ROMEO AND JULIET OF THE VILLAGE

ROMEO AND JULIET OF THE VILLAGE

Near the fine river which flows along half an hour's distance from Seldwyla, rises in a long stretch a headland which finally, itself carefully cultivated, is lost in the fertile plain. Some distance away at the foot of this rise there lies a village, to which belong many large farms, and across the hillock itself there were, years ago, three splendid holdings, like unto as many giant ribbons, side by side.

One sunny September morning two peasants were plowing on two of these vast fields, the two which stretched along the middle one. The middle one itself seemed to have lain fallow and waste for a long, long time, for it was thickly covered with stones, bowlders and tall weeds, and a multitude of winged insects were humming around and over it. The two peasants who on both sides of this huge wilderness were following their plows, were big, bony men of near forty, and at the first glance one could tell them as men of substance and well-regulated circumstances. They wore short breeches made of strong canvas, and every fold in these garments seemed to be carved out of rock. When they hit against some obstacle with their plow their coarse shirt sleeves would tremble slightly, while the closely shaved faces continued to look steadfastly into the sunlight ahead. Tranquilly they would go on accurately measuring the width of the furrow, and now and then looking around them if some unusual noise reached their ears. They would then peer attentively in the direction indicated, while all about them the country spread out measureless and peaceful. Sedately and with a certain unconscious grace they would set one foot before the other, slowly advancing, and neither of them ever spoke a word unless it was to briefly instruct the hired man who was leading the horses. Thus they resembled each other strongly from a distance; for they fitly represented the peculiar type of people of the district, and at first sight one might have distinguished them from each other only by this one fact that he on the one side wore the peaked fold of his white cap in front and the other had it hanging down his neck. But even this kept changing, since they were plowing in opposite directions; for when they arrived at the end of the new furrow up on high, and thus passed each other, the one who now strode against the strong east wind had his cap tip turned over until it sat in the back of the bull neck, while the second one, who had now the wind behind him, got the tip of his cap reversed. There was also a middling moment, so to speak, when both caps of shining white seemed to flare skywards like shimmering flames. Thus they plowed and plowed in restful diligence, and it was a fine sight in this still golden September weather to see them every short while passing each other on the summit of the hill, then easily and slowly drifting farther and farther apart, until both disappeared like sinking stars beyond the curve of the rise, only to reappear a bit later in precisely the same fashion.

When they found a stone in their furrows they threw it on the fallow field between them, doing so leisurely and accurately, like men who have learnt by habit to gauge the correct distance. But this occurred rarely, for this waste field was apparently already loaded with about all the pebbles, bowlders and rocks to be discovered in the neighborhood.

In this quiet way the long forenoon was nearly spent when there approached from the village a tiny vehicle. So small it looked at first when it began to climb up the height that it seemed a toy. And indeed, it was just that in a sense, for it was a baby carriage, painted in vivid green, in which the children of the two plowers, a sturdy little youngster and a slip of a small girl, jointly brought the lunch for their parent's delectation. For each of the two fathers there lay a fine appetizing loaf in the cart, wrapped neatly in a clean napkin, a flask of cool wine, with glasses, and some smaller tidbits as well, all of which the tender farmer's wife had sent along for the hard-working husband. But there were other things as well in the little vehicle: apples and pears which the two children had picked up on the way and out of which they had taken a bite or so, and a wholly naked doll with only one leg and a face entirely soiled and besmeared, and which sat self-satisfied in this carriage like a dainty young lady and allowed herself to be transported in this way. This small vehicle after sundry difficulties and delays at last arrived in the shade of a high growth of underbrush which luxuriated there at the edge of the big field, and now it was time to take a look at the two drivers. One was a boy of seven, the other a little girl of five, both of them sound and healthy, and else there was nothing remarkable about them except that they had very fine eyes and the girl, besides, a rather tawny complexion and curly dark hair, and the expression of her little face was ardent and trustful.

The plowers meanwhile had also reached once more the top, given their horses a provender of clover, and left their plows in the half-done furrow; then as good neighbors they went to partake jointly of the tempting collation, and meeting there they gave greeting, for until that moment they had not yet spoken to each other on that day.

While they ate, slowly but with a keen appetite, and of their food also shared with the children, the latter not budging as long as there were eatables in sight, they allowed their glances to roam near and far, and their eyes rested on the town lying there spread out in its wreath of mountains, with its haze of shiny smoke. For the plentiful noonday meal which the Seldwylians prepared each and every day used to conjure up a silvery cloud of smoke surrounding the roofs and visible from afar, and this would float right along the sides of their mountains.

"These loafers at Seldwyla are again living on the fat of the land," said Manz, one of the two peasants, and Marti, the other, replied: "Yesterday a man called on me on account of these fallow fields."

"From the district council? Yes, he saw me too," rejoined Manz.

"Hm, and probably also said you might use the land and pay the rental to the council?"

"Yes, until it should have been decided whom the land belongs to and what is to be done with it. But I wouldn't think of it, with the land in the condition it's in, and told him they might sell the land and keep the money till the owner had been found, which probably will never be done. For, as we know, whatever is once in the hands of the custodian at Seldwyla, does not easily leave it again. Besides, the whole matter is rather involved, I've heard. But these Seldwyla folks would like nothing better than to receive every little while some money that they could spend in their foolish way. Of course, that they could also do with the sum received from a sale. However, we here would not be so stupid as to bid very high for it, and then at least we should know whom the land belongs to."

"Just what I think myself, and I said the same thing to the fellow."

They kept silent for a moment, and then Manz added: "A pity it is, all the same, that this fine soil is thus going to waste every year. I can scarce bear to see it. This has now been going on for a score of years, and nobody cares a rap about it, it seems, for here in the village there is really nobody who has any claim to it, nor does anybody know what has become of the children of that hornblower, the one who went to the dogs."

"Hm," muttered Marti, "that is as may be. When I have a look at the black fiddler, the one who is a vagrant for a spell, and then at other times plays the fiddle at dances, I could almost swear that he is a grandson of that hornblower, and who, of course, does not know that he is entitled to these fields. And what in the world could he do with them? To go on a month's spree, and then to be as badly off as before. Besides, what can one say for sure? After all, there is nothing to prove it."

"Indeed, yes, one might do harm by interfering," rejoined Manz. "As it is we have to do with our own affairs, and it takes trouble enough now to keep this hobo from acquiring home rights in our commune. All the time they want to burden us with that expense. But if his folks once have joined the stray sheep, let him keep to them and play his fiddle for a living. How can we really know whether he is the hornblower's grandson or no? As far as I'm concerned, although I believe I can recognize the old fellow in his dark face, I say to myself: It is human to err, and the slightest scrap of a legal document, a bit of a baptismal record or something, would be to my mind better proof than ten sinful human faces."

"My opinion exactly," opined Marti, "although he says it is not his fault that he never was baptized. But are we to lug our baptismal fount around in the woods? No indeed. That stands immovable in the church, and on the other hand, to carry around the dead we have the stretcher which is always hanging from the wall. As it is, we are too many now in our village and shall soon need another schoolmaster."

With that the colloquy and the midday meal of the two peasants came to an end, and they now rose and prepared to finish the rest of their day's task. The two children, on the other hand, having vainly planned to drive home with their fathers, now pulled their little vehicle into the shade of the linden saplings close by, and next undertook a campaign of adventure and discovery into the vast wilderness of the waste fields. To them this wilderness was interminable, with its immense weeds, its overgrown flower stalks, and its huge piles of stone and rock. After wandering, hand in hand, for some time in the very center of this waste, and after having amused themselves in swinging their joined hands over the top of the giant thistles, they at last sat down in the shade of a perfect forest of weeds, and the little girl began to clothe her doll with the long leaves of some of these plants, so that the doll soon wore a beautiful habit of green, with fringed borders, while a solitary poppy blossom she had found was drawn over dolly's head as a brilliant bonnet, and this she tied fast with a grass blade for ribbon. Now the little doll looked exactly like a good fairy, especially after being further ornamented with a necklace and a girdle of small scarlet berries. Then she sat it down high in the cup on the stalk of the thistle, and for a minute or so the two jointly admired the strangely beautified dolly. The boy tired first of this and brought dolly down with a well-aimed pebble. But in that way dolly's finery got disordered, and the little girl undressed it quickly and set to anew to decorate her pet. But just when the doll had been disrobed and only wore the poppy flower on her head, the boy grasped the doll, and threw it high into the air. The girl, though, with loud plaints jumped to catch it, and the boy again caught it first and tossed it again and again, the little girl all the while vainly attempting to recover it. Quite a while this wild game lasted, but in the violent hands of the boy the flying doll now came to grief, and sustained a small fracture near the knee of her sole remaining limb. And from a small aperture some sawdust and bran began to escape. Hardly had he perceived that when he became quiet as a mouse, with open lips endeavoring eagerly to enlarge the little hole with his nails, in order to investigate the inside and find out whence the scattered bran came. The poor little girl, rendered suspicious by the boy's sudden silence, now squeezed up and noticed with terror his efforts.

