Chapter X: Part 10

The name alone and the style of architecture had remained. The house itself consisted of but one story, and on top of that an open loggia had been erected, the roof of which was borne on the four corners by statues of sandstone. These were meant for the four archangels and were wholly defaced. At the edge of the roof could be seen all about small angels carved of the same material and all of them playing some musical instrument, the angels themselves showing monstrous heads and big paunches, fiddling, touching the triangle, blowing the flute, striking the cymbal or the tambourine; these instruments had originally been gilt. The ceiling inside and the low sidewalls, as well as all the rest of the house were still covered with rather dingy fresco paintings, and these represented dancing and singing saints. But all of it had suffered from the weather and the rain, and was now as indistinct and chaotic as a dream itself. And besides, all over the walls clambered grapevines, and at this time of year purplish ripening grapes peeped forth from between the foliage. All about the house itself there stood chestnut trees, and gnarled big rosebushes, growing wildly after a fashion of their own, just as lilac bushes would grow elsewhere.

The loggia served as dance hall, and as Vreni and Sali came in sight of the building they could notice the dancing couples turning around and around under the open roof, and outside, under the trees, drinking, shouting and noisy men and women were disporting themselves. It was a merry throng.

Vreni, who was carrying in her hand, demurely and almost piously, her wonderful gingerbread palace, resembled one of those ancient and sainted church patronesses sometimes seen in missals, with a model of the cathedral or other devout foundation displayed which would earn her the Church's benediction. But as soon as she heard the wild music that came down in a tumbling stream from the loggia, the poor thing forgot her grief. Suddenly all alive she demanded rapturously that Sali should dance with her. They pushed their way through all these people that were crowding the environs of the house and the lower floor, these being mostly ragged people from Seldwyla, with some who had been making a cheap excursion into the country, and all sorts of homeless vagrants. Then they ascended the stairs and at once after arriving on top they seized each other and were whirling away in a lively waltz. Not an eye did they give to their surroundings until the music came to a temporary halt. Then they stopped and turned around. Vreni had crushed her gingerbread house, and was just going to shed a few tears on that account when she noticed the black fiddler, and now felt a veritable terror.

He was seated near them, upon a bench which itself stood upon a big table, and he looked just as black and tawny as ever. But to-day he wore a bunch of green holly and pine in his funny little hat, and at his feet there stood a big bottle of claret and a tumbler, and he did not in the least touch either of these with his feet, although he was forever kicking up his legs to keep the tune while fiddling. Next to him sat a handsome young man with a French horn, but the young man looked melancholy, and a hunchback there also was, standing next a bass viol. Sali also had a fright in seeing the black fiddler, but the latter greeted them both in the friendliest manner and called out to them: "You see I knew that some day I should play to your dancing, just as I said when I last met you. And now, you darlings, I trust you'll have a good time, and take a drink with me."

He offered the full glass to Sali, who accepted it, emptied it and thanked the fiddler. And when he saw that Vreni was badly scared at seeing him, he did his best to reassure her, and jested with her in a rather nice way, until he had made her laugh. Thereupon Vreni recovered her courage, and both of them felt rather glad that they had an acquaintance there and were in a certain sense standing under the special protection of the black fellow. Then they danced steadily, forgetting themselves and the whole world in the constant twirling, singing, shouting and general noise, a noise which rolled down the hill and over the whole landscape which gradually began to be shrouded in a silvery autumn haze. They danced until twilight, when most of the merry guests disappeared, unsteady on their feet and shouting at the top of their voices. Those still remaining were the vagrants and stragglers, houseless and strongly inclined to turn night into day. Amongst these there were some who seemed on very friendly terms with the black fiddler and who for the most part looked outlandish because of oddities of costume. There was, for instance, a young man in a green corduroy jacket and a tattered straw hat, who wore around the crown of the latter a wreath of wild scarlet berries. He again had with him a savage sort of female who wore a skirt of cherry-red chintz and had a hoop made of young grapevine tied around her temples, so that at each side of her face hung a bunch of grapes. This couple was the jolliest of all, to be met with everywhere, and was dancing and singing without a stop. Then there was a slender, graceful girl there, wearing a thin silk dress and a white cloth on her head, the ends of which fell on her shoulders. The cloth had evidently once been a napkin or towel. But below this doubtful cloth there glowed a pair of magnificent eyes of deep violet hue. Around her neck this extravagant person wore a sixfold chain of the same autumnal berries, and this ornament suited her complexion marvelously well. This strange woman was dancing perpetually with none but herself, whirling almost unintermittently, with great grace and a very light step, refusing every partner that offered himself. Every time she passed in her dancing the sad hornblower she smiled, and the musician turned away his head.

