Part 8

Some time after midnight Dietegen woke up, because only now his neck had begun to pain him from the unfriendly rope of the hangman. The chamber was flooded with moonlight, but he was perfectly unable to recall where he was and how he had come there. Merely this he was conscious of, that he aside from his sore throat, was far better of! than ever before in his young life. The window stood open, a spring outside murmured softly, and the silver night blew whisperingly through the tree tops; over them all the moon shone in gentle radiance. All this to him was wondrous, since he had never before seen the solitude of the forest, neither by day nor by night. He gazed sleepily, he listened, and finally he assumed a sitting posture. Then he perceived next to him on the couch little Kuengolt, the moon's beams playing right over her small face. She lay still, but was broad awake, since excitement and joy would not let her sleep. Because of that her eyes were opened to their full extent, and her mouth was smiling when Dietegen peered into her face.

"Why don't you sleep? You ought to sleep," said the girl. But he then complained of the pain at his throat. At once little Kuengolt weaved her tender arms around his neck and full of pity put her own cheeks against his. And really it soon seemed to him that his pain subsided under such sympathetic treatment. And then they began to chat in a low voice. Dietegen was asked to tell about himself. But he was reticent because there was not much to tell that was pleasant, and about the misery of his childhood he also was not able to say a great deal, since no contrasts were within his ken, with the single exception of that evening. Suddenly, however, he recalled his pleasant sport with the crossbow, which had slipped his mind before, and so he told the little girl all about the Jew, and how that one had been the cause of his imprisonment and unjust sentence, but also about how he had taken great delight in shooting with the crossbow, for over an hour, and how he now longed for just such a weapon.

"My father has crossbows and weapons of every type in plenty," commented Kuengolt breathlessly. "And you may start in to-morrow and shoot all you wish."

And then she set out to tell him about all the nice things in the house, and she included in these her own pretty knicknacks, locked up in a casket, especially two golden "rainbow" keys, a necklace of amber, a volume full of holy legends, illustrated with pictures showing saints in their beautiful vestments, and also a multicolored medallion in which sat a Mother of God clad in gold brocade and vermilion silk, and covered with a tiny round glass. Also, she enumerated further, she owned a silver-gilt spoon, with a quaintly turned handle, but with that she would be permitted to eat only when she was grown up and had a husband of her own. And when it came to her wedding she would get the bridal jewelry of her mother, together with her blue brocade dress, which was so thick and heavy that it stood up without any one being inside of it. Then she kept still a short while, but pressing her bedfellow more closely against her heart, she said in a very low voice: "Listen, Dietegen!"

"Well, what is it?" he answered.

"You must be my husband when we are big. For you belong to me. Will you, of your own free will?"

"Why, yes," he replied.

"Then you must shake hands on it," she remarked, in a peremptory voice. He did so, and after this binding promise the two children finally fell asleep and did not wake till the sun stood high in the heavens. For the kind mother had purposely refrained from rousing them, so that the poor boy should have a thorough rest.

But now at last she cautiously crept into the little chamber, bearing on her arm a complete boy's suit of clothing. Two years before her own son had been killed by the fall of an oak tree, and the clothes of this boy of hers, although he had been Dietegen's senior by a whole year, were likely to fit him, since he was just his size. And it was her lost boy's holiday attire, which in a saddened spirit she had preserved. Therefore she had risen with the sun, in order to remove from the doublet some gay ribbons ornamenting it, and to sew up the slits in the sleeves which let the silk lining peep forth. Her tears had flown anew in doing this labor, when she saw the scarlet silken lining that glinted from below the black jerkin gradually disappear from view, as jocund spring vanished in sorrow, and become of a piece with the black trunks. The tears were shed because of the death of her own dear boy, but a sweet consolation tinctured her soul since Fate now had sent her such a handsome, lovable little fellow, one who had been snatched, so to speak, out of Death's hard grasp, and whom she now could clothe in the habiliments of her own son. And it was not from haste or fear of the task that she left the gay silken lining under the sable outer covering, but on purpose, as the hidden fire of affection in her bosom moved her. For she was of those who mean better by their familiars than they dare show openly. If the new boy proved worthy of it, she vowed to herself, she would open the seams of the slits again, for his joy and pride. Anyway, on workadays Dietegen was to wear this suit but for a few days, until one of stronger and more suitable material should have been made for him to measure by the tailor, one that he could expose to rough usage during his ordinary occupations. But while she instructed the boy how to put on this fine suit of a kind to which he was quite unused, little Kuengolt had slipped out of bed, and in a spirit of childish mischief had got hold of the gallows shift, which she now put on and was stalking gravely in about the room, trailing its tail behind her on the floor. With that she kept her little hands folded behind her, as though they were tied by the hangman. Then she sang aloud: "I am a miserable sinner now, and even lack my hose, I trow." At this the kindly woman fell into a great affright, grew deadly pale, and said in a low, soft voice: "For our Savior's sake, who is teaching you such wicked jokes, my child?" And she seized the ominous shift from the little girl's hands, who smiled at this, but Dietegen took it, being wroth at the scene, and tore it into a score of pieces.

