Part 9

But the chief comedy would always come the next day. For then he would waken, after all, with a head that hummed like a beehive, and then he would rouse himself fully, half morosely, half with a leonine jovial humor that indeed had the dimensions of a lion when compared with the proverbial distemper of the average toper. Early he would then show up at breakfast, the sun shining with strength upon his naked scalp, and ignoring his symptoms, he would jest and make fun of himself and his achievements of the previous night. His wife, then, always hungering after her husband's humor, he being usually rather reticent, would then answer his sallies with a merry laughter, so bell-like and wholesouled as one would never have suspected in a being so demure as she. His children would laugh, also his gamekeepers and huntsmen, and lastly his servants. And in that way the whole day would pass. Everything that day would be done with a bright smile and a salvo of hearty laughter. And always the chief forester leading them all, handling his axe, lifting heavy weights, doing the work of three ordinary men. On such a day it was once that fire broke out in the town. High above burning roofs a poor old woman, in her frail wooden balcony, forgotten and disregarded, was shrilly crying and moaning for help from a fiery death, and above her shoulder her tame starling went through the drollest of antics, likewise claiming attention. Nobody could think of a way to save mistress and bird. The flames came nearer and ever nearer. But our chief forester climbed up to a protruding coping on a high wall facing the old woman's nook, a spot where he stood like a rock. Then with herculean strength he pulled up a long ladder to him, turned it over and balanced it neatly until it touched the window where the old hag was struggling for breath. He placed it securely within the opening, on the sill, and then he strode across it, firm and unafraid, back and forth, carrying the ancient woman safely across his shoulder, and the stuttering starling on his head, the greedily licking flames and the swirling clouds of smoke beneath his feet. And all this he did, not by any means in a heroic pose, as something dangerous or praiseworthy, but as though it were a harmless joke, smiling and laughing.

After a solid piece of work of that kind he would feast with his family in jolly style, dishing up the best the house afforded. And at such times he always was particularly tender to his wife, taking her on his knee, to the great amusement of the children, and dubbing her his "little whitebird," and his "swallow," and she, her arms clasped in pleasurable self-forgetfulness, would laughingly watch his antics.

On a day like that, too, he once arranged for a dance, it being the first of May. He had a musician fetched from town, and got likewise some merry young folks to increase the sport. And there was dancing aplenty on the smooth greensward in front of the house, right under the blooming trees, and dainty dancing it was. The chief forester opened the merriment with his smiling young wife, she in her modest finery and with her girlish shape. As they made the first steps, she looked over her shoulder at the youngsters, happy as could be, and tipping her foot on the green sod, impatient to be off. Just then Dietegen, who for much of the time past had kept to the men entirely, threw a glance at Kuengolt, and lo! he saw that she also was growing up to be a handsome woman, as pretty a picture as her mother. Her features indeed strongly resembled those of her mother, small, regular and charming. But in her figure she took more after her father, for she was trimly built like a straight young pine, and although but fourteen her bosom was already rounded like that of a grown-up damsel. Golden curls fell in a shower down her back and hid the somewhat angular shoulderblades. She was clad all in green, wore around her neck her amber beads, and on her head, according to the fashion of those days, a wreath of rosebuds. Her eyes shone pleasantly and frankly from a guileless face, but once in a while they would flash wilfully and glide casually over the row of youths whose eyes hung on her youthful beauty, with a slightly critical bent, and at last rest for an instant on Dietegen, then turn away again. Dietegen looked as though hungering for recognition, but she only once more glanced back at him. But that glance seemed to have somewhat embarrassed her, for she stopped to arrange her hair, while he flushed deeply.

That indeed was the first time when they two felt they were no longer mere children. But a few minutes later they met and found themselves partners in a country dance, hand in hand. A new and sweet sensation pulsed through his veins, and this remained even after the ring of dancers had again been broken.

Kuengolt, however, had still the same feeling regarding him; she looked upon the youth as upon something all her own, as something belonging to her, and of which, therefore, one may be sure and need not guard closely. Only once in a while she would send a spying glance in his direction, and when accident would bring him into the close neighborhood of another maiden, there would also be Kuengolt watching him.

Thus innocent pleasure reigned until an advanced hour of the evening. The young people became as sprightly as new-fledged wood pigeons, and soon even excelled in their merry humor their bounteous host, and the latter on his part delighted to pleasure his amiable young wife, while soberly encouraging his youthful guests in amusing themselves. She, the wife, was serene and happy as sunlight in springtime. And she even became playful enough to call her brawny husband by intimate nicknames.

