How the Vicar Came Around
The Frau Obersteuerrätin was “auntie” to the whole world; and indeed she deserved the name, for she was a motherly friend, counsellor, and helper to all who came within her domain; she was the best and most charitable of women, judging mildly of the weaknesses of others so long as her own little weaknesses were respected. She over-looked the eccentricities of her clerical brother, which he committed in a state of absent-mindedness, and she did not raise any objections to Susie’s marvellous naïveté, though often enough it caused her bitter dilemmas.
It was a warm May day on which the Vicar entered the room with his usual greeting: “Good morning, Auntie—good morning, Susie.”
Auntie nodded pleasantly. Susie, who was sitting by her on the sofa, knitting a white stocking, arose, dropped a little familiar curtsey, and said: “Votre servante, Uncle.”
“But, Heaven preserve us, what is the matter with you to-day, Vicar?” said Aunt Rosmarin.
“How so?” queried the Vicar, putting his hands in all of his pockets in a vain search for a handkerchief with which to wipe the perspiration from his brow.
“It’s very likely you have your wig in your pocket,” said Auntie, “for your handkerchief is on your head.”
“On my head,” exclaimed the Vicar in surprise, and putting his hand there he found it. “I shouldn’t be greatly surprised if you were right, Auntie; it’s a hot, hot day; the sun was burning, my back was burning; I came from town, so I took off my wig to cool my head, spread my handkerchief over the latter, and lay down in a corn-field.”
Again he began to search his pockets, while Susie made room for him on the sofa, and went out to get him a refreshing drink of water and raspberry syrup.
“What are you looking for, Vicar?” asked Auntie.
“If I mistake not, I brought a letter for you from town; but what has become of it is more than I can tell. I think it is from the Burgomaster. Seek and ye shall find.”
“But, Vicar, first of all, put on your wig—this is very indecent. It is an insult to your congregation to walk about bald-headed.”
“I should hope not. But in that case I trust that there would be bears to obey me, like the prophet Elisha, and devour all bad boys who would make bold to have a laugh at me. But, ad vocem, my wig, Auntie; what did you do with it?”
“What did I do with it? You did not entrust it to my keeping. Perhaps you lost it on the way!”
“Heaven preserve us! It was my best wig. You are right, Auntie; it is lying in the grass, together with the Burgomaster’s letter, precisely on the spot where I myself lay a quarter of an hour ago, in the shadow of the corn.”
Auntie seized her bell. The maid appeared; the Inspector was called, and ordered to send for the wig and the letter—as quick as possible. Auntie was quite as impatient to hide the Vicar’s baldness as to read the Burgomaster’s letter. The shape of the wig, as well as colour and address of the letter, were explicitly described to the Inspector, and he forthwith sent two grooms, four threshers, and one dairy-boy out upon all roads, footpaths, and byways that run between Nieder-Fahren and Waiblingen. He stationed himself upon the hill by the wind-mill and reconnoitred the field of action through a telescope. Such excellent arrangements could not fail to bring about the desired result. In half-an-hour the seven messengers returned to the house led by the wig, the letter, and the Inspector.
Sure enough the letter was from the Burgomaster. It contained nothing less than a formal invitation to the Frau Obersteuerrätin, together with her brother and Fräulein Susie and the Inspector Säblein, to the wedding of the Burgomaster’s eldest daughter.
Although Auntie felt very much flattered by this attention of the Burgomaster, with whom she was but slightly acquainted, there were some difficulties in the way which must needs be talked over in a family council.
Auntie was very much averse to bringing Susie into contact in any way with the young gentlemen of Waiblingen. First of all, Susie was seventeen years old—a fact which did not seem at all portentous to the child, but all the more so to her cautious aunt. Second, Susie was beautiful as any Susanna, not excepting the one in the Old Testament. Thirdly, she had the prospect of inheriting a considerable fortune, and Auntie had no notion of giving up her darling to the first-comer. Fourthly, Susie was exceedingly inexperienced, though she was not wanting in the usual measure of laudable curiosity.
