Part 11

My father's fields had tough, yellowish-red earth, interwoven with grass-roots; and the sods formed an endless gut, and were hardly once in a way interrupted throughout the tract of land to be ploughed. I was glad of that, for it made the plough remain always evenly in position, and the furrow became more regular than any pond-digger's work. But my father was not so glad; he would rather have had black, soft sods:

"Black earth, white bread!" says the proverb.

When I was driving the plough across the field for the third time, I took a peep to see how high the sun stood in the sky. Alas, that clock had stopped! There were clouds in front of it. Suppose God should be angry and refuse to let it become noon to-day!...

It seemed a long time before mother, when dinner was ready, appeared in the loft at the top of the house, as my grandmother had done before her, put two fingers to her mouth, and sent forth the shrill, peculiar whistle which I knew so well. I let go the handles and confessed that mother had never whistled so musically before.

Then came dinner. I took good care not to wipe the earth from my hands, for even this crust gave me a certain air; I was no longer the duffer, I was the ploughman, I enjoyed equal rights with the labourers. I sat down beside the head man and did my best to talk in a weighty fashion. They spoke of my performance; then I was silent, for my performance spoke for itself.

It is a small incident in one's youth, it is hardly big enough to be worth mentioning; but, for the farmer, it is a great and momentous day when he puts his hand to the plough for the first time--it is a sacred act. The sword, the Cross, are objects of respect; and I look upon the plough also as a symbol of the redemption of the world. The grey earth-dust which clung to my hands that time, and with which I went in to dinner--I have not wiped it off to this day--was to me what the golden pollen-dust is to the bee.

And so I may be permitted to add that, in that same year, I tilled the whole of that field; that my father sowed the seed there with a pious hand; and that, next spring, the corn stood glad and green and glorious.

"I haven't seen such a field of corn these ten years past," said my father, when he saw it.

XIII

The Recruit

Never in my life shall I forget that February morning. It was only to be expected; and yet it took us by surprise.

I was a little over twenty years of age. Though I already felt a regular young man and did my very best to act as such, still I always looked upon myself as a child, for I was ever so considered by my parents and to a certain extent so treated by my teacher. I had to stoop nowadays, when I entered the house through the door; and, when I stood by the table-corner in the parlour, my head reached up to the Holy Trinity on the wall, to espy whose mystery I had so often, as a boy, scrambled up chair and table. But people still always called me by my short pet name; and I still answered to it. And so, silently, that February morning came upon us.

It was a Sunday. I had come back from a long job,[14] and meant to have a pleasant rest. When I awoke, my father was standing by the bed and said it was high time for me to get up, he wanted to speak to me.

"Do you owe any money to Bürscher the innkeeper at Krieglach?" he asked, and waited anxiously for my answer.

I asked him why he put such a question to me: what I had drunk at Bürscher's I had always paid for.

"So I should have thought. It's only because Bürscher has sent me a paper to-day, which belongs to you, I'm thinking."

He gave me the paper: it was grey; and I turned red. Father noticed this and said:

"Seems to me there's some disgrace about it, for all that!"

"Not a disgrace," said I, with my eyes fixed on the lines, which were part in print and part in writing. "An honour rather. _Present myself_, that's what I have to do."

The paper ran:

"MILITARY SUMMONS

"Take note that you, Peter Rosegger, living at house No. 18 at Alpel, born in the year 1843, in the parish of Krieglach, are hereby called upon to fulfil your military obligations by presenting yourself for inspection, at 8 o'clock in the morning on the 14th of March, 1864, at the appointed place at Bruck, clean-washed and in clean linen, failing which you will be treated as a deserter and undergo the usual consequences prescribed by law.

"KINDBERG, 15 February, 1864. "For the Town Council, "WESTREICHER, "_Chairman_. "Lot No. 67. Age-class I."

By this time, my mother was there too. She could not believe it. Why, it wasn't so long since I was just a little bit of a chap! And now, all at once, a soldier!

