Chapter IV: Part 4

Away from this place, away from this atmosphere--else madness will really assail him!

He rushes towards the door. One creak of its hinges, one click of the lock: he has disappeared.

Martin looks after him, mute with consternation; then he says, as if to quell his rising fear:

"He is too excited; he wants some fresh air. He will come back!"

His glance falls upon the wooden clothes=pegs on the opposite wall. He smiles, now quite reassured, and says "He has left his cap here; it is raining outside, the wind blows cold; he will come back." Thereupon he calls the innkeeper, orders his horse to be put up and has some hot grog mixed for his brother, and a bed prepared for him. "For," he says with a blissful smile, "he will come back again."

When everything is made ready he sits down on the bench and becomes lost in brooding. From time to time he murmurs as if to resuscitate his sinking courage:

"He will come back!"

Outside the rain beats against the windowpanes, autumn blasts are soughing around the housetop, and every gust of wind, every drop of rain, seems to proclaim:

"He will come back! He will come back!" The how's pass; the lamp goes out.... Martin has fallen asleep over his waiting and is dreaming of his brother's return.

In the morning the people of the inn wake him. Haggard and shivering he looks about him. His glance falls upon the empty bed in which his brother was to have slept. The first bed since six weeks!--Sadly he stands there in front of it and stares at it. Then he has his conveyance brought round and drives off.

This year autumn has come early. Since a week there has been a rough north wind which cuts through one's body as if it were November. Gusts of rain beat against the window-panes and the ground is already covered with a layer of yellowish-brown half-decayed leaves off the lime-trees. And how soon it grows dark! In the bakery a light burns in the swinging lamp long before supper-time. Beneath its globe sits Franz Maas, eagerly reckoning up and counting. On the baker's table before him where as a rule the little white round heaps of dough are ranged, to-day there are little white round heaps of florins, and instead of the crisp "Bretzels" to-day the paper of bank-notes is crackling.

This is the treasure which Martin Rockhammer entrusted to him the Sunday before, with instructions to hand it over to Johannes. He also left a letter in which the various items of the inheritance are set down to a penny.

Every morning since then he has knocked at the door, and each time asked the selfsame question, "Has he been?" Then when Franz Maas shook his head, has silently departed again.

To-day the same. To-day is Friday; today he must come if he wants to be in time for the Bremen ship. Noiselessly he has opened the door and is standing behind him, just as he is about to lock the money away. "I suppose that is all for me," he asks, laying his hand on his shoulder.

"Thank heaven I you have come," cries Franz, agreeably startled. Then he casts a critical glance over his friend's figure. Martin must have been exaggerating when, with tears in his eyes, he described his dilapidated appearance. He looks decent and respectable, is wearing a brand new waterproof, beneath the turned-back flaps of which a neat gray suit is visible. His hair is smoothly brushed--he is even shaved. But of course his dark, dulled gaze, the bagginess under his eyes, the ugly red of his cheeks, are sad witnesses in this face, eretime so youthfully joyous.

And then he grasps both his hands and says:

"Johannes, Johannes, what has come over you?"

"Patience; you shall hear all!" he replies, "I must confide in one living soul, or it will eat my very heart out over there."

"Then you really mean it? You intend--"

"I am off to-night by the mail-coach. My seat is already booked. Before I came to you, I went once more through the village. It was already dark, so I could venture--and I took leave of everything. I went to our parents' grave, and as far as the church door, and to the host of the 'Crown,' to whom I owed a trifle."

"And you forgot the mill?"

Johannes bites his lips and chews at his moustache; then he mutters: "That is still to come."

"Oh, how glad Martin will be," cries Franz Maas, quite red with pleasure himself.

"Did I say I was going to see Martin?" asks Johannes between his teeth, while his chest heaves, as if it had a load of embarrassment to throw off.

"What? You intend slinking about on your father's inheritance like a thief,--avoiding a meeting with any one?"

"Not that either. I have to bid good-bye to some one, but not to Martin!"

"To whom else then?--To whom else, man?" cries Franz Maas, in whom a horrible suspicion dawns.

"Lock the door and sit down here," says Johannes,--"now I will tell you."

The hours pass by; the storm rattles at the shutters. The oil in the lamp begins to splutter. The two friends sit with their heads together, their looks occasionally meeting. Johannes confesses--conceals nothing. He begins with that first meeting with Trude, up to the moment when horror drove him forth from Martin's embrace--out into the stormy night.