The young men of Waiblingen were in no way suited to be the companions of such a girl. First, because a great many of them were handsome, which is a very bad thing; and secondly, they were all great lovers of comedies and novels; they kept up an amateur stage; and at Waiblingen two booksellers made their living with circulating libraries—a bad sign of our times! Thirdly, even though one might have forgiven them their sleek faces and romantic tendencies, few of them had a fortune that would weigh in the scales against Aunt Rosmarin’s possessions, nor were they of a rank to be compared with the title of Obersteuerrat.
Auntie had pondered this question long since in the silence of her own heart, and she had come to the conclusion that it was best to take defensive measures against the elegant world of Waiblingen. Susie seldom went there, and still seldomer were there any young guests invited to Nieder-Fahren.
After ripe consideration it was decided in the family council, in which the Inspector also took part, to go to the wedding at the Burgomaster’s, but not without the utmost caution.
Auntie undertook to call Susie’s attention to the dangers arising out of the affections. The Vicar was to add spiritual admonition, and the Inspector—who had the reputation of having been a good waltzer in his younger years, while now he was unfortunately a bachelor of fifty-six—promised to renew Susie’s dancing-lessons. At the wedding all three pledged each other to do their best, and not lose the damsel out of sight.
Hereupon tailors, shoemakers, and milliners were put in a fair way of getting a living. Auntie was desirous of doing whatever was due to her rank, and she also had the pardonable pride of showing off Susie’s beauty to the best advantage.
Susie was delighted with the elaborate preparations—all this was a new experience. She put her dancing-master quite out of breath, and her only regret was that his feet being fifty-six years old were not as flexible as hers being seventeen. Joy and nature taught her to dance; but Säblein took it all upon his account. He was nothing loath to practise his noble half-forgotten art, the less so as the family council had decreed that he alone should be Susie’s partner at the wedding.
Unfortunately this plan miscarried, and the reason was this. The day before the wedding all the dances were to be reviewed once more under the supervision of the Vicar and Auntie. Before the spectators came, Säblein exerted himself more than was good for him to dance at least no worse than his clever pupil. She floated about like a butterfly, and in her rapture took many a step which was no less graceful for not coming under any rule. Säblein, in an ecstasy of delight, rashly undertook to show her the acme of his art. Years ago he could dance entrechats,—ambition pricked him to make a trial once more. His first attempt was half a failure, his second was a whole one. His lank, thin-whittled legs, which had never been a cause of reproach to him, got so hopelessly and abnormally entangled that, the rest of his body keeping in motion, a disaster was inevitable. The unfortunate dancing-master fell in a most unmasterly manner upon the floor, and as a falling pine uproots all blooming bushes that surround it, so he pulled down the little sylph that was frolicking about him.
The Vicar, just about to open the door from without, heard the fall which shook the very foundations of the house, and entered hastily. It was partly this haste and partly the Vicar’s near-sightedness, which he was wont to forget in his absent-mindedness, which became the cause of a second accident. He stepped upon the dancing-master’s leg, which the latter drew back with pardonable abruptness, thereby robbing the Vicar of his equilibrium. Before he had time to beg pardon he lay upon the floor along with the others. While his powdered wig was propelled by the rapid motion far under the sofa, his short legs performed some wonderful antics, and at last turned up their soles toward Heaven, as if imploring its aid.
The whole occurrence was a very short one. The Vicar was the first to gather himself up, and, mistaking Susie’s snowy, befrilled cap for his escaped wig, he seized it without more ado, and covered his head therewith because he heard the Obersteuerrätin at the door. Susie was on her feet too before Auntie entered. But Säblein sat upon the floor making horrible faces, for he had hurt his hip.
“Great heavens!” cried Aunt Rosmarin, clapping her hands together, and looking now at the Inspector’s painful grimaces, now at her brother’s head in a woman’s cap. “Are you playing a farce? Are you forgetful of all decency? Do you call this good breeding? and especially you, Vicar?”...
“And pray, why is it especially I?” he asked with a touch of sensitiveness, for he did not greatly like his sister’s sermons.
Here Susie gained a hearing, and quickly restored peace by giving her perplexed aunt the explanation to this riddle, and laughingly exchanging her cap for the wig.
This apparently unimportant occurrence was the firs cause to all following misfortunes; for Säblein went limping about for many days, and consequently could not dance at the wedding.
Aunt Rosmarin had her suspicions when she saw Susie, now swimming in bliss, now abject and mournful, or when she heard how Susie went walking in the park evening after evening, and when she herself, putting aside her dread of rheumatism, secretly followed her there, but always found Susie alone.