But harmless and decorous as all this was, it may be that the citizens of other towns where merriment was not the natural birthright, as in the case of the Seldwylians, would have deemed it a trifle beyond the proper limits. The spiced May wine which was served the guests had been mingled in its elements according to ancient usage, but just as in their joy itself there was a bit too much license, so also there was a trifle too much honey in the drink. The hands of the young girls lay perhaps somewhat too frequently upon the shoulders of the youths, and now and then, without meaning any harm, a couple would quickly kiss and part, and this without playing at blind man's buff, as do the philistines of our days under similar conditions. In short, what these young people of Seldwyla lacked in their diversion was the gift of attracting without seeming to; but with this gift, on the other hand, Dietegen, as a regulation Ruechensteiner, was plentifully endowed. For although he was already in love, he fled like fire from the fondling and caressing which with these Seldwyla couples was by now rather freely indulged in, and preferred to keep himself out of the danger line. All the bolder and provoking was Kuengolt who, in her childish ignorance and after the manner of half-grown girls, did not know how to control her affections, and who went to look up the frigid youth. She discovered him seated in the shadow of a group of darksome trees, and sat down beside him, seizing his hand and playfully twining his fingers. When he submitted to that and even, gently and almost in a fatherly way, spun her ringlets in his palm, the girl at once put her arms around his neck and caressed him with the innocence but also with the abandon of a child, whereas in truth it was already the maiden that spoke out of her. Dietegen, however, no longer a child, essayed to use his maturer judgment for both of them, and thus was strenuously trying to loosen her hold on him, when his fostermother, the chief forester's wife, came joyously running up to the bench, and noticed with particular pleasure how matters stood apparently.

"That is right," she cried, "that you, too, are of accord," and she embraced them both tightly. "I hope and trust, my dearest daughter, that you will love and cherish Dietegen with all your might. He is deserving indeed, my child, that he not only has found a new home in our house, but that you, too, will give him a home in your little heart. And you, dear Dietegen, will, I know, at all times be a true and faithful protector and guardian to my little Kuengolt. Never leave her out of your sight, for your eyes are keen and observant."

"He is nobody's but mine, and has been for long," said Kuengolt to this, and she kissed him boldly and lightly upon the cheek, half like a bride and half as a child caresses a kitten which belongs to it. But now the situation for the poor bashful youth, thus hemmed in between mother and daughter, became unbearable, and he flushed and awkwardly loosened their combined hold of him, stepping back a few paces to escape their blandishments. But Kuengolt, in her wilful mood, pursued him laughing, and when in his retreat from her he came into close proximity to the pretty mother, the latter jestingly caught him by the arm, saying: "Here he is, my little daughter, now come and hold him fast."

When thus entrapped anew by them, his heart beat excitedly, and while finding himself thus wooed, so to speak, by both feminine tempters, he at the same time felt intensely his lonesome condition in the world. The odd conceit overcame him that he was a lost soul shaken from the tree of life, which while cherished by soft hands, was nevertheless to be forever deprived of its own existence and individuality, a state of mind which with callow youths thus beset may be more frequent than commonly supposed. Therefore, a prey to two conflicting emotions equally powerful, of which one necessarily excluded the other, his strong sense of personal freedom struggling within his breast with the new-born sentiment of tender regard, he stood mute and trembling, half in rebellion against the sudden intimate aggression of the two women, and half strongly inclined to draw the young girl into his arms and to overwhelm her with caresses. His Ruechenstein blood was against him. While he loved the mother with a wholesouled and most grateful devotion, her thoughtless encouragement of him to play a lover's part towards her daughter seemed to him strange and unbecoming. He looked upon himself as really Kuengolt's property, as truly belonging to her by reason of her having saved his forfeited life. But at the same time he felt himself seriously responsible for her moral conduct, for her maiden chastity and her correct manners, and when now Kuengolt strove to kiss him on the mouth, he said to her, in perfect good humor but withal in the tone of a crabbed schoolmaster: "You are really still too young for things of that kind. This is not suitable for your age."

At these words the girl paled with shame and annoyance. Without another syllable she turned away and joined once more the throng of merrymakers, where she danced and sprang about recklessly a few times, and then sat down a little distance away by herself, with a face that betrayed clearly how hurt she was at the rebuff.