"Just look!" shouted the boy and swung the doll's leg right before his playmate's nose, so that the bran spurted into her face. When she tried to recover her doll, and pleaded and shrieked, he sprang away with his prey, and did not desist before the whole leg had been emptied of its filling and hung, a mere hollow shell, from his hand. Then, to crown his misdeeds, he actually threw the remains of the doll away, and behaved in a rude and grossly indifferent manner when the little girl gathered up her treasure and put it weeping in her apron.

But she took it out after a while and gazed with tears at what was left. When she fathomed the full extent of the damage, she resumed weeping, and it was particularly the ruined leg that grieved her; indeed it hung just as limp and thin as the tail of a salamander. When she wept aloud for sorrow the sinner evinced evidently some qualms of conscience, and he stood stock-still, his features suffused with anxiety and repentance. When she became aware of this state of the case, she stopped crying and struck him several times with her doll, and he pretended that she hurt him and exclaimed in a natural manner: "Outch!" So naturally indeed did he do so that she was satisfied and now engaged with him in the great sport of further and complete destruction. Together they bored hole upon hole into the martyred body, and let the bran out everywhere. This bran they collected with great pains, deposited it on a big flat stone, and stirred it over and over to ascertain its mysterious properties.

The sole part of the doll still in its former state was the head, and thus of course it attracted the special attention of the two children. With great care they separated it from the trunk, and peered in amazement at its hollow interior. Seeing this great hollow the thought occurred to them to fill it up with the loose bran. With their tiny baby fingers they stuffed and stuffed by turns the bran into the empty space, and for the first time in its existence this head was filled with something. The boy, however, evidently deemed the task incomplete; probably it required some life, something moving, to satisfy him. So he caught a huge blue fly, and while he held it tight he instructed the little girl to let out the bran once more. Then he placed the fly into the hollow head, and stopped up the exit with a small bunch of grass. The two children held the head to their ears, and then put it solemnly upon a great rock. Since the head was still covered with the scarlet poppy, this receptacle of sound now closely resembled a soothsaying oracle, and the two listened with great respect to queer noises it emitted, in deep silence as if fairy tales were being told, holding each other close meanwhile. But every prophet awakens not only respect but also terror and ingratitude. The odd noises inside the hollow head aroused the human cruelty of the children, and jointly they resolved to bury it. They dug a shallow grave, and placed the head in it, without first obtaining the views of the imprisoned fly on it. Then they erected over the grave a monument of stone. But awe seized them at this instance, since they had buried something living and conscious, and they went away from the scene of this pagan sacrifice. In a spot wholly overgrown with green herbs the little girl lay down on her back, being tired, and began singing, over and over again, a few simple words in a monotonous voice, and the little boy sat near and joined singing, and he, too, was so tired as almost to fall asleep. The sun shone right into the open mouth of the singing girl, illuminating her white little teeth, and rendered her scarlet lips semi-transparent. The boy saw these white teeth, and he held her head and curiously investigating them he said: "Guess how many teeth you have." The little girl reflected for a moment, and then she said at random: "A hundred!" "No," said the boy, "two and thirty." But he added: "Wait, I will count them!"

And he started to count them, and counted over and over, and it was at no time thirty-two, and so he resumed his count. The girl kept patient for a long time, but at last she got up and said: "Now I will count yours." And the boy lay down amongst the herbs, the little one above him, and she embraced his head, he opened wide his mouth, and she began to count: One, two, seven, five, two, one; for the little thing knew not yet how to count. The boy corrected her and instructed her how to go about it, and thus she also started again and again, and curiously enough it was precisely this little game that pleased them best of all that day. But at last the little girl sank down on the soft couch of herbs, and the two children fell asleep in the full glare of the noon sun.

Meanwhile the fathers had finished their job of plowing and had changed the stubble field into a brown plain, strongly scenting the earth. When at the end of the last furrow the helper of one of the two wanted to stop, his master shouted: "Why do you stop? Turn up another furrow!" "But we're done," said the helper. "Shut your mouth, and do what I tell you," replied the other. And they did turn once more and tore a big furrow right into the middle, the ownerless, field, so that weeds and stones flew about. But the peasant took no time to remove these. Probably he considered that there was ample time for that some other day. He was satisfied to do the thing for the nonce only in its main feature. Thus he went up the height softly, and when up on top and the delicious play of the wind now turned once more the tip of his white cap backwards, on the other side of the fallow field the second peasant was just plowing a similar furrow, the wind having also reversed the tip of his cap, and cut also a goodly furrow off from the same fallow field. Each of them saw, of course, what the other did, but neither seemed to do so, and thus they once more strode away one from the other, each falling star finally disappearing below the curve of the ground. Thus the woof of Fate spins its net around us, "and what he weaves no weaver knows."

One harvest after another went by and the two children grew steadily taller and handsomer, and the ownerless fields as steadily smaller between the two neighbors. With every new plowing the section between lost hither and thither one furrow, without there being a word said about it, and without a human eye apparently noting the misdeed. The stones and rocks became more and more compact and formed already a perfect and continuous ridge the whole length of the field, and the shrubs and weeds on it had already attained such an altitude that the two children, although they, too, had grown, could no longer see each other across them.

They no longer went to the field together, since ten-year-old Salomon, or Sali, as he was mostly called, now kept with the bigger boys or the men, and dusky Vreni,^[1] though a fiery little thing, had already to place herself under the supervision of those of her sex, for fear of being laughed at as a tomboy. In spite of all that they improved the occasion of the harvest, when everybody was out in the fields, to climb once on top of the huge stony ridge, or breastworks, which ordinarily divided them, and to wage a toy war, pushing each other down from it, as the culmination of the battle. Even though they had no longer anything more to do with each other, this annual ceremony was maintained by them all the more carefully since the land of their fathers did not meet anywhere else.

However, now the fallow field was to be sold, after all, and the sum realized provisionally kept by the authorities. The day came at last, and the public sale took place on the spot itself. But beside Manz and Marti there were present only a few curious ones, since nobody but they felt like buying the odd piece of ground and cultivating it between the property of the two peasants. For although these two belonged among the best farmers of the village, and had done nothing but what two-thirds of the others would also have done under like circumstances, still now they were looked at askance because of it, and nobody wanted to be squeezed in between them in the diminished and orphaned field. For most men are so made as to be quite ready to commit a wrong which is more or less in vogue, especially if the circumstances of the case facilitate the wrong. But as soon as the wrong has been perpetrated by some one else, they are glad that it was not they who had been exposed to the temptation, and then they regard the guilty one almost as a warning example in regard to their own failings, and treat him with a delicate aversion as a sort of lightning rod of evil itself, as one marked by the gods themselves, while all the while their mouths are watering for the advantages thus accrued to him by means of his sin.

Manz and Marti were, therefore, the only ones who seriously bid on the ownerless land, and after a rather spirited contest, during which the price was driven up higher than had been supposed, it was Manz to whom it was awarded. The officials and the lookers-on soon drifted away, and the two neighbors who had been busy on their fields after the sale, met again, and Marti said: "I suppose you will now put your land, the old and the new, together, halve it, and work it in that way? That, at least, is what I should have done if I had got the land."

"That indeed is what I mean to do," answered Manz, "for as one single field it would not be easy to manage. But there is another thing I want to say. I noticed the other day that you drove into the lower end of this field that has now become mine, and that you cut off quite a good-sized triangle. It may be you thought at the time that you yourself would soon own the whole of it and that then it would make no difference anyway. But since now it belongs to me, you will admit that I cannot and will not permit such a curtailment of my property rights, and you will not take it amiss if I again straighten out the right lines. Of course you will not. There need be no hard feelings on that score."

Marti, however, replied just as coolly: "Neither do I look for any trouble. For my opinion is you have purchased the field just as it is. We both examined it before the sale, and of course it has not changed within an hour or so."