Auntie shook her head, and said to her brother: “I believe, Vicar, our little baroness is in love.” She had hit it, but wise Auntie never thought of the baron. “We must keep our eyes on this marvellously mysterious child, for she will confess nothing to me. It is a delicate task, I know, and I myself am too old to run after her in the park every day the Lord makes. And, of course, Vicar, it is not a matter to be entrusted to the domestics; that were contrary to all dignity and order. But at the same time she must be watched, for these constant visits to the park for the last fortnight must have some good reason.”
“Trust me, Auntie,” said the Vicar—“trust me; I will guard the park like a spy. Murder shall out. This is just the sort of thing that suits me.”
The plans were laid with great subtlety. The Vicar looked unconcerned in Susie’s presence, and the following day at sunset he started upon his errand.
He was indeed very lucky, for the Baron was really in the park. He was twice lucky, for it so happened that he entered the park from the side where it touched the woods, and where the Baron was wont to enter it. He was in the habit of leaving his horse there, and giving it to the servant to hold.
The servant, finding his task decidedly dull, had to-day tied the Baron’s horse to a young birch-tree and gone about his own affairs. The Vicar looked at the elegantly-equipped noble steed from all sides, and nodding his head thoughtfully, unfastened it, saying to himself, “I’ll take it home to our stable; the owner will no doubt apply for it, and all the rest will follow. In truth, it’s a shrewd plan!”
But there was an unfavourable circumstance. There seemed to be a secret understanding between the horse and his master. He most decidedly objected to being pulled along by the bridle; no amount of patting and caressing had any effect; he planted his fore-legs firmly on the ground and pulled his head back.
“Friend,” said the Vicar, “at best you are but a beast, and you have no eyes behind your ears. I’ll wager you will go willingly.” With that he climbed upon the noble animal’s back, which stood as patient as a lamb. To be sure it was thirty years or more since the good Vicar had been on horseback, and, moreover, his legs were about two inches too short for the stirrups; but then it was to be but a few moments’ ride, and it was well to show Aunt Rosmarin that he had not forgotten the chivalrous arts over his theology. Over and above all this there was danger in delay.
So he belaboured the horse’s shanks with his boots, and the steed, taken aback by such ill-treatment, at once began to canter along the woody path, across the field into the open road, having for weeks past traversed no other way than this with the Baron. The Vicar, in danger of losing his balance, with laudable precaution clasped his fingers in the mane of his Pegasus. Finding himself upon the road, however, instead of parading under Auntie’s window, he tried to grasp the bridle. Over this attempt he came very near losing both stirrups. Making sure of these once more, he let the bridle alone. For a while these two purposes warred with each other, and between times he admonished the fiery horse with many caresses to stand still. But it was all in vain; and when in his despair he pulled the line too tight, at the same time clasping the horse’s sides firmly with his legs, it forthwith rose upon its hind feet, and, to his inexpressible horror, began to walk about like a human being, and perform tricks which were positively not to the Vicar’s taste just at that moment.
He now succumbed to fate and to his horse, clinging to the latter with hands and feet while it sped along at a full gallop till the poor Vicar was deaf and blind with dizziness.
“Out of the depths have I cried unto Thee,” he sighed. “If this isn’t the very devil himself! Had I but left the beast standing where I was how happy should I be!”
It so happened that right here the road had been barred by peasants in honour of the grazing cattle.
“Te Deum laudamus!” cried the Vicar. “Here surely this rascal of a horse will come to a stand.” But the steed leaped over as if he had wings, so that the horseman’s hair stood on end, and his hat and wig took flight in horror. “I have learned to ride better than you, for I still hold my seat,” said the good Vicar in Christian tranquillity to the truants, not venturing to turn and look after them.
“Whither, in the Lord’s name? Twice four-and-twenty hours at this rate and we shall have spanned this terrestrial globe and come out on the other side at Nieder-Fahren.” As he was saying this they approached a bridge. The Vicar, in terror lest the horse in its blind rage might miss the bridge and leap into the stream, tugged frantically at the line on the side nearest to the bridge. But he tugged too long; the provoking animal thereupon left the bridge lying at the right, and jumped into the water. The Vicar came very near fainting away when he became aware of floating between heaven and water, and felt the waves penetrate his black silk stockings, and soon after his velvet breeches, until they played about his hips.
