Chapter III: The Visit

“So passed several years,” continued the narrator. “I very soon comprehended the principles of my trade; and my frame, expanded by labor, was equal to the undertaking of every thing connected with the business. At the same time I kept managing my ancient service, which my good mother, or rather the sick and destitute, required at my hands. I moved with my beast through the mountains, punctually distributed my lading, and brought back from shopkeepers and merchants what we needed here at home.

“My master was contented with me, my parents also. Already I enjoyed the satisfaction, in my wanderings, of seeing many a house which I had helped to raise, or had myself decorated. For, in particular, that last notching of the beam-ends, that carving of certain simple forms, that branding in of pretty figures, that red painting of certain recesses, by which a wooden house in the mountains acquires so pleasant an aspect,--these arts were especially intrusted to me; as I always made the best hand of such tasks, having Herod’s throne and its ornaments constantly in my head.

“Among the help-needing persons whom my mother took peculiar charge of, were particularly young wives near the time of their confinement, as by degrees I could well enough remark; though, in such cases, the commissions given me were veiled in a certain mystery. My messages, on these occasions, never reached directly to the party concerned; but every thing passed through the hands of a good old woman, who lived down the dale, and was called Frau Elizabeth. My mother, herself skilful in the art which saves life to so many at their very entrance into life, constantly maintained a good understanding with Frau Elizabeth; and I often heard, in all quarters, that many a one of our stout mountaineers stood indebted for his existence to these two women. The secrecy with which Elizabeth received me at all times, her pointed replies to my enigmatical questions, which I myself did not understand, awoke in me a singular reverence for her; and her house, which was extremely clean, appeared to me to represent a sort of sanctuary.

“Meanwhile, by my acquirements and adroitness in my craft, I had gained considerable influence in the family. As my father, in the character of cooper, had taken charge of the cellar and its contents, I now took charge of roof and room, and repaired many a damaged part in the old building. In particular, I contrived to make some fallen barns and out-houses once more serviceable for domestic use; and scarcely was this done when I set about cleaning and clearing out my beloved chapel. In a few days it was put in order, almost as you see it at present; and such pieces of the wainscot as were damaged or altogether wanting, I had endeavored, as I went along, to restore in the same fashion as the rest. These door-leaves of the entrance, too, you might think, were old enough; yet they are of my workmanship. I passed several years in carving them at leisure hours, having first mortised the body of them firmly together out of strong oaken planks. Whatever of the pictures had not been effaced or injured at that time, has since continued unimpaired; and I assisted our glazier in a new house he was erecting, under the condition of his putting in colored windows here.

“If these figures and thoughts on the saint’s life had hitherto occupied my imagination, the whole impressed itself on me with much more liveliness, now that I could again regard the place as a sanctuary, could linger in it, and muse at leisure on what I saw or conjectured. There lay in me an irresistible desire to follow in the footsteps of this saint: and, as a similar history was not to be looked for in these times, I determined on commencing my resemblance from the lowest point upwards; as, indeed, by the use of my beast of burden, I had already commenced it long ago. The small creature which I had hitherto employed would no longer content me: I chose for myself a far more stately carrier, and got a large, stout saddle, which was equally adapted for riding and packing. A pair of new baskets were also procured; and a net of many-colored knots, flakes, and tufts, intermixed with jingling tags of metal, decorated the neck of my long-eared beast, which might now show itself beside its model on the wall. No one thought of mocking me when I passed over the mountains in this equipment: people do not quarrel with Benevolence for putting on a strange outside.

“Meanwhile, war, or rather its consequences, had approached our district; for dangerous bands of vagabond deserters had more than once collected, and here and there practised much violence and wanton mischief. By the good order of our provincial militia, by patrolling and prompt watchfulness, the evil was very soon remedied: but we too quickly relapsed into our former carelessness; and, before we thought of it, new disorders broke forth.

