Chapter XIII: Front Matter (13)

And these girls were so modest. First because they were Carinthians (where you don't always have to marry right away), and then because Florie had always been away all winter, so that nothing but woeful legend and delightful little stories about him were current. So recollection was at work in the yearning girlish hearts, and it made him twice as cheerful, as golden, as laughing, as slender and handsome, as he was.

But in March he would come along singing and with a violet in his hat, and as full of intoxicating power as his casks, and would make them all happy, inn-keepers and girls; there was a quatrain about him which all the lads along the Carinthian Road used to sing when they wanted to tease the love-sick girls. It went this way:

"A vi'let from the roadside, a kiss for the night:
The Styrian wine-carter is my delight."

He knew what he meant to them all; he knew the feeling of happiness that radiated from him, and often when he creaked along the road in his wagon until far into the quiet, hissing night of the _Föhn_, and the gleam of a lighted window replied to the swaying light of his lantern on the horse-collar, he himself would send that same little ditty out into the yearning, burning spring night with his strong, clear voice, making the sleepless girls that heard it bite their pillows with delight.

Such a night it was that brought him a small misfortune and a great triumph. On that confounded Völkermarkt Hump his cart had got onto the slope, while he was still filled with the echoes of the sweetness for the sake of which he had outstayed his time in Lippitzbach. There he had been received as the outstretched arms of the trees welcome the roaring _Föhn_, or the waiting spring earth a warm rain. Now as he drove on, happiness was still bounding within him, a sea of dreams, but late, late was the hour. So he drove through the entire night, and at the gray dawn he had reached the height opposite the Völkermarkt Hollow. This time he was carting a delicious wine, which seldom grew in Styria. Farmer Pfriemer in Marburg had become a sworn rival of the Hungarians, and had begun to export a dark red wine, called Vinaria, so that the Carinthians might henceforth get a red wine from Styria, too. The first vintage had turned out sweet and heavy, and now Florian Hausbaum was carting the seasoned beverage up to Völkermarkt in two casks, one of them tremendous, the other of very respectable size.

But while he was dreaming thus, his horses had already turned down the hill. The cart exerted enormous pressure and took the horses off their feet; at this moment the Styrian wine-carter started into wakefulness, and while the wagon was thundering downhill with more and more terrifying speed, he loosened the drag and threw it under the hind wheel, and at this abrupt braking the wagon leaped mightily into the air, like a startled rhinoceros. One of the poles on the side cracked, and the smaller cask toppled over and fell from the cart with a heavy bum-bum-bum-bum. Florie had tried to throw his weight against it, but the cask gave his head a severe slanting blow before dropping full weight into the road.

A stave had sprung, and the pressure made the deep-red fluid gurgle out in a flood. The white dust of the road, became ruddy. The young carter had just enough presence of mind to roll the heavy wine-cask into the grass, and then increasing faintness reeled about him. But with his last thought he clung to his wine. As he sank down he pressed his body against the crack from which the wine was streaming out, the cask leaned heavily against him and crushed him against the ground--and then he knew nothing more.

Many voices wakened him. A girl was crying, an old woman was storming, the inn-keeper called him by name, the heavy scent of new wine hung about him. A crowd of people stood around, and the cart was gone, and the cask resting on him the men pulled away, so that the wine at once leaped forth again. So they turned the damaged spot up. But he still lay there as formerly in his delight he had gone along the road, with his jacket torn open to let the air of spring cool his heart. Only his festive white shirt had become spotted with red from the spilled wine.

The keeper of the Ox Inn at Völkermarkt, however, nearly fell upon him and kissed him. He had already been waiting on the hill-top when he saw the masterless cart, with the one cask, arrive at the bottom of Steil Valley and stand there; for of themselves the horses would not climb the hill. Then he had run for aid, and with him everybody that had been waiting for wine and Florie, and two score people had seen how the faithful Florian, in spite of unconsciousness and pain, had with his own body guarded the wine and prevented its escape.

That was a Styrian wine-carter!

Hausbaum was told the whole story while everything was still reeling about him and head and ribs ached. He had already begun to weep like a child; but when he learned of his heroic deed, his lips drew down only four or five times more; then his mouth changed from a horseshoe into a broad line, and at the end Florie laughed all over his face and so overpoweringly that all joined in.

Now he was carried in triumph to Völkermarkt, found his horses sound and contented, and was extolled for the hero he was. For he had preserved a sacred treasure for Völkermarkt.

This tale ran over half the Carinthian land, and that was the climax and the highest prosperity of Florian Hausbaum's bright life.

Then, however, his fortunes, his renown, and his importance declined all at once. Love and acclamation died away, and his calling with all its joys was crushed with him. And that was because, far below in the plain across the Drau, the railroad was built.

For another year Florie Hausbaum proudly and loftily carted his wine into the Carinthian land. Far below him, beyond the stream, they were working on the long iron serpent; but he did not even look at it.

