Waldfried: A Novel

CHAPTER X

In the winter of 1865 I left home to attend a session of the Parliament.

My neighbor Funk, who was also a delegate, accompanied me.

It grieves me to be obliged to describe this man or even to mention him.

He caused me much sorrow. He humiliated me more than any other man has ever done, for he proved to me that I have neither worldly wisdom nor knowledge of men. How could I have so egregiously deceived myself in him? I am too hasty in determining as to the character of a man, and when I afterwards find that his actions are not in keeping with my conception of what they should be, the inconsistency torments me as if it were an unsolved enigma. In one word, I have suffered much because of a lack of reserve. Unfortunately I must give all or nothing. Even now I cannot help thinking that he must be better, after all, than he seems. I find, on comparing myself with him, that he has many an advantage over me. He is twenty years younger than I am, and yet he seems as if he had matured long ago. I shall never be that way, no matter how long I live. I am always growing.

He had failed in the examination for a degree, and, disappointed and vexed, had entered the teachers' seminary. He afterward actually became a schoolmaster, but never forgot that he had once aspired to enter a higher sphere of life.

When the revolution broke out he had hoped to find his reckoning in it. He speedily found himself in a high position, and had no trouble in accustoming himself to the princely palace in which the provisional government had located itself.

I have already mentioned that I had brought Funk home from Strasburg with me. I felt so firmly convinced of his innocence that I used all my influence in his behalf, and even deposited a considerable sum as his bondsman, in order that he might be tried without having to surrender his liberty. He was pronounced innocent.

He made me shudder one day when he told me that the judges had evidently imbibed my belief in his innocence.

Funk was a handsome man, and still retains his good looks. Annette, the friend of my daughter Bertha, called him a perfect type of lackey beauty. She was sure, she said, that he was born to wear a livery. There was something so abject and cringing about him. She was not a little proud of her discernment, when, some time after, I confirmed her judgment by the announcement that Funk was actually a son of the Duke's valet.

Funk did not resume his former position as a teacher. He became an emigration agent. For during the first years of the reaction there was a great increase in the number of emigrants from this country to America.

Besides this, he had also become an agent for Insurances of all sorts Fire, Life, Hail, and Cattle. His window-shutters were so covered with signs that they presented quite a gay appearance.

He was chosen as one of the town-council, but the government did not confirm him in office, which action of theirs gained him much credit with the people. Two years after that, when he was elected burgomaster, he knew how to bring it about that a deputation should wait upon the Prince in person to urge his confirmation.

Funk induced his wife always to wear the old-time costumes of the country people.

"That, you must know," he said to me one day, "awakens the confidence of the country people." When I reproved him for this trick, he laughed and showed his pretty teeth. There was, to me at least, always something insincere and repulsive in his laugh, and in the fact that he never wearied of repeating certain high-sounding phrases. But what was there to draw me towards this man? I will honestly admit that I have a certain admiration for combativeness, courage, and shrewdness-qualities in which I am deficient.

My unsuspecting confidence in others is a mistake. But I have been thus for seventy years, and when I reckon up results, I find that I am none the worse for it. Although over-confidence in others has brought me many a sorrow, it has also given me many a joy.

I have suffered much through others, and through Funk especially; but I still believe that there are no thoroughly bad men, but that there are thoroughly egotistical ones, and that the pushing of egotism beyond its due bounds is the source of all evil.

If I had not helped him with all my influence, Funk would not have been chosen a delegate to the Parliament. When he visited me, on the day following the election, he addressed me in a tone of unwonted and unlooked-for familiarity, much to the disgust of my wife.

After he had left she said to me, "I cannot understand you. I did not interfere when I saw that you were trying to gain votes for Funk; that, I presume, is a part of politics, and perhaps the party needs voters, and just such bold and irreverent people. They can say things that a man of honor would not permit himself to utter. But I cannot conceive how you can allow yourself to be on so familiar a footing with that man."

I assured her that the first advances had been made by him, and that although they were undesired by me I did not choose to appear proud.

She said no more. But there was yet another reproof in store for me.