Now that the two children were dressed they were taken along for breakfast in the adjoining room. Early in the morning bread had been baked, and with the milk soup the little ones received each a fresh loaf of cummin seed bread, and in place of the one sweet roll which on ordinary days was specially baked for Kuengolt, there were two that day, and the little girl would have it that the boy received the larger of them. Dietegen ate without urging all that was offered him, just as though he had returned to his father's house after an enforced stay with evil strangers. But he was very still throughout, and he keenly observed everything around him: the pleasant mild woman who treated him like her own son, the sunny, light room, and the comfortable furniture with which it was fitted up. And after having eaten his breakfast with a good appetite, he continued these observations, noticing that the walls were wainscoted with smooth pine, and higher up decorated with painted wreaths and flowers, and that the leaded window panes showed the arms both of husband and wife. When he also carefully inspected the handsome closets and the sideboard with its load of shining vessels and tableware, he suddenly remembered the dingy silver jug that had almost brought him to his death, and the cheerless house of the beadle in Ruechenstein, and then, afraid that he should have to return there again, he asked with a tremor in his voice: "Must I now return home? But I don't know the way."

"There is no need of your knowing it," said the housewife, moved by his evident dread, and she stroked his smooth chin. "Have you not yet noticed that you are to remain with us? Go along with him now, my little Kuengolt, and show him the house and the woods, and everything else. But do not go too far away!"

Then Kuengolt took the boy by the hand, and first led him into the forester's armory where he kept his weapons. And there hung seven magnificent crossbows and arquebuses, and spears and javelins for the chase, hangers and dirks, and also the long sword of the master of the house which stood in the corner by itself. Dietegen examined all this, silently but with gleaming eyes, and Kuengolt mounted a chair to take down several of the finest crossbows from the wall, which she handed him so that he could look them over more at leisure, and he was delighted with these, for they showed ornaments inlaid in ivory or mother-of-pearl, daintily done by some expert artisan. The boy admired it all, in a silent sort of ecstasy, about as would a rather talented prentice in the studio of a great master painter while the latter might be absent from home. But Kuengolt's quick proposal to have him try his marksmanship outside in a meadow could not be realized at the time, because the bolts and arrows were locked away in a separate receptacle. But to make up for that she gave him a fine hunting spear to hold so that he should have a weapon of some kind to take along into the greenwoods. Near the house she showed him a hedged-in space full of deer and game, in which the town constantly kept its reserve of stock, so that at no time there should be lack of venison and other fine roasts for public or private banquets. The girl coaxed several roes and stags to come to her at the hedge, and this was astonishing to Dietegen, for so far he had seen such animals only when dead. With his spear, therefore, he stood attentive, his eyes fixed on these pretty denizens of the woods, and could not get his fill of watching them. Eagerly he held out his hand to fondle a finely antlered stag, and when the latter shyly bounded aside and leisurely trotted off, the boy scurried after him with a joyous halloo, and ran and jumped with the animal around in a wide circle. It was perhaps the first time in his life that he could use his young limbs in this way, and when he felt how his tendons stretched with the violent exercise and how he was able to race with the swift stag, the latter apparently taking as much pleasure in the sport as Dietegen himself, a feeling of untried strength and agility first woke within him.