Some other gay women or girls there were, together with their escorts, all of them poorly or fantastically clad, but with all that they assuredly enjoyed themselves greatly, and there seemed to be perfect accord among them all. When it had turned completely dark the host refused to furnish light for illumination, since the wind would blow the candles out anyway, and besides the full-moon would be out in a short spell, and for the present company, he claimed, the moonlight was ample. This declaration, instead of being opposed, caused general satisfaction among this mongrel crowd; they all stood up at the open sides of the dance hall and watched the moon rise in her full splendor, and when the new golden light flooded the wide hall, dancing was resumed with great earnestness. And so quiet, good-natured and well-mannered was it done as if they were turning under the light of a hundred wax candles. This singular light, too, made them all more intimately acquainted with each other, as though they had known them for years, and thus it was that Sali and Vreni could not very well avoid mingling with the rest and dancing with other partners. But whenever they had been separated for just a short while they flew and rejoined the other without delay, and felt delighted thereat. Sali made a sad face at this, and when dancing with another person would turn toward Vreni. But she would not notice that, but would glide along like a fairy, her features transfigured with pleasure, and her whole soul enraptured with the swaying motions of the dance, no matter who her partner.

"Are you jealous, Sali?" she asked smilingly, when the musicians took a longer rest.

"Not the least," he replied.

"Then why are you so angry when I'm dancing with somebody else?" she wanted to know.

"I am not angry because of that," he said, "but only because I am forced to dance with another person but you. I cannot feel pleasant towards another girl. In fact, I feel just as though I had a block of wood in my arms if it is anybody but you. And you? How do you feel about that?"

"Oh, I feel as though I were in heaven so long as I merely can dance and know that you are present," replied Vreni. "But I believe I should at once fall down dead if you went and left me here by myself."

They had gone down from the dance hall and were now standing in the grounds before the house. Vreni put both her arms around his neck, pressed her slender trembling body against him, and put her burning cheek, wet from hot tears, to his, sobbing out: "We cannot marry, and yet I cannot leave you, not for a moment, not for a minute."

Sali embraced the girl, pressed her ardently against his heart, and covered her with kisses. His confused thoughts were struggling for some way out of the labyrinth that encompassed them both, but he saw none. Even if the blot of his family misery and his neglected education were not weighing against him, his extreme youth and his ardent passion would have prevented a long period of patience and self-denial, and then there would still have been his misfortune in having injured Vreni's father for life. The consciousness that happiness for himself and her was, after all, to be found only in a union honest, blameless and approved by the whole world, was just as much alive in him as in Vreni. In her case as in his, two beings ostracized by all, these reflections were like the last flaring up of their lost family honor, an honor that had been blazing for centuries in their respectable houses like a living flame, and which their fathers had involuntarily extinguished and destroyed by a misdeed which at the time had been committed more in thoughtlessness than with malice aforethought. For when they, in the attempt to enlarge their holdings by a piece of dishonesty that seemed at the time wholly without risk and not likely to entail serious consequences, had been guilty of a wrong to a person that had been universally given up as lost, they had done something which many of their otherwise correct neighbors would, under the same circumstances, likewise have done.

