Chapter III: Part 3

Then the conversation flies off at a tangent to the approaching rifle-fete, touches on her new acquaintances in the village and occasionally wanders off to the shoemaker's place in the town; but ever and again she comes back to the time of her engagement and tarries over the moods and events of those blissful days.

She seems to feel just like a young girl again. The smile that plays so dreamily and full of presage about her lips, is like the smile of a bride--as if the fete to which she is looking forward were her wedding.

All her thoughts henceforth tend towards the ball. While she is entirely recovering, while her eyes grow clear, and the color returns to her cheeks, she is meditating by day and by night how she shall adorn herself; she is dreaming of the bliss which in those looked-for hours is to dawn upon her, as though it were something totally new and beyond all comprehension.

Trumpets sound; clarionets shriek; the big drum joins in with its dull, droning thud.

Midst clinking and clanking, midst skipping and tripping, the guild march along the street in solemn procession. On in front ride two heralds on horseback--Franz Maas and Johannes Rockhammer, the two Uhlans of the Guard. Nothing would induce them to give up their privilege--even did it mean rack and ruin to the guild.

Franz's countenance is beaming, but Johannes looks serious--indifferent almost; what does he care about all these people from whom he has become estranged? He salutes no one, his gaze rests on none; but he is searching, he is mustering the lines of people,--and now, suddenly--his features glow with pride and happiness-he bows, he lowers his sword in salute:--over there at the street corner, with rosy-red cheeks, with beaming eyes, waving her handkerchief, stands she whom he seeks--his brother's wife.

She is laughing--she is beckoning--she pulls herself up by the railing, she jumps on to the curb-stone--she wants to watch him till he disappears in the whirling clouds of dust. With all this she nearly, very nearly, forgets Martin, who is walking along close to the banner. But then, why does he go marching on so quietly and stiffly, why does he stick his head so far into his collar?--Over there in the distance Johannes is beckoning just once more with his sword.

The rifle-range, the goal of the procession, is situated close to the fir-copse--which, seen from the weir, frames the meadow landscape,--and hardly a thousand paces straight across from the Rockhammer mill, which seems to beckon from over the alder bushes by the river. If those stupid rifle people did not make such a deafening noise one might easily hear the rushing of the waters....

"If only this hocus-pocus were already over," observed Johannes, and casts a longing look towards the "ball-room," a huge square tent-erection, whose canvas roof rises high above the mass of smaller stalls and tents grouped around. Not till afternoon, when the "King" has been solemnly proclaimed, may the members' friends enter the festival ground. The hours pass by; shots resound at intervals along the boundary of the wood. At noon comes Johannes' turn. He shoots--at random--in spite of the flowers which Trude stuck into his gun. "Flowers for luck," she had said, and Martin had stood by and smiled, as one smiles at childish play. ... As soon as his duties as a rifleman are fulfilled, he turns his back on the ranges and betakes himself into the wood, where nothing is to be heard of all the shouting and chattering and there is no sound but the echo of the shooting softly dying away into the air.... He throws himself down upon the mossy ground and stares up at the branches of the fir-trees, whose slender needles glisten and gleam in the rays of the midday sun, like brightly polished little knives. Then he closes his eyes and dreams. How strange the whole world has become to him! And how far removed everything seems which he ever lived through before! Not indeed that he has lived through much--women and care have played no great part in his life hitherto: and yet how rich, how full of glowing color it has always appeared to him! Now an abyss has swallowed up everything, and over the abyss rose-colored mists are undulating....

Two hours may have elapsed, when he hears distant trumpet blasts proclaim the election of a new king. He jumps up. Only half an hour more; then Trude will be coming.

At the shooting-stand he learns that the dignity of "king" has been allotted to his friend Franz Maas. He hears it as if in a dream; what does it concern him? His gaze wanders incessantly towards the highroad, where, through the dust and the glaring sun, crowds of gaily dressed female figures are approaching on foot and in carriages.

"Are you looking out for Trude?" asks Martin's voice suddenly, close behind him.

He looks up startled from his brooding. "Good gracious, boy, what's up with you?" asks Martin laughingly. "Have you taken your bad shot so much to heart, or are you sleeping in broad daylight?"

Martin has one of his good days to-day. Meeting all these people--he is one of the chief dignitaries of the guild--has roused him from his usual moodiness,--his eyes glisten and a jovial smile plays about his broad mouth. If only he did not look so awkward in his Sunday clothes! His hat sits right on his forehead, leaving full play to a bunch of bristly hair sticking up curiously over the brim, and below that there appear the white tapes of his shirt-front, which have worked out from under his coat collar.

"There she comes, there she comes," he suddenly shouts, waving his hat.

The flashing carriage, drawn by a pair of splendid Lithuanian bays, is the Rockhammer state coach, which Martin had had built for his wedding. Sitting within it--that white figure reclining with such proud dignity in one corner, and looking about with such distant seriousness--that is she, "the rich mistress of Rockhammer," as the people all round are whispering to each other.

"Look--Trude is giving herself airs," says Martin softly, pulling Johannes' sleeve.

At the same moment she discovers the brothers, and, throwing her affected bearing to the winds, she jumps up in the carriage, waves her sunshade in one hand, her kerchief in the other, and laughs and gives vent to her delight and prods the coachman with the point of her parasol to make him drive faster. Then, when the carriage stops, she gives herself no time to wait till the door is opened, but jumps onto the splash-board and from there straight into Martin's arms. She is in a state of feverish excitement; her breath comes hot; her lips move to speak, but her voice fails her.

