Chapter III: Front Matter (3)

As Beate grew older, she went down every morning at five o'clock in the milk-wagon to the town, winter and summer, to go to school, and got down in the Entenfang at Madame Kummerfelden's. The child stayed with her until school began, had dinner with her at midday, took part in the famous sewing-class with the other girls under the kind, lively teacher, and then went home in the wagon when it brought the afternoon milk.

Good Frau Kummerfelden took a great deal of pleasure in the child's company--but she had some left over for the father also. When, arrayed in one of her flowered dresses and a cap tilted up over her still youthful face, she took her coffee comfortably on Sunday afternoons in the little house in the Entenfang, it was not at all disagreeable to her to have the old sinner pass an hour with her. He got two or three drinks of schnapps, some of the best snuff any nose could wish, and extra strong coffee, that even a throat as hardened as his could taste when it went down.

"It's good to see something like a man now and then," she said; "and Rauchfuss with his red beard and his giant stature and his mighty stride reminds an old woman like me that there are still men on earth, which one goes near to forgetting in these endless sewing-classes of wretched little girls!"

And, to tell the truth, she liked just such an old reprobate. "Yes," she said once to her friend, "if the good God were a woman, which isn't such an impossible thing to imagine, the men would get a pretty good deal up above. The worst scapegraces would be handled most graciously, as they are here on earth--where a man can do without any morals and be loved and run after because he's got a way with him." By such discourses the wise woman established herself in the captain's favor, and was able to make herself very much at home with him. Often she scolded him as if he were a schoolboy--but he took it in the friendliest fashion.

"With a man you must never come straight out with a thing. Spread plenty of honey about your mouth, and while they're licking it off they get the right thing with it, what they should get. That's the only way." So said the old woman often. And thus she gave it him roughly and merrily, like many another clever woman, and had a submissive friend for her pains.

The captain was foolishly vain of "Tubby's" beauty. The old friends were sitting together one Sunday afternoon in the little house in the Entenfang--the captain and the old actress turned sewing-teacher. "Well, Rauchfuss has got a pretty good-looking daughter, eh, my good Kummerfelden? Such plump, firm arms--and the walk of her! A well set up creature--and then her red-gold hair, and her confounded eyes! Eh, Kummerfelden, I didn't do a bad piece of work there, did I? Look at all the generation that's growing up--can you show me her like?"

"Now, now," said Frau Kummerfelden; "you needn't be stuck up about it, my good sir. She is more than half the daughter of her noble mother."

"Eh, what? Noble?" said the captain. "Deuce take it--beauty's the thing in a woman. There you are!"

"You old fool!" said Frau Kummerfelden. "What was it kept your property in such fine condition? Was it your wife's beauty, or her ability?"

"Ah, bah! Of course non-essentials have their use too. But the main thing ... Look--she might have gone down on her knees to me, and I'd never have married Frau Rauchfuss if she hadn't been such a fetching little thing."

"The Lord have mercy on you men!" said Frau Kummerfelden, stirring the sugar in her coffee. "You choose one that takes your fancy, and you call her beautiful as long as you care for her. What sort of a life did your wife have up there, lonely and deserted, as if she'd married a log of wood?"

"I say, Kummerfelden! Thunder--you're saying a good deal!"

"Because it's the truth!" said Frau Kummerfelden crossly. "And a rocking-horse would make as good a father as you are to that dear child. What kind of a way is that to do--to come home drunk at two o'clock in the morning, without a thought for the poor little thing that's waiting for you half asleep to help you to bed, you old rascal? And at that hour of the morning you make the good little thing get you a cup of coffee; and you take it like a thankless fool. Pooh, captain, I don't expect any man to be a pattern of morality and temperance. But even for a man there are _some_ limits--and those limits you overstep, my good sir!"

On this particular day Frau Kummerfelden was more than usually put out with her old friend on account of something that had just come to her ears. But none the less she poured him out his third cup of strong coffee, and waited on him just as attentively as if he had been Saint Nicholas himself.

"And another thing," she said--"do you suppose the good child ever talks of the way you go on? Not a syllable! People might tear her in little pieces and they wouldn't get a word out of her that wasn't to your credit."

"A soldier's child--damn it all!" cried the captain, bringing down his fist on the table. "She gets that from me, the little rogue!"

Frau Kummerfelden put up both her busy hands to her big cap, as if to protect it from hearing impossible things. "Lord save us!" she said. "There's no use talking to people like you."

When Captain Rauchfuss's daughter had reached her seventeenth year, it came to pass that the old man got involved in a love-affair. On his Sunday visits to Frau Kummerfelden about this time he had often found there a neat little widow who professed a charming devotion to her old teacher. After her husband's death she had been left in poor circumstances. She came to consult Frau Kummerfelden very seriously about a project of settling down in Weimar as a nurse; and she made it all so touching and edifying that the captain, who happened to be present at some of these discussions, found his heart growing quite warm. Moreover, the little woman had a fascinating heart-shaped face, broad in the brow and pointed at the chin, and a pair of round, merry brown eyes.

"That'd be the kind of nurse for me," said the captain; "a lively creature, who'd make the whole business look less bad. It would be rather fun!"