Such wrongs as that are indeed perpetrated every day in the year, on a large or a small scale. But once in a while Fate furnishes an example of how two such transgressors against the honor of their houses and against the property of another may oppose each other, and then these will unfailingly fight to the death and devour one the other like two savage beasts. For those who furtively or forcibly increase their estate may commit such fateful blunders not only when they are seated on thrones and then apply a high-sounding name to their lust and their misdeed, but the same in substance is often done as well in the humblest hut, and both categories of sinners frequently accomplish the very reverse of what they aimed at, and their shield of honor then becomes overnight a tablet of shame. But Sali and Vreni had both of them, when still children, seen and cherished the honor of their families, and well remembered how well they themselves were taken care of and how respected and highly considered their fathers had been in those days.

Later they had been separated for long years, and when they met again they saw in each other also the lost honor and luck of their houses, and that instinctive feeling had helped to make them cling to each other all the more tenaciously. They longed indeed, both of them, for happiness and joy, but only if it might be done legitimately and in the sight of all; yet at the same time their ardent affection for each other could not be suppressed and their senses, their bounding blood, called loudly for the consummation of their desires.

"Now it is night," said Vreni in a low tone of voice, "and we will have to part."

"What, I am to go home now and leave you alone?" retorted Sali. "No, that can never be."

"But what then?" said Vreni, plaintively. "Tomorrow morning by daylight things will look no better."

"Let me give you a piece of advice," a shrill voice suddenly was heard behind them. It was the black fiddler, who now came up to them. "You foolish young things! There you are now, and you know not what to do with yourselves, although you are fond of each other. Yet nothing easier than that. I advise you to delay no more. Let one take the other, just as you are. Come along with me and my good friends here, right into the mountains, for there you need no priest, no money, no documents, no honor, no dowry, no bed and no wedding--nothing but your mutual good will. Don't get frightened. Things are not at all so bad with us. Pure air and enough to eat, provided one is not afraid to work. The green woods are our home, and there we love and keep house just as we wish. During the winter we lie snug in some warm, cosy den of our own contriving, or else we creep into the warm hay of the peasants. Therefore, lose no time. Keep your wedding right now and here, and then come along with us, and you are rid of all your cares, and may belong to each other forever and aye, or at least as long as you want to. For have no fear--you'll grow old with us; our style of life procures good strong health, you may well believe me. And don't think, you silly young folk, that I am bearing you a grudge because of what your fathers have done to me. No indeed. Of course, it gives me pleasure to see you arrived there where you now are. But with that I rest content, and I promise you to help and aid you in all sorts of ways if you will only be guided by me."

He said all this in a sincere and well-meaning tone. "Well, think it over, if you wish, for a spell," he encouraged them still further, "but follow my counsel if you are wise. Let the world go, and belong to each other and ask nobody's consent. Think of the gay bridal bed in the deep forest glade, and of the comfortable hay barn in winter." And saying which he disappeared again in the house.

But Vreni was trembling like aspen in Sali's arms, and he asked her: "What do you think of all that? To me it seems indeed it would be best to let the whole world go hang, and to love each other without hindrance and fear."

But Sali said this more jokingly than in earnest. Vreni, on the other hand, took it all seriously, kissed him and replied: "No, I should not like that. These people do not act according to my notions. That young man with the French horn, for instance, and the girl in the silk skirt also belong together in that way, and are said to have been very much in love. But last week, it seems, she has been, for the first time, unfaithful to her lover, and he grieves greatly on that account, and he is angry at her and at the others, but they merely ridicule him. And she is imposing a kind of self-inflicted and ludicrous penance on herself by dancing all alone, without any partner, and without speaking to anyone, but that, too, is only making a fool of him. However, one may see that the poor musician is going to make up with her this very night. But I must say, I should not like to be with a company where such doings are common, for I never could be unfaithful to you, although I would not mind undergoing all else for the sake of possessing you."