In the second year he only carted his wine until the early days of summer. But even on his spring trip his heart grew anxious and heavy. The girls were no longer starved with love-pangs as formerly, not at all, for the handsome young engineers, and then the foremen and bosses, were turning things upside down. There had been dances, dances at Carnival time, even in the smallest villages.

And then came the day on which the first locomotive, decked out with flags, branches, ribbons, and flowers, pulled a whole trainful of jubilation from Marburg to Klagenfurt. Thirty young girls from the Styrian wine-centre were on the train in their festal finery, going to dance with the lads of Klagenfurt. All sang and shouted for joy because the new time had come, the time of youth.

But high up on the lonely road the fair-haired carter, who had meanwhile reached the shady side of thirty, held his hat with its fading bouquet before his face. The horses pulled till they trembled, but below them the iron serpent crawled along, overtook them without effort, and was lost to sight far ahead. Only a long, mocking whistle came to them from the distance, from the wooded moors beyond the Drau, wafted to them by wide-ranging breezes. From that day on it was the railroad that carried wine and love, wood and happiness, wares and hope.

But on the heights above Florian Hausbaum was making his last trip. His employer had given him notice. He let his quivering horses rest, and where in other days an outburst of happiness had made him send a halloo from the fairest spot far out across the conquered depths toward the Alps, there he now wept for a whole silly stretch.

Henceforth the road was desolate, at one blow--and no one even drove a cart over it any more. The manure which the farmers had conveyed to their fields was almost the only one of this world's goods which it still carried.

As for Florian Hausbaum, he became a driver for the Ox Inn at Völkermarkt; that was a little consolation, at least; to settle down here on the scene of former triumphs, and ever and again to be able to drive at least a little load of grain or wood over the beloved road. To be sure, he could no longer reach all his girls with these present trips. Nor did they need it, for now there was other supply. From over yonder, from across the Drau, from Prävali, Bleiburg, and Kühnsdorf, and also from Rückersdorf and Grafenstein, and not to mention the provincial capital, from there came the new foes, who wore such handsome red caps when on duty, as resplendent as officers with their black velvet lapels and the gold rosettes and winged wheels. They were the young railroad officials, pupils and assistants, and each one was the Casanova of his district! In those small places there were no other uniforms, and what was the bouquet on Florian's hat worth, compared with those caps with gold braid and rosette! They took away his Lisi, Marianne at St. Martin, and the passionate beauty Resele in the little hamlet of Eis. At Klagenfurt and Völkermarkt they danced all the girls away before his very nose, and it was just the winter, toward which he had looked forward with joyful anticipation, which became the way of the cross for him, where each stopping-place meant the end of a love and loyalty. Florie's best quality, his rarity, was of course gone; from now on he was always on hand, after all, and more than that, he was no longer the bringer of joy, the messenger of the thawing breeze, as of yore.

He defended his position with the girls; but as full-bred Styrian he began quarrels and brawls with his rivals on the railroad, instead of becoming a railroad man himself. So he was locked up in Klagenfurt for a couple of weeks, and for the first time this man, hitherto so open-hearted, so totally without reserve, developed a secret emotional life: hate of the railroad, and love for his deserted highway.

In reality it was love for his fleeting youth, the unquenchable thirst of yearning desire for the past, memory! But because the road had been the scene of his eternally faded greatness, therefore he attached all this love to it.

The years dropped out of sight in gnawing conflicts with his steadily thickening blood, and youth was where the violets of Marburg were, and the songs, and the new wine: with new generations.

For three or four years, indeed, Florie still lived on the echoes of his victorious days, and was still widely and warmly welcomed. But more and more strange faces came into the village, and new generations grew up that had not understood him in his glory of old. Girls of eighteen and twenty began to develop out of the children of that day, and these looked upon carter Hausbaum as a relic "of the time before the railroad came," as a venerable ancestor.

Rarer and rarer grew those admirers who would pound on the tavern table, saying, "Ah, old Florie, that was a devil of a lad for you!" So he himself began to play the narrator, and fiercely defended his own legend. But the more he had to tell, the older he appeared to the petticoated sex.

At first he was willingly listened to; then he was regarded as played out. Now he no longer talked with the old sorrowful ease, but with passionate bawling and irritation. He boastfully forced his stories upon people, and lost respect all the more.

Only the road, the old road remained his last sweetheart and remained quiet and faithful; both had become despised and useless, but they had clung to each other. Only, when he now drove over it--alas, how that too had changed. Formerly he brought along the new wine with the new spring.

Now he creaked along with the fire-wood for the winter.

His employer had begun a large business in wood; that made Hausbaum's carting period come in the fall. And so his little wagon again groaned over the deserted road, uphill, downhill, without his meeting a human soul. No driver but he was to be seen; he was like the ghost of the old road. The autumn tempest lodged in the canyon of the Drau, rebounded from all sides and whirled up, bidding him pull his old felt hat, on which he had long since given up putting any flowers, far down on his forehead. The land shook in the roaring sweep of a wrath of Doomsday, and his aging bones shivered. It was ending, ending; and where the larks of spring had once whirred about him, there he was now surrounded by the tittering dances of the withered leaves.