"Shame on you, old simpleton!" said Frau Kummerfelden crossly.

"Well, but, Kummerfelden," said the captain, "you're a stately old frigate with that cap of yours. A light modern craft like our Marianne sails in different waters from such a venerable ship of virtue--eh, Frau Marianne?"

"Oh, really, captain," pouted the little woman. "Do you think I am not serious about all this?" And once more she paraded her virtues and her edifying design before the eyes of the good old woman and Herr Rauchfuss.

"A devil of a girl!" muttered the captain in his red beard.

"Oh yes," said the neat little woman, making a charming gesture with her little heart-shaped head, about which she had tied a snow-white three-cornered piece of linen to give herself a tidy and almost nunlike appearance--"oh yes, I like that! A devil of a girl.... Well, you'll find out what sort of a girl I am if you ever get into my hands! I'd take charge of the cooking as well--nobody knows how to get up tempting little dishes for an invalid's appetite, so that his spirits begin to come back to him at the very smell of the broth I make him. And another thing I may say--with me a patient can save on doctors' visits. I learned a great many things from my poor mother--all kinds of wonderful remedies, for gout and things like that ... the doctors' noses are out of joint.

"Haven't got it!" said the captain.

"Well, so much the better," said the little woman. "But I should be in demand, I think. For who is there now? A couple of old slow-coaches, that rattle at every move they make, and your friend the old raven-mother, Frau Kummerfelden, whose rough paws would kill anything at all delicate."

"Now, now," said Frau Kummerfelden, "you mustn't say anything about the raven-mother--she's a splendid old soul."

"Soul, perhaps ... but a little too much body with it!" said the little woman, spinning round to emphasize her dainty figure.

"Well, facts are facts," said Frau Kummerfelden. "The raven-mother is perhaps a trifle massively built. To be sure, last winter, when I was full of all kinds of pains, she picked me up out of bed and put me in again like a child. It's true she puffed and snorted over it as if she'd been Saint Christopher, which wouldn't suit everybody."

"No, no, no," said the little widow, "one must know how to move without making a noise."

One day the pretty little woman said, "It's time for me to be getting home now--my gentlemen will be waiting for me. One of them will need me to get his beer for him."

"Gentlemen?" said the captain, taken aback. "What kind of gentlemen have you got?"

"For board and lodging," she said; and her merry heart-shaped face with its round brown eyes looked up rather challengingly at the old soldier.

"The devil!" he cried.

"What's the matter with you?" said Frau Kummerfelden. "It's a very good thing that Providence has sent a couple of decent, sensible men into this part of the town, or how should the poor thing live?"

The captain laughed a little awkwardly. When she had gone, he got up stiffly from the table and walked about the room. "That boarder business doesn't please me at all," he said crossly.

"Look at the man!" laughed Frau Kummerfelden. "Captain, you needn't worry yourself. She's so clever that you have no thread fine enough to thread her needle."

From that day neither the captain nor the little widow was ever missing from Frau Kummerfelden's on Sunday afternoon, until it got too much for the old lady. It was some time before she began to notice that the captain and the young woman were getting to be on terms of courtship.

"Lord," she said within herself, "Thou hast chosen to ordain that my eyes should never see a man who couldn't get a woman, a man whom no woman would look at. Amen."

When she finally became aware of what was going on, she began to make excursions into the country on Sunday afternoons. She took her sewing-bag, put on a big hat over her cap, dressed herself in a becoming flowered dress, and locked the door of the house in the Entenfang behind her. Then she went off to contemplate God's free nature, picking up on the way a few rolls at the baker's, so that she might have something to dip in her coffee at Rödchen, Tröbsdorf, or Süssenborn.

"Well," she said to herself, "we've got 'Tubby' to the point where she doesn't need a stepmother; it's quite unnecessary that she should have one at all, least of all Frau Marianne. I believe in giving every one their due--but I wouldn't risk a penny on betting that her heart is even as big as an old hen's that you make soup out of. I really don't see any reason why we should provide her with a sinecure up on the Ettersberg."

The first Sunday or two that the captain found the door locked, he was very much annoyed with Frau Kummerfelden. "An old woman like that," he growled in front of the door, "steals God's days from him--and just when there's some use to be got out of her, she's off!"

So far the captain's love had been easy and comfortable to bear, a smooth and happy love. But now it began to trouble his bones like the gout. "Getting old ... getting old," he thought to himself; he went to the "Elephant" to refresh his forces, to dull his longing, to drown his discomfort--and yet he did not succeed. An unconquerable restlessness drove him hither and thither. Ten times in the day he marched with majestic steps through the little town, and could have wished it were ten times as big. At last he summoned up courage to pay a visit to the object of his adoration with due formality, but was scornfully repulsed by the lady herself. "Did he think she received visits from gentlemen?" That took him woefully aback. "When she's got the house full of men boarders!" he said to himself.