"Quietly, child, quietly," says Martin, and strokes her hair, which to-day falls upon her bare neck in a mass of little ringlets. Johannes stands motionless, lost in contemplation of her.

How lovely she is!

The white, gauzy dress floats round her exquisite figure like an airy veil! And that white neck!--and those little dimples at her bosom!--and those glorious plump arms on which there trembles a light, silvery fluff!--and this plastic bust, which rises and falls like a marble wave!... She appears unapproachably beautiful, every inch a woman yet every inch majesty, for in his innocent mind the ideas "woman" and "majesty" are synonymous, and mean for him an indefinable something which fills him with bliss and with fear. His eyes are suddenly opened and are dazzled as yet with gazing at this regal type of female loveliness, beside which he has hitherto walked as one blind. How lovely she is! How lovely is woman! And now a torrent of confused words streams from her unfettered lips. She had nearly died of impatience.--And that stupid big clock,--and her lonely dinner,--and those silly dancing shoes which would not fit! They are too tight; they pinch frightfully--"but they look lovely, don't they?"

And she lifts up the hem of her skirt a little to show the works of art, light blue, high-heeled little shoes, tied across the instep with blue silk bows.

"They seem too short!" Martin remarks, with a doubtful shake of his head.

"That's just what they _are_," she laughs, "my toes burn as if they were on fire! But I shall dance all the better for it--what do _you_ say, Johannes?" And she closes her eyes for a moment as though to recall vanished dreams. Then she hooks her arm in Martin's, and asks to be taken to her tent. The most notable families of the district have provided themselves with private dwellings--light huts or canvas tents which afford them night shelter, for the fete commonly drags on till early day. Trude had been herself the day before on the festival ground to superintend the erection of her tent; she had also had furniture brought in and wreathed the entrance gaily with leafy garlands. She may well be proud of her handiwork, for the Rockhammer tent is the finest of the whole collection.

While Martin seeks to wedge his way through the crowd, she turns to Johannes and says quickly and softly:

"Are you satisfied, Hans? Am I to your liking?"

He nods.

"Very much. Tell me--very much?"

"Very much."

She draws a deep breath, then laughs to herself in silent satisfaction.

The miller's lovely wife makes a sensation among the crowd. The strange farmers and land-proprietors stand and stare at her--the burghers' wives secretly nudge each other with their elbows; the young fellows from the village awkwardly pull off their hats; a whispering and murmuring passes through the throng wherever she appears. With serious mien and affecting a certain dignity, she walks along, leaning on Martin's arm, from time to time shaking back the curls which wave over her shoulders,--and when, in so doing, she throws back her head, she looks like a queen, or rather like a spirited child which is playing the part of a queen in a fairy tale, and hardly feels comfortable in the role.

When an hour later the first notes of the fiddles are heard, she calls out with a cry of delight! "Hans, now I belong to you."

Martin warns her to beware of cold and other evils, but in the midst of his speeches they are off and away. Then he resigns himself, pours himself out a good glass of Hungarian wine, and stretches himself on the sofa to take some rest.

All sorts of pleasant thoughts flit through his head. Hasn't everything arranged itself happily and satisfactorily since Johannes came to live at the mill? Have not even his own bad hours of tragic presentiment and haunting terror become less and less frequent? Is he not visibly reviving, infected by the harmless merriment of those two? Is not this very day the best proof that his antipathy to strange people has disappeared, that he has learnt to be merry when others are merry-making?--And Trude--how happy she is at his side!--That evening certainly!--Well, what of that! Women are frail creatures, subject to a thousand varying moods! And how quickly things have come right again! The words which Johannes spoke to him that night, come back to him; he clinks his full glass against the two empty ones which the youngsters have left behind them: "Good luck to you both! May our happy triple alliance continue to our lives' end!"--Meanwhile Trude and Johannes have squeezed themselves through the closely packed crowd, as far as the entrance to the dancing-room. Sounding waves of music swell towards them; like a hot human breath the air from within is wafted in their direction. In the semi-obscurity of the tent the couples are whirling along in one dense crowd, and flit past them like shadowy forms.

Johnannes walks as one a-dreaming. He hardly dares to let his gaze rest upon Trude; for even yet that mysterious awe has complete possession of him and seems to bind him round with iron fetters.

"You are so quiet to-day, Hans," she whispers, nestling with her face against his sleeve. He is silent.

"Have I done anything to displease you!"

"Nothing--no indeed!" he stammers.

"Then come, let us dance!"

At the moment when he lays his hand upon her she gives a start; then with a deep sigh she lets herself sink into his arms. And now they are whirling along. She leans her face with a deep-drawn breath upon his breast. Just in front of her left eye there flutters the rosette which he wears to-day as a member of the rifle-guild; the white silk ribbon trembles close to her eyelashes. She moves her head a little to one side and looks up at him.

"Do you know how I feel?" she murmurs.

"Well?"

"As if you were carrying me through the clouds."

And then, when they have to stop, she says: "Come out quickly, so that I need not dance with anyone else!"

