Edelweiss: A Story

CHAPTER XXXIII.

A FRIEND IN NEED

At that very hour Pilgrim was on his way to church. When nearly there, however, he changed his purpose, took several turns in front of old Petrovitsch's house, and finally mustered courage to pull the bell. Petrovitsch had been watching him from his window, and muttered to himself, as he heard the ring: "You are going to make me a visit, are you? I will give you a reception you won't forget in a hurry."

Petrovitsch was as much out of sorts as if he were suffering from the effects of a night's debauch; and indeed it was pretty much so. He had committed an excess in calling up old associations, and admitting a guest to share them. The idea of having given way to the wretched weakness of desiring to appear well before a fellow-man angered him. How could he meet the doctor again in the full light of day? There was an end to his proud boast of caring nothing for the opinion of the world. Pilgrim was an excellent object on which to wreak his ill-humor; he would put a stop to the fellow's playing and singing for one day at least.

"Good morning, Mr. Lenz!" said Pilgrim, entering.

"The same to you, Mr. Pilgrim."

"Mr. Lenz, I have come to see you instead of going to church."

"I did not know I was considered such a saint."

"I do not come hoping for any great results from my visit, but only that I may feel I have done my duty."

"If every one did his duty it would be a fine world to live in."

"Your Lenz, as you know-"

"I have no Lenz but that one," interrupted Petrovitsch, pointing to the reflection of his carefully shaven face in the glass.

"You know that your brother's son is in great trouble."

"No; the trouble is in him. It all comes from a man's priding himself on his kind heart, and having friends who pet him till he thinks all other views than his are the whimsies of a crabbed old croaker."

"You may be right; but talking won't mend the matter. Your Lenz's difficulties are greater than you think."

"I never measured them."

"He is even in danger of taking his own life."

"He did that long ago, when he married as he did."

"I can say no more. I thought I was prepared for everything, but this I had not expected. You are much more, – you are a different man from what I took you for."

"Thanks for the compliment. I only regret I cannot wear it as a medal about my neck, as you singers wear your badges."

The gay, open-hearted Pilgrim stood before the old man as disconcerted as a fencer who at every sally finds his weapon struck from his hand.

Petrovitsch hugged himself on his success, and putting an unusually large lump of sugar into his mouth, said, as he smacked his lips: "The son of my deceased brother has done according to his own will and pleasure. It would be unjust in me to try to defraud him of the fruits of his own choosing. He has squandered his life and money, – I cannot restore them."

"Good Heavens, Mr. Lenz, you can. His life and that of his whole family may yet be saved. The discord in his house will cease when plenty returns and this wear of anxiety is removed. 'Horses quarrel over the empty crib,' says the proverb. Wealth is not happiness, but it can command happiness."

"Young people nowadays are very generous with others' money, but have no taste for earning their own. I will do nothing for the husband of Annele of the Lion, whose fair words have to be bought with gold."

"What if your nephew should die?"

"He will probably be buried."

"And what will become of the children?"

"We can never tell what will become of children."

"Has your nephew ever offended you in any way?"

"I know not how he could offend me."

"Then what can you do better with your money than now-"

"If I ever need a guardian, I will ask to have you appointed, Mr. Pilgrim."

"I see I am not clever enough for you."

"You do me too much honor," said Petrovitsch, putting one foot over the other and playing with the lappet of his slipper.

"I have done my duty," said Pilgrim again.

"And cheaply, too, at the expense of a couple of fair words. A bushel of them would not cost much. I would buy at that rate."

"This is my first and last request to you."

"And this is my first and last refusal to you."

"Good morning, Mr. Lenz!"

"The same to you, Mr. Pilgrim."

At the door Pilgrim turned, his face crimson and his eyes flashing. "Mr. Lenz, do you know what you are doing?"

"I generally know pretty well what I am doing."

"You are absolutely turning me out of your house."

"Indeed!" said Petrovitsch with an ugly smile; but his eyes fell before the look of mingled pain and defiance in Pilgrim's face. "Mr. Lenz," continued the young man, "from you I bear everything. There lives not a man within sight of a hedge or a tree that can yield a stick, who can boast of having insulted Pilgrim with impunity. You can: and do you know the reason? Because I am willing to bear insults in my friend's cause. Unhappily it is all I can do for him. No angry word shall you hear from me that you can use as a pretext for not helping my friend. For his sake I gladly suffer insults. Tell all the world, if you will, that you have turned me out of your house."