For all that, poor Vreni, being held in Sali's arms, became more and more feverish, for ever since noon when that hostess at the inn had mistaken her for a bride, and she herself had not contradicted, this alluring prospect had been burning in her veins, and the less hopeful things seemed to turn for a realization of this idea, the more relentlessly her pulses were hammering with expectation and desire. And Sali was experiencing similar hallucinations, since the fiddler's enticing remarks, while he meant not to listen to them, had also been fuel to his passion. So he said in embarrassment to Vreni: "Let us go inside for a spell. At least we must eat and drink something."

They were greeted in entering the guest room where nobody had remained but the fiddler's friends, the vagrants, which latter were seated about a poor meal at table, by a merry chorus: "There comes our bridal pair!" "Yes," added the fiddler, "now be friendly and comfortable, and we will see you married."

Urged to join the company the two young lovers did so rather shamefacedly. But after a moment they began to brighten, and were glad to be at least rid for the moment of the darker problem that was yet to be solved. Sali ordered wine and some choicer dishes, and soon general merriment spread among them all. The heretofore implacable lover had become reconciled to his unfaithful one, and the couple now fondled and caressed each other in reestablished ecstasy, while the giddy other pair ceaselessly yodled, sang and guzzled, but they also did not forget to give plain evidences of their amatory disposition. The fiddler and the hunchback accompanied all this with a great deal of cheerful noise. Sali and Vreni kept very close to each other, tightly holding hands, and all at once the fiddler bade all the company be quiet, and a jocular ceremony was performed signifying the union of the two young people. They had to clasp hands, and the whole audience rose and, one by one, stepped up to congratulate them and to bid them welcome within their fraternity. They placidly submitted to it all, but said never a word, and regarded the whole as a jest, while all the while a shudder of voluptuous feeling ran through them.

The merry company now became louder and more excited, the fiery wine spurring them on, until at last the black fiddler urged departure.

"We have a long way before us," he cried, "and it is past midnight. Up, all of you! Let us solemnly escort the young bridal couple, and I myself will open the procession. You will hear me fiddling as never before."

Since Sali and Vreni felt perfectly dazed, and scarcely knew what they were doing in this hurly-burly around them, they did not protest when they were made to head the file, the other two couples following, and the hunchback, with his huge bass viol on his shoulder, being at its tail end. The black fiddler, though, strode in advance, playing like a man possessed, skipping down the steep hill path like a chamois, and the others laughed, singing in chorus, and jumping from rock to rock. Thus this nocturnal procession hastened on and on, through the quiet fields and at last through the home village of Sali and Vreni, now sunk in deep slumber.

When they two came through the still lanes and past their abandoned homes, a painfully savage mood seized them, and they danced and whirled along with the others behind the fiddler, kissed, laughed and wept. They also danced up the hill with the three fields that had tempted their fathers to their ruin, the fiddler all the time leading, and on its crest the dusky fiddler fell into a frenzy of fantastic melody, and his train of followers jumped about like veritable demons. Even the poor hunchback acted like demented. This quiet hill resounded with the infernal noise of the whole crew, and it was a perfect witches' Sabbath for a short while. The hunchback breathed hard and in a muffled voice squeaked with delight, swinging his heavy instrument like a baton. In their paroxysm none saw or heard the next.

But Sali seized Vreni and thus forced her to halt. He imprinted a kiss on her mouth, thus stopping her shouts of joy. At last she gathered his meaning, and ceased struggling. They stood there, right on the spot where they first had encountered the black fiddler, listening to the wild music and to the singing and shrieking of the demoniac cortege, as the sounds gradually swept onwards down the hill towards the river below. Nobody evidently had missed them in the midst of the whole spook. The shrill tones of the fiddle, the laughter of the girls, and the yodels of the men resounded for another spell through the night, fainter and fainter, until at last the noise died away down by the shores of the river.

"We have escaped those," now said Sali, "but how are we going to escape from ourselves? How shall we separate, and how keep apart?"

Vreni was not able to answer him. Breathing hard she lay on his breast.

"Had I not better take you back to the village, and wake some family in order to make them take you in for the night? To-morrow you can leave and look for some work. You'll be able to get along anywhere."

"But without you? Get along without you?" said the girl.

"You must forget me."