She clutches hold of his hand, while he makes a passage for her through the crowd of people. Outside, she takes his arm, and walks at his side proudly and happily with glowing cheeks and dancing eyes. She laughs, she chatters, she jests, and he keeps pace with her to the best of his ability.--In the heat of the dance his bashfulness has entirely melted away. A wild gladness fires his veins. To-day she is his with every thought and feeling, his only, as he can feel by the trembling of her arm, which rests upon his more firmly with secret, sweet pressure; he can see it in the most gleaming glamour of her eyes as she raises them to his.

After a time she asks, somewhat reluctantly: "I say, mustn't we have a look what Martin is doing?"

"Yes, you are right," he replies eagerly. But nothing comes of this good resolution. Every time they happen to pass the tent something remarkable is sure to be taking place in the opposite direction, which gives them an opportunity of forgetting their intention.

Then all of a sudden, Martin himself comes towards them, beaming with pleasure and surrounded by a number of village inhabitants whom he is taking along with him to stand them treat. "Hallo, children!" he says, "I am just going to remove my general headquarters to the 'Crown' Innkeeper's booth; if you want a drink, come along with me."

Trude and Johannes exchange a rapid glance of understanding and simultaneously beg to be excused.

"Good-bye then, children, and enjoy yourselves thoroughly!" With that he goes off.

"I have never seen him in such good spirits," remarks Trude, laughing. "Indeed, no one could grudge them to him," says Johannes in a gentle voice, looking affectionately after his brother. He wants to kill the gnawing which has awakened within him at sight of Martin.

Evening has come on. The festive crowd is bathed in purple light. The wood and the meadow are ruddy red.

In a lonely nook at the meadow's edge, Trude stops and looks with dazzled gaze towards the faintly glowing sun.

"Ah, if only it would not set for us today!" she cries, stretching forth her arms.

"Well, command it not to!" says Johannes.

"Sun, I command thee to stay with us!"

And as the red ball sinks lower and lower, she suddenly shivers and says: "Do you know what idea just came into my head? That we should never see it rise again!" Then she laughs aloud. "I know it is all nonsense! Come and dance."

And they return to the dancing-tent. A new dance has just commenced. Fired by longing, entranced by contemplation of each other, they whirl along and disappear in a dark little corner near the musicians' platform, which they have chosen in order to avoid the searching gaze of the other dancers, who are all dying to make the acquaintance of the miller's lovely wife.

Trude's hair has loosed itself and is fluttering about unbound; in her eyes is a faint glow, as of intoxication: her whole being seems pervaded by the ecstasy of the moment.

"If only my foot did not burn like very hell-fire," she says once as Johannes takes her back to her place.

"Then rest awhile."

She laughs aloud, and when at the same moment Franz Maas comes to claim the dance of honor in his capacity of "rifle-king," she throws herself into his arms and whirls away.

Johannes puts his hand to his burning brow, and looks after the couple, but the lights and the figures melt away before his eyes into one heaving chaos: everything seems to be turning round and round--he staggers--he has to clutch hold of a pillar to prevent himself from falling; and when at that moment Franz Maas returns with Trude, he begs him to take charge of his sister-in-law for half an hour; he must go out for a whiff of fresh air.

He steps out of the hot, close tent, in which two candelabra filled with tallow candles diffuse an unbearable smoke--out into the clear, cool night. But here too are noise and fiddling! In the shooting booths the bolts of the air-guns are rattling, from the gaming tables comes the hoarse screaming of their owners, trying to allure people, and the merry-go-round spins along in the darkness, laden with all its glittering tawdriness and accompanied by shouting and clanging.

In between everything sways the black, surging crowd.

Behind the crests of the pine wood, which silently and gloomily towers above all the tumult, the sky is all aflame with glorious yellow light. Half an hour more and the moon will be pouring its smiling beams over the scene. Johannes walks along slowly between the tents.--In front of the "Crown" host's booth he stops and looks in through the window. But when he sees Martin sitting with a deeply flushed face amidst a swarm of rollicking carousers, he creeps back into the darkness, as if he were afraid to meet him.

From the adjacent tent comes the sound of noisy singing. He hesitates for a moment, then enters, for his tongue cleaves to the roof of his mouth. He is received with a loud shout of delight. At a long beer-bedabbled table sits a host of his former schoolfellows, rowdy fellows, some of them, whom as a rule he seeks to avoid. They surround him; they drink to him; they press him to join their circle. "Why do you make yourself so scarce, Johannes?" one of them screams from the opposite end of the table, "and where do you stick of an evening?"

"He dangles at the apron-strings of his lovely sister-in-law," sneers another. "Leave my sister-in-law out of the game," cries Johannes with knitted brows. These proceedings sicken him; this hoarse screaming offends his ear; these coarse jests hurt him. He pours down a few glasses of cool beer and goes outside, with great difficulty succeeding in shaking off the importunate fellows.

He saunters toward the boundary of the wood and stares into its obscurity, already beginning to be animated by pale lunar reflections; then he proceeds for some distance beneath the trees, deeply inhaling the soft, aromatic fragrance of the pines. He is determined that by main force he will master this mysterious intoxication which seems to fever his whole being; but the further he betakes himself away from the festival ground the more does his unrest increase. Just as he is about to enter the dancing-room he sees Franz Maas hurrying towards him in breathless excitement. A vague presentiment of disaster dawns within him.

"What has happened?" he calls out to him.

"It's a good thing I've found you. Your sister-in-law has been taken ill."