"Nonsense," said Manz, "what was done formerly, under different conditions, we will not go into. But too much is too much, and everything has its limit, and must be adjusted according to reason in the end. These three fields have from of old been lying one next to the other just as though marked with the measuring tape. You may think it funny to put in such an unjustifiable objection or claim. We both of us would get a new nickname if I let you keep that crooked end of it without rhyme or reason. It must come back where it by right belongs."

But Marti only laughed and said: "All at once so afraid of what people may think? But then, it's easily arranged. I have no objection at all to such a crooked-shaped bit of land. If you don't like it, all right, we can straighten it out. But not on my side, I swear."

"Don't talk so strange," replied Manz with some heat. "Of course it will be straightened out, and that on your side. You can bet your bottom dollar on that."

"Well, we'll see about that," was Marti's parting remark, and the two men separated without even looking at each other. On the contrary, they gazed steadfastly in different directions, as if something of enormous interest were floating in the air which it was absolutely necessary to keep an eye on.

On the next day already Manz sent his hired boy, also a wench working for daily wage, and his own boy Sali out to the new field, to begin removing the weeds and wild growths, and to pile them up at certain places, so as to make the loading up and carting away of the crop of stones all the easier. This noted a change in his character, this sending the little boy, scarcely eleven, whom he had never before driven to hard work such as weeding, out to field labor, and this against the will of the mother. It seemed indeed, since he defended his order with solemn and high-sounding words, as if he wanted to daze his own better conscience. At any rate, the slight wrong thus done to his own flesh and blood in insisting on onerous and unfit labor, was but one of the consequences growing out of the original wrong done by him for years in regard to the field itself. One by one more wrong, more evil unfolded itself. The three meanwhile weeded away industriously on the long strip of ground, and hacked away at the queer plants that had been flourishing on the soil for so many years. And to the young people doing this hard work, albeit it taxed and tried their strength greatly, it really was something of an amusement, since it was no carefully graduated and scaled task, but rather a wild job of destruction. After piling all this vegetable refuse up in heaps and letting the sun dry it, it was set afire with great jubilation and noise, and when the murky flames shot up and broad swaths of smoke waved irregularly, the young people jumped and danced about like a band of wild Indians.

But this was the last festival on the ominous new field, and little Vreni, Marti's young daughter, also crept out and joined the revels. The unusual occasion and the spirit of rampant gaiety easily brought it about that the two playmates of yore once more came in contact and were happy and jolly at their bonfire. Other children, too, gathered, until there was quite a crowd of youthful, excited merrymakers assembled. But always it happened that, as soon as the two became separated in the throng, Vreni would rejoin Sali, or Sali Vreni. When it was she it was a treat to watch her face when she slipped her little hand in that of the boy, her animated features and her glowing eyes fairly brimming with pleasure. To both of them it seemed as though this glorious day could never end. Old Manz, though, came out toward evening, to see what had been accomplished, and despite the fact that their labor had been done well and as directed, he scolded at the childish jollification and drove the young people off his ground. Almost at the same time Marti visited his own section adjoining, and noticing his little daughter from afar, he whistled to her shrill and peremptory, and when she obeyed the summons in frightened haste he struck her harshly in the face without giving any reason. So that both little ones went home weeping and sad; yet they were both still so much children that they scarcely knew at this time why they were so sad or knew before why they felt so happy. As for the rudeness of their fathers they did not understand the underlying motive of it, and it did not touch their hearts.

During the next days the labor became harder and more strenuous, and some men had to be hired for it. For the task was this time to load and clean off the huge crop of stones along the entire length of the field.

There seemed to be no end to this work, and one would have said that all the stones in the world had been collected there. But Manz did not have the stones carted off entirely from the field, but every load was taken to the triangular piece of ground in dispute, where it was dumped. It was dumped on the neatly plowed soil that Marti had toiled over. Manz had previously drawn a straight line as boundary, and now he loaded this spot down with all these thousands upon thousands of pebbles, rocks and bowlders which he and Marti had for whole decades thrown upon ownerless soil. The heap grew, and grew for days and weeks, until there was a mighty pyramid of stone which, as Manz felt convinced, his adversary would surely be loath to trouble with. Marti, in fact, had expected nothing of the kind. He had rather thought that Manz would go to work with his plow, as he used to do, and had therefore waited to see him appear in that part. And Marti did not hear of the rocky monument until almost completed. When he ran out in the full blast of his anger, and saw it all, he hastened home and fetched the village magistrate in order to protest against the accumulation of stones on "his" ground, and to have the small bit of ground officially declared as in litigation.

From that sinister day on the two peasants sued and countersued each other in court, and neither desisted until both were completely ruined.

The thinking of these two ordinarily shrewd and fair men became fundamentally wrong and fallacious. They were unable to view anything henceforth as unrelated with their quarrel. Their arguments fell short of the mark in everything. The most narrow sense of legality, of what was permitted and what not, filled the head of each of them, and neither was able to understand how the other could seize so entirely without reason or right this bit of soil, in itself so insignificant. In the case of Manz there was added a wonderful sense for symmetry and parallel lines, and he felt really and truly shortened in his rights by Martins insistence on retaining hold of a fragment of property laid out on different geometrical lines. But both tallied in their conceptions in this that the other must think him a veritable fool to try and get the better of him in this particular manner, in this impudent and unparalleled manner, since to make such an attempt at all was perhaps thinkable in the case of a mere nobody, of a man without reputation and substance, but surely not in the case of an upstanding, energetic and able man, of one who was both willing and able to take care of his interests. And it was this consideration above all that rankled and festered in the heart of each of the two once so friendly neighbors. Each felt himself hurt in his quaint sense of honor, and let himself go headlong in the rush of passion and of combativeness, without even attempting at any time to stop the resultant moral and material decay and ruin. Their two lives henceforth resembled the torture of two lost souls who, upon a narrow board, carried along a dark and fearsome river, yet deal tremendous blows at the air, seize upon each other and destroy each other finally, all in the false belief of having seized and trying to destroy their evil fate itself.

As their whole matter in dispute was in itself and on both sides not clean or lucid, they soon got into the hands of all sorts of swindlers and cutthroats, of pettifoggers and evil counselors, men who filled their imagination with glittering bubbles, containing no substance whatever. And especially it was the speculators and dishonest agents of Seldwyla who found this case one after their own heart, and soon each of the two litigants had a whole train of advisers, go-betweens and spies around him, fellows who in all sorts of crooked ways knew how to draw cash money out of them. For the quarrel for that tiny fragment of soil with the stone pyramid on top on which already a perfect forest of weeds, thistles and nettles had grown anew, was only the first stage in a labyrinth of errors that little by little changed the whole character and method of living for the two. It was singular, too, how in the case of two men of about fifty there could shoot up and become fixed an entire crop of new habits and morals, principles and hopes, all of a kind which were foreign to their former natures, how men who all their lives had been noted for their hard common-sense could become day-dreamers and gullible oafs.

And the more money they lost by all this the more they longed to acquire more, and the less they possessed the more persistently they endeavored to become rich and to shine before their fellows. Thus they easily allowed themselves to be hoodwinked by the clumsiest tricks, and year after year they would play in all the foreign lotteries of which Seldwyla agents were praising to them the splendid chances. But never so much as a dollar came their way in prizes. On the other hand, they forever heard of the big winnings in these lotteries made by others; they also were told that it had hung just by a hair that they would have done as well, and thus they were constantly bled by these leeches of their scantier and scantier means.

Now and then the rascally Seldwylians played a trick on the two deadly enemies which for its peculiar raciness was specially relished by them, the people of Seldwyla, that is. They would sell the two peasants sections of the same lottery tickets, so that Manz as well as Marti would build their hopes of a rich strike on precisely the same fallacious foundation, and also in the end would feel the same despondency from the same source. Half their time the two now spent in town, and there each had his headquarters in a miserable tavern. There they would indulge in foolish bragging and bluster, would drink too much and play the Lord Bountiful to loafers that would flatter the simpletons to the top of their bent, and all the while the dark doubt would assail them that they who in order not to be reckoned dunces had gone to law about a trifling object, had now really become just that and furthermore, were so reckoned by general consent.

The other half of the time they spent at home, morose and incapable of steady work or sober reflection. Habitually neglecting their farm labor, at times they tried to make up for that by undue haste, overworking their help and thus soon unable to retain any respectable men in their employ.