His astonishment was so plainly to be read in the old soldier's face that the pretty; little, woman quite understood it, and said to him in a friendly tone: "My dear Captain, people understand that a poor widow has to make a living; but if I were to let any one that chose come and visit me, I should soon be nicely talked about. So you mustn't mind, Captain." As she said this, she looked very charming, her face tinted by a sweet blush, for as a matter of fact she was not very much pleased to have her admirer standing in front of her door, in the tiny garden, for all the world to see. "But," she said, looking down modestly, "it might be all right for me to take a little walk some day and pay a visit to your daughter ..."

"To Tubby!" he laughed, surprised. "On a Sunday, then, when Tubby's at home," he said slyly, and made such a bow as he had had no occasion to make, in years. Her prudent behavior proved to him that she looked upon him without disfavor, and he was thus in an excellent temper.

That evening Tubby had a good deal of trouble with her father. He got out of the trap with decidedly unsteady steps. Up to that time he had always marched in a very stately manner through the courtyard, unnaturally straight, his moustache standing out stiffly, his hand behind him, like a man who is ready to face anybody's eyes with a "Well, look at me!"

The trouble had always begun after he got into the house; then he had collapsed and given poor Tubby a lot of trouble and distress; he had scolded her crossly and even struck her, and then passed to extravagant praises, staring at her with glassy eyes, until the poor child was terribly frightened.

But this evening he was queerer than ever before. He sat in his armchair, and seemed to be busy with something that was not there. "Go," he said, "or stay, if you like!" And then he began to stroke the cat, which was not there.

"Father," said the girl, "what's the matter with you? What kind of a joke is this? The cat isn't there."

"You goose," said Herr Rauchfuss, "have you got a hole in your eyes big enough for the cat to get through?" He stood up and pretended to be playing with the invisible cat. "There ... What? You'd bite, would you? That's something new! Like a dog ... the beast!" His face took on a dull red, and the veins in his temples stood out. He gave a kick. "There--that'll teach her a lesson! Such a brute was never nailed up to a barn door!"

He sat down again as if satisfied, breathing heavily. He looked ill. Now he had grown quite pale, with a bluish tint under the eyes, and his glance was expressionless. The child would have called the housekeeper, but she was afraid to stir from her place, and began to cry bitterly. Herr Rauchfuss broke out again: "There ...! It's back again--don't you see it?" he cried angrily. "Open your eyes!" He stared stonily in front of him. "There's no doing anything with a beast like that. Out you go!" And he made as if to thrust it away with his foot.

All at once a tender mood came over him. "Tubby," he said in a weary voice, "you've got to be a good girl ... What do you suppose it costs me to see to it that you are? To bring up a motherless child is no easy job for an old sinner. Go, child, brew me a grog, a fine one ... an infernally fine one ... that'll do me good!"

Such remarkable scenes as this took place now more frequently. In between there were calm days, on which Herr Rauchfuss did not seem to be feeling particularly well. Sometimes he would eat nothing all day, and was out of humor and dull.

On a fine summer afternoon Frau Marianne, the young widow, came wandering up to the Ettersberg through the swelling fields, and asked for Mamsell Beate Rauchfuss, whom she found in the garden. The child was lying asleep on the lawn that was used for bleaching, and did not wake when the stranger approached her.

"Queer," thought the young widow, "to lie and sleep like that! What does the girl do with herself, I wonder, the whole day long?" She looked at the auburn hair that was wound in a great coil around the head, the tender face, the small well-cut nose, the mouth that seemed to be a compound of strength and sorrow, the young body in a short pink dress; a pair of round childish arms; brown hands that attracted the eye. One of them was clenched as if to say, "What I hold, I hold; what I will, I will."

The young widow thought to herself, "The fine estate would be well enough, and the old man too. But the girl ...!" It was really too bad that a poor woman should have to go to so much trouble in order to have a place to slip into--that one might be good and clever and pretty, and yet all that didn't help. However you took it, it was always a difficult business ... She thought of her boarders, and of more than one pleasing possibility that had slipped through her fingers.

The young girl woke up, uneasily conscious of a stranger's gaze, and looked at her with astonishment and momentary alarm.

"I have come up to pay you and your father a visit," said Frau Marianne, a little embarrassed, for the unrecognizing, inquiring glance showed her that Beate knew nothing of her. "Your father asked me to come and look you up some day."

"My father ...?" said Beate slowly and thoughtfully.

"How _is_ your father?"

The child answered with a short, hard monosyllable: "Well."

"What a charming, lively gentleman he is!"

The young girl was silent, and looked straight before her with a troubled face. She did not know how to take this dainty, friendly person; the sweet awkwardness of youth lay heavy upon her, she was not used to talking with strangers, and the wonderful deep summer sleep still held her eyelids.

"What a nice place you have here!" said the older woman, hoping at last to find some echo to her friendliness. Beate gave a slight nod. "Is it true that your father eats a rose before breakfast every day in summer, in order to keep so fresh and young?"

"A rose ...?" The girl seemed to start out of a reverie. "Yes, I think I remember hearing him say that he used to do that. Did he tell _you_ so?"

"Yes," said the widow, "and it must be a good system. When one sees him going along with that stately tread of his, one can see that it is."