But as they later on stepped into the domain of the deep forest, high up on the hill, the boy resumed once more his usual air of thoughtful quiet and deliberation. Up there mighty trees grew closer together, leaving hardly a fragment of sky to discover from below--tall pine and gnarled oak, spreading lindens, beeches, maple and spruce, all growing in a semidarkness where the sunlight seldom pierced. Red squirrels glided spectrelike from trunk to trunk, woodpeckers hammered incessantly for their fare, high up birds of prey shrilly pursued their quarry in the open, and a thousand forest mysteries were dimly at work. Below, in the dense underbrush, hares and foxes, deer and smaller game were waging war, and song birds twittered or warbled in a chorus of multiform sound. Kuengolt laughed and laughed because the boy knew nothing of all these secret doings in the forest, although he had grown up in a mountain fastness surrounded by the very life of the woods, but she at once began to explain to him these things of which he was so profoundly ignorant. She showed him the hawk and his nest, the cuckoo in his retreat, and the gay-clad woodpecker as he was just clambering up a thick trunk with bark promising him rich harvest. And about all these things he was highly amazed, and wondered that trees and bushes should bear so many names, and that each should differ from the next. For he had not even known the hazelnut bush or the whortleberry in their haunts. They came to a rushing brook, and disturbed by their steps, a snake made off into the water, and the girl seized the spear in the boy's hand and wanted to stick it into the rocky nook. But when Dietegen saw that she was going to blunt or break the edge of the finely tempered weapon, he at once took it out of her fingers, saying that she might damage the spear.

"That is well done," suddenly came the voice of the chief forester, his patron; "you will prove a help to me." With a gamekeeper he stood behind the two children. For the noise of the rushing water had drowned in their ears all other noise. The gamekeeper bore in his hand a woodcock, just shot, for the two had gone forth early in the morning. Dietegen was permitted to hang the stately bird to the tip of his spear, flinging it over his shoulder, so that the spread wings of the bird enveloped him, and the forester gazed with approval upon the handsome youngster, and made up his mind to make an all-around woodsman of him.

Just now, though, he was to learn somewhat the difficult arts of reading and writing, and for that purpose was obliged to walk every day to town with the little girl; there in a convent and in a monastery the two were taught as much of these mysteries as seemed good for them. But his chief lessons Dietegen had from the little girl herself when coming and going from town, Kuengolt delighting in informing him as to all that was going on in the world, so far at least as she herself knew, and more particularly as to the ordinary things of life, as to which Dietegen had been left in deplorable ignorance by his former taskmaster, the beadle.

But the little instructress was in her way a ruthless practical joker, and followed a unique method of her own in teaching the boy. She exaggerated, distorted or plainly misstated the facts as to most things in talking to her pupil, and abused grossly the credulity and trustfulness of the boy, merely for her amusement, and she did this as to most things. In this she showed a wonderful gift of invention, an exuberant fancy of the rarest. When Dietegen then had accepted her fictions, and would perhaps express his wonder at them, she would shame him with the cool statement that not a single word had been true. She would scornfully blame him for believing such palpable untruths, and then, with a show of infinite wisdom, she would tell him the real facts. Then he would redden under her sarcastic remarks, and would endeavor to avoid her pitfalls, but only until she saw fit to make sport of him once more. However, in the course of time Dietegen's powers of judging facts began to widen, and he ceased to be so gullible, and this another boy who attempted to emulate Kuengolt's example found out to his sorrow. For Dietegen simply slapped his face when he came out with a particularly outrageous whopper.

Kuengolt, rather taken aback at witnessing this castigation, was curious to ascertain whether this wrath under given circumstances would also turn against herself. She made a test on the spot, feeding him with some of her choicest fairy tales. But from her he accepted everything without a murmur, and so she continued her peculiar method of instruction. At last, though, she discovered that he had acquired enough independence of thought and a large enough stock of knowledge to enable him to play with her himself. He would answer her inventions with counterinventions, and would argue from her nonsensical statements in such shrewd fashion as to turn her first doctrines into ridicule, and he would do this in perfect good-nature, proving the untenableness of her own theories. Then she came to the conclusion that it was time to give up her nonsense. But in place of that amusement she now indulged in another. Namely, she began to tyrannize over him most unmercifully. It grew so that it was almost worse than things had been with the beadle's wife. His servitude was deplorable. She made him fetch and carry during all his spare time. He had to haul and hoist and labor for her in a truly ridiculous manner. She constantly required his presence about her; he had to bring her water, shake the trees, dig in the garden, crack open nuts after getting them for her, hold her little basket, and even to brush and comb her hair she wanted to train him--only that is where he drew a line. But then he was scolded by her for refusing this, and when her mother took sides against her she became quite obstreperous with the latter as well.