Thus things went from bad to worse little by little, and within less than ten years both of them were overburdened with debts, and stood like storks with one leg upon their farms, so that the slightest change might blow them over. But no matter how else they fared, the hatred between them grew more intense every day, since each looked upon the other as the cause of his misfortune, as his archenemy, as his foe without rhyme or reason, as the one being in the world whom the devil purposely had invented to ruin him. They spat out before each other when they saw the adversary approaching from afar. Nobody belonging to them was permitted to speak to wife, child or servants of the other, on pain of instant brutal punishment. Their wives behaved differently under these circumstances. Marti's wife, who came of good family and was of a fine disposition, did not long survive the rapid downfall of her house and family, sorrowed silently and died before her little daughter was fourteen. The wife of Manz, on the other hand, altered her whole character. Only for the worse, of course. And to do that all she needed to do was to aggravate some of her natural defects, let them go on, so to speak, without bridling them at all. Her passion for tidbits and sweets became boundless; her love of gossip deteriorated into a veritable craze, and she soon became unable to tell the truth about anything or anybody. She habitually spoke the very contrary of what was in her thoughts, cheated and deceived her own husband, and found keen pleasure in getting everybody by the ears. Her original frankness and her harmless delight in satisfying her feminine curiosity turned into evil intrigue and the inclination to make mischief between neighbors and friends. Instead of suffering patiently under the rudeness and changed habits of her husband, she fooled him and laughed behind his back in doing so. No matter if he now and then behaved with cruelty to her and his household, she did not care. She denied herself nothing, became more luxurious in her tastes as his money affairs grew steadily more involved, and fattened on the very misfortunes that were rapidly leading to complete ruin.

That with all that the two children fared any better was scarcely to be expected. While still mere human buds and incapable of meeting the harsh fate slowly preparing for them, they were done out of their youth and out of the hopes and advantages incident to their tender years. Vreni indeed was worse off in this respect than Sali, the boy, since her mother was dead and she was exposed in a wasted home to the tyranny of a father whose violent instincts found no check whatever. When sixteen Vreni had developed into a slender and charming young girl. Her hair of dark-brown naturally curled down to her flashing eyes; her swiftly coursing blood seemed to shimmer through the delicate oval of her dusky cheeks, and the scarlet of her dainty lips made a strikingly vivid contrast, so that everybody looked twice when she passed. And despite her sad bringing-up, an ardent love of life and an inextinguishable cheerfulness were trembling in every fibre of Vreni's being. Laughing and smiling at the least encouragement she forgot her troubles easily, and was always ready for a frolic and a romp if domestic weather permitted at all, that is, if her father did not hinder and torture her too cruelly. However, with all her lightheartedness and her buoyant temperament, the deepening shadows over the house inevitably enshrouded her all too often. She had to bear the brunt of her father's soured disposition, and she had hardly any help in trying to keep house for him after a fashion. On her young shoulders mainly rested the embarrassments of a home constantly threatened by importunate creditors and wild boon companions of her dissolute father. And not alone that. With the natural taste of her sex for a neat and clean appearance her father refused her nearly every means to gratify it. Thus she had great trouble to ornament her pretty person the way it deserved. But somehow she managed to do it, to possess always a becoming holiday attire, including even a couple of vividly colored kerchiefs that set off marvelously her darksome beauty. Full of youthful animation and gaiety she found it hard to mostly have to renounce all the social pleasures of her years; but at least this prevented her from falling into the opposite extreme. Besides, young as she was, she had witnessed the declining days and the death of her mother, and had been deeply impressed by it, so that this had acted as another restraint on her joyous disposition. It was almost a pathetic sight to observe how notwithstanding all these serious obstacles pretty Vreni instantly would respond to the calls of joy if the occasion was at all favorable, as a flower after drooping in a heavy rainstorm will raise its head at the first rays of the reappearing sun.

Sali was not faring quite so ill. He was a good-looking and vigorous young fellow who knew how to take care of himself and whose size and physical strength alone would have forbidden harsh bodily mistreatment. He saw, of course, how his parents were sliding down-hill more and more, and he seemed to remember a time when things had been otherwise. He even carried in his memory the picture of his father as that of an upstanding, determined, serious and energetic peasant, while now he saw before him all the while a man who was a gray-headed dolt, a quarrelsome fool, who with all his fits of impotent rage and all his brag and bluster was every hour more and more crawling backwards like a crawfish. But when these things displeased him and filled him with shame and sorrow, although he could not very well understand how it all had come about, the influence of his mother came to deaden this feeling and to fill him with an unjustified hope of improvement. She would flatter her son in the same extravagant and wholly unreasonable manner which had become her second nature in dealing with the new troubles that were gradually overcoming the whole family. For in order to lead her life of self-indulgence the more easily and to have one critical observer the less, and to make her son her partisan, but also as a vent for her love of display, she contrived to let her son have everything he had a desire for. She saw to it that he was always dressed with care, and entirely too expensively for the means of the family, and indulged him in his pleasures. He on his part accepted all that without much thought or gratitude, since he noticed at the same time how his mother was juggling with and tricking his father, and how she was continually telling untruths and vainly boasting. And while thus allowing his mother to spoil him without paying much attention to the process itself, no great harm was yet done in his case, since he had so far not been much tainted by the vices and sins of mother or father. Indeed, in his youthful pride he had the strong wish to become, if possible, a man such as he recalled his own father once to have been, a man of substance and of rational and successful conduct of his life. Sali was really very much as his father knew himself to have been at his own age, and a queer remnant of respectability urged the father to treat his son well. In honoring him he seemed to honor his old self. Confused reminiscences at such times drifted through his beclouded soul, and they afforded him a species of subconscious delight. But although in this manner Sali escaped some of the natural consequences of the process of domestic decay which was going on around him, he was not able to genuinely enjoy his life and to make rational plans for an assured future. He felt well enough that he was resting on quicksand, that he was neither doing anything much to bring himself into a position of independence nor to look for any secured future; nor was he learning much towards that end in the broken-down household and on the neglected farm of his father. The work done there was done haphazard style, and no systematic and orderly effort was made to get things done in season. His best consolation, therefore, was to preserve his good reputation, to work with a will on the farm when he could, and to turn his eyes away from a threatening future.

The sole orders laid upon him by his father were to avoid any sort of intercourse with all that bore the name of Marti. All he knew about the matter personally was that Marti had done wrong to his father, and that in Marti's house precisely the same bitter enmity was felt towards the Manz family. Of the details involved in this state of affairs, of the manner in which the old-time good-neighborliness and friendship existing for so many years between the two families had been turned into hatred and scorn Sali knew nothing, these things having shaped themselves at a period of his life when his boyish brain had been unable to grasp their true meaning. He had perforce been content with the verdict of his father, obeying the latter's prohibition to further consort with the Marti people without attempting to ascertain the underlying causes of the quarrel. So far he had not found it difficult to do as his father told him, and he did not meddle in the least with the whole business. He made no effort to either see or avoid Marti and his daughter Vreni, and while he assumed that his father must be in the right of it, he was no active enemy of the Martis. Vreni, on her part, was differently constituted from the lad. Having to suffer much more than Sali at home and feeling more deeply than he, woman-fashion, her almost total isolation, she was not so ready to let a sentiment of declared enmity enter her young and untried heart. In fact, she rather believed herself scorned and despised by the much better clad and apparently also much more fortunate former playmate. It was, therefore, only from a feeling of embarrassment that she hid from him, and whenever he came near enough to perceive her, she fled from him. He indeed never troubled to glance at her. So it happened that Sali had not seen the girl near enough for a couple of years to know what she was like. He had no notion that she was now almost grown-up, and that she was distinctly beautiful. And yet, once in a while he would remember her as his little playmate, as the merry companion of his carefree boyhood, and when at his home the Martis were mentioned he instinctively wondered what had become of her and how she would look now. He certainly did not hate her. In his memory she lived in a shadowy sort of way as a rather attractive girl.