"Tubby!" cried a powerful voice from the house. "Where are you?" And as Tubby looked up, she saw her father approaching with that identical stately tread. He must indeed have consumed many roses, for he seemed to be transformed--she had never seen him look like that in all her recollection. Could it be true--only today, at table, so lowering and ill-humored and full of disgust for everything ... and now ...! The red beard seemed to glow, the eyes sparkled, and he walked on air. Beate opened her eyes wide.

"That's fine, Frau Marianne!" cried Herr Rauchfuss. "You've actually taken this long sunny walk in order to be a little company for my poor girl. I appreciate it, I can tell you!"

The young girl looked anxiously at her father and the guest. What was this new idea of providing company for her? She had long been used to loneliness in her upland home. It was true, she had often wished that the Kirsten girls and their friends whom she met at the sewing-school and now and then at the Sperbers' would come up and see her; but then the thought came ... suppose they were to see her father as she often saw him--and the desire for company went out.

But Beate's loneliness had been a wonderfully strenuous loneliness. Like a little wild animal she had lived in the shady garden, had slept under the trees or out in the full sunlight, and dug and planted and run about through field and wood without any one questioning her movements. When it was time to work, she had stoutly lent a hand, at sowing-time or harvest, in stable and dairy, in the orchard and the vegetable-garden. The men and maids all respected her, and said, "Just see how she takes hold of everything, as sensibly as a grown-up person!"

And in winter she scarcely missed companions of her own age and kind; in the big servants' hall there was always something interesting to listen to--things were called by their right names, and a rough world grew up before her mind in which even the ghosts were of a concrete and tangible nature. In the servants' hall the atmosphere was fairly clean as regards jokes and silly stories. Like a child of the people, she soon knew all about love, but without any desire to experience it. There was nothing mysterious and alluring about it for her; it was a thing that had to be, like sowing and reaping, like life and death. For her there was no veil over the phenomena of the world, not even death. All was as it was, and must be accepted.

And so the relation between her father and the guest struck her at once as peculiar. In the servants' hall they had more than once tried to tease her by telling her that her father would some day bring a stepmother home to her. And now she thought, "Is this the one?"

She found the newcomer beautiful: her daintiness, her pleasant smile, her dark, well-arranged locks, all charmed her. In fact, the young woman seemed a wonder to her by the side of her own bashful awkwardness.

It was a lively afternoon up at the old farm-house; not for years had the sound of such bright feminine laughter been heard there.

The housekeeper got up an excellent tea and spread it in the garden under the same tree where Frau Rauchfuss had once watched her child dance, feeling like a departed spirit. She laid a clean white cloth on the table, and brought out some special fresh-baked little cakes. Young Beate cut some flowers and put a bouquet on the tea-table. Frau Marianne almost drowned herself in the abundance of her own amiability, and the captain was like the ghost of his departed youth.

Beate sat very still and looked on, comparing this one fine summer day with all the summer, winter, spring and autumn days that she remembered. She clenched her firm little hands in an effort to keep back the tears, and stared at her father, from whom so much sorrow had come to her life, and thought of the joyless existence of her mother.

"No," thought the child, "she mustn't come here to us--I should be sorry for her. It doesn't matter about me--I know everything already."

When the pretty widow drove off in the little carriage, the captain kissed her hand tenderly and with assurance. She departed full of triumph; she had him now, the old fellow! And how comfortably the carriage rolled along. It was the same carriage in Which Frau Rauchfuss, crouching down against the leather cushions, had come back to her house in mortal sadness.

Frau Marianne was in a haughty mood, and thought lightly of her boarders. When she rolled up to her door--it was getting late--she was thinking, "Herr Leinhose ought to have had his beer some time ago, and Herr Oehmchen his sausage ... Oh, bother! It'll do them good to be kept waiting for once." They were both sitting in the living-room when she came in, and looked at her somewhat sourly. One of them took out his watch and looked at it, as an indignant creditor looks at his bill. "We're late--we're late!" he said significantly. The little widow answered with a light laugh. The hunger of her boarders seemed not to touch her--these same boarders who used to be so near her heart and whose welfare had been her greatest care; for no bachelor is better looked after than when a little woman who regards him as a possible suitor has charge of his affairs.

For a year and a day both of them had received this care from the little widow, and both of them were on such terms with her that she believed she had only to choose between them. One was waiting for an increase of salary, which might happen any day; the other had a nice little lawsuit on concerning an inheritance, and might at any moment be master of a few thousand thalers, enough at least to make a good start. They were, in short, both gentlemen of the fairest prospects; and a little widow who thought about marrying again could afford to go out of her way to feed them well and make them comfortable. They were both of the right age, neither too old nor too young.

So they looked up in considerable astonishment at their boarding-mistress, who seemed entirely unmoved by their ill-humor, and was very calmly putting away her hat and cape in the lavender-perfumed chest of drawers. What could have come to her?

They waited and waited. The little widow was positively dawdling over the preparations for supper. And when at last it came, she set it in front of them not with the charming manner to which they were accustomed, but quite indifferently. And the sausage was not as fresh and crisp as usual.