"For heaven's sake! Where have you taken her?"

"Martin led her to your tent."

"How did it happen? How did it happen?"

"Some time before, I noticed that she had become pale and quiet, and when I asked her what was the matter, she said her foot hurt her. But in spite of that she would not sit still, and, while I was dancing with her, she suddenly broke down in the middle of the room."

"And then? What then?"

"I raised her up and drew her as quickly as possible to her chair, while I sent some one off to fetch Martin."

"Why didn't you send for me, man?"

"Firstly I didn't know where you were, and then, of course, it was the proper thing to send word first to her husband."

Johannes breaks into a shrill laugh. "Very proper, but what then?"

"She opened her eyes even before Martin arrived. The first thing she did was to send away the women who were crowding round her! then she whispered to me, 'Don't tell him that I fainted;' and then when he came hurrying in, looking quite pale, she went to meet him apparently quite cheerfully and said, 'My shoe hurts me; it is nothing else.'"

"And then?"

"Then he took her outside. But I just happened to see how she burst out sobbing and hid her face on his shoulder. Then I thought to myself, 'God knows what else may be hurting her.'" Johannes hears no further. Without a word of thanks to his friend he rushes off.

The canvas which covers the entrance to the Rockhammer tent is let down low. Johannes listens for a moment. Soft weeping mingled with Martin's soothing voice is audible from the interior, he tries to tear the curtain open, but it does not give way; it is evidently fastened down with a peg, "Who is there?" calls Martin's voice from the other side.

"I--Johannes!"

"Stay outside."

Johannes winces. This "stay outside" has given him a very stab at his heart. When there is a chance of being at her side to help her in her trouble,--of giving her peace and comfort, he is to "stay outside." He grates his teeth and stares with hungry eyes at the curtain, through the apertures of which a faint red gleam pierces.

"Johannes!" Martin's voice is heard anew.

"What do you want?"

"Go and see if our carriage is here."

He does as he is bid. He is just good enough to go errands! He inspects the rows of conveyances, and, when he does not find what he is seeking, he returns to the tent.

Now the curtain is drawn aside. There she stands--a little transparent shawl about her shoulders, looking pale and so beautiful.

"Just as I expected," says Martin, when he reports to him--"the carriage wasn't ordered till daybreak."

"But what now? Does Trude want to go?" he asks anxiously.

"Trude must!" says she, giving him a look out of her tear-stained eyes, which are already trying to smile again.

"Resign yourself to it, my child," answers Martin, stroking her hair. "If it were only the foot, it would not matter. But your crying just now--all this excitement--I think your illness is still hanging about you and rest will do you good. If only it did not take so long to fetch the carriage! I believe it would be best if you could walk the short distance across the fields--of course, only if you have no more pain. Can you manage it?"

Trude gives Johannes a look; then nods eagerly.

"The air is warm, the grass is dry," Martin continues, "and Johannes can accompany you."

Trude gives a start, and he feels his blood mount in a hot wave to his head. His eyes seek hers, but she avoids his glance.

"You can easily be here again in half an hour, my dear boy," says Martin, who takes Johannes' silence to mean vexation. He shakes his head, and declares, with a look at Trude, that he too has had enough of it now.

"Well then, good speed to you, children," says Martin, "and, when I have disbanded my party, I will follow!"

Johannes sends a look into the distance; the plain which lies before him, swathed in silver veils of moonlight, appears to him like an abyss over which mists are brewing; he feels as if the arm which is just being pushed so gently and caressingly through his were dragging him down--down into the deepest depths.

"Good-night," he murmurs, half turned away from his brother.

"Aren't you even going to shake hands?" asked Martin, with playful reproach, and, when Johannes hesitatingly extends his right hand, he gives it a hearty shake. What pain such a shake of the hand can inflict!

The din of the fete more and more dies away into the distance. The many-voiced tumult becomes a dull roaring in which only the shrill tinkle of the merry-go-round is distinguishable, and when the dance-music, which has been silent so long, commences anew, it drowns everything else with its piercing trumpet-blasts.

But even that grows more and more indistinct, and the big drum alone, which hitherto has played only a modest part, now gains ascendancy over the other instruments, for its dull, droning beat travels furthest into the distance. Silently they walk beside each other--neither ventures to address the other. Trude's arm trembles in his; her eyes rest upon the mists which rise up in the greenish light from the meadows.

She steps along bravely, though she limps a little and from time to time gives vent to a low moan.

They have perhaps been walking for about five minutes when she turns around and points with outstretched hand towards the twinkling lights of the festival ground, that glisten against the black back-ground of the pine-wood. The merry-go-round is spinning its glittering hoop round, and the canvas partition of the dancing-room sparkles like a curtain of woven flames.

"Look, how lovely!" she whispers timidly.

He nods.

"Johannes!"

"What is it, Trade?"

"Don't be cross with me!"

"Why--should I?"

"Why did you go away from the dancing?"

"Because it was too hot for me in the room."

"Not because I danced with some one else?"

"Oh! dear no!"

"You know, Hans, I suddenly felt so lonely and forsaken that it was all I could do to keep from crying. He might have said he didn't want me to dance with anyone else, I said to myself--for whom else did I go to the fete but for him? For whom did I adorn myself but for him? And my foot hurt me a thousand times worse than before; and then suddenly--well, you know yourself what happened."