There he often saw once more the old houses with the little windows behind which he had had his girls, more of them and prettier ones than any lad in the land. But they had all married out of the houses or moved away, or had stayed on the spot and become care-worn housekeepers and mothers, who did not care to recognize him. The windows stared blindly at him, and no longer knew him for whom they had once opened like little gates of paradise, in passionate nights of spring. They had grown dull and gloomy; God knew who was now squatting behind them. But when from under one of the windows, despite the late October days, there came the breath of asters and everlasting, and some fresh young girl-face gazed in surprise toward the bony bachelor, who looked over inquiringly as with accursed, forlorn eyes, then his old heart would double up like a fist within him and cause him great pain.

It was all over; like fireworks.

And then, then even his very last sweetheart, which he had regarded as inalienable, was snatched from him: the highroad.

The first enemy he had merely followed with horrified eyes: the stinking, dust-whirling rattle-box, which flung the old road behind it as a spendthrift flings the precious money. But they kept coming oftener, the loud-colored power vehicles; faster and faster they became, and harder and harder it was for the carter's old hands to control the madly rearing horses.

In former days he had always walked beside his horses. Now that he had grown old and gray, he was very often glad to perch on the seat and doze there. But just when a short dream had helped him to forget the bitter change in his life, another of those monsters would roar behind him its spiteful, deep "too-oot, too-oot." Then it behooved him to jump down in a hurry, pull the nags to one side, and speak to the excited creatures words of calm, of love and kindness, while his old heart rose into his throat with fright and hate. But the unknown, insolent machine was already far ahead, and away off on that terrible hill where the carter's horses quivered and stamped, where he had to breathe them nine times and smoked a whole pipe of tobacco before he reached the top, he would see the monster whizzing upward. As with a shout of joy it stormed the ascent, so that it seemed to fly out into the air at the top, before it was engulfed by the next hollow. And mockingly, already at an incredible distance, the "too-oot, too-oot" would come back to him, its bawling tones seeming to ooze away.

The low curs! Their love for this road was like that of the sportsman for the shy pigeons: love to shoot them. They joyously sought out this hundred-hilled stretch, and they exulted when they rolled over these great humps on the second or even the third speed. It was a delight to make a mock of the old road. Landscape? Beauty? It was ahead, never anywhere but ahead, ahead.

Florian Hausbaum had thought he must die of wrath and woe when these road-gobblers appeared, and yet the opposite happened: he had a new lease of life. At last he had something that once more linked him to this earth; and if it was a hatred, it led him back to men! Now they all understood him, now he could once more get first hearing in all the taverns; he could tell of dangers he had escaped, so that half a village would hastily collect to hear him repeat the tale; he might curse and threat without being ridiculed, think up tricks to play, and wage malicious battles, and once again the bar-rooms resounded with the old cry, long silenced, "Hooray, Florie, good for you! A reg'lar devil, that Hausbaum. Eyah, that's the old Styrian wine-carter for you!"

He found assent, approval, confirmation, wherever he went, and his superb white hair silenced all contradiction. Venerable and mighty was the hatred of Florian Hausbaum in all the land, and the eyes of the old carter again began to sparkle, his cheeks to look red, and his heart swelled, making the old man look magnificent. He had something to live for!

On a Sunday in spring he was standing at one end of Völkermarkt, in the midst of the men-folk who had come from church and were now puffing at their holiday pipes in God's delicious, mild air. There came a red motor through the place, quite slowly. A gentle and just citizen was riding in it, who himself hated the brutality of the speed-maniacs, and had accustomed himself to drive through towns with the mildness of a milk-wagon.

Old Hausbaum was still raging at the last "filthy brute," who had shot through the scattering holiday crowd like a barbarian on his scythed chariot in the battles of old. His pent-up rage was now vented upon these travelers, who came so opportunely into his clutches. He jumped into the path of the machine, the gentleman slowed down still more and tooted his horn. But Florian Hausbaum did not yield his ground. So the vehicle stopped.

And now it burst forth, the great speech of the old wine-carter; the mightiest one in the life of the Styrian, Florian Hausbaum:

"You wind-belchers! You road-stinkers, who sent for you? D' you bring any money into the land? Naw! D' you ever get out even once in Grafenstein, in Völkermarkt, in Lippitzbach? Or at Eis, at Lavamünd, at Drauburg or Hohenmauten or Mahrenberg? Naw! You've come from the city, you tiresome city-dudes and you women with your faces tied up as if you had the tooth-ache, and you never stop till you're in Marburg again, or maybe in Graz, 'cause the country inn-keeper's little bit o' grub ain't good enough for you. But to run down the poor farmer's last goose, run over children, drive horses crazy, torment their drivers, cover the Lord God's grain with dust, and dirty up the hay so 't not a beast'll take a mouthful of it, go bellowing past the church just when the pastor's talking inside about the Kingdom o' Heaven, and not only that, but stink like the devil, that's what you like! You're sent by the devil, you look like the devil, you haven't got any more justice or mercy than he has, and now go and drive to the devil and break your necks, that's my wish for you. There, now you can go on stinking!"