The chief forester's wife smilingly stroked the strict young moralist's cheek, saying: "Well, well, you are certainly very strict. But the more faithfully you will one day take care of my child. Give me your promise never to desert her! Only don't forget, we Seldwyla folk are all of us rather gay and debonair, and it is possible that in being so we sometimes do not think enough of the future."

Dietegen's eyes grew wet, and he gave her his hand in solemn vow. Then she conducted him back to the others. But Kuengolt turned her back on him, and instead in real grief gazed into the mild May night.

He on his part now marveled at himself. Strange, now of a sudden this girl whom but a minute before he had misnomed a mere child, was old and grown-up enough to cause him, the moralizing youth, love pangs. For sad and confused he too stood now aside and felt still more ashamed than the girl herself.

"What ails you? Why do you look so sorrowful?" asked the forester, when he in the best humor in the world now approached the group. But Kuengolt at the question broke into passionate tears, and exclaimed before everybody: "He was a gift to me by the judges when he was really nothing but a poor lifeless corpse, and I have reawakened him to life. And therefore he has no right to sit in judgment on me, but rather I alone am his judge. And he must do everything I want, and when I love to kiss him it is his business to simply keep still and let me do it."

They all laughed at this odd statement, but the mother took Dietegen's hand and led him to the child, saying: "Come, make up with her and let her kiss you once more. Later on you, also, shall be her master, and shall do as you see fit in such matters."

Blushing deeply because of the many onlookers, Dietegen offered his mouth to the girl, and she seized him by his curls, quite in a frenzy, and kissed him hard, more in wrath than in love, and then, having once more thrown him a look that betrayed anger, she quickly turned on her heels and dashed away in such haste that her golden ringlets fluttered in the night air and in passing brushed his face.

But now the reluctant fire of love had also been kindled in his own young soul, and soon after he left the throng and went in search of rash Kuengolt, striding rapidly and gazing all about for her. At last he discovered her on the other side of the house where she sat dreamily at the well, and was playing with the amber beads of her necklace. Advancing quickly he seized both her hands, compressed them in his vigorous right, and then laid his left on her shoulder so that she shuddered, and said: "Listen, child, I shall not permit you to trifle with me. From to-day on you are just as much my own property as I am yours, and no other man shall have you living. Keep that in mind when some day you will be grown up."

"Oh, you big old man," she murmured slowly and smiled at him, but pallor had overspread her features. "You indeed are mine, but not I yours. However, you need not mind that, because I don't think I'll ever let you go!"

So saying she rose and went, without first looking at her old playfellow once more, over to the other side of the house.

But this was not all. The forester's wife caught a cold in the suddenly chilled air of this very May night, and an insidious disease grew out of it which carried her off within a few months. On her deathbed she grieved much about her husband and her child, and expressed great anxiety on their behalf. She also denied till her last breath the real cause of her illness and death, deeming it scarcely a fit thing for a housewife and a mother to thus go out of life merely because of a surfeit of riotous pleasure.

But while she thus lay lifeless in the house, all that had loved her mourned for her; indeed the whole town did so, for she had not had a single enemy in the world. Her widowed husband wept at night in his bed, and at daytime he spoke never a word, but only from time to time stepped up to the coffin in which she lay so still and peaceful, looking and looking at his sweet partner, and then, shaking his head, slowly walking off again.

He had a heavy wreath of young pine twigs fashioned for her and placed it on the bier. Kuengolt heaped a perfect mountain of wildflowers on top of that, and thus the graceful form of the dead was borne down from the hillside to the church below, followed by the bereaved family and a crowd of relatives, friends and members of the household.

After the burial the chief forester took all the mourners to the tavern, where he had caused a bounteous meal in honor of the dead to be prepared, according to ancient custom. The roast venison for it, a capital roebuck, and two fine grouse, he had shot himself, grieving all the while at the loss he had sustained. And when the gorgeously feathered birds now appeared on the long board he minded him again of the dense grove of mighty oak and maple, high up on the mountain side, in which she had sat awaiting his return from the chase, and in which he, his heart full of love of her who now rested in the cool ground, had many a time been stalking the deer. The image of her stood before his thoughts like life itself. But yet he was not to be left long to brooding, for strict laws of custom called for his active services as host on this occasion. When the claret from France and the golden malmsey had been uncorked and poured into capacious goblets, and the heavy table been loaded with sweets and cakes that scented the precious spices from the Indies, the guests grew lively and clamorous, and he had to propose and answer many a toast, despite his sincere mourning, and the noise soon drowned the still voice within him. Life and death were twin brothers in those days of our forbears.