He sets his teeth; his arms twitch, as if he must press her to him. Her head leans softly against his shoulder; her shining eyes beam up at him--when suddenly she gives a loud cry: her injured foot which she can only just drag along the ground, has hit against a pointed stone. She tries to keep up, but her arm slips away from his, and overcome by pain, she lets herself drop on to the grass.

"Just for a moment I should like to lie here," she says, and wipes the cold perspiration from her brow; then she throws herself down on her face and lies there for a while motionless. He grows frightened when he sees her thus. "Come on," he exhorts her, "you will catch cold here."

She stretches out her right hand to him with her face turned away and says, "Help me up," but when she attempts to walk, she breaks down once more. "You see, it won't do," she says with a faint smile.

"Then I will carry you," he cries, opening out his arms wide.

A sound, half of pain, half of joy, escapes her lips; next moment her body lies upraised in his arms. She sighs deeply, and, closing her eyes, leans her head against his cheek--her bosom heaves upon his breast; her waving hair ripples over his neck; her warming breath caresses his glowing countenance. More firmly does he press her trembling body to him. Away, away further, ever further away, even though his strength fail! Away, to the ends of the earth! His breath becomes labored, acute pains dart through his side, before his eyes there floats a red mist--he feels as though he were about to drop down and give up his ghost--but he must go on--further, further.--

Over there the river beckons; the weir's hollow roaring comes through the silent night; the splashing drops of water sparkle in the moonbeams.

She lets her head fall back upon his arm; a melancholy yet blissful smile plays about her half-opened lips; and now she opens her eyes, in whose somber depths the reflection of the moon is floating.

"Where are we?" she murmurs.

"At the river's edge," he gasps.

"Put me down."

"I must--I cannot."

Close to the water's edge he lays her down; then he stretches himself full length on the grass, and presses his hand to his heart and struggles for breath. His temples are throbbing, he is in a fair way to lose consciousness; but, pulling himself together with an effort, he bends his body towards the river, ladles out a handful of water and bathes his forehead with it.

That restores him to consciousness. He turns to Trude. She has buried her face in her hands and is moaning softly to herself.

"Does it hurt very much?" he asks.

"It burns!"

"Dip your foot in the water. That will cool it."

She drops her hands and looks at him in surprise.

"It has done me good," he says, pointing to his forehead, from which single drops of water are still trickling down. Then she bends forward and tries to pull off her shoe, but her hand trembles, and she grows faint with the effort. "Let me help you," he says. One pull--her shoe flies to one side; her stocking follows, and, pushing herself forward to the very edge of the bank, she dips her bare foot up to the ankle in the cooling stream.

"Oh, how refreshing it is!" she murmurs with a deep breath; then, turning to right and to left, she seeks a support for her body.

"Lean against me," he says. Then she lets her head drop upon his shoulder. His arm twitches, but he does not dare to twine it round her waist; he hardly dares to move. His breath comes heavily; his eyes stare on to the stream, through the crystal waters of which Trude's white foot gleams like a mother-o'-pearl shell resting in its depths.

They sit there in silence. Just in front of them, at the weir, the water's rush and roar. The spray forms a silver bridge from bank to bank, and the waves break at their feet. From time to time the soft night-breeze wafts hushed music towards them, and the monotonous droning of the big drum comes to them mingled with the dull note of the bittern.

Suddenly a shudder passes through her frame.

"What is the matter with you?"

"I am shivering."

"Take your foot out of the water at once." She does as she is bid, then draws from her pocket the dainty little cambric handkerchief which she had for the ball. "That is no good," he says, and with a trembling hand pulls out his own coarser handkerchief. "Let me dry you!" Silently, with a dumb, pleading look, she submits, and when he feels the soft, cool foot between his hands, everything seems to whirl before him; a sort of fiery madness comes over him, and, bending down to the ground, he presses his fevered brow upon it.

"What are you doing?" she cries out.

He starts up. In wild ecstasy their eyes meet--one wild, exuberant cry, and they lie in each other's arms. His kisses burn hot upon her lips. She laughs and cries and takes his head between her hands and strokes his hair and leans her cheek against his cheek and kisses his forehead and both his eyes.

"Oh, my darling, my darling! How I love you!"

"Are you my very own?"

"Yes, yes!"

"Shall you always love me?"

"Always! Always! And you--you will never again leave me alone like to-day so that Martin--"

Abruptly she stops short. Silence weighs upon them! What terrible silence! The big drum drones in the distance. The waters roar.

Two deathly pale faces gaze at each other.

And now she screams aloud. "Oh Lord, my God!" is the cry which resounds through the night.

Loudly moaning, he covers his face with his hands. Tearless sobs shake his frame. Before his eyes everything is aflame--aflame with a blood-red light as if the whole world were set on fire. Now it is all suddenly made clear as day to him! What dawned mysteriously within him in yonder midsummer night, what flashed like lightning through his brain on that evening when Trude broke down sobbing in the middle of her song--all now arises before him like a glowing ball of fire. Every flame speaks of hate; every ray flashes with torturing jealousy through his soul, every gleam pierces his heart with fear and guilty consciousness.

Trude has thrown herself face downwards upon the ground, and is weeping--weeping bitterly.

With bowed head and folded hands he gazes upon her fair form, lying before him in an agony of woe.