When I entered the stable Rothfuss said to me, "Why did you let that grinning fellow get so near to you? Is he still calling out, 'God be with thee, Waldfried! You will come to see me soon, will you not?' Such talk from that quarter is no compliment."

I did not suffer him to go on with his remarks. My weak fear of hurting the feelings of others had already worked its own punishment on myself.

When I left home for the session of 1865, Funk was waiting for me down by the saw-mill. I found him with a young man, the son of a schoolmaster who lived in the neighborhood. He took leave of his companion, and turning to me exclaimed with a triumphant air, "I have already saved one poor creature to-day. The simple-minded fellow wanted to become a teacher. A mere teacher in a public school! A position which is ideally elevated, but financially quite low. I convinced him that he would be happier breaking stone on the road. We ought to make it impossible for the Government to get teachers for its public schools."

When I answered that he was wantonly trifling with the education of our people, he replied, "From your point of view, perhaps you are quite right." It was in this way that I first got the idea that Funk thought he was controlling me. His subordination was a mere sham, and we were really at heart opposed to each other.

He voted as I did in the Parliament, but not for the same reasons.

If Funk had been insincere towards me, it was now my turn-and that was the worst of it-to be insincere towards him.

I was determined to break off my relations with him, and only awaited a favorable opportunity for so doing. And yet while awaiting that opportunity I kept up my usual relations with him.

It is x indeed sad, that intercourse with those who are insincere begets insincerity in ourselves.

We reached the railway station, where we found numerous delegates, and indeed two of our own party, who were cordially disliked by Funk. One of them was a manufacturer who lived near the borders of Switzerland. He was a strict devotee, but was really sincere in his religious professions, which he illustrated by his pure and unselfish conduct. We were on the friendliest footing, although he could not avoid from time to time expressing a regret that I did not occupy the same religious stand-point that he did.

The other delegate was a proud and haughty country magistrate-a man of large possessions, who imagined it was his especial prerogative to lead in matters affecting the welfare of the state. He had been opposed to Funk during the election, and had ill-naturedly said, "Beggars should have nothing to say." Funk had not forgotten this, but nevertheless forced him, as it were, into a display of civility.

The two companions were quite reserved in their manner towards Funk, and before we had accomplished our journey I could not help observing that there was a pressure which would induce a clashing and a subsequent separation of these discordant elements.

CHAPTER XI

During the winter session of the Parliament I did not reside with my daughter Bertha.

At a future day it will be difficult to realize what a separation there then was between the different classes of our people.

There was a feeling of restraint and ill-will between those who wore the dress of the citizen and that of the soldier. The Prince was, above all things, a soldier, and when in public always appeared in uniform.

We delegates, who could not approve of all that the Government required of us, were regarded as the sworn enemies of the state, both by court circles and by the army, to whom we were nevertheless obliged to grant supplies.

An officer who would suffer himself to be seen walking in the street with a citizen who was suspected of harboring liberal opinions, or with one of the delegates of our party, might rely upon being reported at head-quarters.

Although he did not say anything about it, my son-in-law was much grieved by this condition of affairs. Whenever I visited him he treated me with respect and affection, as if he thus meant to thank me for the reserve I had maintained when we met in public, and desired to apologize for the rigid discipline he was obliged to observe.

We had a long session, full of fury and bitterness on the part of the ministers and officers of the Government, and of the depressing consciousness of wasted effort on ours. The morning began with public debate; after that came committee-meetings, and in the evenings our party caucuses, which sometimes lasted quite late. And all of these sacrifices of strength were made with the discouraging prospect that the fate of our Fatherland still hung in doubt, that our labors would prove fruitless, and that our vain protest against the demands of our rulers would be all that we could contribute to history.

The air seemed thick as if with a coming storm. We felt that our party was on the eve of breaking up into opposing fragments. There was no longer the same confidence among its members, and here and there one could hear it said: "Yes, indeed, you are honest enough, and have no ambitious or selfish views to subserve."

Funk was one of the most zealous of all in the attempt to break up the party.

For a while he had undoubtedly aspired to the leadership. But when it was confided to a gifted man who had availed himself of the declaration of amnesty and had returned to his Fatherland some years before, Funk acted as if he had never thought of the position.