"What came after that," he concludes, "can be told in a few words. I ran without knowing whither, until the cold and wet restored me to consciousness. Then the post-chaise from Marienfeld just happened to come along. I stopped it--at last I got under cover by this means. Thus I came to the town, where I have been putting up till now. Lob Levi had just given me a hundred thalers. With these I rigged myself out afresh, for I did not want to face Trude in the dilapidated state I was in."

"Miserable wretch--are you going to ...?"

"Don't kick up a row," he says roughly. "It is all arranged, already. I gave a note for her to a little boy I met in the street, and waited till he came back. She took it from him in the kitchen without even a servant noticing anything. At eleven o'clock she will be at the weir, and I--ha-ha-ha- ... I too!"

"Johannes, I beg and implore you, don't do it," cries Franz in sheer terror. "There's sure to be a misfortune." Johannes' reply is a hoarse laugh, and, with burning eyes, his mouth put close to his friend's ear, he hisses: "Do you really think, man, that I could manage to live and to die in a strange country if I did not see her just once more? Do you imagine I should have courage to stare for four weeks at the sea without throwing myself into it--if I did not see her once more? The very air for breathing would fail me, my meat and drink would stick in my throat, I should rot away alive if I did not see her just once more!"

When Franz hears all this he refrains from further discussion.

Johannes' restless glance wanders towards the clock. "It is time," he says, and takes his cap. "At midnight the mail-coach comes through the village. Expect me at the post office and bring me two hundred-thaler notes; that will be enough for my passage. The rest you can give back to him; I shan't want it! Good-bye till then!" At the door he turns round and asks: "I say, does my breath smell of brandy?"

"Yes."

He breaks into a coarse laugh; then he says: "Give me a few coffee beans to chew. I don't want Trude to get a horror of me in this last hour."

And when Franz has given him what he wants he disappears into the darkness.

It is high water to-day. With a great hissing and roaring the waters shoot down the declivity, then sink down into their foaming grave with dull, plaintive rumblings, while the glistening spray breaks over them in one high-vaulted arch.

The howling of the storm mingles with the tumult of these volumes of water. The old alders alongside the river bow and bend to each other like shadowy giants come forth in their numbers to dance a reel in one long line. The heavens are obscured by heavy rain-clouds,--everything is dark and black except the snowy froth, which seems to throw out an uncertain light against which the outlines of the wood planking are dimly visible. Above that projects the rail of the little drawbridge, in appearance like the phantom form of a cat, creeping with outstretched legs across a roof.

On the drawbridge the two meet. Trude, her head covered by a dark shawl, has been standing for a long time beneath the alders, seeking shelter from the rain, and has hurried to meet him as she saw the outline of his figure appear on yonder side of the weir.

"Trude, is it you?" he asks hurriedly, looking searchingly into her face. She is silent and clings to the rail. The foam is dancing before her eyes, in blue and yellow colors.

"Trude," he says, while he tries to catch hold of her hand, "I have come to bid you farewell for life. Are you going to let me go forth to a strange land without one word?"

"And I have come for the peace of my soul," says she, shrinking back from his groping hand. "Hans, I have borne much for your sake; I have grown older by half a lifetime; I am weak and ill. Therefore take pity on me: do not touch me--I do not want to return again guilt-laden to your brother's house!"

"Trude--did you come here to torture me?"

"Softly, Hans, softly--do not pain me! Let us part from one another with clean and honest hearts, and take peace and courage with us--for all our lives.... We must surely not rail at each other--not in love and not in hatred," She stops exhausted; her breath comes heavily; then, pulling herself together with an effort, she continues: "You see, I always knew that you would come long before I got your note to-day; and, a thousand times over I thought out every word--that I was going to say to you. But of course--you must not unsettle me so."

His eyes glow through the darkness; his breath comes hot; and with a shrill laugh he says:

"Don't make a halo round us. It is no good--we are both accursed anyway in heaven and on earth! Then let us at least--"

He stops abruptly, listening.

"Hush! I thought--I heard--there in the meadow!"

He holds his breath and hearkens. Nothing to be heard or seen. Whatever it was, the storm and the darkness have engulfed it.

"Come down to the river's edge," he says, "our figures are so clearly defined up here."

She leads the way; he follows. But on the slippery woodwork she loses her footing. Then he catches her in his arms and carries her down to the river. Unresisting, she hangs upon his neck.

"How light you have got since that day," he says softly, while he lets her glide down, then raises her up.

