you are a sly little thing, are you not?"

"That you may learn, by and by, if you really are fond of me, as you say," the young girl murmured.

"You mean when you are my wife," whispered Sali.

At these last words Vreni trembled slightly, and pressed herself more tightly into his arms, kissing him anew long and tenderly. Tears gathered in her eyes, and both of them all at once became sad, since their future, so devoid of hope, came into their minds, and the enmity of their fathers.

Vreni now sighed deeply and murmured: "Come, Sali, I must be going now."

And both rose and left the cornfield hand in hand, but at the same instant they spied Vreni's father. With the idle curiosity of the person without useful employment he had been speculating, from the moment he had met Sali hours before, what the young man might be wanting all alone in the village. Remembering the occurrence of the previous day, he finally, strolling slowly towards the town, had hit upon the right cause, merely as the result of venom and suspicion. And no sooner had his suspicion taken on a definite shape, when he, in the middle of a Seldwyla street, turned back and reached the village. There he had vainly searched for Vreni everywhere, at home and in the meadow and all around in the hedges. With increasing restlessness he had now sought her right near by in the cornfield, and when picking up there Vreni's small vegetable basket, he had felt sure of being on the right track, spying about, when suddenly he perceived the two children issuing from the corn itself.

They stood there as if turned to stone. Marti himself also for a moment did not move, and stared at them with evil looks, pale as lead. But then he started to curse them like a fiend, and used the vilest language toward the young man. He made a vicious grab at him, attempting to throttle him. Sali instantly wrested himself loose, and sprang back a few paces, so as to be out of the reach of the old man, who acted like one demented. But when he perceived that Marti instead of himself now took hold of the trembling girl, dealing her a violent blow in the face, then seizing her by the back of her hair, trying to drag her along and mistreat her further, he stepped up once more. Without reflecting at all he picked up a rock and struck the old man with it against the side of the head, half in fear of what the maniac meant to do to Vreni, and half in self-defense. Marti after the blow stumbled a step or two, and then fell in a heap on a pile of stones, pulling his daughter down with him in so doing. Sali freed her hair from the rough grasp of the unconscious man, and helped the girl to her feet. But then he stood lifeless, not knowing what to say or do.

The girl seeing her father lying prone on the ground like dead, put her hands to her face, shuddered and whispered: "Have you killed him?"

Sali silently nodded his head, and Vreni shrieked: "Oh, God, oh, God! It is my father! The poor man!"

And quite out of her senses she knelt down alongside of him, lifted up his head and began to examine his hurt. But there was no flow of blood, nor any other trace of injury. She let the limp body drop to the ground again. Sali put himself on the other side of the unconscious old man, and both of them stared helplessly at the pale and motionless face of Marti. They were silent and their hands dropped.

At last Sali remarked: "Perhaps he is not dead at all. I don't think he is dead. That blow can never have killed him."

Vreni tore a leaf off one of the wild roses near her, and held it before the mouth of her father. The leaf fluttered a little.

"He is still alive," she cried, "Run to the village, Sali, and get assistance."

When Sali sprang up and was about to run off, she stretched out her hand towards him, and cried: "Don't come back with the others and say nothing as to how he came by his injury. I shall keep silent and betray nothing."

In saying which the poor girl showed him a face streaming with tears of distress, and she looked at her lover as though parting from him forever.

"Come and kiss me once more," she murmured. "But no, get along with you. Everything is over between us. We can never belong to each other." And she gave him a gentle push, and he ran with a heavy heart down the path to the village.

On his way he met a small boy, one he did not know, and him he bade to get some people and described in detail where and what assistance was required. Then he drifted off in despair, wandering at random all night about the woods near the village.

In the early morning he cautiously crept forth, in order to spy out how things had gone during the night. From several persons early astir he heard the news. Marti was alive, but out of his senses, and nobody, it seemed, knew what really had happened to him. And only after learning this his mind was so far at ease that he found the way back to town and to his father's tavern, where he buried himself in the family misery.

Vreni had kept her word. Nothing could be learned of her but that she had found her father in this condition, and as he on the next day became again quite active, breathed normally and began to move about, although still without his full senses, and since, besides, there was no one to frame a complaint, it was assumed that he had met with some accident while under the influence of drink, probably had had a bad fall on the stones, and matters were left as they were.

Vreni nursed him very carefully, never left his side, except to get medicine and remedies from the shop of the village doctor, and also to pick in the vegetable patch something wherewith to cook him and herself a simple stew or soup. Those days she lived almost on air, although she had to be about and busy day and night and nobody came to help her. Thus nearly six weeks elapsed until the old man recovered sufficiently to take care of himself, though long before that he had been sitting up in bed and had babbled about one thing or another. But he had not recovered his mind, and the things he was now saying and doing seemed to show plainly that he had become weak-minded, and this in the strangest manner. He could recall what had happened but darkly, and to him it seemed something very enjoyable and laughable. Something, too, which did not touch him in any way, and he laughed and laughed all day long, and was in the best of humor, very different from what he had been before his accident. While still abed he had a hundred foolish, senseless ideas, cut capers and made faces, pulled his black peaked woollen cap over his ears, down to his nose and his mouth, and then he would mumble something which seemed to amuse him highly. Vreni, pale and sorrowful, listened patiently to all his stories, shedding tears about his idiotic behavior, which grieved her even more than his former malicious and wicked tricks had. But it would nevertheless happen now and then, that the old man would perform some particularly ludicrous antics, and then Vreni, tortured as she was by all these scenes, would be unable to help bursting into laughter, as her joyous disposition, suppressed by all these sad events, would sometimes rend the bounds which confined her, just like a bow too tightly strung that would break.