The young woman took her seat by the window and began to spin. This was the time when they had always been accustomed to discuss the program of the meals for the next day. At supper-time they had thus a double peaceful pleasure, by virtue of their imagination and its creative powers. But this also was missing tonight. She spun and smiled dreamily to herself; and the two boarders at their supper had ceased to exist for her. She was keeping house at the fine farm up on the hillside; she was wandering in spirit through stable and kitchen, she was changing the places of the furniture in the sitting-room to suit her taste, and feeling herself at last in her proper place.

Suddenly there resounded at the house-door a loud and peculiar knock. When the little widow reascended the stairs, the boarders heard hesitating footsteps following her. She came in showing some excitement, and after her came a visitor for whom the boarders were not prepared--a childish, red-haired girl. She wore a shawl over her head, half covering her hair; but it overflowed in ringlets and stray strands.

The soft figure, neither tall nor short, the tender, rosy countenance, the sharply-marked dark eyebrows, all these made the apparition which remained silently at the door so visionary and remarkable that Herr Oehmchen and Herr Leinhose stopped with their mouths full to stare. But the fair apparition did not move, and stared at the two men in helpless confusion.

"Why, Mamsell Rauchfuss," said the little woman with the heart-shaped face, "to what do I owe the pleasure ...?"

The strange creature did not answer, but kept on staring. Evidently she was struggling with something that she wanted to say and could not.

"Oh, but won't you sit down, Mamsell?" said Herr Leinhose, pulling up a chair to the table.

"Tell me, for heaven's sake, what has happened!" cried the widow in a faint voice.

Then the strange being sat down on the chair, threw her arms out desperately on the table, buried her face in them, and began to sob. The widow laid a soothing hand on her shoulder. "Oh, don't marry my father!" came out passionately and yet with a tender sound like a breath of spring from between the sobs. "It would be such a pity for you!" The girl now gave free rein to her tears.

"But who is thinking of any such thing?" asked the little widow, much annoyed.

"Yes, you are--you are! And so is my father--I know it! For heaven's sake, don't! You've no idea how wretched it is up there." Her sobs were so wild and unrestrained that it seemed she had been damming them up for years, and now it was like the breaking loose of a torrent in the spring. "I was so afraid that I ran all the way down--I just had to tell you! It would have been a great sin if I hadn't. If you only knew how sad my poor mother always was, and how sadly--how sadly--she died!"

The poor dear child, meaning so well in her anguish of heart and yet doing the widow such an ill turn, was still resting her head with its glorious crown of hair on her outstretched arms. She did not see how the two boarders were casting amused glances at the widow, or how pale her face was and full of woe at the thought of labor spent in vain and hope dispelled. Solitary in the midst of these three, who all had their own private thoughts, the lovely young creature wept.

"Ah ... ah ...!" said Herr Oehmchen at last--"Our beloved Frau Marianne!" His voice sounded rather poisonous. Heaven only knew whether he had ever taken any advantage of the kindness and readiness of his benefactress--but he wished to be the one to choose or to reject, not she. _He_ was the injured one. Herr Leinhose's conduct was very similar; he also felt himself a lord of creation, and relieved himself by a grieved and unkind remark or two. The little widow was helpless against the two men so fully armed with injustice.

The picture of the four puppets which Fate had dancing on its thread now underwent a change which completely altered the situation. The eyes of the boarders were no longer directed in anger and injured dignity at the pretty widow, but fell with complacency and sympathy upon the weeping girl, who now found friends at the expense of another, as so often happens--if one loses, another must win.

"Really, can none of us do anything to help Mamsell Rauchfuss to compose herself?" Herr Leinhose shot out of the door, and returned with a glass of cold water. "Here, Mamsell," he said as gently as a child's nurse, "drink a mouthful of this!" Frau Marianne looked up in amazement; such a note in his voice she had never heard! The two men had always been well taken care of, only too well, by her, and they had absolutely no excuse for seeking revenge upon her for fancied wrongs. But when a man woos, he likes to see the woman in need of help, however much this characteristic alters after he has won her.

"Oh dear!" thought the pretty widow--"There it is!" She could do nothing but look on while both of them offered their services to the young girl. Their voices grew tenderer and tenderer--positively carried away by emotion. The poor lonely girl felt some good from these kind voices; she began to be more composed, and looked up.

The rosy face, slightly swollen from crying, under the crown of red hair, quite visibly inflamed the enthusiasm of the boarders. They simply poured forth kindness and amiability; and Frau Marianne could not be too far behind them for fear of making herself ridiculous; so she was forced to show a certain amount of motherly tenderness toward the disturber of her peace.

Poor thing, she was now learning by experience that love is not to be ensnared by correct deportment and just deserts. So she was obliged to put up with it while her two well-nourished boarders, on whom she had lavished so much conscientious labor, escorted the little brat home in the darkness to the Ettersberg. She was also obliged to endure it when the stupid girl, in her passionate anxiety, threw her arms around her once more, saying, "You would be sad and unhappy--and you're so pretty and nice! Oh, if I could only learn to be like you!"