Who can recall all of the changes in the weather that help to ripen the crop!

A spirit of fellowship is praised both in war and in voyages of adventure. The life of a delegate, it seems to me, combines the peculiar features of both of those conditions. It is no trifling matter to leave a pleasant home and to bid adieu to wife and children, and to stand shoulder to shoulder, laboring faithfully day and night for the common weal.

I have had the good fortune to gain the friendship of man. It differs somewhat from the love of woman, but is none the less blessed.

I was not only a delegate from our district but also a member of the German Parliament. I was in accord with the best men of my country, and we were true to one another at our posts. May those who in a happier period replace us act as faithfully and unselfishly as we did!

During the winter session my wife's letters were a source of great enjoyment to me. She kept me fully informed of all that happened at home, and especially in regard to Martella.

On the morning that I left home she came to my wife and said, "Mother-I may call you so, may I not? – and I shall try to be worthy of it; and when master returns, I shall call him father."

She pointed to her feet. My wife did not know what she meant by that, until she at last said, "Rothfuss said that if I were to lay aside my red stockings, I would be making a good beginning."

And after this she began again: "I shall learn all that you tell me, but not from the schoolmaster's assistant. When he was alone with me the other day, he stroked my cheeks and I slapped him for his impertinence. I shall gladly learn all that you wish me to learn."

She remained with my wife, and appeared quite pliant and docile. My wife had her sleep in her own bedchamber, and on the first night she exclaimed, with a voice full of emotion, "I have a mother at last? O Ernst, you ought to know where I am! How happy you have been to have had a mother all your life!"

I took these letters to my daughter Bertha, who thoroughly appreciated and loved Martella. She said that her own experience had been somewhat similar; for her marriage had introduced her to an aristocratic and military circle, in which she was at first considered as an interloper, and where it took some time before she could acquire the position due her. For even to this day the aristocracy retain the advantage that those who are well born can enter good society, even though they be utterly devoid of culture.

Annette, who had also married an officer, had become quite attached to her, and the result of their combined efforts was that they at last achieved quite a distinguished position. Annette, who was a Jewess by birth, and very wealthy, had at first attempted to conquer her way into society by dress and show. Yielding, however, to the counsels of Bertha, she took the better course; and by adopting a simple and dignified manner, free from any craving for admiration, the recognition she merited was accorded her.

This friend of Bertha was, I confess, not at all to my liking. She had received a good education, and even had a cultivated judgment; but she was fain to mistake these gifts for genius, and imagined herself a thoroughly superior woman-a piece of self-deception in which flatterers encouraged her.

Her husband regarded her as a woman of superior gifts, and succeeded in this way in consoling himself for the inconvenient fact of her being of Jewish descent. His faith in her genius seemed to increase rather than diminish, and it was his constant delight to sound its praises to others.

Annette treated me with exceptional admiration, but she always seemed desirous of making a parade of her appreciation of me, or in other words, having it minister to her own glory. Mere possession or undemonstrative emotion afforded her no pleasure. Her talents and her reflections afforded her great enjoyment, and it was her constant desire that others should have the benefit of it. She was always inviting you to dine with her; and if you accepted her invitations, she was never satisfied until you had praised the dishes which she could so skilfully prepare. She sang with a powerful voice and drew very cleverly, but wanted the world to know it, and to pay her homage accordingly.

She always addressed me as "patriarch," until I at last forbade her doing so. I was, however, obliged to submit to some of the other elegant phrases in which she was wont to indulge. She had no children, and often spent the whole day in the private gallery of the House of Parliament, where she would not cease nodding to me until I at last returned her salute.

One evening there was a party at Bertha's. The wife of the Intendant-in-chief was among the guests. She was a beautiful creature, slender and undulating in form, of majestic carriage, and yet withal simple and unaffected. She had a charming voice, and sang many pretty songs for us. She was so obliging too, that, yielding to the repeated requests of her delighted auditors, she sang song after song.

I had known her as a young girl. She was the daughter of the chief forester, and seemed to retain the woodland freshness of her childhood days. But she had always been ambitious, and had thirsted for the pleasures of city life, with which she had become acquainted while going to the school which was patronized by the reigning Princess.