It was his father, Manz, now who first had to go under. He was no longer able to stave off his creditors and had to leave farm and house behind. That he, though somewhat of better means originally than his neighbor and foe, was first to collapse was owing to his wife, who had lived in quite an extravagant style, and then he, too, had a son who, after all, cost him something. Marti, as we know, had but a little daughter who was scarcely any expense to him. Manz did not know what else to do but to follow the advice of some Seldwyla patrons and move to town, there to turn mine host of an inn or low tavern. It is always a sad sight to see a former peasant of some substance, a man who has been leading for many years a life of unremitting toil, it is true, but also one of independence and usefulness, after growing old among his acres, seek refuge from ill-fortune in town, taking the small remnants of his belongings with him and open a poor, shabby resort, in order to play, as the last safety anchor, the amiable and seductive host, all the while feeling by no means in a holiday mood himself. When the Manz family then left their farm to take this desperate step, it was first apparent how poor they had already grown. For all the household goods that were loaded on a cart were in a deplorable state, defective and not repaired for many years. Nevertheless the wife put on her best finery, when seating herself on top of the crazy old vehicle, and made a face of such pride as though she already looked down upon her neighbors as would a city lady of taste and refinement, while all the while the villagers peeped from behind their hedges full of pity at the sorry show made by the exodus. For Mother Manz had settled it in her foolish noddle to turn the heads of all Seldwyla by her fine manners and her wheedling tongue, thinking that if her boorish husband did not understand how to handle and cajole the town folks, it was vastly different with herself who would soon show these Seldwyla people what an alluring hostess she would make at the head of a tavern or inn doing a rushing business.

Great was her disenchantment, however, when she actually set eyes on this inn vaunted so much in advance by her addled spirits. For it was located in a small side-street of a rather disreputable quarter of Seldwyla, and the inn itself was one in which the predecessor, one of several that had gone the same way, had just been forcibly ousted because of being unable to pay his debts. His Seldwyla patrons had, in fact, rented this mean public house for a few hundred dollars a year to Manz in consideration of the fact that the latter still had some small sums outstanding in town, and because they could find nobody else to take the place at a venture. They also sold him a few barrels of inferior wine as well as the fixtures which consisted in the main of a couple of dozen glasses and bottles, and of some rude and hacked pine tables and benches that had once been painted a hue of deadly scarlet and were now reduced to a dingy brownish tint. Before the entrance door an iron hoop was clattering in the wind, and inside the hoop a tin hand was pouring out forever claret into a small shoppen vessel. Besides all these luxuries there was a sun-dried bunch of datura fastened above the door, all of which Manz had noted down in his lease. Knowing all this Manz was by no means so full of hopes and smiling humor as his spouse, but on the contrary whipped up his bony old horses, lent him by the new owner of his farm, with considerable foreboding. The last shabby helper he had had on his farm had left him several weeks before, and when he left the village on this his present errand he had not failed to note Marti who, full of grim joy and scorn, had busied himself with some trifling task along the road where his fallen foe had to pass. Manz saw it, cursed Marti, and held him to be the sole cause of his downfall. But Sali, as soon as the cart was fairly on the way, got down, speeded up his steps and reached the town along by-paths.

"Well, here we are," said Manz, when the cart had reached its destination. His wife was crestfallen when she noticed the dreary and unpropitious aspect of the place. The people of the neighborhood stepped in front of their housedoors to have a look at the new innkeeper, and when they saw the rustic appearance of the outfit and the miserable trappings, they put on their Seldwyla smile of superiority. Wrathfully Mother Manz climbed down from her high seat, and tears of anger were in her eyes as she quickly fled into the house, her limber tongue for once forsaking her. On that day at least she was no more seen below. For she herself was well aware of the sorry show made by her, and all the more as the tattered condition of her furniture could not be concealed from prying eyes when the various articles were now being unloaded. Her musty and torn beds, particularly, she felt ashamed of. Sali, too, shared her feelings, but he was obliged to help his father in unloading, and the two made quite a stir in the neighborhood with their rustic manners and speech, furnishing the curious children with food for laughter. These little folks, indeed, amused themselves abundantly that day at the expense of the "ragged peasant bankrupts." Inside the house, though, things looked still more desolate; the place, in fact, had more the looks of a robbers' roost than of an inn. The walls were of badly calsomined brick, damp with moisture, and beside the dark and poorly furnished guest room downstairs there were but a couple of bare and uninviting bedrooms, and everywhere their predecessor had left behind nothing but spider's webs, filth and dust.

That was the beginning of it, and thus it continued to the end. During the first few weeks indeed there came, especially in the evenings, a number of people anxious to see, out of sheer curiosity, "the peasant landlord," hoping there would be "some fun." But out of the landlord himself they could not get much of that, for Manz was stiff, unfriendly, and melancholy, and did not in the least know how to treat his guests, nor did he want to know. Slowly and awkwardly he would pour out the wine demanded, put it before the customer with a morose air, and then make an unsuccessful attempt to enter into some sort of conversation, but brought forth only some stammered commonplaces, whereupon he gave it up. All the more desperately did his wife endeavor to entertain her guests, and by her ludicrous and absurd behavior really managed, for a few days at least, to amuse people. But she did this in quite a different way from that intended by her. Mother Manz was rather corpulent, and she had from her own inventive brain composed a costume in which to wait on her guests and in which she believed herself to be simply irresistible. With a stout linen skirt she wore an old waist of green silk, a long cotton apron and a ridiculous broad collar around the neck. Out of her hair, no longer abundant, she had twisted corkscrew curls ornamenting her forehead, and in the back she had stuck a tall comb into her thin braids. Thus made up she mincingly danced on the tips of her toes before the particular guest to be entranced, pointed her mouth in a laughable manner, which she thought was "sweet," hopped about the table with forced elasticity, and serving the wine or the salted cheese she would exclaim smilingly: "Well, well, so alone? Lively, lively, you gentlemen!" And some more of such nonsense she would whisper in a stilted way, for the trouble was that although usually she could talk glibly about almost anything with her cronies from the village, she felt somewhat embarrassed with these city people, not being acquainted with the subjects of conversation they liked to touch on. The Seldwyla people of the roughest type who had dropped in for something to laugh at, put their hands before their mouths to prevent bursting out in her face, nearly suffocated with suppressed merriment, trod upon each other's feet under the table, and afterwards, in relating the matter, would say: "Zounds, that is a woman among a thousand, a paragon!" Another one said: "A heavenly creature, by the gods. It is worth while coming here just to watch her antics. Such a funny one we haven't had here for a long while."

Her husband noticed these goings on, with a mien of thunder, and he would perhaps punch her in the ribs and say: "You old cow, what is the matter with you?"

But then she gave him a superior glance, and would murmur: "Don't disturb me! You stupid old fool, don't you see how hard I am trying to please people? Those over there, of course, are only low fellows from among your own acquaintance, but if you don't interfere with me I shall soon have much more fashionable guests here, as you'll see."

These illusions of hers were illuminated in a room with but two tallow dips, but Sali, her son, went out into the dark kitchen, sat down at the hearth and wept about father and mother.

However, these first guests had soon their fill of this kind of sport, and began to stay away, and then went back to their old haunts where they got better drink and more rational conversation, and there they would laughingly comment on the queer peasant innkeepers. Only once in a while now a single guest of this type would drop in, usually to verify previous reports heard by him, and such a one found as a rule nothing more exciting to do than to yawn and gaze at the wall. Or perhaps a band of roystering blades, having heard the place spoken of by others, would wind up a jolly evening by a brief visit, and then there would be noise enough, but not much else, and the old couple could often not even thus be roused from their melancholy. For by that time both wife and husband had grown heartily sick of their bargain. The new style of living felt to him almost as lonesome and cold as the grave. For he who as a lifelong farmer had been used to see the sun rise, to hear and feel the wind blow, to breathe the pure air of the country from morning till night, and to have the sunshine come and go, was now cooped up within these dingy, hopeless walls, had to draw in his lungs with every breath the contaminated atmosphere of this miserable neighborhood, and when he thus dreamed day-dreams of the wide expanse of the fields he once owned and tilled, a dull sort of despair settled down on him like a pall. For hours and hours every day he would stare in a dark humor at the smoke-begrimed ceiling of his inn, having mostly little else to do, and dull visions of a future unrelieved by a single ray of hope would float across his saturnine mind. Insupportable his present life seemed to him then. Then a purposeless restlessness would come over him, when he would get up from his seat a dozen times an hour, run to the housedoor and peer out, then run back and resume his watch. The neighbors had already given him a nickname. The "wicked landlord," they dubbed him, because his glance was troubled and fierce.

Not long and they were totally impoverished, had not even enough ready money left to put in the little in drink and provisions needed for chance customers, so that the sausages and bread, the wine and liquor that were ordered by guests had to be got on trust. Often they even lacked the wherewithal to make a meal of, and had to go hungry for a while. It was a curious tavern they were keeping. When somebody strolled in by accident and demanded refreshment they were forced to send to the nearest competitor, around the corner, and obtain a measure of wine and some food, paying for it an hour or so later when they themselves had been paid. And with all that, they were expected to play the cheerful host and to talk pleasantly when their own stomachs were empty. They were almost glad when nobody came; then each of them would cower in a dark corner by the chimney, too lethargic to stir.