But as soon as the old man could once more get out of bed, there was nothing more to be done. All day long he did nothing but silly things, was grinning, smirking and laughing to himself constantly, turned everything in the house topsy-turvy, sat down in the sunshine and blared at the world, put out his tongue at everybody that passed, and made long monologues while standing in the midst of the bean field.

Simultaneous with all this there came also the end of his ownership in the farm. Everything upon it had, of course, gone to wrack and ruin, and disorder reigned supreme. Not only his house, but also the last bit of land left him, pledged in court some time before, were now seized and the day of forced sale was named. For the peasant who had claims to these pieces of property, very naturally made use of the opportunities now afforded him by the illness and the failing powers of Marti to bring about a quick decision. These last proceedings in court used up the bit of cash still left to Marti, and all this was done while he in his weakness of mind had not even a notion what it was all about.

The forced sale took place, and at its close, Marti being penniless and bereft of sense, by the action of the village council, it was decided to make him an inmate of the community asylum that had been founded many years before for the precise benefit of just such poor devils as himself. This asylum was located in the cantonal capital. Before he started for his destination he was well fed for a day or two, to the eminent satisfaction of the idiot, who had developed an enormous appetite of late, and then was put on a cart drawn by a phlegmatic ox and driven by a poor peasant who besides attending to this community errand wanted to sell also a sack of potatoes at the town. Vreni sat down on the same vehicle alongside of her father in order to accompany him on this day of his being buried alive, so to speak.

It was a sad and bitter drive, but Vreni watched lovingly over her father, and let him want for nothing; neither did she grow impatient when passers-by, attracted by the ridiculous behavior of the old man, would follow the cart and make all sorts of audible remarks on its inmates. Finally they did reach the asylum, a complex of buildings connected by courts and corridors, and where a big garden was seen alive with similarly unfortunate beings as Marti himself, all dressed in a sort of uniform consisting of white coarse linen blouses and vests, with stiff caps of leather on their foolish old heads. Marti, too, was put into such a uniform, even before Vreni's departure, and her father evinced a childish joy at his new clothes, dancing about in them and singing snatches of wicked drinking songs.

"God be with you, my lords and honored fellow-inmates," he harangued a knot of them, "you surely have a palace-like home here. Go away, Vreni, and tell mother that I won't come home any more. I like it here splendidly. Goodness me, what a palace! There runs a spider across the road, and I have heard him barking! Oh, maiden mine, oh, maiden mine, don't kiss the old, kiss but the young! All the waters in the world are running into the Rhine! She with the darkest eye, she is not mine. Already going, little Vreni? Why, thou lookest as though death were in thy pot. And yet things are looking up with me. I am doing fine. Am getting wealthy in my old days. The she-fox cries with him: Halloo! Halloo! Her heart pains her. Why--oh, why? Halloo! Halloo!"

An official of the institution bade him hold his infernal noise, and then he led him away to do some easy work. Vreni took her leave sadly and then began to look up her ox cart with the peasant. When she had found it she climbed in and sat down and ate a slice of bread she had brought with her. Then she lay down and fell asleep, and a couple of hours later the peasant came and woke her, and then they drove home to the village. They arrived there in the middle of the night. Vreni went to her father's house, the one where she had been born and had spent all her days. For the first time she was all alone in it. Two days' grace she had to get out and find some other shelter. She made a fire and prepared a cup of coffee for herself, using the last remnants she still had. Then she sat down on the edge of the hearth, and wept bitterly. She was longing with all her soul to see and talk once more to Sali, and she was thinking and thinking of him. But mingling with these desires of hers were her anxieties and her fears of the future. Thus sat the poor thing, holding her head in her hand, when somebody entered at the door.

"Sali!" cried Vreni, when she looked up and saw the face dearest to her in the world. And she fell on his neck, but then they both looked at one another, and they shouted: "How poorly you look!" For Sali was as pale and sorrowful as the girl herself. Forgetting everything she drew him to her on the hearth, and questioned him: "Have you been ill, or have you also fared badly?"

"No, not ill," said Sali, "but longing for you. At home things are going fine. My father now has rare guests, and as I believe, he has become a receiver of stolen goods. And that is why there are big doings at our place, both day and night, until, I suppose, there will come a bad end to it all. Mother is helping along, eager to have guests of any kind at all, guests that fetch money into the house, and she tries to bring some order out of all this disorder, and also to make it profitable. I am not questioned about the matter at all, neither do I care. For I have only been thinking of you all along. Since all sorts of vagrants come and go in our place, we have heard of everything concerning you, and my father is beside himself with joy, and that your father has been taken to-day to the asylum has delighted him immensely. Since he has now left you I have come, thinking you might be lonesome, and maybe in trouble."