The forester was seated at table between Kuengolt and Dietegen, and these two because of his tall and broad-backed person were unable to catch a look of one another save by bending over or behind him, and this neither of them wished to do for decency's sake, for they were the only ones who among this crowd of buzzing guests remained sad and serious. Across the board from him sat a cousin, a lady of about thirty named Violande.

This lady indeed could not well be overlooked, for she wore a singular costume, one which did not seem fit for a person satisfied with her lot, a person living in happy circumstances, but rather one who is restless and hollow of heart. Yet she was handsome, and knew well how to impress people with her charms, but ever and anon something selfish and mendacious would flash out of her handsome eyes that destroyed all these efforts at enforced amiability.

When but fourteen she had already been in love with the forester, her cousin, merely because amongst those young men that came before her vision he was the best-looking and the tallest and strongest. He, however, had never noticed the preference shown for him. Indeed he had not given a thought to this overyoung cousin of his, since his serious choice lay altogether among the more adult persons of the other sex, and wavered among several of these. Full of envy and jealousy, this unmature cousin, though, was already so skilled in feminine intrigue as to be able to destroy the chances of two or three young women that the forester had looked upon with favor, using for that purpose that poisonous weapon, gossip and backbiting. Always when he was on the point of proposing to a beauty that had won his regard, this sly half-woman skillfully understood how to spread rumors calculated to entangle the two, fictitious words uttered by one or the other seeming to show mutual dislike, or something equally efficacious in bringing about a rupture. If her designs miscarried with him, why then she spun her threads so as to make the other believe that the swain was false or fickle, full of guile or not dependable. Thus it came to pass repeatedly that without his ever discovering the author the lady of his suit would suddenly swerve and leave him out in the cold, while another, of whom he had never thought in that connection, would as quickly show him her favor--all owing to the arts of this Macchiavell in petticoats. And then impatiently and disgustedly he would turn his back on both the willing and the unwilling and plunge once more for a spell into his easy bachelordom. In this way it was that, one after the other, all his wooings came to nought, until he at last happened to meet the mild and amiable lady that subsequently became his spouse. This one, though, kept hold of him, since she was just as guileless as he himself, and all the artifices and stratagems of the little witch were in vain. Yea, she never even noticed the other's cleverest schemes, simply because she kept her eyes all the time fixed upon him she loved. And indeed he too had been grateful to her for her singlemindedness, and held her all the years of their happy union as a jewel of rare price.

Violande, however, when she saw the man whose love she had aspired to married, after all, to another had not given up the frequent use of her talent for mischiefmaking, for fear she might get out of practice. The older she grew the more artistic became her endeavors in that line, but without success for herself, since she remained a spinster, and since even the men themselves whom by her wiles she had alienated from other women turned away from her as from a dangerous person, feeling in their hearts only contempt and hatred for her. Then it was she turned her face heavenwards, giving it out that she was on the point of entering a convent and becoming a nun. But she changed her mind in the last hour, and instead of a convent entered a house devoted to some holy order, but such a one as would permit her, in case the chance of becoming a wife should unexpectedly present itself to her, to leave it. Thus she disappeared for years from view, since she was in the habit of going from one town to another at short intervals, and nowhere feeling rested or contented. Suddenly, when the forester's wife was lying sick to death, she reappeared again, in Seldwyla, and in worldly dress, and so it had come about that here she was as one of the guests at this funeral celebration, seated opposite the widower.

She put restraint on her restlessness, and now and then looked modest and almost childlike, and when the women rose and walked about in couples, the while the men remained seated at table drinking and talking, she went up to Kuengolt, kissed her on both cheeks, and made friends with her. The half-grown girl felt honored by these advances of a semi-clerical woman, one who had apparently great knowledge of the world and had been about a good deal, and so these two were at once involved in a long and intimate conversation, as though they had known each other all their lives. When the company broke up Kuengolt asked her father to invite Violande to his house, in order to manage the big household, a task for which she herself felt not equal and entirely too young and inexperienced. The forester whose mood at that moment was a curious compound of mourning and vinous elation, and whose thoughts still belonged altogether to his departed wife, raised no objection to this request, although he did not care much for his cousin and thought her a queer sort of person.