"Come home," he says tonelessly. She lifts her head and plants her arms firmly upon the ground; but when he attempts to help her up, she screams out: "Do not touch me!" Twice, thrice, she endeavors to stand upright, but again and again she breaks down. Then without a word she stretches forth her arms, and suffers herself to be drawn up by him. In silence he guides her feeble steps to the mill. Her tears are dried up. The rigidness of despair has settled upon her deathly pale features. She keeps her face averted and resistingly allows him to drag her along. Before the threshold of the veranda she loosens her arm from his, and, with what little strength is left to her, she darts away from him towards the house-door. Her figure disappears among the dark foliage.

The knocker gives forth its dull beats. Once--twice, then shuffling footsteps become audible in the entrancehall; the key is turned; a dark yellow ray of light beams out into the moonlight night.

"For heaven's sake, madam, how pale you look!" the maid ejaculates in a terrified voice.... The door closes with a bang.

For a long time Johannes keeps on staring at the place where she has disappeared.--A cold shiver which runs through him from head to foot rouses him at length. Absentmindedly he slinks across the moonlit yard,--strokes the dogs that with joyous barking drag at their chains,--casts an indifferent glance towards the motionless mill-wheel, beneath the shadows of which the waters glide along like glittering snakes. Some indefinable impulse drives him forward and away. The ground of the mill-yard burns beneath his feet. He wanders across the meadows, back to the weir--to the spot where he was sitting with Trude. On the grass there gleams her blue silk shoe, and not far from it lies her long, fine stocking. So she must have limped home with her bare foot and probably is not even conscious of the fact! He breaks into a shrill laugh, takes up both and flings them far into the foaming waters.

Whither shall he turn now? The mill has closed its portals upon him forevermore. Whither can he go now? Shall he lay himself down to rest under some haystack? He cannot sleep even if he does. Stay! He knows of a jolly set of fellows--though he despised them a little while ago, they will just suit him now.

When, at two o'clock in the morning, Martin Rockhammer has shaken himself free of his drinking companions and is stepping, in the happiest of moods, out on to the festival ground, when the bluish-gray light of dawning day is beginning to illumine the doings of these night-birds, he is met by a band of drunken louts, who, singing obscene songs, break in single file through the ranks of the promenading couples. They are headed by the locksmith Garmann, a fellow of bad repute who practices poaching by night and in whose train now follow other good-for-nothing scamps. Intending to turn them out of the place forthwith, Martin steps towards them. But suddenly he stops as if turned to stone; his arms drop down at his sides: there in the midst of this crew, with glassy eyes and drunken gestures staggers his brother Johannes.

"Johannes!" he cries out, horrified.

He starts back; his drink-inflamed face grows ashy pale; a frightened gleam flickers in his eyes--he trembles--he stretches forth his arm as if to ward him off--and staggers back--two--three paces. Martin feels his anger disappear. This picture of misery arouses his pity. He follows after Johannes, and, taking him by the arm, he says in loving tones: "Come, brother; it is late, let us go home." But Johannes shrinks back in horror at the touch of his hand, and fixing his gaze upon him in mortal agony, he says in a hoarse voice: "Leave me--I do not wish to--I do not wish to have anything more to do with you--I am no longer your brother." Martin starts up, clutches with his two hands at the slab of the table near him and then drops down upon the nearest bench as if felled by the stroke of an axe.

Johannes, however, rushes away. The forest closes in upon him.

Henceforth come sad days for the Rockhammer mill.

When Martin reached home on that morning, when he found the whole house quiet, as quiet as a mouse, he took the key of the mill from the wall and slunk off to that melancholy place which he had built up as the temple of his guilt. There his people found him at midday, pale as the whitewashed walls, his head bowed upon his hands, muttering to himself incessantly: "Retribution for Fritz! Retribution for Fritz!" The phantom, the old terrible phantom, which he had thought was laid for evermore, has cast itself upon him anew and is twining its strangling claw about his neck.

The men had to drag him almost by force from his den. With weary, halting steps he staggered out of the mill. His wife he found crouching in a corner, with hollow cheeks and gaunt, terrified eyes. Then he took her face between his two hands, looked for a while with stern looks at the trembling woman, and once more murmured the mournful refrain: "Retribution for Fritz! Retribution for Fritz!"

When she heard his ominous words, a cold shiver ran through her frame. "Does he know? Does he not know? Has Johannes confessed to him! Has he found out by chance? Does he perhaps only suspect?" Since that time her soul is fretting itself away; her body repines in fear of this man and in yearning for that other, whom love of her has driven away. She grows pale and thin; her cheeks fade. She steals about like a somnambulist. Round her eyes bluish grooves are outlined, and grow broader and broader, and about her mouth is graven a tiny wrinkle which keeps on twitching and moving like a dancing will-o'-the-wisp.

Martin remarks nothing of all this. His whole being is absorbed in sorrow for his lost brother. During the first few days, he has hoped from hour to hour for his return--hoped that he was possibly quite unconscious of the words he spoke in the madness of intoxication. As for him--he would verily be the very last to remind him of them. But when day after day passes without any news of Johannes, his fear grows more and more terrible, he begins to search for the lost one;--at first with little result, for the intercourse between one village and the next is very slight. But gradually one report after another reaches the mill. To-day he has been seen here, yesterday, there--erring restlessly from place to place but always surrounded by a band of merry-makers. The people call him "Madcap Hans," and, wherever he appears, the public-house is sure to be full--corks fly and glasses clink, and sometimes, when things become specially lively, the window-panes clink too, for the bottles go flying out through them into the street. Keep it up! "Madcap Hans" will pay up for the whole lot. He will stand treat to any one he happens to come across, and there are boisterous songs and comic anecdotes fit to make one's sides split with laughing. Yes, he's a fine bottle-companion, is "Madcap Hans."