Then Vreni told him all her sorrows in detail, but she did this with such fluency and described the intimate details in such an almost happy tone of voice as if what she was saying did not disturb her in the least. All this because the presence of her lover and his solicitude about her really rendered her happy and minimized her anxieties. She had Sali at her side. And what more did she want? Soon she had a vessel with the steaming coffee which she forced Sali to share with her.

"Day after to-morrow, then, you must leave here?" said Sali. "What is to become of you now?"

"I don't know," answered Vreni. "I suppose I shall have to seek some service and go away from here, somewhere in the wide world. But I know I won't be able to endure that without you, Sali, and yet we cannot come together. If there were no other reason it would not do because you hurt my father and made him lose his mind. That would always be a bad foundation for our wedded state, would it not? And neither of us would ever be able to forget that, never!"

Sali sighed deeply, and rejoined: "I myself wanted a hundred times to become a soldier or else go far away and hire out on a farm, but I cannot do it, I cannot leave you here, and after we are separated it will kill me, I feel sure of it, for longing for you will not let me rest day or night. I really believe, Vreni, that all this misery makes my love for you only the stronger and the more painful, so that it becomes a matter of life or death. Never did I dream that this should ever be my end."

But Vreni, while he was thus pouring out his burdened mind, gazed at him smilingly and with a face that shone with joy. They were leaning against the chimney corner, and silently they felt to the full the intense ecstasy of communion of spirits. Over and above all their troubles, high above them all, there was hovering the genius of their love, that each felt loving and beloved. And in this beatitude they both fell asleep on this cold hearth with its feathery ashes, without cover or pillow, and slept just as peacefully and softly as two little children in their cradle.

Dawn was breaking in the eastern sky when Sali awoke the first. Gently he woke Vreni, but she again and again snuggled near to him and would not rouse herself. At last he kissed her with vehemence on her mouth, and then Vreni did awaken, opened her eyes wide, and when she saw Sali she exclaimed: "Zounds, I've just been dreaming of you. I was dreaming I danced on our wedding-day, many, many hours, and we were both so happy, both so finely dressed, and nothing was lacking to our joy. And then we wanted to kiss each other, and we both longed for it, oh, so much, but always something was dragging us apart, and now it appears that it was you yourself that was interfering, that it was you who disturbed and hindered us. But how nice, how nice, that you are at least close by now."

And she fell around his neck and kissed him wildly, kissed him as if there were to be no end to it.

"And now confess, my dear, what have you been dreaming?" and she tenderly caressed his cheeks and chin.

"I was dreaming," he said, "that I was walking endlessly along a lengthy street, and through a forest, and you in the distance always ahead of me. Off and on you turned around for me, and were beckoning and smiling at me, and then it seemed to me I were in heaven. And that is all."

They stepped on the threshold of the kitchen door left open the whole night and which led direct into the open, and they had to laugh as they now saw each other plainly. For the right cheek of Vreni and the left one of Sali, which in their sleep had been resting against each other, were both quite red from the pressure, while the pallor of the opposite cheeks was engrossed by the coolth of early morning. So then they rubbed vigorously the pale cheeks to bring them into consonance with the others, each performing that service for the other. The fresh morning air, the dewy peace lying over the whole landscape, and the ruddy tints of coming sunrise, all this together made them forget their griefs and made them merry and playful, and into Vreni especially a gay spirit of carelessness seemed to have passed.

"To-morrow night then, I must leave this house," she said, "and find some other shelter. But before that happens I should love to be merry, real merry, just once, only once. And it is with thee, dear, that I want to enjoy myself. I should like to dance with you, really and truly, for a long, long time, till I could no longer move a foot. For it is that dance in my dream that I have to think of steadily. That dream was too fine, let us realize it."

"At all events I must be present when you dance," said Sali, "and see what becomes of you, and to dance with you as long as you like is just what I myself would love to do, you charming wild thing. But where?"

"Ah, Sali, to-morrow there will be kermess in a number of places near by. Of two of these I know. On such occasions we should not be spied upon and could enjoy ourselves to our heart's content. Below at the river front I could await you, and then we can go wherever we like, to laugh and be merry--just once, only once. But stop--we have no money." And Vreni's face clouded with the sad thought, and she added blankly: "What a pity! Nothing can come of it."

"Let be," smilingly said Sali, "I shall have money enough when I meet you."

But Vreni flushed and said haltingly: "But how--not from your father, not stolen money?"

"No, Vreni. I still have my silver watch, and I will sell that."

"Then that is arranged," said Vreni, and she flushed once more. "In fact, I think I should die if I could not dance with you to-morrow."

"Probably the best for us," said Sali, "if we both could die."

They embraced with tearful smiles, and bade each other good-by, but at the moment of parting they again laughed at each other, in the sure hope of meeting again next day.