The ladies in the automobile scolded, the farmers round about pressed forward threateningly; but the gentleman driving, a quiet, composed person, merely looked sadly at the gendarme who came hurrying up, and said, "Did you hear all that? Make way for us at least, so that we shall not be torn to pieces."

He had to crank again. Then he drove away, down into the deep valley and up the hill beyond and away; but Florian Hausbaum stood like Siegfried after the battle with the dragon.

The gendarme said to him with some reproach, "Right you were, Florie. But if the gentleman goes to law, I'll have to testify against you. Then it'll go hard with you; do be sensible in your old age!" And he went.

But all the rest were of the opinion that it was quite impossible to be sensible about this, and Florian was loudly applauded. "That was fine, what you told 'em! Eyah, old Florie. That's right, Styrian folks know how to use their tongues."

The old carter was quite intoxicated with success and praise. He knew that his renown would go circling out over the whole country-side, and every farmer who had been at church this day would carry home the mighty speech of Florian Hausbaum more accurately than the sermon. He was great as in the olden days, and his heart swelled with pride.

Then came the shriek of a siren from the other end of the village. "Another stinking devil," they said. "Get out of the road, Florie."

But the old carter remained standing there with widespread feet, and his white hair blew about wildly in the spring breeze. He knew that signal; it came from a great machine that tore through the country every day, as if the point were to rescue and prevent a misfortune, instead of conjuring up one. And this machine was hated throughout the whole Carinthian land.

"Here I stand," shouted the old man in a frenzy, "and here I'll stay and not let a single auto out o' the village!"

He had just had a pleasant experience, and thought every machine would stop for him like the last one. But the monster was already at hand, and as for stopping, it could not even if the driver had wished to. An angry shout in the machine, a horrified wail rising from a hundred voices, and with a mighty leap the automobile crashed over the toppled obstacle, jumped, dragged, and tore itself along for ten full paces more, despite brakes and cut-out, and not until then did it come to a stop. The occupants, wealthy young people, leaped out. There lay Florie Hausbaum by the roadside.

The automobile had fatally injured him and hurled him to one side. Now every one ran for aid, and the giddy young people cursed the fact that their machine was so well known; they feared that assistance here would be dangerous. But not a soul said a cross word to them. So they knelt beside the injured white-bearded victim, wiped the blood from his face, and opened his vest,

As the physician was working over him, Florian Hausbaum awoke once more in this life.

He looked about him, and drew breaths of pain and affliction. But the wonderful spring air of that day penetrated even his crushed lungs like a mild wine in a parched throat. Intoxicating was this air, as of yore; weak and peaceful, victorious and beloved he was, as of yore: when he had saved the precious red wine.

Then, in his wandering mind, all his evil days vanished, and all hatred. Age was forgotten, and at this moment, when his soul began to flutter its wings like a new butterfly, all the foregoing was blotted out; there was no longer any suffering, nor dying. Timeless! There was nothing but spring air, lovely, hopeful spring air. And truly, the evil days of old age, of mockery, and of the railroad, of autumn tempests on the road, of a pulse that slackened in the veins--nothing of this could stand its ground. It was all a mere dream.

For he felt as weak and as happy as on the day when he had almost sacrificed his glorious youth for a cask of wine. And look, here were the moist, dark-red spots in the sunlit dust of the road, and the ruby red on his Sunday shirt flamed even more intensely.

So an unexampled happiness reeled through the Styrian wine-carter's mind, because his life's greatest day and his deed of heroism were still upon him. He sobbed in pain and joy, "Leave me and catch the precious wine. It must not run out. People, the sacred wine!"

And with the happiness of intoxication he sank into the roseate dream of eternity.

EMIL STRAUSS

* * * * * *

MARA (1909)

TRANSLATED BY WILLIAM GUILD HOWARD
Assistant Professor of German, Harvard University

It was in a Brazilian city. One morning I awoke early and felt my heart so full of repugnance to all life that I shut my eyes again and wondered what sort of dream could have left me in this feverish state of mind. But I could not recollect that I had had any dream; in the middle of the night, aroused by a creaking casement, I had started up out of a dreamless slumber. Whence came, then, for the second and the third time this darkness in me, this torturing feeling of oppression at every breath, this piteous longing never to have waked up and never again to have to wake up? I had gone contentedly to bed, and had slept a deep and peaceful sleep.

Confidingly and unguardedly you yield to fatigue and give yourself over to rest--what demon is it that then enters through the open portal, inoculates your heart with a black drop, stirs up and discolors and poisons with it all your blood until, foul and heavy as lead, it forces its way through your heart?

Or is it I--I who am that demon! As the dark bottom of a deep well is lighted up and revealed by the perpendicular rays of the sun only when the water above is quiet and clear as crystal--is it thus that the true color of my being stands forth from deep sleep when the will-o'-the-wisps of waking and dreaming are banished, and that color irradiates and fills its domain, and is just grazed by the abrupt ray of suddenly awaking consciousness?