“For a long time all had been quiet in our neighborhood, and I had travelled peacefully with my ass along the accustomed paths; till one day, passing over a newly sown glade of the forest, I observed a female form sitting, or rather lying, at the edge of the fence-ditch. She seemed to be asleep or in a swoon. I endeavored to recall her; and, as she opened her eyes and sat upright, she cried with eagerness, ‘Where is he? Did you see him?’ I asked, ‘Whom?’ She replied, ‘My husband.’ Considering her extremely youthful appearance, I had not been expecting this reply; yet I continued, so much the more kindly, to assist her, and assure her of my sympathy. I learned that the two travellers had left their carriage, the road being so heavy, and struck into a footpath to make a shorter cut. Hard by they had been overtaken by armed marauders; her husband had gone off fighting with them; she, not able to follow him far, had sunk on this spot, and lain there she knew not how long. She pressingly begged of me to leave her, and hasten after her husband. She rose to her feet; and the fairest, loveliest form stood before me: yet I could easily observe that she was in a situation in which she might soon require the help of my mother and Frau Elizabeth. We disputed a while: for I wished, before all, to bring her to some place of safety; she wished, in the first place, to have tidings of her husband. She would not leave the trace of him; and all my arguments would perhaps have been unavailing, had not a party of our militia, which the tidings of fresh misdeeds had again called out into service, chanced to pass that way through the forest. These I informed of the matter: with them the necessary arrangements were made, the place of meeting appointed, and so the business settled for the time. With great expedition I hid my panniers in a neighboring cave, which had often served me before as a repository: I adjusted my saddle for easy riding, and, not without a strange emotion, lifted the fair burden on my willing beast, which, knowing of itself what path to choose, left me at liberty to walk by her side.

“You can figure to yourself, without my describing it at large, in what a strange mood I was. What I had long been seeking I had now found. I felt as if I were dreaming, and then again as if I were awakening from a dream. That heavenly form which I saw, as it were, hovering in the air, and bending aside from the green branches, now seemed to me like a dream which had risen in my soul through those figures in the chapel. Soon those figures themselves seemed to me to have been only dreams, which were here issuing in a fair reality. I asked her many things: she answered me softly and kindly, as beseemed a dignified distress. She often desired me, when we reached any open height, to stop, to look round, to listen. She desired me with such grace, with such a deep, wistful look from under her long black eyelashes, that I could not but do whatever lay in my power; nay, at last I climbed to the top of a high, solitary, branchless pine. Never had this feat of my handicraft been more welcome to me: never had I, with greater joy, brought down ribbons and silks from such elevations at festivals and fairs. But for this time, alas! I came back without booty: above, as below, I could hear or see nothing. In the end, she herself called me down, and beckoned to me earnestly with her hand: nay, at last, as in gliding down I quitted my hold a considerable way up, and dropped on the ground, she gave a scream; and a sweet kindliness spread over her face as she saw me before her unhurt.

“Why should I tell you in detail of the hundred attentions with which I strove the whole way to be pleasing, to divert her thoughts from her grief? Indeed, how could I? For it is the very quality of true attention, that, at the moment, it makes a nothing all. To my feeling, the flowers which I broke for her, the distant scenes which I showed her, the hills, the woods, which I named to her, were so many precious treasures which I was giving her to obtain for myself a place among her interests, as one tries to do by presents.

“Already she had gained me for my whole life, when we reached our destination, at that good old woman’s door; and I saw a painful separation close at hand. Once more I ran over all her form; and, as my eyes came on her feet, I stooped as if to adjust something in my girdle, and kissed the daintiest shoe that I had ever seen, yet without her noticing me. I helped her down, sprang up the steps, and called in at the door, ‘Frau Elizabeth, here is a visitor!’ The good old woman came down: and I looked over her shoulders towards the house, as the fair being mounted the steps with graceful sorrow, and inward, painful self-consciousness; till she gratefully embraced my worthy old woman, and accompanied her into the better chamber. They shut the door; and I was left standing outside by my ass, like a man that has delivered a loading of precious wares, and is again as poor a carrier as before.”

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