"Never," she murmured sadly. "Never in my life." And she added, glancing sternly at him: "Could you do that?"

"That is not the point, dear heart," answered Sali, slow and distinct. He caressed her feverish cheeks, while she kept pressing herself against his bosom. "Let us only consider your own case. You, Vreni, are still so very young, and quite likely you will fare well enough after a short while."

"And you also--you ancient man," she said, smiling wistfully.

"Come!" now said Sali, and dragged her along. But they only went on a few steps, and then they halted once more, the better to embrace and kiss. The deep quiet of the world ran like music through their souls, and the only sound to be heard around them was the gentle rush and swish of the waves as they slowly went on further down the valley below.

"How beautiful it is around here! Listen! It seems to me there is somebody far away singing in a low voice."

"No, sweetheart; it is only the water softly flowing."

"And yet it seems there is some music--way out there, everywhere."

"I think it is our own blood coursing that is deceiving our ears."

But though they hearkened again and again, the solemn stillness remained unbroken. The magic effect of the light of a resplendent full moon was visible in the whole landscape, as the autumnal veil of fog that rose in semi-transparent layers from the river shore mingled with the silvery sheen, waving in grayish or bluish bands.

Suddenly Vreni recalled something, and said: "Here, I have bought you something to remember me by."

And she gave him the plain little ring, and placed it on his finger. Sali, too, found the little ring he had meant for her, and while he put it on her hand, he said: "Thus we have had the same thought, you and I."

Vreni held up her hand into the silvery light of the moon and examined the little token curiously.

"Oh, what a fine ring," she then said, laughing. "Now we are both betrothed and wedded. You are my husband, and I'm your wife. Let us imagine so, just long enough until that small cloud has passed the moon, or else until we have counted twelve. You must kiss me twelve times."

Sali was surely fully as much in love as was Vreni, but the marriage problem was, after all, not of such intense interest to him, not such a question of Either--Or, of an immediate To Be or Not To Be, as it was in the case of the girl. For Vreni could feel just then only that one problem, saw in it with passionate energy life or death itself. But now at last he began to see clearly into the very soul of his companion, and the feminine desire in her became instantly with him a wild and ardent longing, and his senses reeled under its potency. And while he had previously caressed and embraced her with the strength and fervor of a devoted lover, he did so now with an incomparably greater abandonment to his passion. He held Vreni tightly to his beating heart, and fairly overwhelmed her with endearments. In spite of her own love fever, the girl with true feminine instinct at once became aware of this change, and she began to tremble as with fear of the unknown. But this feeling passed almost in a moment, and before even the cloud had flitted over the moon's face her whole being was seized by the whirlwind of his ardor, and engulfed in its depths. While both struggled with and at the same time fondled the other, their beringed hands met and seized the other as though at that supreme moment their union was consummated without the consent of their will power. Sali's heart knocked against its prison door like a living being; anon it stood still, and he breathed with difficulty and said slow and in a whisper: "There is one thing, only one thing, we can do, Vreni; we keep our wedding this hour, and then we leave this world forever--there below is the deep water--there is everlasting peace and fulfilment of all our hopes--there nobody will divorce us again--and we have had our dearest wish--have lived and died together--whether for long, whether for short--we need not care--we are rid of all care--"

And Vreni instantly responded. "Yes, Sali--what you say I also have thought to myself--not once but constantly these days--I have dreamed of it with my whole soul--we can die together, and then all this torment is over--Swear to me, Sali, that you will do it with me!"

"Yes, dearest, it is as good as done--nobody shall take you from me now but Death alone!" Thus the young man in his exaltation. But Vreni's breath came quick and as if freed from an intolerable burden. Tears of sweetest joy came to her eyes, and she rose with spontaneous alacrity and, light as a bird, flew down towards the river side. Sali followed her, thinking for a moment she wanted to escape him, while she fancied he would wish to prevent her. Thus they both sprang down the steep path, and Vreni laughed happily like a child that will not allow her playmate to catch her.