When Mother Manz underwent these sad experiences she once more took off her green silk waist, and another metamorphosis was noticed. As formerly she had shown a number of feminine vices, so now she exhibited some feminine virtues, and these grew with the evil times. She began to practice patience and sought to cheer up her morose husband and to encourage her young son in trying for remunerative work. She sacrificed her own comfort and convenience even, went about like a happy busybody, and chattered incessantly merrily, all in an attempt to put some heart into the two men. In short, she exerted in her own queer way an undoubted beneficial influence on them, and while this did not lead to anything tangible it helped at least to make things bearable for the time being and was far better than the reverse would have been. She would rack her poor brains, and give this advice or that how to mend things, and if it miscarried she would have something fresh to propose. Mostly she proved in the wrong with her counsel, but now and then, in one of the many trivial ways that her petty mind was dwelling on she was successful. When the contrary resulted, she gaily took the blame, remained cheerful under discouragement, and, in short, did everything which, if she had only done it before things were past repair, might have really cured the desperate situation.

In order to have at least some food in the house and to pass the dull time, father and son now began to devote their leisure time to the sport of fishing, that is, with the angle, as far as it is permissible to everybody in Switzerland. This, be it said, was also one of the favorite pastimes of those decrepit Seldwylians who had come to grief in the world, most of them having failed in business. When the weather was favorable, namely, and when the fish took the bait most readily, one might see dozens of these gentry wander off provided with rod and pail, and on a walk along the shores of the river you might see one of them, every little distance, angling, the one in a long brown coat once of fashionable make, but with his bare feet in the water, the next attired in a tattered blue frock, astride an old willow tree, his ragged felt hat shoved over his left ear. Farther down even you might perceive a third whose meagre limbs were wrapped in a shabby old dressing gown, since that was the only article of clothing he had left, his long tobacco pipe in one hand, and an equally long fishing rod in the other. And in turning a bend of the river one was apt to encounter another queer customer who stood, quite nude, with his bald head and his fat paunch, on top of a flat rock in the river. This one had, though almost living in the water during the warm season, feet black as coal, so that it looked from a distance as if he had kept his boots on. Each of these worthies had a pot or a small box at his side, in which were swarming angle worms, and to obtain these they were industriously digging at all hours of the day not actually employed in fishing. Whenever the sky began to cloud up and the air became close and sultry, threatening rain, these quaint figures could be seen most numerously along the softly rolling stream, immovable like a congregation of ancient saints on their pillars. Without ever deigning to cast a glance in their direction, rustics from farm and forest used to pass them by, and the boatmen on the river did not even look their way, whereas these lone fishermen themselves used to curse in a forlorn way at these disturbers of their prey.

If Manz had been told twelve years before when he was still plowing with a fine team of horses across the hillock above the shore, that he, too, one day would join this strange brotherhood of the rod, he would probably have treated such a prophet rather roughly. But even to-day Manz hastened past those fishermen that were rather crowding one another, until he stood, upstream and alone, like a wrathful shadow of Hades, by himself, just as if he preferred even in the abode of the damned a spot of his own choosing. But to stand thus with a rod, for hours and hours, neither he nor his son Sali had the patience, and they remembered the manner in which peasants in their own neighborhood used to catch fish, especially to grasp them with their hands in the purling brooks. Therefore, they had their rods with them only as a ruse, and they walked upstream further and further, following the tortuous windings of the water, where they knew from of old that trout, dainty and expensive trout, were to be had.

Meanwhile Marti, though he had still nominal possession of his farm, had likewise been drifting from bad to worse, without any gleam of hope.

And since all toil on his land could no more avert the final catastrophe, and time hung heavy on his hands, he also had taken to this sport of fishing. Instead of laboring in his neglected fields he often would fish for days and days at a time. Vreni at such times was not permitted to leave him, but had to follow him with pail and nets, through wet meadows and along brooks and waterholes, whether there was rain or shine, while neglecting her household labors at home. For at home not a soul had remained, neither was there any need, since Marti little by little had already lost nearly all his land, and now owned but a few more acres of it, and these he tilled either not at all or else, together with his daughter, in the slovenliest way.

Thus it came to pass that he, too, one early evening was walking along the borders of a rapid and deep brook, one in which trout were leaping plentifully, since the sky was overhung with dark and threatening clouds, when without any warning he encountered his enemy, Manz, who was coming along on the other side of it. As soon as he made him out a fearful anger began to gnaw at his very vitals. They had not been so near each other for years, except when in court facing the judge, and then they had not been permitted to vent their hatred and spite, and now Marti shouted full of venom: "What are you doing here, you dog? Can't you stay in your den in town? Oh, you Seldwylian loafer!"

"Don't talk as if you were something better, you scoundrel," growled Manz, "for I see you also catching fish, and thus it proves you have nothing better to do yourself!"

"Shut your evil mouth, you fiend," shrieked Marti, since to make himself heard above the rush of waters he had to strain his voice. "You it is who have driven me into misery and poverty."

And since the willows lining the brook now also were shaken by the gathering storm, Manz was forced to shout even louder: "If that is true, then I should feel glad, you woodenhead!"

And thus, a duel of the most cruel taunts went on from both borders of the brook, and finally, driven beyond endurance, each of the two half-crazed men ran along the steep path, trying to find a way across the deep water. Of the two Marti was the most envenomed because he believed that his foe, being a landlord and managing an inn, must at least have food enough to eat and liquor to drink, besides leading a jolly sort of life, while he was barely able to eke out a meal or two on the coarsest fare. Besides, the memory of his wasted farm stung him to violence. But Manz, too, now stepped along lively enough on his side of the water, and behind him his son, who, instead of sharing his father's grim interest in the quarrel, peeped curiously and amazedly at Vreni. She, the girl, followed closely behind her father, deeply ashamed at what she heard and looking at the ground, so that her curly brown hair fell over her flushed face. She carried in her hand a wooden fishpail, and in the other her shoes and stockings, and had shortened her skirt to avoid its dragging in the wet. But since Sali was walking on the other side and seemed to watch her, she had allowed her skirt to drop, out of modesty, and was now thrice embarrassed and annoyed, since she had not alone to carry all, pail, nets, shoes and stockings, but also to hold up her skirt and to feel humiliated because of this bitter and vulgar quarrel. If she had lifted her eyes and read Sali's face, she would have seen that he no longer looked either proud or elegant as hitherto his image had dwelt in her mind, but that, on the contrary, the young man also wore a distressed and humbled mien.

But while Vreni so entirely ashamed and disconcerted kept her eyes on the ground, and Sali stared in amazement at this dainty and graceful being that had so suddenly crossed his path, and who seemed so weighed down by the whole occurrence, they did not properly observe that their fathers by now had become silent but were both of them striving in increased rage to reach the small wooden bridge a short distance off and which led across to the other shore.

Just then the first forks of lightning were weirdly illuminating the scene. The thunder was rolling in the dun clouds, and heavy drops of rain were already falling singly, when these two men, almost driven out of their senses, simultaneously reached the tiny bridge with their hurried and determined tread, and as soon as near enough seized each other with the iron grip of the rustic, striking with all the power they could summon with clenched fists into the hateful face of the adversary. Blows rained fast and furious, and each of the combatants gnashed his teeth with rage.

It is not a becoming nor a handsome sight to see elderly men usually soberminded and slow to act in a personal encounter, no matter whether occasioned by anger, provocation or self-defense, but such a spectacle is harmless in comparison with that of two aged men who attack each other with uncontrolled fury because while knowing the other deeply and well, now out of the depths of that very knowledge and out of a fixed belief that the other has destroyed his very life, seize each other with their naked fists and try to commit murder from unrequited revenge. But thus these two men now did, both with hair gray to the roots. More than fifty years ago they had last fought with each other as lads, merely out of a youthful spirit of rivalry, but during the half century succeeding they had never laid hands on each other, except when, as good neighbors and fellow-peasants, they had grasped each other's hand in peace and concord, but even that, with their rather dry and undemonstrative ways, but rarely. After the first two or three frenzied blows, they both became silent, and now they struggled and wrestled in all the agony of senile impotence, their stiffened muscles and tendons stretched with the tension, murder in their glaring eyes, each groaning with the supreme effort to master the other. They now attempted, both of them, to end the fearsome fight by pushing the other over into the rushing flood below, the slender supports of the rails creaking under the pressure. But now at last their children had reached the spot, and Sali, with a bound, came to his father's help, to enable the latter to make an end of the hated foe, Marti being just about spent and exhausted. But Vreni also sprang, dropping all her burdens, to the rescue, and after the manner of women in such cases, embracing her father tightly and really thus rendering him unable to move and defend himself. Tears streamed from her eyes, and she looked with silent appeal at Sali, just at the moment when he was about also to grasp old Marti by the throat. Involuntarily he laid his hand upon the arm of his father, thus restraining him, and next attempted to wrest his father loose. The combat thus grew into a mutual swaying back and forth, and the whole group was impotently straining and pushing, without either party coming to a rest.