But Dietegen did not pay her back in her own coin, never lost his patience with her, and was always equally submissive and indulgent with her. Her mother saw that with vast pleasure, and to reward him for his fine conduct she treated the boy like her own son, and gave him all those finer hints and that almost imperceptible guidance and advice which else are only saved for children of one's own, and by means of which children finally acquire without knowing it those habits and better manners which are commonly comprised under the name of a careful education. Of course, she herself gained in a way from this; for her own daughter thus acquired unconsciously many of her lessons, Dietegen being there as a sort of mirror of what was expected of her. Truly, it was almost comical how little Kuengolt in her restless temperament veered and shifted constantly between imitating her better model or else becoming jealous and wroth and scorning it for the time. On one occasion she became so excited as to stab at him with all her might with a sharp pair of scissors. But Dietegen caught her wrist quickly, and without hurting her or showing any anger he made her drop them. This little scene which her mother had espied from a hiding-place, moved the latter so strongly that she came forth, took the boy in her arms, and kissed him. Pale and excited the girl herself left the room with out a word. "Go, follow her, my son," whispered the mother, "and reconcile her. You are her good angel."

Dietegen did as bidden. He found her behind the house and under a lilac bush. She was weeping wildly and tearing her amber necklace, trying, in fact, to throttle herself by means of it, and stamping on the scattered beads on the ground. When Dietegen approached her and wanted to seize her hands, she cried with a great sob: "Nobody but I may kiss you. For you belong to me alone. You are mine, my property. I alone have freed you from that horrid coffin, in which without me you would have remained forever."

As the boy grew up marvelously, becoming handsomer and more manly with every day, the forester declared at breakfast one morning that the time was now ripe to take him along into the woods and let him learn the difficult craft of the huntsman. Thus he was taken from the side of Kuengolt, and spent now all his time, from dawn until nightfall, with the men, in forest, moor and heath. And now indeed his limbs began to stretch that it was a pleasure to watch him. Swift and limber like a stag, he obeyed each word or hint, and ran whither he was sent. Silent and docile, he was forever where wanted; carried weapons and tackle, gear and utensils, helped spread the nets, leaped across trenches and morass, and spied out the whereabouts of the game. Soon he knew the tracks of all the animals, knew how to imitate the call of the birds, and before any one expected it, he had a young wildboar run into his spear. Now, too, the forester gave him a crossbow. With it he was every day, every hour almost, exercising his skill, aiming at the target, shooting at living objects as well. In a word, when Dietegen was but sixteen, he was already an expert woodsman who might be placed anywhere, and it would happen now and then that his patron sent him out with a number of his men to guard the municipal woods and head the chase.

Dietegen, therefore, might be seen not alone with the crossbow on his back, but also with pen and ink-horn in his girdle upon the mountain side, and with his keen watchful eyes and his unfailing memory he was a great help to his fosterfather. And since with every day he became more reliable and useful, the master forester learned to love him better all along, and used to say that the boy must in the end become a full-fledged, an honorable and martial citizen.

It could under these circumstances not be otherwise than that Dietegen on his part was devoted soul and body to the forester. For there is no attachment like that of the youth for the mature man of whom he knows that he is doing his best to teach him all the secrets of his craft, and whom he holds to be his unapproached model.

The chief forester was a man of about forty; tall and well-built, with broad shoulders and of handsome appearance and noble carriage. His hair of golden sheen was already lightly sprinkled with silver, but his complexion was ruddy, and his blue eyes shone frank, open and full of fire. In his younger days, too, he had been among the wildest and merriest of Seldwyla's choice spirits, and many were the quaint and original quips he had perpetrated at that time of his life. But when he had won his young wife, he altered instantly, and since then he had been the soberest and the most sensible man in the world. For his dear wife was of a most delicate habit, and of a kindness of heart that could not defend itself, and although by no means without a spirit and a wit of her own, she would have been unable to meet unkindness with a sharp tongue. A wife of ready wit and pugnacity would probably have spurred this naturally sprightly man on to further doings, but in contest with the graceful feebleness of this delicate wife of his he behaved like the truly strong. He watched over her as over the apple of his eye, did only those things which gave her pleasure, and after his busy day's work remained gladly at his own hearth.

At the most important festivities of the town only, three or four times a year, he went among the councilmen and other citizens, led them with his fresh vigor in deliberation and at the festive board, and after drinking one after the other of the great guzzlers under the table, he would, as the last of the doughty champions, rise upright from his seat, stride quietly out of the council chamber, and then with a jolly smile walk uphill to his forest home.