"Oh, you would hardly recognize me if you saw me," she replies equally softly.

"I would give anything if only I could!" he says, and tries to draw away the shawl from about her face. A pale oval, two dark, round shadows in it where the eyes are--the darkness reveals no more.

"I feel like a blind man," he says, and his trembling hand glides over her forehead, down to her cheeks, as if by touch to distinguish the loved features. She resists no longer. Her head drops upon his shoulder.

"How much I wanted to say to you!" she whispers. "And now I no longer can think of anything--not of anything at all."

He twines his arms more closely around her. They stand there silent and motionless while the storm tugs and tears at them, and the rain beats down upon their heads.

Then from the village come the cracked notes of the post-horn, half drowned by the blast.

"Our time is up," he says, shivering. "I must go."

"Now--the night?" she stammers voicelessly.

He nods.

"And I shall never see you again?"

A wild scream rends the storm.

"Johannes, have pity, I cannot let you go. I cannot live without you!" Her fingers dig themselves into his shoulders. "You shall not--I will not let you."

He tries to free himself by main force.

"Ah, well--you are going--oh--you--you--you are wicked! You know that I must die if you go, I cannot--Take me with you! Take me with you!"

"Are you out of your senses, woman?" He covers his face with his hands and groans aloud.

"So--this is what you call being out of one's senses! Does not even a lamb struggle--when led to the slaughter? And you are capable of----Ah, is this all your love for me? Is this all? Is this all?"

"Don't you think of Martin?"

"He is your brother. That is all I know about him. But I know that I must die if I stay with him any longer. It makes me shudder to think of him! Take me with you, my husband! Take me with you!"

He grasps both her wrists, and shaking her to and fro, he whispers with half-choked utterance:

"And do you know besides that I am ruined and disgraced--an outcast, a drunkard, no good at all in the world? If you could see me, you would have a horror of me, good people shun me and loathe me--do you think I should be good to you? I shall never forgive you for coming between me and Martin--never forgive you for making me sin against him as I have done for your sake. He will be between us as long as we live. I shall insult you--I shall beat you when I am drunk. You will find it hell at my side. Well? What do you say now?"

She bows her head demurely, folds her hands and says: "Take me with you!" A scream of exultant joy escapes his lips. "Then come--but come quickly. The coach stops for a quarter of an hour. No one will see us except Franz Maas--the only one he will not betray us. In the town you can get clothes and then.... Stop! What does this mean?"

The mill has awakened to life. A yellow light streams out into the darkness from the wide-opened door. A lantern sways across the yard then, thrown to one side, flies in a gleaming curve through the air like a shooting star.

Martin lies in bed asleep. Suddenly there is a tap at the window-pane.

"Who is there?"

"I--David!"

"What do you want?"

"Open the door, Master! I have something important to tell you."

Martin jumps out of bed, strikes a light and hurries on his clothes. A casual glance falls upon Trude's empty bed. Evidently she has dozed off on the sitting-room over her sewing, for it is a long time since she has known sound, healthy sleep.

"What is the matter?" he asks David, who steps into the entrance dripping like a drowned cat.

"Master," he says, blinking from under the peak of his cap, "it is now more than twenty-eight years since I first came to the mill--and your late father already used to be good to me always...."

"And you drag me out of bed in the middle of the night to tell me _that_?"

"Yes, for to-night when I woke up and heard the rain pelting down, I suddenly remembered with a start that the sluices of the lock were not opened.... Perhaps the water might get blocked up and we could not grind to-morrow."

"Haven't I told you fellows hundreds of times that the sluices need only be opened when the ice is drifting? At high water it only means unnecessary labor."

"Well, I didn't touch them," observes David.

"Then what do you want?"

"Because, when I got to the weir I saw two lovers standing on the drawbridge!"

"And that's why?..."

"Then I thought it was a regular disgrace and a crying shame, and no longer--"

"Let them love each other, in the devil's name!"

"And I thought it my duty to tell you. Master, when Master Johannes and our lady--"

He gets no further, for his master's fingers are at his throat.

What has come over Martin, wretched man? His face becomes livid and swollen; the veins on his forehead stand out; his nostrils quiver, his eyes seem to start from their sockets--white foam is at his mouth.

Then he gives vent to a sound like the howl of a jackal, and, loosening his grip of David, with one wrench he tears the shirt at his throat asunder.