It was hardly necessary for young Beate to have brought so much disturbance into the house of the unfortunate widow; for Captain Rauchfuss soon after grew very weak and showed signs of breaking up. The evil thing came upon him which attacks so many fine fellows that have drunk freely and stoutly all their days, and condemns them to see the light of life go out slowly amid pains and tortures. Captain Rauchfuss began to live in the midst of wonderful tormenting illusions. He saw things that other people could not see; and since the majority rules on this earth, and exceptions are penalized, Herr Rauchfuss was obliged to make a journey now and then to Jena, to a physician whose house offered a hospitable retreat for such peculiarly affected gentlemen, until such time as they had provisionally, at least, laid aside certain errors and misconceptions.

The less severe attacks he fought through on the Ettersberg, in his old home; and it was there that his last hour found him.

The Sperbers had come, and old Frau Kummerfelden also, when they heard that Herr Rauchfuss was about to depart. They wanted, in his last hour, to be near the old fellow who had led his life as foolishly and light-heartedly as most people, both for his own sake and for Beate's.

And so they sat in an adjoining room, while Herr Rauchfuss prepared himself amid great sufferings for his long journey; they sat and drank coffee, which the housekeeper was always making fresh, and ate ham sandwiches. That night the doctor stayed up at the Ettersberg and chatted with the three old people.

Tubby watched by her father's bedside through it all, like a brave soldier. It was a hard death, and the child looked into the horrors of life as into a blazing furnace. She herself had so much life and sunshine in her that it was as though Life itself were standing by the deathbed.

"You rascal, you!" cried Herr Rauchfuss angrily. "Just wait a bit--you see how it goes? Soldier's child ... soldier's child!"

After he had lain awhile in the night very quiet and indifferent, he said in a faint voice, "Let Sperber come." And when his old neighbor entered, he felt for his hand and held on to it as if in terror; but nothing could be done for him. He wanted to speak, and after a hard struggle he got out, "well--born--and dying--very ill--old friend--old friend!"

"Now, now," said Sperber, good-naturedly trying to soothe him, "we all have to come to it--all come to it ... Oh, my God!" So he held the old sinner's hand, with whom he had played so many games of bézique and had so many good drinks, while the poor foolish soul in mortal agony fluttered over the threshold of the door that leads from life to death.

The summer after her father's death seemed to bring a wonderful blossoming-time to the young girl. That was a summer! No long rainy spells--now and then a heavy storm bursting over the old Ettersberg; showers in the night, and fresh, dewy, sunny mornings--such a summer, in short, as one might have dreamed of.

The burden of life had fallen from the girl; she fairly bloomed and glowed. "There's one up here that'll turn many a head," said old Sperber. "God only knows what that girl will do before she's through. If she only hadn't that cursed red hair ... but she runs about like a blazing torch, and everybody that sees her takes after her, down to the very farmboy!"

She lived like a queen up on the hill, although the old Sperbers growled and blamed her for doing what she thought best and staying in her father's house, instead of moving over to theirs and letting the farm out.

Since that evening at the widow's, when the dry voices of the boarders had transformed themselves into the melting tones of tenderness and care, tones that they hardly recognized themselves, she had known that she was beautiful and possessed power over men. That night, when the two men had left her at her own door, the lonely girl had opened her window and gazed out into the huge darkness and silence. Her heart beat as if it would break; her warm blood glowed through her skin. A miracle had happened! Men were drunk with her beauty, drunk with joy of her. She thanked God, and pressed her clasped hands to her bosom, full of amazed happiness. She could not tear herself away from the peaceful stillness that filled her with its own splendor.

The fact that poor Frau Marianne's two boarders were after all but miserable specimens of manhood did not affect her. She had seen them grow drunk with joy. That filled her with emotion all day long and hallowed her in her own eyes. In this glorious summer, in which the burden of life had fallen from her, she expanded and grew increasingly beautiful through her own happiness. As a child she had envied the flowers for their beauty--and now she knew that she herself was beautiful. She possessed a sure and abiding joy. It was well for her that she was conscious of her beauty. Death she had known, and utter loneliness, and patient endurance. When she was a child, they had called her "little fox" and "red-head;" now she noticed that every man looked after her, that people stood still when she passed. And so again and again this great joy came to her, ran through all her veins and strengthened her.

During this summer she worked valiantly. She wanted to show the old Sperbers that she could be a good housewife and manager. Although the real responsibility lay upon the bailiff and the housekeeper, she would not altogether let go of the helm. She insisted on knowing everything that was to be done and giving her approval.

"The young rascal!" said old Sperber. She was often at their house, getting advice and meeting the young girls and their comrades, whom she had so long thought of and wished to know. Now that she was alone in the world, there was nothing any longer to keep her away from them.

There were two daughters of Councillor Kirsten from the Wünschengasse down in Weimar, who, with their friends Bundang, Ernst von Schiller, and Horny, came up to see the old Sperbers and made real festivities of their visits. The old people loved them very dearly, for they knew how to be merry and pleasant and were full of youthful audacity and exuberance that cheered the hearts of the aged couple.

Beate had never known how to make the good old people smile and laugh in the same way. That hurt her. From her childhood up, there had always been a heavy weight upon her; she had not known what it was to be quite carefree. To her the two girls, Röse and Marie, were something wonderful. Now that she knew she herself was beautiful, she drew nearer to them as one of their own kind, and they welcomed her joyfully.

