The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Volume 08. Коллектив авторов

night came on quickly. The moon, looking like a thin sickle, was resting on the summits of the dark mountains. One little Bernese wagon after another drove away. Barefoot went to find her master's chaise, to which the horses were now being hitched. Then Rose came and told her brother that she had promised some young people of her village to go home in company with them. And it was understood as a matter of course that the farmer could not drive home alone with the maid. And so the little Bernese wagon went rattling off toward home with a single occupant. Rose must have seen Barefoot, but she acted as if she were not there. And so Barefoot once more wandered forth along the road on which the stranger had departed. Whither could he have gone? How many hundred villages and hamlets there were along that road, and to which one was he bound? Barefoot found the place again where he had first accosted her in the morning; she repeated aloud to herself his salutation, and the answer she had given him. And once more she sat down behind the hazel hedge, where in the morning she had slept and dreamt. A yellowhammer sat on a slender spray, and its six notes sounded just as if it were saying: "And why art thou still here? And why art thou still here?"

      Barefoot had lived through a whole life's history in this one day. Could it be but a single day? She went back again to the dance, but did not go up to the room itself. And then she started out homeward alone. She had gone almost halfway to Haldenbrunn, when she suddenly turned back; she seemed unable to tear herself away from the place where she had been so happy. And she said to herself that it was not right for her to go home alone anyway; she should go in company with the young men and girls from her village. When she arrived in front of the tavern at Endringen again, she found several people from her village already assembled there.

      "Ah, are you here, too, Barefoot?" was the only greeting she received.

      And now there was great confusion; for many who had been the first to urge going home, were still upstairs dancing. And now some strange lads came and begged and besought them to stay for just one more dance; and they got their way. Barefoot, too, went upstairs, but only to look on. At last the cry was: "Whoever dances now shall be left behind;" and after a great deal of difficulty and much rushing to and fro, the Haldenbrunn contingent was finally assembled in front of the house. Some of the musicians escorted them through the village, and many a sleepy father came to the window to see what was going on, while now and then a woman, who had once been one of the merry-makers herself, but who had married and so culminated her days of frivolity, would appear at a window and cry: "A pleasant journey home!"

      The night was dark, and large pine fagots had been provided for torches; and the lads who carried them danced about and shouted with joy. Scarcely had the musicians gone back, and scarcely had the party left Endringen well behind, when the cry was: "Put out the torches! They only dazzle us!" And two soldiers in particular, who were then off duty and had joined the party, made fun of the torches, in proud consciousness of their sabres. Accordingly the torches were extinguished in a ditch. And now they began to miss this or that boy, and this or that girl, and when their comrades called out to them, they would answer from a distance.

      Barefoot walked behind the rest, a good distance from those of her own village. They let her alone, and that was the greatest kindness they could have done her; she was with the people of her own village, and yet she was alone. She often looked around at the fields and the woods; how wonderful it all looked in the night!—so strange and yet so familiar! The whole world seemed as strange to her as she had become to herself. And as she went along, step by step, as if she were being pulled or pushed, without realizing that she was moving, so did her thoughts move, involuntarily, in her mind; they seemed to be whirling on, and she could not grasp or control them—she did not know what it meant. Her cheeks glowed as if every star in the heavens were a heat-radiating sun, and her very heart burned within her.

      And now, just as if she had begun it, as if she herself had struck up the tune, her companions ahead began to sing the song that had risen to her lips that morning:

      "There were two lovers in Allgau,

      Who loved each other so dear;

      And the young lad went away to war;

      When comest thou home again?

      Ah, that I cannot, love, tell thee,

      What year, or what day, or what hour!"

      And then the "Good Night" song was sung; and Amrei, in the distance, joined in:

      "A fair 'good night' to thee, love, farewell!

      When all are sleeping

      Then watch I'm keeping,

      So wearily.

      A fair "good night" to thee, love, farewell!

      Now I must leave thee,

      And joy be with thee,

      Till I come back.

      And when I come back, then I'll come to thee,

      And then I'll kiss thee,

      That tastes so sweetly,—

      Love, thou art mine!

      Love, thou art mine, and I am thine,

      And that doth content me,

      And shall not repent thee,

      Love, fare thee well!"

      At last they came to the village, where one group after another detached itself. Barefoot paused under the tree by her father's house, and stood there for a long time in dreamy meditation. She would have liked to go in and tell Black Marianne everything, but gave up the idea. Why should she disturb the old woman's rest at night? What good would it do? She went quietly home, where everybody was asleep. When she finally entered the house, everything seemed so much more strange to her than it had outside—so odd, so out of keeping, so out of place. "Why do you come home? What do you want here?" There seemed to be a strange questioning in every sound; when the dog barked, when the stairs creaked, when the cows lowed in the stable—they all seemed to be questioning her: "Who's that coming home? Who's that?" And when at length she found herself in her room, she sat down quietly and stared at the light. Suddenly she got up, seized the lamp, held it up to the glass, and looked at her face; she felt inclined to ask herself: "Who's that?"—"And thus," she thought, "he saw me—this is how I looked. He must have been pleased with something about you, or else why did he look at you so?"

      There arose in her a quiet feeling of contentment, which was heightened by the thought:

      "Well, for once you have been looked upon as a person; until now you have been nothing but a servant, a convenience for others. Good night, Amrei—this has been a day indeed! But even this day must come to an end at last."

      CHAPTER XI

      WHAT THE OLD SONG SAYS

      [The memory of the handsome stranger, and of the dance, and of all the new and wonderful emotions that had filled her heart on that eventful day, to Amrei was a sacred one indeed; for weeks she thought of it by day and dreamed of it by night. The jealous, sneering remarks of Rose, and the half-serious, half-jesting utterances of other people, who had been present at the wedding, meant nothing to her; she went about her work all the more diligently and ignored it all. Black Marianne could offer her no encouragement in her hope that the stranger would some day appear again and claim her; she had waited all her life for her John, and would continue to wait until she died.]

      Spring had come again. Amrei was standing beside the flowers in her window when a bee came flying up and began sucking at an open blossom.

      "Yes, so it is," thought Barefoot; "a girl is like a plant; she grows up in one place, and cannot go out into the world and seek—she must wait until something comes flying to her."

      "Were I a little bird,

      And had a pair of wings,

      I'd fly to thee;

      But since I can't do that,

      Here must I be.

      Though I am far from thee,

      In dreams I am with thee,

      Thou art mine own;

      But