"It would not be much to boast of."

Pilgrim's breath came short and quick; his lips grew white, and without another word he left the room.

Petrovitsch sent after him such a look of triumph as a satisfied fox might send after the wounded and fugitive hare whose blood he had sucked, but whose life the poor creature might save as he could.

With great satisfaction he paced about his room, stroking himself down with his hands. He seemed actually so puffed up with satisfaction that he had to let out the tasseled cord of his dressing-gown. Now Petrovitsch is himself again, his every motion seemed to say; last night you behaved like an old fool and forfeited all right to revile the dish-clouts about you.

Pilgrim silently wended his way homeward, but, being in no mood for entering his room at once, passed his house and took a long walk through the fields. On returning, he was most agreeably surprised by finding his friend's little boy. That is the way, he thought, when friends heartily love one another. At the very moment I was thinking of Lenz, his heart was full of me. Perhaps he had a presentiment of my intended visit to Petrovitsch, and so sent his boy to help my petition. But the child could have done no good. The voices of men and angels would have been alike useless.

There was no end to the games Pilgrim invented, and the pictures he drew, for the child's entertainment. Little William screamed with delight at the hare and hounds made out of a handkerchief and a black necktie, and called for the same stories over and over again. Pilgrim's great story was of a Turk named Kulikali, who had an immense nose and could swallow smoke. He dressed himself up like the Turk Kulikali, and spreading a cloth on the floor, sat in the middle of it with his legs crossed, and played all manner of tricks. He was as much of a child for the time as his little godson. After dinner, which they ate down stairs with Don Bastian, William insisted on being taken, in spite of the sleet and slosh, down to the brook. That was the best fun of all. Great blocks of ice went floating by with ravens perched upon them; and when one of their rafts cracked and broke to pieces, the ravens flew up and perched upon another. It was dizzying to look down on them from the height where the two stood. The earth seemed to be in motion while the ice stood still. The child clung anxiously to Pilgrim. When that entertainment failed, Pilgrim took his godson home and made him up a bed on his well-worn sofa, which they agreed should be little Lenz's own, and he should never go away any more. "At home papa cries," the little fellow said; "and mamma too; and mamma says papa is a wicked man." Poor Pilgrim was cut to the heart at hearing of it. The snow and rain increased so much in violence, and the avalanches from the roofs of the houses and from the upland slopes were so constant, that it soon became impossible to step out of doors. The evening came, but no Lenz. The servant-maid told of her having met Petrovitsch on his way to the Morgenhalde, not far from the house. He had asked whose the child was, and on her replying it was Lenz's William, had given him a little bit of sugar, – not a whole lump, for he broke off half of it first and put it into his own mouth.

"Is it possible? can Petrovitsch really have been softened? Who can read the hearts of men?"

Petrovitsch, after giving full scope to his exultation at this double triumph over the doctor and Pilgrim, felt very tranquil in his mind. He sat at his window watching the groups of church-goers, till at last all were gone by except a single woman and a single man, who came hurrying along to take their seats before the service should begin. Petrovitsch's custom was to go to church himself; in fact, so regular was his attendance that it was reported he meant to leave a handsome sum in his will towards erecting a new building. To day, however, he stayed at home, being busy with his own thoughts. One idea in particular occupied his mind: The fellow has good friends in his time of need. Pooh! would they be quite so good if they were rich? Pilgrim's friendship perhaps is sincere; it almost looked so. He was very near letting his passion break out at one time; but he kept it down and let me say what I would, rather than injure his friend's cause. – It was all a trick likely enough, – and yet there is such a thing as friendship.

He heard the rumbling of the organ from the distant church, the singing of the congregation, and then came a silence which implied that the minister had begun his sermon. A voice seemed to be preaching to Petrovitsch as he sat with folded hands in his chair. Suddenly he rose saying half aloud: "It is very well to show men their master, but it is pleasant too to be thought well off. – No, no; that is not worth while; that is not what I mean; but to make men rub their eyes and cry: 'Thunder and lightning, who would have thought it?' there is some fun in that."