There it is once for all, and there is no escaping it! What is this darkness? Is it a phantom and a weakness? Is it only an enemy who challenges you and vanishes away in proportion as your own self enlarges? Is it death slowly developing in you?

It is intolerable. If this pillow were saturated with mortal poison, you would take the corner between your lips as the infant takes his mother's breast, and would drink release from your troubles. But if the poison stood over there in the other corner of the room, the mere ten paces to reach it would carry you too far back into life again! And yet tomorrow, or a few days hence, there will be moments when this darkness will suddenly surge up in you and consume you as though it were fire, so that you shrivel up within yourself and cannot excuse in your own eyes the shame of living. Yes, even though you can calmly look back upon this thing, smile at it like a reasonable man and joke about it, even then there is a secret fibre in your being which yearns for that darkness, which shudders in pride and awe of it, which has a premonition that in it there is something purer than all light and all joy.

In search of protection from such worrying phantasms I finally opened my eyes and turned toward the open window. But what I saw outside was so surprising that I closed my eyes again and cried, "What the devil is that?"

Having recovered my composure and the consciousness that I had senses, I opened my eyes once more and peered out: but on the ridge-pole of the adjacent farm building, like doves on a German stable, there still sat at regular intervals five vultures, immovable and waiting. As though cut out of black paper, they seemed pasted on the gleaming blue morning sky.

"Shameless fellows!" I ejaculated. "I must admit that I have been philosophizing here to myself like a dead dog; but I am not yet ready for you by a good deal!" They remained quietly sitting there.

Franz Wilhelm Voigt

Then I jumped out of bed, took an orange from the fruit plate on the table, and threw it at the creatures. The orange flew neatly between two of them; the vulture perched nearest to its path straightened up, inquisitively turned his head with the greedy eyes to right and left, and then drew his head back again. And in their imperturbable, diabolical serenity the old fellows remained sitting on their perch, as uncanny as the stone gargoyles on the towers of Notre Dame in Paris.

I was not disposed to let these amiable beasts feast their eyes on me any longer; so I quickly took my bath, and dressed.

Although this day was still vacation, I made my rounds through the empty bedrooms and said to the only boy who--because his tuition had not been paid--had been required to spend the holidays at the boarding school, that he might as well roll over on his other side; on the morrow he should have once more to get under the douche at six o'clock in the morning. He really did not need, in vacation time, to pull the wool over my eyes, but even today he tried to make me believe he was fond of bathing. Not to be outdone in courtesy, I pretended to be convinced of the fact. And so we separated with mutual satisfaction.

Now I stepped up to the housekeeper's chamber door. As yet, the resounding report--one could hear it all over the house--with which at evening her bolt was drawn, and in the morning drawn back, had not announced to us that Donna Leocadia de Silva Soares e Pimentel had arrayed herself for contact with the hostile sex; therefore I cautiously approached the door and listened. But when I heard the sound of footsteps within, going back and forth with a tread appropriate to the name as well as to the bodily frame of the Senhora, I plucked up courage, knocked, and, retreating a pace, reported that I should breakfast in town. At the moment I could have said little that would have been more agreeable to the lady. Now she was most happily relieved of the necessity of dressing decently, early this blessed morning, merely in order to place a cup on the table before me and fill it with coffee; nevertheless, she assured me in the most touching tones of her regret that she must dispense with my agreeable company and drink her coffee alone. I replied that her regret was a source of pride to me, made a bow to the door, and departed.

In the courtyard I found the five black brethren still perching on the shed roof; I tried to scare them away by clapping my hands; they did not refer this action to themselves.

When I passed under the window of Donna Leocadia, it opened with a crash, and in a white dressing jacket that had been kept out of the wash for quite too long a time, the overflowing forms of the upper part of the lady's body settled into an easy position in the window frame. She bowed her head of black hair done up in blue and red curlpapers, and rolled her fine great stupid brown eyes. I merely waved my hat and strode on. At the garden gate I met the mulatto boy Alcides, who was just bringing the breakfast rolls in an open basket from the main house of the institution, across the street. I stopped him and asked why he was again carrying the bread in an open basket, instead of throwing a napkin over it, as he was supposed to do.

"Forgot it," he replied with an unconcerned shrug; for one had to speak to him more emphatically. I therefore selected from the Portuguese vocabulary of abuse, which is as massive and opulent as that of any Romance language whatever, a few juicy morsels, and swore that if this carelessness happened again I would shut the fellow up in the dark chamber and give him twenty-four hours to fix his duty in mind. He made a grimace.

"You may thank God," I cried, "that I haven't any gloves on. If I had, I would pound your face until you hadn't an eye or a tooth left in the right place!"

He contemptuously showed his two porcelain rows of white teeth.