"Are you sorry for it already?" Thus they both apostrophized the other, as they in a twinkling had reached the river shore and seized hold of each other. And both answered: "No, indeed, how can you think so?"

And carefree they now walked briskly along the river bank, and they outdistanced the hastening waves, for thus keenly they sought a spot where they could stay for a while. For in the trance of their enthusiasm they knew of nothing but the bliss awaiting them in the full possession of each other. The whole worth and meaning of their lives just then condensed itself into that one supreme desire. What was to follow it, death, eternal oblivion, was to them a mere nothing, a puff of air, and they thought less of it than does the spendthrift think of the morrow when wasting his last substance.

"My flowers shall precede me," cried Vreni, "only look! They are quite withered and dusty!" And she plucked them from her bosom, cast them into the water, and sang aloud: "But sweeter far than almonds is my love for thee!"

"Stop!" called out Sali. "Here is our bridal chamber!"

They had reached a road for vehicles which led from the village to the river, and here there was a landing, and a big boat, laden high with hay, was tied to an iron ring in the bank. In a reckless mood Sali instantly set to freeing the ship from the strong ropes that held it to the landing. But Vreni grasped his arm, and she shouted laughing: "What are you about? Are we to wind up by stealing from the peasants their haycock?"

"That is to be the dowry they give us," replied Sali with humor. "See! A swimming bedstead and a couch softer than any royal couple ever had. Besides, they will recover their property unharmed somewhere near the goal whither it was to travel anyway, and they will hardly trouble their hard heads with the question how it got there. Do you notice, dear, how the boat is swaying and rocking? It is impatient to start on the journey."

The ship lay a few paces off the shore in deeper water. Sali lifted Vreni in his arms high up, and began to wade through the water towards the boat. But she caressed him so fervently and wriggled like a fish on the angle, that Sali was losing his footing in the rather strong current. She strained her hands and arms in order to plunge them in the water, crying: "I also want to try the cool water. Do you remember how cold and moist our hands were when we first met? That time we had been catching fish. Now we ourselves will be fish, and two big and handsome ones to boot."

"Keep still, you wriggling darling," said Sali, scarcely able to stand up in the water, with his sweetheart tossing in his arms and the current pulling at him, "or it will drag me under!"

But now he lifted his pretty burden into the boat, and scrambled up its side himself. Then he hoisted her up to the hay, packed in orderly fashion in the middle, sweet-scented and downy like a vast pillow, and next he swung himself up to her. When they both were thus enthroned on their bridal bed the ship drifted gently into the middle of the stream, and then, turning slowly, it headed sluggishly in an easterly direction.

The river flowed through dark woods, shadowing it; it flowed through the fruitful plain, past quiet villages and hamlets and single homesteads; there it broadened out like a still lake and the ship moved but slightly downwards, and here it turned tall rocks and left the slumbering landscape quickly behind. And when dawn broke there was in sight at some distance a town rising with its age-worn towers and steeples above the silver-gray river. The setting moon, red as gold, cast a quivering track of light upstream towards the dim outlines of the ancient city, and into this luminous bed the ship finally turned its prow. When the houses of the town at last approached closely two pale shapes, locked in a tight embrace, glided in the autumnal frost of early morn from off the dark mass of the ship into the silent waters.

The ship itself shortly after fetched up near a bridge, unharmed, and remained there. When sometime later the two bodies, still locked in each others' arms, were found, and details about the young man and his sweetheart were learned, one might have read in the newspapers that these two, the children of two ruined and impoverished families that had lived in bitter enmity, had sought death in the water together after dancing with great animation at a kermess. This event probably was connected with the other fact that a boat laden with hay had landed in town without anyone on board. It was supposed that the young couple had cut loose the boat somewhere in order to hold their godforsaken wedding on it. "Once again a proof of the spread of lawless and impious passion among the lower classes." That was the concluding paragraph in the newspaper report.

FOOTNOTE:

[Footnote 1: Vreni, Vreneli, Vreeli; Swiss diminutive forms of Veronica.]

THE END

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