Petrovitsch had not for many years dressed himself so quickly as he did to-day. Generally he took his dressing easily and comfortably, like most things that he did, spending at least an hour over it; but to-day he was soon ready, even to the putting on of his costly fur coat which he had brought from Russia himself. The old housekeeper, who had seen him a few minutes before in dressing-gown and slippers, stared in amazement, but dared not utter a word, as she was not spoken to. With his gold-headed cane, furnished with a hard, sharp ferrule at the bottom, in case of need, Petrovitsch walked through the village and straight up the hill. No human being was in the street; none at the windows to wonder at seeing him leave his house at this unwonted hour and in this ugly weather. Bubby had to represent the whole absent humanity, and proclaimed, as well as his barking could: My master is behaving himself in a way you would not believe; I would not have believed it myself. He barked it at a raven sitting meditatively on a hedge, sagely reflecting upon the melting snow; he barked it for his own gratification as he leaped ever higher and higher through the deepening drifts, on his useless digressions to and fro; and between his barks his look at his master seemed to say: No human soul understands us two; but we know each other.

I sacrifice all my peace of mind by doing it, said Petrovitsch to himself; but if I don't do it I have no peace of mind either. I might as well secure some thanks at least. After all, he is a good, simple, honest fellow, as his father was before him.

Lenz's door was locked when the two reached the house. Bubby was already on the threshold, and Petrovitsch had his hand on the latch when-he sank to the ground, and an avalanche of snow overwhelmed him. So much for troubling yourself about other men, was his first thought and his last, for immediately consciousness failed him.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

BURIED ALIVE

"Strike a light, Lenz; strike a light! If there is any danger, I must see it. What makes you stand there crying in the dark. I feel your tears on my hand. What is the matter? Let me go; I will get up myself and light a lamp."

"Be quiet, Annele," said Lenz, his teeth chattering so he could hardly speak. "Annele, I had meant to kill myself here before your eyes."

"Better kill me; I should be too glad to die."

"Did you not understand me, Annele? We are blocked up by the snow; buried alive with our child."

"If death had had to wait for you to bring it, it never would have come."

Still that hard, cutting tone; those biting, stinging words! Lenz felt his breath come hard.

"Let me get up, let me get up!" continued Annele; "I am not like you, to let my arms hang down at my side. I don't care what becomes of me; but I choose to see the danger. You would like to wait till some one came to dig you out or till the snow went away of itself; that is not my way. Defend yourself, is our family motto."

"Stay where you are; I will strike a light," answered Lenz; but hardly had he reached the next room before Annele stood beside him with the child in her arms. On attempting to go to the garret a new misfortune disclosed itself; the roof had been broken in. "The snow alone could not have done the damage," he said; "it has brought trunks of trees down with it, and that was what made such a crash."

"I don't care what made it; only let us find some help, some way of escape."

She ran hither and thither trying all the windows and doors. Not till she found that all were firmly walled up and yielded nothing under her fiercest efforts, did she admit the full extent of the catastrophe, and setting the child down upon the table, broke out into screams and tears. Lenz took the child in his arms, and with difficulty persuaded Annele to be quiet. "The hand of death is upon our house," he said; "all struggle is unavailing. Did you keep William too at home? Is he concealed anywhere here?"

"No; he went with the maid. I kept only the baby."

"Thank God! we are not all lost; one of us at least is saved. Poor little child! I sent the boy away, Annele, that he might not see his father kill himself; but now all is changed. God summons us all. Poor child, to have to perish for your parents' sins!"

"I have not sinned; I have nothing to reproach myself with."

"Good; hold to that to the last. Do you not know that you have murdered me, poisoned the very heart in my body, disgraced me in my own eyes, trodden me under foot, taken all strength from me?"

"A man who allows his strength to be taken from him deserves nothing better."

"An hour more and we may be standing before another judgment-seat. Look into your heart, Annele."

"Keep your preaching to yourself; I don't want it."

An instant afterwards her screams summoned Lenz to the kitchen, whither she had gone to light the fire, and where he found her gazing in terror at the rats and mice congregated on the hearth, while a raven flew round and round the kitchen, knocking down plates and pots in his course.

"Kill them! kill them!" shrieked Annele, and fled into the adjoining room.

The rats and mice were soon disposed of, but the raven it would have been impossible to catch without breaking every article of crockery in the kitchen. The lamp made the bird frantic, and without a light it was impossible to find him. "I might shoot the raven with my pistol which I have here, ready loaded," he said, returning to Annele in the sitting-room; "but the jar would hasten the fall of the house. The best thing I can do is to make this room safe."