At one of the public examinations she had sung so delightfully that the Princess had praised her performance; and I believe that her desire for a brilliant life dated from that incident.

She was fond of dress and show, and had married the Intendant, who was a dried-up, conceited fellow.

Her marriage had not been a happy one; and now she sang love-songs full of glowing passion, of sobs and tears.

I was thinking of this, and asking myself how it could be possible, when Annette sat down by my side and softly whispered to me:

"Do explain, if you can, how this woman, after singing such songs, can leave the company and ride home with her disagreeable husband? I could not sing a note if I had such a husband."

Annette cannot conceive of her ever having been in love. All her singing of the pleasures and the pains of love is nothing more than poetical or musical affectation. "But how did she thus learn to simulate emotion. If she really felt all this she would either die or become crazed on her way home."

From that moment I began to like Annette. She had gone much further than I had dared even in my thoughts, and proved, at the same time, that her heart was true, and that she could not separate her feeling for art from the rest of her life.

Bertha showed my wife's letters to her friend, who conceived the most enthusiastic affection for Martella. She often inquired whether there was anything she could do for the charcoal-burner's daughter.

There was danger of offending her by refusing her gifts. Even a virtue may at times assume a repulsive form. Annette's complaint-I cannot express it otherwise-was a passion for helping others.

My wife wrote that Martella was like a fresh bubbling spring, which only needed to be kept within bounds to become a refreshing brook; but that this must be carefully done, for inconsiderate attempts to deepen the channel or divert its course might ruin the spring itself.

My wife also informed us that Ernst had been home to pay a short visit. He seemed quite pensive, and expressed his dissatisfaction with the fact that Martella was looking so pale. He approved of the education which she was receiving, but thought that her freshness and strength should not be sacrificed. He said he had formed a plan to live with Rautenkron, with whom he intended to practice, and also said that when once in the quiet forest he would study industriously.

My wife strenuously objected to this course. She maintained that where there was a will, one could attend to his duty in any position; and moreover, that at the present time it was not well for Ernst and Martella to see each other so often.

Martella was of the same opinion; and my wife could hardly find words to express her delight that Martella was constantly acquiring gentleness and consideration for others. Although at first she had been loud and noisy, there was now something graceful and soothing in her manner. She would arise early in the morning and dress herself in silence, while my wife would feign sleep in order that Martella might become confirmed in her gentle manners.

One evening, when Martella had been the subject of protracted conversation, I returned to my room, and for the first time noticed a colored lithographic print that had been hanging there. It was the picture of a danseuse who had been quite famous some years before. It represented her in a difficult pose, and with long, flowing hair. The print startled me.

It was wonderfully like Martella; or was it simply self-deception caused by her having been in our thoughts during the whole evening?

I felt so agitated that I lit the lamp again and took another look at the picture. The likeness seemed to have vanished.

CHAPTER XII

Towards the end of November, my wife wrote to me that Ernst had been at home again, and that, several hours after his arrival, he had, in the most casual manner, mentioned that he had successfully passed his examination as forester. When my wife and Martella signified their pleasure at this piece of news, he declared that he had only passed his examination in order to prove to us and the rest of his acquaintance, that he, too, had learned something, but that he was not made to be put just where the state desired to place him, and that, in the spring, he and Martella would emigrate to America, as he had already come to an understanding with Funk in regard to the passage.

When he asked Martella why she had nothing to say on the subject, she replied:

"You know that I would go to the end of the world with you. But we are not alone. If we go, your parents and your brothers and sisters must give us their blessing at parting."

"Oh! that they will."

"I think so too. But just consider, Ernst! We are both of us quite young, and I have just begun to live. Do not look so fierce; when you do that, you do not look half so handsome as you really are. And besides, there is something yet on my mind which I must tell you, and in which I am fully resolved."

"I cannot imagine what you mean; it seems, at times, that I really do not know you as I once did."

"You do know me, and it grieves me to be obliged to tell you so."

"What is it? What can it be? You have become quite serious all at once."