But during this confused jumbling the two young people had, interfering between their elders, more and more approached each other, and just at this juncture a break in the dark bank of clouds overhead let the piercing rays of the setting sun reach the scene and illuminate it with a blinding flash, and then it was that Sali looked full into the countenance of the girl, rosy and embellished by the excitement. It was to Sali like a glimpse of another, a brighter and more heavenly world. And Vreni at the same instant, too, quickly observed the impression she had made on her onetime playmate, and she smiled for the fraction of a second at him, right in the midst of her tears and her fright. Sali, however, recovered himself instantly, warned by the energetic struggles of his father to shake off the restraining arm of his son. By holding him firmly and by speaking with authority to his father, he managed to calm him down at last and to push him out of the reach of the other. Both old fellows breathed hard at this outcome of their desperate fight, and began again to heap insults on one another, finally turning away, however. Their children, though, were now silent in the midst of their relief. But in turning away and separating they for a moment glanced once more at each other, and their two hands, cool and moist from the water and the rain, met and each noticed a slight pressure.

When the two old men turned from the scene, the clouds once more closed, darkness fell, and the rain now poured down in torrents. Manz preceded his son upon the obscured wet paths, bent to the cold rain, and the terrific excitement still trembled in his features. His teeth were chattering, and unseen tears of defeated hatred ran into his stubbly beard. He let them run, and did not even wipe them away, because he was ashamed of them, and had no wish for his son to see them.

But his son had seen nothing. He went through rain and storm in an ecstasy of happiness. He had forgotten all, his misery and the awful scene just witnessed, his poverty and the darkness around him. In his heart there was a happy song. Light and warm and full of joy everything within him was. He felt as rich and powerful as a king's son. He saw nothing but the smile of a second. He saw the beautiful face lit up by the miracle of love. And he returned that smile only now, a half hour later, and he laughed at the beautiful face and returned its gaze, looking into the night and storm as into a paradise, the face shining through the murk of rain like a guiding star. Indeed, he believed Vreni could not help noticing his answering smile miles away, and was smiling back at him.

Next day his father was stiff and sore and would not leave the house, and to him the whole wretched meeting with his foe and the whole development of the enmity between them, and the long years of misery that had grown out of it suddenly seemed to take on a new form and to become much plainer, while its influence spread around even in his dusky tavern. So much so that both Manz and his wife were moving about like ghosts, out of one room into another, into the cheerless kitchen and the bedchambers, and thence back again into the equally bare and dark guest room, where not a person was to be seen all day. At last they both began to grumble, one blaming the other for things that had gone wrong, dropping into an uneasy slumber from time to time from which a nightmare would waken them with a start, and in which their unquiet consciences upbraided them for past misdeeds. Only Sali heard and saw nothing of all this, for his mind was entirely engrossed with Vreni. Still the illusion was strong with him of being immeasurably wealthy, but beside that he had a hallucination that he was powerful and had learned how to conduct the most complicated and important affairs in the world. He felt as if he knew all the wisdom on earth, everything great and beautiful. And forever there stood before his dreamy soul, clear and distinct, that great happening of the night before, that wonderful creature with her enticing smile, that smile which had shed a blinding flash of happiness on his path. The consciousness of this great adventure dwelt with him like an unspeakable secret, of which he was the sole possessor and which had fallen to his share direct from heaven. It afforded him constant food for thought and wonderment. And yet with all that it seemed also to him that he had always known this would happen to him, and as if what now filled him with such marvelous sweetness had always dwelt in his heart. For nothing is just like this happiness of love, this sharing of a mystery between two persons, which approaches human beings in the form of unspeakable bliss, yet in a form so clear and precise, sanctioned and sanctified by the priest, and endowed with a name so mellifluously fine that no other word sounds half so sweet as Love.

On that day Sali felt neither lonesome nor unhappy; where he went and stood Vreni's image followed him and glowed in his inner self; and this without a moment's respite, one hour after another. But while his whole being was engrossed with the lovely image of the girl at the same time its outlines constantly became blurred, so that, after all, he lost the faculty of reproducing it clearly. If he had been asked to describe her in detail he would have been unable to do it. Always he saw her standing near him, with that wizard smile; he felt her warm breath and the whole indefinable charm of her presence, but it was for all that like something which is seen but once and then vanishes forever. Like something the potency of which one cannot escape and yet which one never can know. In dreaming thus he was able to recall fully the features of her when still a tiny maiden, and to experience a most pronounced pleasure in doing so, but the one Vreni of yesterday he could not recall as plainly. If indeed he had never seen Vreni again it might be that his memory would have pieced her personality together, little by little, until not the slightest bit had been wanting. But now all the strength of his mind did not suffice to render him this service, and this was because his senses, his eyes, imperatively demanded their rights and their solace, and when in the afternoon the sun was shining brilliantly and warm, gilding the roofs of all these blackened housetops, Sali almost unconsciously found himself on the way towards his old home in the country, which now seemed to him a heavenly Jerusalem with twelve shining portals, and which set his heart to beating feverishly as he approached it.

While on his way, though, he met Vreni's father, who with hurried and disordered steps was going in the direction of the town. Marti looked wild and unkempt, his gray beard had not been shorn for many weeks, and altogether he presented indeed the picture of what he was: a wicked and lost peasant who had got rid of his land and who now was intent on doing evil to others. Nevertheless, Sali under these radically different circumstances did not regard the crazed old man with hatred but rather with fear and awe, as though his own life was in the hands of this man and as though it were better to obtain it by favor than by force. Marti, however, measured the young man with a black look, glancing at him from his feet upwards, and then he went his way silently. But this encounter came most opportunely to Sali. For seeing the old man leaving the village on an errand it for the first time became quite clear to him what his own object had been in coming. Thus he proceeded stealthily on by-paths towards the village, and when reaching it cautiously felt his way through the small lanes until he had Marti's house and outbuildings right in front of him.

For several years past he had not seen this spot so closely. For even while he still dwelt in the village itself he had been forbidden to approach the Marti farm, avoiding meeting the family with whom his father lived on terms of enmity. Therefore he was now full of wonder at what, just the same, he had had ample opportunity to observe in the case of his own father's property. Amazedly he stared at this once prosperous and well-cultivated farm now turned into a waste. For Marti had had one section after another of his property sequestrated by orders of the court, and now all that was left was the dwelling house itself and the space around it, with a bit of vegetable garden and a small field up above the river, which latter Marti had for some time been defending in a last desperate struggle with the judicial power.