In anger I made for him--he turned round, and I drew back for a mighty kick; but to my disgrace, the mishued curmudgeon knew how to frustrate my effort; the heel of my boot came in all too slight touch with the hostile posterior, I was hurled about by the momentum of my shot that missed its mark, and suddenly stood facing in the opposite direction. I had to laugh at myself. But Alcides made a quick move round the corner of the house. Donna Leocadia, whose corpulence still filled the window, called to me that I was always too good-natured; I ought not to have let the rascal run away, but ought to have banged his head several times against the wall. Then with an undulating lurch she got up and stepped back from the window, to receive the fellow in her room; she was not so squeamish as I, and she generally, moreover, had not washed her hands.

In the most cheerful frame of mind I now walked along the streets, which were still fairly cool with the freshness of the morning. I bought a copy of the latest newspaper, seated myself in the cane chair of a bootblack, got a shine, and read my paper. Then I entered a café and in deliberate European comfort sipped a cup of coffee with cream, and pitied the Brazilians, who hastily sat down at the nearest table they could find, stirred an enormous quantity of sugar in their thimbleful of coffee, poured the mixture down their throats, and rushed out into the street again, as though there or elsewhere they had anything whatever to do. I enjoyed my coffee as much as one can enjoy good coffee, and did not commit the impropriety of ordering a second cup, but bought of the tobacconist in the establishment a package of those cigarettes--not so much good, as genuine, Brazilian--which are rolled in corn straw instead of in paper. Leaning against a door-post, I remained standing there, gazed across the street, unrolled one of the cigarettes, poured the granular black tobacco into the palm of my hand, decanted it back into the corn leaf, and lighted the preparation. I looked across the street and was infinitely happy, though there was not much to see. Only a few people were passing in one direction or the other, for the most part with a newspaper fresh from the press in their hands. One man stood at the curb and had his boots blacked. A street car went rumbling by; the driver lashed his mules, one of which kicked out behind and struck the dashboard with both hoofs a thwack that resounded the length of the street.

Throwing away the stub of my cigarette, I now started off and loitered along. What should I do? Go to the book store and look at French books--continue my reading in Faubert's letters? No hurry; nobody will buy them anyway! The air is still too fine.

Or shall I go to the editorial rooms of the German newspaper and see my friend from Vienna, smoke a decent cigar, talk over the news, talk about young Vienna, about Hermann Bahr who in his _furor teutonicus_ smashed a beer mug on the head of a Bohemian? About Loris, who is still a very young man, not permitted as yet to go alone to join his literary friends at the café--his father insists upon accompanying him--"I tell you what, a marvelous genius!"--?--But the upshot of the matter will be, he will lock me in when I am not noticing, and will keep me there until I have ground out an article for his paper. And the weather is really too fine for that.

Thereupon I was roused from my revery by a breath of sultry fragrance. I turned in the direction from which I heard footsteps, and caught sight of the tropical profile of a young lady, who with eyes looking straight ahead was going her way. Her simple, handsome face was not yellow, but of a hot-blooded, fine brown, which as the sign of aboriginal vitality is charming, and immediately made me breathe hard. Now, as if by chance, a calm glance of the great dark eye, the white of which was as soft as mother of pearl, fell upon me, and then a second, quick glance, which toppled me over like a stroke of lightning; thereupon the profile was turned somewhat rigidly forward again. Never losing sight of the daintily plump figure in the white lace gown, I gradually made way for her to pass by me; and if I had taken pleasure in contemplation of the face, I took, if possible, still more pleasure in contemplation of the easy walk which animated her whole body with its graceful rhythm.

In this manner we approached a cross street.

Then, as she stepped down from the sidewalk, she made a false calculation and swung herself somewhat too far forward; her foot came down hard upon the pavement, her whole body felt the shock, she stumbled, and her beauty was gone as quickly as a house built of cards collapses. I stood still for a moment, then I turned in my tracks, saying, "What a B[oe]otian and Hyperborean you are! Is there anything more fragile than enjoyment? Is there anything more sensitive to injury than grace? Did you not know that? If you had not followed this poor girl, she would have cleared the barrier as gracefully as a kitten; now she is as much ashamed as though you had seen her in her petticoat." I looked once more in her direction; sure enough, she too was looking round, with a flushed face and stupid, anxious eyes. O these soulful eyes, eyes like the roe, the antelope, the gazelle, or any other creature known to zoology. God be with them, and spare me!

Now I at once knew where to go and turned my steps toward the new streets farther out in the country, which are occupied principally by Germans. There I had a kind of sweetheart, all for the sake of her eyes. This had come to pass as follows:

After I had been several months in this beautiful and affluent country, and, whether in the midst of my boys at school or among the people at the theatre, in the circus, or in the café, kept seeing in the women, to whom I paid eager attention, always the same great dark eyes, these eyes began to pall upon me. Why? In Germany, by contrast to our cerulean blue, steel blue, greenish, and iron gray eyes, brown ones had often seemed to me especially beautiful and touched my heart as nothing else could do. Now they bored me. Always the same apparent expression of strength, which goes back to the contrast between the dark pupil and the surrounding white, and in turn between this white and the dusky skin; always, even on the most indifferent occasions, this pregnant glance, this rolling and melting! "Anyhow," I asked myself one day, "why have all these people replaced their human eyes with the eyes of animals?" I began, when on the streets, to look about for light-colored eyes, for glances which had something of the clearness of the sky or the wave in spring time, something of the lustre and translucency of a November mist, something of the keen brilliancy of an ice crystal. I paid attention once more to the people of the Northern Hemisphere, whom heretofore I had avoided, and these people of the North are, of course, mostly Germans.