"He's not that yet," said father.

"Give them time. And look at him. They won't send _him_ home in a hurry. Jesu, Mary! And the chest is spreading, too, now! That narrow little chest of yours was always my comfort. And to think that you have grown so broad all in a year!"

I had jumped out of bed, but did not know how to defend myself against my disconsolate mother's reproaches.

My father said to her:

"Thank your stars that he's healthy. Do you want a cripple for a son? Would you rather have had that than a fine, well-set-up soldier?"

"You're right, of course, Lenzel:[15] if only I could keep him with me, though. Sooner or later, he'll have to go to the front; and I simply can't bear to think of that."

She wept.

"Get back into bed again," said father to me. "You could have stayed in bed, if you'd wanted to."

I didn't care about bed now. I was glowing in every limb. True, I had been secretly awaiting this summons, in fear and trembling; but, now that it had come, I had an ever so pleasant and cheerful feeling inside me. I was filled with joy and pride. The Emperor had sent for me! I rushed to the door; I could have shouted from house to house, from hill to hill:

"I'm a recruit!"

There were many weeks yet before the 14th of March. Mother wanted me not to go on any more jobs, but to stay at home so that she could have me with her for that short time. My master, indulgent as ever, yielded to her. She gave herself up to thinking and planning how to make this time, the last that I should spend with her, pleasant to me. She called to mind all my pet dishes. She asked the market-woman to get beetroot for her and dried cherries, two things which my palate specially relished at the time. She scattered more and more oats before the hens and tried to explain to them that they would be dispensed from duty the whole of next summer if only they would lay eggs now, at this great time; otherwise there would be nothing for it but to cut off their heads; for a soldier, if he got no eggs to eat, was not averse to roast fowls, however old and tough--they never saw such teeth as a young fellow had who was just going for a soldier!

Dear mother-heart, once so warm and true, can it be possible that you are now but a cold bit of clay? How I yearn for you these days! How I pray that you will let me love you, as you once prayed to me! You are almost colder to me now than I was then to you. I never thought what endless loving-kindness and cheerfulness and self-sacrifice lay hidden in the little gifts and pleasures which you prepared for me! I took you, O my mother's heart, as a man takes the breath of the morning and the sunshine, without so much as a "Thank you"!

So, at that time, with the conscription near at hand, I accepted my mother's tenderness rather casually and, instead of staying at home with her, went about the neighbourhood and forgathered with the lads who had received their summons like myself. True, there were some among them for whom I had but little fellow-feeling--I did not care much for the lads of my neighbourhood, our tastes lay too far asunder--but the common lot now united us, we consorted together, we drank together in the taverns; and, full of esprit de corps as I was, I behaved just as wildly as the rest.

Everybody smoked; and it was no longer pipes, but cigars, to make people think that the Emperor already had sent army tobacco on ahead for his young recruits. Everybody strove to walk grand and straight and upright, though, as I presently found, this resulted rather in a sort of strut or swagger. Whether everybody had a sweetheart I can't quite say; but this much is certain, that everybody sang about his sweetheart. There are songs about the pretty and the ugly, the faithless and the deserted, the cold and the warm-hearted; songs for daily use and songs for special occasions. I joined boldly in every ditty, as though I owned girls of all sorts and descriptions. And yet, all the while, I was secretly afraid because of my recruiting-favour.

Here let me explain that every lad who is called upon for conscription gets a many-coloured bunch of ribbons pinned to his hat by his sweetheart. The ribbons are mostly red and wave in the breeze--when their wearers bluster as they should--like flags. The rose or bud-shaped favours are generally cut out of coloured linen or paper and have the advantage of always keeping bright and fresh and not drooping, as real flowers do;--for a drooping air won't do for recruits. Only, there is just one green sprig of rosemary with it, forming the heart of the favour; and in this green spray the beloved talks to her lover, saying I know not what sweet and good things! So long as the beloved has to do with rosemary, it is the May-time of love.