There was, it is true, no longer any question of a rational cultivation of the soil which once had borne so plentifully and where the wheat had waved like a golden sea toward harvest time. Instead of that now there was a mixed crop sprouting: rye, turnips, wheat and potatoes, with some other "garden truck" intermingling, all from seed that had come from paper packages left over or purchased in small quantities at random, so that the whole cultivated space looked like a negligently tended vegetable bed, in which cabbage, parsley and turnips predominated. It was plainly to be seen that the owner of it, too lazy or indifferent to do his farmer's work properly, had mainly had in mind to raise such things as would enable him to live from day to day. Here a handful of carrots had been torn out, there a mess of cabbage or potatoes, and the rest had fared on for good or ill, and much of it lay rotting on the ground. Everybody, too, had been in the habit of treading around and in it all, just as he listed, and the one broad field now presented nearly the desolate appearance of the once ownerless field whence had grown all the mischief that had wrought havoc and brought the two neighbors of old down so low. About the house itself there was no visible sign at all of farm work. The stable stood vacant, its door hung loosely from the broken staples, and innumerable spider's webs, grown thick and large during the summer, were shimmering in the sunshine. Against the broad door of a barn, where once were housed the fruits of the field, hung untidy fishermen's nets and other sporting apparatus, in grim token of abandoned farming. In the farmyard was to be seen not a single chicken, pigeon or turkey, no dog or cat. The well only was the sole live thing. But even its clear water no longer flowed in a regular gush through the spout, but trickled through the broken tube, wasting itself on the ground and forming dark pools on the soggy earth, a perfect symbol of neglect. For while it would not have taken much time or trouble to mend the broken tube, now Vreni was forced to use the water she needed for her domestic tasks, for cooking and laundry work, from the tricklings that escaped. The house itself, too, was a sad thing to see. The window panes were all broken and pasted over with paper. Yet the windows, after all, were the most cheerful-looking objects, for Vreni kept them clean and shiny with soap and water, as shiny, in fact, as her own eyes, and the latter, too, had to make up for all lack of finery. And as the curly hair and the bright kerchiefs made amends for much in her, so the wild growths stretching up toward windows and along the jamb of the doorsills, and almost covering the very broken panes on the windows, gave a charm to this tumbledown homestead. A wilderness of scarlet bean blossoms, of portulac and sweet-scented flowers ran riot along the house front, and these in their vivid colors clambered along anything that would give them a hold, such as the handle of a rake, a stake or broken rod. Vreni's grandfather had left behind a rusty halberd or spontoon, such as were weapons much in vogue in his days, for he had fought as a mercenary abroad. Now this rusty implement had been stuck into the ground, and the willowy tendrils of the beanstalk embraced it tightly. More bean plants groped their way up a shattered ladder which had leaned against the house for ages, and thence their blossoms hung into the windows as Vreni's curls hung into her pretty face.

This farmyard, so much more picturesque than prosperous, lay somewhat apart from its neighbors, and therefore was not exposed so much to their inspection. But for the moment as Sali stared and watched nothing human at all was visible. Sali thus was undisturbed in his reflections as he leaned with his back against the barndoor, about thirty paces away, and studied with attentive mien the deserted yard. He had been doing this for some time when Vreni at last appeared under the housedoor and gazed calmly and thoughtfully before her as if thinking deeply of only one matter. Sali himself did not stir but contemplated her as he would have done a fine painting. But after a brief while her eyes traveled towards him, and she perceived him. Then she and he stood without motion and looked, looked just as if they did not see living beings but aerial phenomena. But at last Sali slowly stood upright, and just as slowly went across the farmyard and towards Vreni. When he was but a step or so from her, she stretched out her hands toward him and pronounced only the one word: "Sali!"

He seized her hands speechlessly, and then continued gazing into her face which had suddenly grown pale. Tears filled her eyes, and gradually under his gaze she flushed painfully, and at last she said in a very low voice: "What do you want here, Sali?"

"Only to see you," he replied. "Will we not become good friends again?"

"And our fathers, Sali?" asked Vreni, turning her weeping face aside, since her hands had been imprisoned by him.

"Must we bear the burden of what they have done and have become?" answered Sali. "It may be that we ourselves can redeem the evil they have wrought, if we only love each other well enough and stand together against the future."

"No, Sali, no good will ever come of it all," replied Vreni sobbingly; "therefore better go your ways, Sali, in God's name."

"Are you alone, Vreni?" he asked. "May I come in a minute?"

"Father has gone to town for a spell, as he told me before leaving," remarked Vreni, "to do your father a bad turn. But I cannot let you in here, because it may be that later on you would not be able to leave again without attracting notice. As yet everything around here is still and nobody about. Therefore, I beg of you, go before it is too late."

"No, I could not leave you without speaking," was his answer, and his voice shook with emotion. "Since yesterday I have had to think of you constantly, and I cannot go. We must speak to each other, at least for half an hour or an hour; that will be a relief to both of us."

Vreni reflected a minute. Then she said thoughtfully: "Toward sundown I shall walk out toward our field. You know the one I mean--we have but the one left. I must pick some vegetables. I feel sure that nobody else will be there, because they are mowing all of them in a different direction. If you insist on coming, you may come there, but for the present go and take care nobody else sees you. Even if nobody at all bothers any longer about us, they would nevertheless gossip so much about it that father could not fail to hear it."

They now dropped their hands, but once more seized them, and both also asked: "How do you do?"

But instead of answering each other they repeated the same phrase over and over again, since they, after the manner of lovers, no longer were able to guide or control their words. Thus the only answer each received was given with the eyes, and without saying anything more to each other they finally separated, half sad, half joyful.

"Go there at once," she called after him; "I shall be there almost as soon as yourself."

Sali followed this advice, and went at once up the steep path that led to the hill where the busy world seemed so far away and where the soul expanded, to the undulating fields that stretched out far on both sides, where the brooding July sun shone and the drifting white clouds sailed overhead, where the ripe corn in the gentle breeze bobbed up and down, where the river below glinted blue, and all these scenes of past happiness filled his soul after a long dearth with peace and gentle joy, and his griefs and fears were left below. At full length he threw himself down amid the half-shade of the upstanding wheat, there where it marked the boundary of Marti's waste acres, and peered with unblinking eyes into the gold-rimmed clouds.

Although scarcely a quarter hour elapsed until Vreni followed him, and although he had thought of nothing but his bliss and his love, dreaming of it and building castles in the air, he was yet surprised when Vreni suddenly stood at his side, smiling down at him, and with a start he rose.

"Vreni," he exclaimed in a voice that trembled with love, and she, still and smiling, tendered both her hands to him. Hand in hand they then paced along the whispering corn, slowly down towards the river, and then as slowly back again, with scarcely any words. This short walk they repeated twice or thrice, back and forth, still, blissful, and quiet, so that this young pair now resembled likewise a pair of stars, coming and going across the gentle curve of the hillock and adown the declivity beyond, just as had once, years and years ago, the accurately measuring plows of the two rustic neighbors. But as they once on this pilgrimage lifted their eyes from the blue cornflowers along the edge of the field where they had rested, they suddenly saw a swarthy fellow, like a darksome star, precede them on their path, a fellow of whom they could not tell whence he had appeared so entirely without warning. Probably he had been lying in the corn, and Vreni shuddered, while Sali murmured with affright: "It's the black fiddler!" And indeed, the fellow ambling along before them carried under his arm a violin, and truly, too, he looked swarthy enough. A black crushed felt hat, a black blouse and hair and beard pitchdark, even his unwashed hands of that hue, he made the impression of a man carrying along an evil omen. This man led a wandering life. He did all sorts of jobs: mended kettles and pans, helped charcoal burners, aided in pitching in the woods, and only used his fiddle and earned money that way when the peasants somewhere were celebrating a festival or holiday, a wedding or big dance, and such like. Sali and Vreni meant to leave the fiddler by himself. Quiet as mice they slowly walked behind him, thinking that he would probably turn off the road soon. He seemed to pay no attention to the two, never turning around and keeping perfect silence. With that they felt a weird influence coming from the fellow, so that they had not the courage to openly avoid him and turning aside unconsciously they followed in his tracks to the very end of the field, the spot where that unjust heap of stone and rock lay, the one that had started the two families on their downward road. Innumerable poppies and wild roses had grown there and were now in full bloom, wherefore this stony desert lay like an enormous splotch of blood along the road.

All at once the black fiddler sprang with one jump on top one of the irregular ramparts of stone, the rim of which was also scarlet with wild blossoms, then turned himself around, and threw a glance in every direction. The young couple stopped and looked up at him shamefaced. For turn they would not in face of him, and to proceed along on the same path would have taken them into the village, which they also wished to avoid.

He looked at them keenly, and then he shouted: "I know you two. You are the children of those who have stolen from me this soil. I am glad to see you here, and to notice how the theft has benefited you. Surely, I shall also live to see you two go before me the way of all flesh. Yes, look at me, you little fools. Do you like my nose, eh?"

And indeed, he had a terrible nose, one which broke forth from his emaciated swarthy face like a beak, or rather more like a good-sized club. As if it had been pasted on to his bony face it looked and below that the tiny mouth, in the shape of a small round hole, singularly contracted and expanded, and out of this hole his words constantly tumbled, whistling or buzzing or hissing. His small twisted felt hat, shapeless and shabby, pushed over his left ear, heightened the uncanny effect. This piece of his apparel seemed to change its form with every motion of the queer-looking head, although in reality it sat immovable on his pate. And of the eyes of this strange fellow nothing was to be noticed but their whites, since the pupils were flashing around all the time, just as though they were two hares jumping about to escape being seized.