He drew a heavy press into the middle of the room directly under the main beam, piled a smaller one above it, and filled in the space so tightly with clothes as to prop up the roof against a considerable pressure from without.

"We must bring all the eatables we have in here." That too he did quickly and handily, while Annele sat like one paralyzed, and could only look on in wonder.

Lenz brought his own prayer-book and Annele's, opened them both at the same place, – the preparation for death, – and laying his wife's open before her, began to read aloud. Seeing she did not follow him, he looked up presently and said: "You are right not to read; there is nothing there for us. Never were any two like us, who should have lived together in peace, each doubling the other's life; but who instead of that pulled away from each other, and are now both imprisoned at the gates of death, and must die together, since they could not live together. Hark! Do you not hear cries? I thought there was a growling sound."

"I hear nothing."

"We cannot light a fire," continued Lenz; "for there is no way for the smoke to escape, and we should be stifled. Thank God, there is the spirit-lamp that my mother bought. You help even in death, mother," he said, looking up at the picture. "Light it, Annele; only economize the spirit; we cannot tell how long we shall have to make it last."

Annele watched his movements in blank amazement. She was often tempted to ask whether this were really that Lenz who had been so incapable of helping himself. But no words came from her stiffened lips. She was like a person in a deathly trance who tries to speak and cannot.

Her first swallow of warm milk revived her. "What if the mice should come in here?" was her first question.

"I will kill them here too, and bury them in the snow to get rid of the stench. By the way, I must bury those I killed in the kitchen."

Again Annele looked at him in amazement. Was this man, so bold in the face of death, the old, sensitive, shiftless Lenz? A kind word rose to her lips, but did not get spoken.

"That plaguy raven has bitten me," said Lenz, returning with his hand bleeding. "The fellow is wild with terror at having been swept away by the force of the avalanche; there is no catching him. A whole pillar of snow has fallen down the chimney. Hark! that is ten o'clock. People are coming out of church now. We were buried just as the last bells were ringing. It was our death-knell."

"I will not die yet; I am so young! And my child! I never knew, I never imagined that I was going to my death when I condescended to live in this desert with you clockmakers."

"It is your father's fault," answered Lenz. "My parents were three times snowed up, so that for two and three days they could not go outside the house, on account of the depth of snow that lay there; but they were never buried. Your father disposed of the wood, and had it cut down over my head. This is his work."

"You have no one but yourself to blame. He wanted to give you the wood."

"That is true."

"Oh, if I and my child were but out of this place!" cried Annele, beginning her lamentations afresh.

"And do you care nothing for me?"

Without appearing to hear him she cried again, "O God, why must I die thus? What have I done?"

"What have you done? yet a little while and God himself will tell you. My words are spent in vain."

Both were silent; a secret power seemed forcing Annele to speak, but she could not.

"Good God!" began Lenz; "here we two stand at the gates of death and with what feelings towards each other! If we should be saved, it would be only to renew the old pain and torment. My parents were three times snowed up. My mother always made provision against such an event, and kept on hand a plentiful supply of salt and oil. Of the first two times I know nothing, but the last is distinct in my memory to this day. Dearly as my father and mother loved each other, I never before saw them kiss. When my father said: 'Mary, we are once more alone in the world, out of the world'; then for the first time I saw my mother kiss him. For those three days it was like living in eternity, in paradise. Morning, noon, and night my father and mother sang together out of the hymn-book, and every word they spoke was more sweet and holy than tongue can tell. I remember my mother's saying once: 'Would we might die at such a moment as this; pass out of this earthly rest into the eternal, neither one left behind to grieve for the other!' Then and only then did I hear my father speak of my uncle. 'If I were to die now,' he said, 'I should leave no enemy behind. I owe no man anything. My one grief is that my brother Peter dislikes me.'"

Lenz suddenly paused in his story. There was a scratching at the house-door, a whimpering and howling. "What is there? I must see what it is," said Lenz.

"No, no; for Heaven's sake!" cried Annele, sending a thrill through him by the touch of her hand on his shoulder. "Let it be, Lenz! It is a fox howling, or a wolf. I heard the howl of a wolf once, and it sounded just like that."

Whatever the creature was outside, it seemed to be roused to fresh exertion by the sound of voices within; the scratching and barking grew louder.

"That is no wolf; it is a dog. Hark! it is Hubby's bark. Great Heavens, it is Bubby! and where his dog is my uncle must be too. He must be buried in the snow."