Now where was _I_ to get my favour from? A sweetheart! I knew of one, but I had none: I had never reflected how indispensable the sweetheart is to the recruit.

Must I, while all the others marched away with fluttering top-knots, trot favourless behind? And what was the good of marching and what the good of going for a soldier, if I left no sobbing girl behind me?

The day arrived.

My mother made as if she were calm, at times even cheerful, but she had always red eyes. Once she went to my master and wept and was surprised that he did not cry too. But he only laughed and said that he did not see what there was to grieve about: Peter need not be afraid of soldiering; he would have a good time; he had learnt tailoring; he might even become a cutter in the army tailors' department; and then he could laugh at all of them. But my dear mother wouldn't hear about laughing, for the time being; she remained disconsolate: under the circumstances she felt better so. She got ready for me the finest linen she could lay hold of and marked each garment with a little cross; but nothing further was said about the recruiting, until the last moment, when I was starting and mother wished to go with me as far as Krieglach.

"For God's sake, don't!" I cried; for how would it have gone off if I had marched with mother by my side and the lads in front of us with their wild songs and chaff! Pretty badly: such young devils are lads that there are times when the gentlest mother's son of them all blushes for his parents.

"Nay, nay, mother," said father to her, "you can't go; you're no good at that; and they would only poke fun at the boy."

My mother did not say another word. She did not even come as far as the front door with me, for fear of getting me laughed at by the passers-by. Inside, in the parlour, she dipped her finger in the holy-water stoup and made a cross with it over my face and then hurried into the next room, to let her tears flow freely. I felt just a queer sort of choking at the throat, but did not let it master me. And I won't warrant that, when, in the dark passage, I made a quick movement over my eyes, I did not at the same time wipe off the wet mark of the cross.

We all met at Stocker's inn on the bridle-path. Everyone, as I expected, had his hat full of finery; my head alone was smooth as that of a poor little ram that has grown no horns yet and has just to be content with its long ears. Therefore I was still mortally unhappy at the first glass; at the second, however, I thought of the shako with the flaunting imperial eagle on it, which I was as certain of wearing as any of the rest.

There were pretty fellows among them, but also wretched pigmies who needed their streaming ribbons to hide their humps, their goitres, and even--if I may be allowed a little exaggeration--their weedy spindle-shanks. Now where had _they_ got their sweethearts from, that they sported such fine favours? They all had their hats on; I alone had flung mine into a corner, to avoid the scorn with which, for that matter, they had already overwhelmed me.

When we broke up at last and I was obliged to fish out my hat again, I could not find it. For in its place was another, with a splendid rosette and two ribbons, one red and the other white; and I now saw that it _was_ my hat which had been so gloriously favoured by an unknown hand. Perhaps I had a sweetheart after all! I reflected, but could hit upon none whom I thought capable of liking such a "Marry-me-not" as myself. Stocker, the innkeeper, had nice-looking daughters, but they were all married. His old wife was reported to have once been young herself, but the ribbons and that wonderful, dainty sprig of rosemary could not possibly date back to that period. And the old woman played no other part in the business than to whisper to me that someone had been past the house and secretly prigged a rosette for me.

Anyway, I had it--that was the great thing--and it looked finer and grander than all the rest. Goodness, how I racked my brains under that favour! To the others, however, I behaved as if I knew right well from whom it came, and I even carried this plan to such a pitch that I myself began to fix on a definite person and believed and was soon convinced that it was she I loved. It's inconceivable how soon a certainty of this sort makes a man of one! I was now the liveliest of them all as we went along; and more than one of them said they never knew that Lenzel's son was such a devil of a fellow. Which made me feel not a trifle flattered.

One of our numberless jokes was to "make the railway-train stop." We posted ourselves outside the station and, as the train came up, yelled and shouted:

"Hi! Stop!"