Soon, too, various very doubtful personages appear at the door of the Rockhammer mill, people with whom one does not like to come into contact; such as the corn-usurer. Lob Levi from Beelitzhof, and the common butcher Hoffman from Gruenehalde; they present yellow, greasy little papers which bear his brother's signature and turn out to be promissory notes with such and such interest for so many days.

Martin stares for a long time at the unsteady hand-writing; where the strokes are all tumbling over as if drunk, then he goes to his safe and, without a word, pays the debts as well as the usurious interest. How gladly he would give the half of his fortune, could he buy his brother's return therewith!

At length he has the horses put to the carriage and himself sets out in quest. He drives miles away; he is about whole nights through, but never does he succeed in getting hold of his brother. The information he receives from the inn-keepers is scanty and confused--some answer him with awkward prevarication, others with sly attempts at concealment--they all seem to guess that their rich profits will go to the devil as soon as the owner of the Rockhammer mill once more gets possession of his scape-grace brother. When Martin begins to notice that he is being taken in, he loses heart. He has the carriage put up in the coach-house and locks himself in for several days in his "office." During that time he is gravely considering whether it would be advisable to secure the service of the Marienfeld gendarmes. For him, of course, by virtue of his official authority, it would be an easy matter to extort the truth from these people. Yet no!--it would hardly be compatible with the honor of the Rockhammer family to have his brother hunted for by the police--why it would make his old father turn in his grave!

A cold, brought on by his nocturnal expeditions, throws him upon the sickbed. Through two terrible weeks Trude sits by day and by night at his bedside, tortured by his delirious ravings in which his two brothers, the dead and the living one, now singly, now together, transformed to one horrible two-headed monster, haunt and encircle him.

As soon as he is halfway convalescent, he has the carriage got ready. _Some_ time he must find him!

And he does find him.

Late one evening at the beginning of September, his road happens to pass through B----, a village two miles north of Marienfeld.

Through the closed shutters of the tavern boisterous noises reach his ears--stamping of feet, brawling and drunken singing. Slowly he gets out of the carriage, and ties up his horse at the entrance to the inn. The lantern flickers dimly in the night wind--heavy drops of rain come pelting down. The handle of the taproom door rattles in his hand; one push--it flies open wide. Thick, bluish-yellow tobacco fumes assail him as he enters, mixed with the odor of stale beer and foul-smelling spirits.

And there, at the top end of the long, roughly-hewn table, with flabby cheeks, with his eyes all red and swollen, with that glassy stare habitual to drunkards, with matted, unkempt hair, with a dirty shirt-collar and slovenly coat to which hang blades of straw--perhaps the reminders of his last night quarters--there that picture of precocious vice and hopeless ruin, that, that is all that remains to him of his darling, of his all in all ...

"Johannes!" he cries, and the driver's whip which he holds in his hand falls clattering to the ground.

A dead silence comes over the densely crowded room, as the tipplers gaze openmouthed at this intruder. The wretched man has started up from his seat, his face petrified with nameless fear, a hollow groan breaks from his lips; with one desperate leap he springs upon the table; with a second one he endeavors to reach the door over the heads of those sitting nearest to him.

No good! His brother's iron fist is planted upon his chest.

"Stay here!" he hears close to his ear in angry, muffled accents; thereupon he feels himself being pushed with superhuman strength towards the fire-corner, where he sinks down helplessly.

Then Martin opens the door as far as ever its hinges will allow, points with the butt-end of his whip towards the dark entry and plants himself in the middle of the taproom.

"Out with you!" he cries in a voice which makes the glasses on the table vibrate. The tipplers, most of them green youths, retreat in terror before him, and hastily don their caps; only here and there some suppressed grumbling is heard.

"Out with you!" he cried once more and makes a gesture as if about to take one of the nearest grumblers by the throat. Two minutes later the taproom is swept clear ... only the innkeeper remains, standing half petrified with fear behind the bar; now, when Martin fixes his gloomy gaze upon him, he begins to complain in a whining tone of this disturbance to his business.

Martin puts his hand in his pocket, throws him a handful of florins and says: "I wish to be alone with him."

When he has bolted the door after the humbly bowing innkeeper, he walks with slow steps towards Johannes, who is crouching motionless in his corner, with his face buried in his hands. He places his hand gently upon his shoulder and says in a voice in which infinite love and infinite pain tremble: "Rise up, my boy; let us talk to one another."

Johannes does not stir.

"Will you not tell me what grievance you have against me? It will do you good to speak out, my boy! Relieve your feelings, my boy!"

Johannes drops his hands and laughs hoarsely: "Relieve my feelings! Ha-ha-ha!" That secret terror that distorted his features before as with a cramp has now changed to dull, obstinate stubbornness.

Wavering between horror and pity, Martin looks upon this countenance in which deep furrows have left nothing, not a trace of his former open-faced, good-natured Johannes. Every evil passion must have worked therein to disfigure it so wretchedly within six short weeks. Now he raises himself up and casts a searching look towards the door. "It seems you have locked me in," he says with a fresh outburst of laughter that cuts Martin to the quick.