Now it happened that one morning in those days I was going my way, and, in order to keep in the shade, sticking as closely as might be to the houses. Then out of a low window in the ground floor of one of these houses a hand shot out right before me, holding a dust-cloth, which it was about to shake; and I should naturally have got the full benefit of the operation. With a quick grasp I seized the hand by the wrist; and not until I had so secured myself could I look up to see to whom the hand belonged. The girl stood inclined somewhat forward, leaning on her other hand, and stared at me with great startled eyes, the most transparent, silvery-gleaming eyes that I remember ever to have seen.

I was so surprised that I lost all my audacity; but I still kept a firm hold of her hand. And so she was after all the first to recover her power of speech, and she said, "Pardon me."

"On the contrary, I thank you," I replied, rising on my toes, kissing her hand, and then releasing it.

She made no answer, her expression became troubled, she struggled with herself, her eyes filled with tears, and I felt that I had done violence to an innocent heart. That pained me and I blurted out, "Shake the cloth in my face! I have offended you. It was not my intention; but let me have my punishment."

"Not for the world!" she responded. "How can a man say such a thing!"

I looked at her in amazement and curiosity. Was that meant to be a reprimand? Did she strike a blow and pretend the while to put far away from her any such intention? No. Her eyes beamed appeasement and also appeasingly; surrendering myself to her, I had disarmed her resentment. Nevertheless, I continued, "He who can say such a thing has no right, then, to wear hair on his face? I shall presently go straight to the barber's. I have been so proud of my manliness! But--repulsed with loss! And, to make a clean breast of it, for an opportunity like this I would gladly remain a foolish youth a long while yet; like silly Jack, you know, in the fairy tale, who is always doing foolish things; but the princess with the blue eyes does not think any the worse of him on that account!"

Pricking up her ears and collecting her thoughts, she looked at me half roguishly out of the corner of her eye; then she shook her head with its heavy braids and said, "I do not understand you. You are so comical. You must talk quite simply to me."

She looked so charmingly simple that I forgot my speech and watched her standing there, so youthful and radiant in the window frame, against the dark background of the room. Everything about her was healthful and strong: her figure in the blue washable dress, her round throat, her well formed face, in which eyes and teeth gleamed brightly; but the abundance of her chestnut braids was so heavy that her neck seemed hardly able to support them.

"What sort of follies did silly Jack commit?" she asked when I became silent.

"I don't know myself; but when he came to woo the princess, and was asked what present he had brought her, he pulled a handful of mud out of his pocket and filled her white hands with it. She liked that so well that she took him for her husband."

"A handful of mud! Such a dirty fellow! Did she marry him?"

"Yes, indeed! The other suitors had brought her jewels and crowns--she had plently of those already. But with mud she would have been glad to play, like other children, if the court ladies had allowed her to. Therefore she now rejoiced in her childish heart, and she thought he would certainly be the pleasantest husband for her."

"Yes, yes--the fact of the matter is, she was right."

Thus it began, and so it continued.

She was the daughter of a German cabinet-maker, who had developed his business until he had a prosperous furniture factory. Two years before, her mother had died, and since that time she had run the household with the most complete devotion, in the way that she had learned, and as befitted her single-minded, unsophisticated nature. She did all her work as though it were a benefaction, with whole-souled joy and boundless happiness in her ability. As often as my way led me near to where she lived, and that was almost daily at the same hour, I looked in at her window and found her always occupied with some sort of work. We chatted for a quarter of an hour; she told me what animated her day, asked me about everything that interested her in my existence, and initiated me into the sphere of her domestic cares. It pleased her that my needs were few; but that I did not even feel the need of damming up the briskly flowing stream of my income and making a little lake of it, this appeared to her as frivolity, indeed as unrighteous, and she endeavored to reform me, to make me more aware of the value of money, of the money that I had earned, and in some measure to guide my expenditures. I do not mean to say that she ever made tiresome reprimands or admonitions. Simple and innocent as her mind was,--whenever she had resolved to bring pressure to bear upon my indifference or my wilfulness, she pondered the possible method with such affectionate patience that she did not fail to find a delicate or a touchingly irresistible form. I once brought her a rare orchid, whose fantastic form and brilliant colors I had so much admired in the shop window that I was unwilling to allow any other human being to possess it than Mariandel--by this name I called my friend. She did not say anything so commonplace as that I ought not to have done it, or I ought not to have spent so much money; she showed the honest joy of a child who is proud to have received such a costly gift; but she added to her praise of the flower, "It is sacred!"