Then the train stopped and we laughed.

But things did not always end so harmlessly. We were seated in the railway-carriage--the Krieglach Town Council had given us our fares, which, as we believed, were sent direct by the Emperor--when one of us, Zedel-Zenz, proposed that we should all examine our tufts of rosemary: he whose spray was beginning to fade had lain oftenest in his sweetheart's arms. And then it turned out that the green sprig in my hat was clinging a little wearily and languidly to the red linen flowers. This, of course, caused me a fresh inward alarm. Could this sprig of rosemary know more about her and more about me than I myself did? Had I really been favoured already?

"Yes, that goes without saying!" I laughed, swaggering like anything.

But instead of impressing the others, I only brought down ridicule upon myself. They spoke of rocking the cradle and drew all sorts of conclusions from the fading of the rosemary, until at last I protested angrily. What had it to do with them? I asked. If anybody had anything to complain of, let him come on! For it at once occurred to me, a real recruit must put up with nothing, must know how to be rude and raise a brawl in due season. And so I blustered away until I had blustered myself into a regular, genuine rage, stamping my feet, waving my arms and actually managing to shatter a window-pane.

The guard at once appeared. Who had broken the glass?

"Lenzel's son!" crowed one. "The tailor!"

But the others shouted that it wasn't true and that we mustn't tell who had done it.

"I want no hushing up from any of you!" I broke in. "I smashed the pane. What's the damage?"

"We'll see to that at Bruck," answered the guard. "I'll speak to the captain; the army'll soon tame you, my lad!"

"Now you've done it," thought I to myself; "now you're a soldier, Lenzel's son."

And I became quite quiet, as if the wintry air, rushing in through the broken window, had cooled me to good purpose.

At the station at Bruck there was no more said about that pane of glass; and, when we went shouting through the town, I slung my arms round the necks of my companions on either side of me and felt grateful to them for their willingness to screen the felon that I was.

From the windows of the houses, the town misses looked down upon our mad doings; and we were convinced that they must all be in love with us and that, the more rudely we behaved and the more wildly the ribbons streamed from our hats, the more ardent their love must grow. We had a lurking suspicion that even a farmer's lad from the mountains, bawling with brag and arrogance and marching away as the champion of his country, may, when all is said, possess some little interest for the city dame.

Now escorted by corporals, we marched back into the town by the other side and up to a building standing by itself. Then we went indoors. All of us were a little flurried; none knew in what condition he would leave this house again. And here, in the town, the soldier's life no longer looked so glorious as at home in the still woods. Most of us--even though we were not the most pious--sighed an "In God's name!" as we blundered up the steps.

We went into a large hall which was almost like a barn and in which over a hundred young men were already gathered. There was a tremendous buzzing and pushing; and it was a very curious sight. Some, filled with the gaiety of despair, were jumping up and down on their stocking-feet or barefoot; others tied up their clothes and sat down on the bundles and were sad as death. Others again leant or stood against the walls, like carved saints, with the cold sweat on their foreheads. One might say even of the dwarfs and cripples that their hearts sank into their trousers, had they still had their trousers on!

I walked round the hall, meaning well by everybody, but caring to talk to none. They were surprised that I could keep so indifferent; of the great excitement bubbling inside me I gave no sign.

Suddenly the entrance-door was locked, which made one of us whisper:

"Look, the trap's snapped to!"

On the other hand, a door opposite opened; and a couple of soldiers--but these were full-blown soldiers--walked about among us and pushed one after the other into the inner room. I then saw some of the palest faces I ever beheld in my life. Most of them, however, strode quite bravely through the fateful gate. But we were numbered. To prevent unfairness in any given age-class, the order of the muster--for it is usually to the recruit's advantage to be one of the last--the order is always arranged, a few weeks beforehand, by lot, which every man liable to military service can draw in person or allow to be drawn by such persons as he pleases. My number had been drawn by the Krieglach Town Council; and it bore the favourable number of 67.