The girl of the Ettersberg, who had always been in the habit of taking flight when they met her by chance at the Sperbers', had long attracted them, especially since their three friends seemed to have so high an opinion of her.

"Is it for her mop of red hair that you like her?" the girls asked the young men.

"She has something queenly about her," said Horny. "I watched her once, two years ago last autumn, when she lit a fire in the field after the men and women were gone, all by herself, to roast potatoes. I saw her gathering dry weeds and setting fire to them, and laying the potatoes in the hot embers, and then crouching down looking into the glowing fire, lonely and full of thoughts. I was hidden in the wood, and I had to press my hands over my mouth to keep from crying out, so much her loneliness affected me, and her making the fire all by herself and taking her ease there in the solitude of the woods. Then she ate some of the potatoes, quite simply, like a young animal that had been deserted; and, you may believe me or not as you please, but tears ran down my cheeks. The fields and all around were so big and wide and gray and cool. Her fire, and she herself, seemed to me the only tiny living point in all the gray mist. I knew, too, that she had no mother. Then I saw her go, gravely and silently, along the path toward her home. I shall never forget that picture."

The two girls looked at each other in amazement. When Horny recounted to them the experience about which he had so long been reticent, they were walking up and down in the evening on the Sperber farm.

"Why did he never tell us that before?" asked Röse, but she got no answer. "The Sperbers want us to take more notice of her," she continued; "and now it's really possible to do something with her. She's not so shy as she used to be, and one can talk quite sensibly with her. And she dislikes the same things we dislike. What pleases her best is to run about in the fields and work. Oh, but she's got a nice life of it!"

"I don't know," said Marie--"all alone like that!"

"Yes," said Horny again, "she has something about her that makes me think of a queen. She does what she pleases and thinks what she chooses. She lives her own life."

"As if queens did that!" said Röse.

"The kind of queens I mean," answered Horny, "may live in the Wünschgengasse or on the Ettersberg."

"Oh, that sort of queens!" laughed Marie.

"That's the only sort that's worth while! They must be young, and pure, and free, and joyous, and look every one straight and proudly in the eye."

Röse and Marie were delighted. "We're three queens!" they called to Ernst von Schiller and Budang. "Come, we'll go and pay a visit to the third."

So they all set off and went by a narrow path through a few fields and meadows, by a sand-pit, to the Rauchfuss farm, and found its young mistress sitting in the garden under the lime-tree, eating her supper. On the white-covered table was a bowl of sour milk from which she ladled some out every little while, and a loaf of fresh bread, and a plate of golden butter shining against the white cloth.

"Oh, how nice," said Röse, "the way she has her supper!" And they were asked to share it, and presently each of them was sitting in front of a bowl of sour milk and cutting bread and spreading butter on it. To themselves they thought, "There, Frau Sperber will be waiting supper for us!" But they saw in their minds the good-natured friendly face of the old woman who, they knew, would not begrudge them their pleasure, and they said to themselves, "Who knows? When we get back there, perhaps well be hungry enough again to eat what she's got for us."

When they had finished their supper, the most natural thing was to begin to dance under the blossom-laden lime-tree. It needed no long discussion to decide on this.

"Off you go!" cried Röse. The couples paired off; singing or humming a tune, they swung round on the firm gravel. Tubby ran into the house when it began to grow dark and brought out a stable-lantern; for under the trees the light had faded when it was still only twilight in the garden. Then came the glow-worms and crawled about among the perfumed branches. The young creatures caught each other's hands and danced in circles under the dark old tree, now to the right, now to the left, without tiring.

They were drawn to each other by the most delightful harmony. The still, peaceful garden around them, the fragrant, sheltering tree and the beaming lantern in whose rays young charms shone resplendent, all made for happiness. They spoke and laughed little. A great, sacred bliss spread through them all. The lonely maiden whom the merry friends had drawn into their circle was flooded with an almost unearthly joy.

That was her first dance, this silent, blissful circling under the trees, first right, then left, as long as their strength held out. It was a dance in praise of God's goodness, of beauty on earth and of the wonder of youth. It seemed they could never really tire of it; and they all knew that they had loved each other from childhood. "Oh, it's lovely!" said Röse.

Herr and Frau Sperber had come over to see what had become of the fugitives, and were standing at a little distance, not wishing to break in upon the sacred dance. Frau Kummerfelden, who now and then spent the week-end in summer with them--for the Sperbers' hospitality was boundless--had come with them.

The three old people stood motionless. "Ah ... yes!" said good Herr Sperber; and if he had made a long speech on all the joy and all the sorrow of this mysterious earth, it could not have been deeper or more expressive. The old Kummerfelden said to herself, "You dear good Sperber, I should like to shake hands with you for that--you've hit it exactly." And she repeated after him, "Ah ... yes!" But it went to Frau Sperber's heart, for Frau Kummerfelden had not been a famous tragic actress for nothing.

"Don't make a person's heart heavy, you foolish Suse!" she said to her good friend. "You must always go putting emotion into things."

"But," said Herr Sperber, "it can't go on like this--it would be a nice state of things. Tubby must marry."