The expression seemed to me somewhat pompous, as many of her expressions were; nevertheless, I could not but nod assent, thinking of the virgin forest in which this flower first gleamed forth through the twilight, as a new miracle rising out of the ruins of innumerable generations of trees. But Mariandel then continued, "It is a part of your life."

I smiled in astonishment.

"Perhaps you have given for it the hardest and unhappiest of your days of toil."

Such a thought as that did not come into her head on the spur of the moment. I knew at once that she had excogitated it, and kept it in reserve for a good opportunity of impressing upon my mind what my money was. And then for days at a time I strove not to employ my money in ways that ran counter to her honest feeling.

Neither in the city nor in the country did I know anything that afforded me a purer, more genuine joy than my meetings with this imperturbable, self-contained woman. We had rapidly come to confidential terms with one another, so that one day without consultation or emotion we said "Du" to each other--I do not even know whether it was she or I who began the practice.

And now I was once more walking along the broad, hot street with the one-storied houses, once more on the same side in the shade, which today, to be sure, was deeper than the first time; for it was still early morning. And now I stood by the window, put my arms on the window-sill and said, "Good morning, Mariandel, sweetmeats!" And she stood before an ironing board which rested on the windowsill and the table, and was ironing with a charcoal flat-iron. She put the iron down on the rest, gave me her firm, warm hand, and said, "_Bom dia, senhor doutor! Passa bem?_" and her eye seemed to beam more cordially than ever, and yet could not express more cordiality than it had expressed before.

She seated herself by the window, put her right hand on the sill, above which my head and shoulders protruded, and began to speak, turning her head in such a way that I saw now her profile, with the inconspicuous but firm lines of her nose, mouth, and chin, and the heavy braids of her lustrous hair about her neck, now her full face beaming upon me; then, however, I forgot all her other, beauty, in contemplation of the incomprehensibly reposeful and unsullied blue of her eye. I was never in love with her; never had the sight of her or thoughts of her taken my breath away; but never was I so full of joyous love for a human being as then for her.

After she had asked questions about this and that and had told me all sorts of things, she said, "Professor, don't let me forget to tell you: George Bleyle down there at the _Mercadinho_ is not having very good trade, they say; if you need anything, just bear him in mind. He has bought at bottom prices a whole invoice of men's furnishings that was put up at auction down at the dock, and things are very cheap at his shop just now."

And she told what she had purchased for her father, and what her sister-in-law had got for her husband, named the prices, and praised the quality of the goods. I gazed first at her eyes, then at the glowing coals within the flat-iron, listened to the tones of her dear, faithful voice and thought of my home of long ago, of brothers and sisters and friends, of a home of my own with wife and children in it, of things dear and compelling, for which I could stake my life; and I tasted the sweetness of one of those moments which do their best to broaden our hearts, to strengthen them and renew their allegiance.

All at once she stopped speaking, and when I did not notice this she cried out, "Senhor, are you again failing to listen to me!" "Oh, yes. Henrique Bleyle has put up at auction a cargo of furnishing goods--"

"_O não, senhor_, not at all! But you are a discourteous good-for-nothing; you think, 'Just let her talk!'"

"Missed by a mile, my child! I have been listening to you without hearing what you said. Look, when I sit down on the curb of a fountain and let myself be enveloped and captivated by its splashing and tinkling, its silvery spraying, and forget everything, even the fountain, and think uncommonly pure and good thoughts--don't these thoughts come from the fountain? Do I not hear them in its plashing, even though I no longer hear the sound of it, and am I, in this absentmindedness, not more the bondman of the fountain than if I had counted its drops of water? That is how it was just now. While I listened to your voice and felt your eye upon me, I learned something better from you than that Bleyle has socks for sale. Nevertheless, I shall buy the socks from him. But that you help me in my vanity and hastiness not merely to let serious thoughts enter my mind when they come like a stroke of lightning, but also quietly and modestly to admit them, to await them, and to attain to the inner core of their sweetness--that is to me more delightful and more important than all the cargoes of all the continents."

She looked at me with childlike confidence, put her little, warm hand on mine, and said, "You are not angry with me, Erwin?"

"How could I be angry with you for that? Is there a human being who could be angry with you? See, Mariandel, the only pain you cause me is the fact that I am not the only one who can take nothing ill of you!"

"Oh!" she cried, laughing down her shamefacedness like a school-girl, "just ask my brother and his wife whether they cannot take anything ill of me!"

"Then they are not human beings. There aren't so very many."

"No, my brother is good," she replied, "and Anna too."

"In any case, I shall prove to you that I am ready to help my fellow-man. I shall buy of Henrique Bleyle a complete new outfit from head to foot, and hope thereby to save him from bankruptcy."

"Not Henrique Bleyle, but George Bleyle at the _Mercadinho_, and there is no question of bankruptcy. For Heaven's sake don't say anything of the kind!" She looked at me in the utmost confusion and with guilty eyes; she had of course emphasized the fact that business was bad--as it was in general at that time--merely in order to induce me to buy of George Bleyle, since she feared she could not make me budge by speaking only of the cheapness of his wares.