Nearly half of the numbers up to 30 did not come back. A sergeant fetched their clothes. But those who did come back wore an all the gladder look, dressed themselves as quickly as they could, or, for fear lest the gentleman inside should repent of having let them go, bundled their clothes under their arms and slipped out through some hole or other.

Numbers 51 to 65 all came back. Number 66 did not reappear. The sergeant came for his things. Then, at last, Number 67 was called. I walked with the utmost composure--rather too fast than too slow--into the lions' den.

What was there so extraordinary? Three or four gentlemen in black coats, with shiny buttons, silver collars, clattering swords and warlike moustaches. The blades were smoking cigars. My first thought was, could they be bribed with a civil "Good morning"? But I had heard from the men before me that the gentlemen had not said so much as "Thank you" to this greeting. We were just "things." And who is going to exchange greetings with a _Number 67_? So I bit my teeth together and held my tongue and sported my most defiant air.

I was at once put against an upright post. One of the officers, with a soft pressure of the hand, pushed my chest out and my knees in and said:

"Sixty-four and a half!"

Another seemed to write it down.

"Chest sound. Muscles might be more developed."

"Give him another year to run about in," said a third.

"Go and dress yourself!"

That was the whole proceeding. I hardly know how I got back to the front room. As I went out by the steps, the soldiers on duty stuck their bayonets in my way: that means a request to the lucky ones for a tip. It did not need the bayonets: everyone gives, for it is the moment when he is free to leave the fatal building, with its often harsh consequences, and return to his dear home.

Those who are "kept" are mostly also allowed to go home once more and there await the muster-call; but they remain in custody on the day itself, until the gentlemen are finished with the inspection. Then they are drafted into the regiments and made to take the military oath; and then they are--soldiers.

We waited for them in the Bruck taverns. They were received with loud shouts and cheered with wine and song; and, if many a "kept" one felt like falling in the dumps because his glad young life in the green mountains was over to-day and because he had to march away, perhaps to a foreign country, perhaps to the distant battle-field, and because he, who was as fond of life as another, had to risk his young blood, the hurrahs of his boon companions soon roused him to fresh tavern joys; and, at last, all began to feel as though this were but one long day, without an end to it, sinking into the night and the night into wine.

But hours come and pass away; and so do drinking-bouts. The next day we separated; and to Krieglach-Alpel went what from Krieglach-Alpel came. Of our lot, two men had become soldiers: a bloodless, but very good-looking charcoal-burner's son; and a labourer. The labourer put on a jovial and almost wild air and tried to pick a quarrel with more than one stranger who greeted us in the street. The charcoal-burner's son was steeped in melancholy. We did not know what he was losing through a military life, nor he either: he just gazed at the great mountains and the glorious forest trees....

We others and the inns on the road took all the greater care to keep the mad recruiting-spirit alive. By the custom of our fathers, the rosette and ribbons are worn on the hat by the recruit who goes home a soldier and by no other. But we acted differently that day: we all kept our rosettes, so as to create a greater sensation and compel respect.

"Look, look! Expect we'll be having war soon," said many a little peasant, "for they're keeping them all now, every man jack of them. It'll be true what the old folks say, that the women will fight for the chair on which a he once sat."

Beyond the village of Fressnitz we came up with a beggar-man carrying a hurdy-gurdy on his back. One of us at once demanded the use of it; and, while a second led the old man like a bridle-horse, a third ground out on the beggar-man's back all the tunes which the organ contained; and we others danced and jumped about on the frozen road. In this array, we arrived at Krieglach, where we took our musical team to the tavern with us. The old man was in fine fettle and assured us that we were angels of recruits compared with those of his day. He had been one himself; and once they took a peasant who was sitting in a cart, letting his donkey pull him uphill, and harnessed him between the shafts and put the donkey in the cart instead; and they had done saucier things than that. He drank our healths and praised the days of old.