"Marry!" said Frau Kummerfelden. "A beauty like her! That would be a shame!"

"Well, what do you intend to do with her?" asked Herr Sperber. "After all, that's what women are meant for."

"Yes, more's the pity."

"And old Rauchfuss's daughter especially ought to marry early--or we shall see things. She's a devil of a girl ... The pastor says he's got somebody for her."

"Well, why not? The pastor, he'll have somebody decent," said Frau Kummerfelden.

"And what about our nephew?" asked Frau Sperber. "Both the girl and the estate would be just the thing for him; and then we should have him near us."

"Oh, of course," said Frau Kummerfelden; "everything would be beautifully arranged then."

In the meantime the young people were still dancing under the trees, paying no attention to the old folks who have forgotten what real joy is, and with their hateful sensible theories based on experience can't help spoiling pure young human happiness, however well they mean. Without knowing that old eyes full of sorrowful memories and wisdom had rested on them, the happy young things danced on in silent bliss.

When at last they had had enough, they wandered into the darkening wood and sang and looked at the glow-worms, and talked as only very young men and maidens talk who are still afraid to speak of love.

It began to grow late. "I'm thirsty," said Röse, "and now we can't expect to get any supper at the Sperbers'--we'll be lucky if we get in without a scolding."

Beate had an idea: "Let's go into the cow-stable and drink fresh milk." Every one was agreeable. "But we shall have to be very quiet, because the men sleep quite near."

So they stole cautiously into the stable, Beate carrying the lantern. The courtyard lay dark and still; a strong perfume rose from the high manure-piles. The lovely girl opened the old, worn door, and they entered. A warm breath blew into their faces. From a niche in the wall an oil lamp threw down a faint glimmer of yellow on the white back of a cow.

"It'll soon begin to get light--the maid will be coming to milk before long." She threw the light of the lantern into a shelf on which stood all sorts of brightly-scoured bowls and porringers, and took down a snow-white wooden bowl.

Prom the swallows' nests up among the dark rafters sounded the chirping of the young birds, very sweet in the warm damp air. The little spring plashed in its trough.

Beate took the maid's milking-stool, stroked and patted a fine brown and white cow, and began to milk into the bowl. The girl's bright head stood out against the cow's great side. Horny held the lantern. Presently she had filled the bowl with foaming milk. The cow lowed a little at being disturbed so early and in such a peculiar manner.

"That _is_ milk!" said the young mistress proudly. "And now all of you drink." She held out the bowl to them, and they drank long, long draughts.

"A queen she is!" said Horny again to Röse. "How fine all this is! It's great to have such a sea of white, fragrant milk rising in waves under your eyes and filling you with its warmth and strength."

"You've had as much as you want?" said Beate with blissful pride. They said good-by, reconducting their young hostess to the door of her lonely house.

But the three old folks had taken a very firm resolution to make some sort of settlement up at the Rauchfuss place. Tubby must not be left to herself--it would never do. "A girl like that all alone in the house!" said both the Sperbers very thoughtfully; and so it came about that they invited their nephew to come and see them.

He was a good, wholesome fellow. But all the neighbors in the country round, on the Ettersberg and behind the Ettersberg, in Weimar and the suburbs, thought as did the old Sperbers: It isn't the thing for a slip of a silly girl to be alone on the farm like that. Each thought of a nephew, a brother, a son or some other relative who might be launched, on the chase of the rare wild creature--all the while that the young girl was enjoying in fullest measure her freedom and her youth. In spite of them all, she lived very peacefully and properly, knowing how to make herself felt as mistress for all the bailiff and housekeeper were there; all she did was well and diligently done.

But presently there broke loose what the old people in their zeal had wished--a flood of suitors. The lovely youthful peace of the three queens and their good friends was disturbed. Such new, wonderful youth must first become conscious of itself before it can pass on to longings and desires. The three sensible elders would have better let the three queens go on quietly with their delightful dances--first to the right, then to the left, until they were weary. They will never have such dances again--never in their lives.

The first suitors who presented themselves were the two boarders of the pretty little widow with the heart-shaped face, Herr Oehmchen and Herr Leinhose. They paid a visit to the Sperbers, but not together; neither knew of the other's intention. They did not venture to go directly to the Rauchfuss farm; the thing was to be conducted with utmost propriety.

"Hallo!" thought Herr Sperber. "The thing must be getting serious when such settled gentlemen put themselves in motion." Herr Sperber did not fly too high in his ambitions for his protégée. "A plain fellow like that is the best for a woman of her sort," he thought to himself; "then there won't be any such business as there was with Herr Rauchfuss. Such a chap hasn't anything particular to show off before the world, no red beard, no giant's stature, no whimsies in the brain, no big heart, no wit--just an average fellow that'll settle down and keep quiet."

Herr Sperber received both the gentlemen in a very friendly fashion. The nephew, of course, would cut them out--but that was his affair.

Beate, who was invited one evening to meet the nephew and the other two at her old friends', enjoyed the astonished admiration of the three like a delicious confection--or rather like a sweet perfume that she breathed in. "Men are drunk with me," she thought again, and was proud and happy.