"I am glad that you can say so much in my praise, for I have need of it; and I feel quite sure that you will approve of what I am going to say.

"Just see, Ernst! I won't speak of anything else-but with mother's aid I have begun so much that is good, that I cannot bear to think of hurrying away while the work is half finished. You have passed your examination; let me pass mine too. First let mother tell me that my apprenticeship is at an end, and then I will wander with you; and we shall be two jolly gadabouts, and have lots of money for travelling expenses. Isn't it so? You will let me stay here ever so long; won't you?

"Ah, that is right. You are laughing again, and I see that you approve of what I have said. If you had not done so you should have had no peace, for my mind is made up.

"The canopied bed next to your mother's is now mine; and indeed it is a heavenly canopy that one must be slow to leave. And, as I told you before, I have just begun to live."

Ernst looked towards my wife. It seemed as if doubt and pride were struggling within him. When Martella had left the room and my wife urged him to remain with us and to afford us the joy of having such a daughter-in-law in our home, he was vanquished, and exclaimed:

"Yes, I am indeed proud of her! I must admit I never expected so much of her. If she only does not grow over my head."

My wife wrote me that she only remembered a portion of what had happened. The wisdom and feeling evinced by the child had surprised her; and the subdued, heartfelt voice in which she had spoken had been as delightful as the loveliest music. She had been obliged to ask herself if this really was the wild creature who had entered the house but three-quarters of a year ago. The change that she had devoutly wished for had been brought about with surprising rapidity. Martella had awakened to a sense of the duties life imposes on all of us.

Nothing can be more gratifying than to find that a just course of action has produced its logical results.

Thus all was well. Ernst went out hunting with Rautenkron, and once even prevailed on him to visit our house.

Rautenkron had but little to say to Martella. He would knit his heavy eyebrows, and cast searching side-glances on the child. This was his custom with all strangers. When taking leave of my wife, he inquired whether we knew anything of Martella's parentage. All that we knew was that she had been found in the forest when four years old. Jaegerlies had cared for her until Ernst brought her to our house. Martella had told more than that to Richard, but he had firmly refused to tell us what it was. When Rautenkron had left, Martella said:

"He looks like a hedgehog, and I really believe that he could eat mice."

In the last letter that I received before returning to my home, my wife wrote me that Martella had displayed a very singular trait.

Rothfuss had become sick, and Martella, who was as much attached to him as if she were his own child, could neither visit nor nurse him. She had an unconquerable aversion to sick people. She would stand by the door and talk to Rothfuss, but she would not enter his room. She was quite angry at herself because of this, but could not act differently.

"I cannot help it-I cannot help it," she said. "I cannot go near a sick person." He begged her to procure some wine for him; some of the red wine down in the glass house. He knew that would make him well again. Rothfuss found as much pleasure in deceiving the doctor as he usually did in outwitting the officers.

Martella cheerfully entered into his plan; she got the wine for him, and from that day he gradually improved in health.

It was quite refreshing to me to have my thoughts recalled to our life at home. While the most difficult political questions and a struggle against a system of police espionage were engaging us, a concordat with the Pope had been submitted for our approval. It was the result of deep and long-protracted intrigues, and was full of carefully veiled and delicately woven fetters. I had been appointed as one of the committee to whom the matter was referred, and after a heated debate, we succeeded in securing its abrogation. The minister who had made the treaty was disgraced. His accomplices allowed him to fall while they saved themselves. Funk, in his own name and that of two associates, gave his reasons for declining to vote on the question. They demanded perfect freedom for every religions sect, and the abandonment on the part of the state of its right to interfere with matters of faith.

It had been proposed that my son Richard, who was Professor of History at the University, should be appointed as Minister of Education.

He had published a powerful work on this topic. My son-in-law informed me that he had heard Richard's name mentioned in Court circles. In a few days, however, the rumor proved to be an ill-founded one. A declamatory counsellor received the appointment.

Although encouraged by my success, it was with a sense of overpowering fatigue that I returned home at Christmastime. I felt as though I had not been able to enjoy a night's sleep while at the capital: it was only at home that I could breathe freely again and enjoy real repose.