"Yes."

"I suppose you intend dragging me with you like a criminal?"

"Johannes!"

"Go on. I know you are the stronger! But one thing let me tell you: I am not yet so wretched but that I should resist. I would rather fling myself from the carriage and dash my head against a curbstone than come back with you."

"Have pity, merciful God!" cries Martin. "My boy, my boy, what have they made of you?"

Johannes paces the room with heavy tread and snaps open the lids of the beer-mugs as he passes.

"Cut it short," he then says, standing still. "What do you want with me that you imprison me here?"

Martin goes silently to the door and lets the bolt fly back; then he places himself close in front of his brother. His bosom heaves as if he were laboring to raise the words he is about to speak from the uttermost depths of his soul. But what good is it? They stick fast in his throat. He has never been a fluent talker--poor, shy fellow that he is, and how is he to find tongues of flame now with which to talk this madman out of his delusions? All he can stammer forth is that one question:

"What have I done to you? What have I done to you?"

He says the words twice, thrice, and over and over again. What better can he find to say? All his love, all his misery, are contained in these.

Johannes answers not a word. He has seated himself on a bench, and is running the fingers of both his hands through his unkempt hair. About his lips there lurks a smile--a terrible smile, void of comfort or hope.

At length he interrupts his helpless brother who keeps on repeating his formula as if to conjure therewith. "Let that be," he says, "you have nothing to say to me; nor can you have anything to say to me. I have done with myself, with you, with the whole world. What I have been through in these last six weeks--I tell you, since I left the mill, I have slept under no roof, for I felt sure it must fall down upon me."

"But for heaven's sake, what ...?"

"Do not ask me.... It is no good, for you won't get to know, not through me.... Let all talking alone, for it is to no purpose ... and if you were to entreat me by the memory of our parents...."

"Yes, our parents!" stammers Martin joyfully. Why did he not think of that sooner?

"Let them rest quietly in their graves," says Johannes with an ugly laugh. "Even that won't catch on with me. They can't prevent me from going to the dogs nor from hating you!"

Martin groans aloud and drops down as if struck.

"It is just because I _did_ always think of them, because I tried again and again to remember that Martin Rockhammer is my brother, that things have turned out like this and not differently. It has cost me a heavy sacrifice,--you may believe me that! I have behaved quite fairly towards you, ha-ha-ha, brother--quite fairly!"

Martin inquires no further. The solution of this riddle is perfectly clear to him. Old blood-guilt has risen from the grave to claim its penalty.... He folds his hands and mutters softly:

"Retribution for Fritz! Retribution for Fritz!"

"For one reason, however, you are quite right to remind me of our parents; I must not bring shame upon their name, upon the name of Rockhammer! That is the one thing which has been worrying me all along--even though it did not alter matters; for surely a man must enjoy himself somehow ... ha-ha-ha! After all I am quite glad to have met you, for we can talk things over quietly ... I intend going to America!"

Martin looks for a while into his glowing, bloated face; then he says softly, "Go, in God's name!" and lets his hand drop heavily upon the table slab.

"And soon, too, what's more," Johannes continues. "I have already made enquiries. On the first of October the ship sails from Bremen--next week I shall have to leave here,--you know what part of our inheritance is owing to me--I dare say, by the bye, that I have got through a good bit of it already; give me as much as you happen to have handy in cash and send it to Franz Maas; I will fetch it from him."

"And won't you come just once more to the--to the--"

"To the mill? Never!" cries Johannes starting up, while a restless gleam, full of terror and of longing, comes into his eyes.

"And you expect me to--I am to bid you good-bye here--here in this disgusting hole--good-bye forever? good-bye forever?"

"I suppose that is what it will be," says Johannes, bowing his head.

Then Martin falls all in a heap and once more murmurs, "Retribution for Fritz!"

With burning eyes Johannes stares at his brother, crouching there before him as if broken, body and soul.... He is quite determined never to see him again ... but he must give a hand at parting!

"Farewell, brother," he says, approaching him, as he sits there motionless. "Keep well and happy!" Then, suddenly, a warm, gentle sensation comes over him. His brain reels. A thousand scenes seem simultaneously to be evoked. He sees himself as a child, petted and spoilt by his elder brother, he sees himself as a youth proudly walking at his side, he sees himself with him at their parent's death-bed, he sees himself hand in hand with him at that solemn moment when they vowed never to part, nor to let any third person come between them.

And now!--And now!

"Brother!" he cries aloud--and loudly sobbing he falls at his feet.

"My boy--my dear boy." He sobs and cries with joy, and catches hold of him with both hands and presses him to him as if he nevermore would let him go.

"Now I have got you ... oh, thank heaven--now I have got you! Now everything will come right again--won't it? Tell me it was all only a dream--only madness! You did not know what you were doing--eh? You don't remember anything of it--eh? I bet you haven't any notion of it all--eh? Now you have woke up, haven't you--you have woke up again now?"

Johannes digs his teeth into his lips till they smart and leans his face upon his breast. Then suddenly a thought takes possession of him and weighs him down and buzzes in his ears--a thought like a vampire, cold and damp, and beating the air with bat's wings.... In these arms Trude has rested this very day--this very day....

He jumps up abruptly.