Two or three deep breaths, like a man who is achoking; then he roars aloud in suddenly unfettered rage: "Where are they? They shall account to me for this. They have been acting a farce! They have deceived me! Where are they? I'll do for them! I'll do for them, then and there!"

He tears the lantern out of terrified David's hand and rushes out. He disappears into the wheel-house; a second later he reappears. High above his head there gleams an axe. Then he swings the lantern thrice in a circle and flings it far away from him into the water. He storms along in the direction of the weir.

"There's some one coming," whispers Trude, nestling closer up to Johannes.

"Probably they have something to do at the sluices," he whispers back. "Don't stir and be of good courage."

Nearer and nearer hastens the dark figure. A beastlike roaring pierces through the night, above the fury of the storm. "It is Martin," says Johannes, staggering back three paces.

But he collects himself quickly, clutches Trude and drags her with him close up to the woodwork at the weir, in the darkest shadow of which they both crouch down.

Close to their heads the infuriated man races along. The axe, lifted on high, glints in the half-light of the foam. On the other side of the weir he stops. He seems to be gazing searchingly across the wide meadow, which spreads before him in monotonous darkness without tree or shrub.

"You keep watch at the hither sluice, David," his voice thunders out in the direction of the mill. "They must be in the field. I shall catch them there!"

A cry of horror starts from Johannes' lips. He has divined his brother's intention. He is going to pull up the drawbridge and trap them both on the island. And close behind Trude's neck hangs the chain which must be pulled to make the bridge move back. His first thought is: "Protect the woman!" He tears himself out of Trude's arms, and springs up the slope of the river-bank to offer himself as a sacrifice to his brother's fury.

Trude utters a piercing shriek. Johannes in mortal danger; over there the infuriated man, the axe gleaming bright; but behind her there is that chain, that iron ring which is almost tearing her head open. With trembling hands she grasps hold of it; she tugs at it with all her might. At the very moment when Martin is about to climb upon the foot-plank, the drawbridge swings back.

Johannes sees nothing of it; he only sees the shadow over there, and the gleaming axe. A few paces further, and death will descend swiftly upon him. Then suddenly, in the moment of direst distress, he thinks of his mother and what she once said to the enraged boy.

"Think of Fritz!" he cries out to his brother. And behold! The axe drops from his hand; he staggers; he falls--one dull thud--one splash: he has disappeared. Johannes rushes forward; his foot hits against the draw-up bridge. Close before him yawns a black hole. "Brother, brother!" he cries in frenzied terror. He has no thought, no feeling left, only one sensation: "Save your brother!" whirls through his brain. With one jerk he throws off his cloak--a leap--a dull blow as if against some sharp edge.

Trude, who is half unconsciously clutching at the chain, sees a long dark mass shoot down the incline into the white waters, and disappear into the foaming whirlpool, a second later another follows.

Like two shadows they flew past her. She turns her gaze upwards towards the woodwork. Up there all is quiet; it is all empty. The storm howls; the waters roar. Fainting, she sinks down at the river's edge.

Next day the bodies of the two brothers were pulled out of the river. Side by side they were floating on the waters; side by side they were buried.

Trude was as if petrified with grief. In tearless despair she brooded to herself--she refuses to see any of her relations, even her own father. Franz Maas alone she suffers near her. Faithfully he takes charge of her, kept strangers away from her threshold and attends to all formalities.

There was some rumor of a legal investigation to be held against the wretched woman, on the ground of David's dark insinuations. But even though the statements of the old servant were too incomplete and confused to build up a lawsuit upon them, they still sufficed to brand Trude Rockhammer as a criminal in the eyes of the world. The more she shrinks from all intercourse, the more anxiously she closes the mill to all strangers, the more extravagant grow the rumors that were spread about her.

"The miller-witch," people come to call her, and the legends that surrounded her were handed down from one generation to the next. The mill now becomes the "Silent Mill," as the popular voice christened it. The walls crumble away; the wheels grow rotten; the bright, clear stream becomes choked with weeds, and when the State planned a canal which conducted the water into the main stream above Marienfeld--then it degenerated into a marsh.

And Trude herself became entirely isolated, for soon she would not even allow her one friend to approach her, and closed her doors to him.

Before her own conscience she was a murderess. Her terrors drove her to a father confessor and into the arms of the Catholic Church. She was to be seen crawling at the foot of a crucifix or kneeling at church doors, telling her beads and beating her head against the stones till it bled.

She is expiating the great crime which is known as "youth."

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