The horse, which was a capital swimmer, reached the opposite shore in safety, regained the road, and jauntily continued its journey until it reached Schloss Malzen, where it darted joyfully with the Vicar into the open door of the stable, standing still at last in its own familiar stall.
The servants in the courtyard ran in after him, helped the rider out of the saddle, and anxiously inquired how he had come into possession of the Baron’s horse.
An unspeakable sense of blissful security seized the much-tried clergyman as once more he felt terra-firma beneath his feet. Deprived of his hat and his wig, to be sure, and the lower half of his body dripping with water, far from home, the approaching night before him, and upon the domain of the arch-enemy of Nieder-Fahren—all these circumstances served to make the situation not altogether agreeable. But what cared he so long as his life was saved?
While the servants were storming the breathless gentleman with questions the Baron’s steward appeared upon the scene, and hospitably urged him to come into the house. As upon his request a carriage was promised him to take him back to Nieder-Fahren, he consented to enter and rest before his departure. Meanwhile nearly two hours passed; no carriage appeared, and the Vicar began to wax suspicious lest he was being treated as a prisoner for having run away with the horse, although he had repeatedly affirmed that it was he who had been run away with. He finally decided to take flight. He arose, and was about to open the door, when Baron Pompeius von Malzen entered, having arrived upon his lackey’s horse while the despairing lackey was on a search for the Baron’s steed through the whole of Ober and Nieder-Fahren.
The Baron, recognising the worthy uncle of his wife—the tale concerning the arrival of the horse with a wigless and decidedly damp clergyman had been related to him in the courtyard—at once escorted him to a better room, ordered dry clothing, and gave the Vicar time to change his garments. His departure was quite out of the question for that night; the Baron would not let the opportunity escape him to heap coals of fire upon the head of one of his adversaries, to entertain him sumptuously, and overwhelm him with courtesies.
Susie’s uncle, surprised at the Baron’s cordial manner, soon felt very comfortable behind smoking viands and bottles of Burgundy. Still, however soft and firm he sat upon the luxurious cushions of his chair, he could not for the whole evening rid himself of the notion, as he said, of having “the hellish beast” between his legs.
“At the same time I am more grateful to my good horse than I can tell you,” said the Baron, “for bringing me the uncle of my beloved wife. I have long wished for the honour of your acquaintance, so that I might beg for your kind intercession. I adore my wife, and a separation is about to be forced upon us. My wife has forgiven me—nay, more, she loves me; she does not desire a separation, and yet——”
“Loves you? Does not desire a separation?” cried the Vicar, shaking his head, which was adorned with the Baron’s best cotton night-cap.
“Will you have proofs?” said the Baron. “Ah, I will be frank with our dear uncle. You shall know all. This hour may decide our life’s happiness.” He thereupon went and fetched Susie’s letters.
And indeed from his niece’s letters the Vicar saw that between her and the Baron there was eternal peace, and a great deal more that is eternal.
He seemed greatly touched as he laid the letters down; he stretched out his hand across the table, and said—
“Baron, I for my part will make peace with you. Susie shall be yours, and the law-suit may go to the dogs. But we must handle Aunt Rosmarin carefully. She is a dear, good woman, but she has peculiar ideas about some things. Up to this day I was a raging Saul, henceforth I shall be a gentle Paul, and shall begin at once upon my work of conversion.”
The Baron jumped up, embracing and kissing brave Saul in a rapture of delight.
Meanwhile Aunt Rosmarin had heard her brother relate the story of his adventure. When he told her how he found the horse, her eyes sparkled with pleasure at the discovery. The fact of his getting into the saddle she accompanied with the remark: “You don’t know how to ride. Every cobbler to his last!” When he came to his aerial flight across the bar, and his swim through the stream, she jumped up, nervously seized her brother’s two hands and cried, “For heaven’s sake, what dangers were you subject to!” And she did not regain her composure until he halted before the horse’s crib. Then, as the Baron came in, her face lengthened; the warmer the Vicar grew in chanting his praises the cooler was Aunt Rosmarin. And when he had the audacity to add, “Susie does not seem to dislike the Baron; seems to me we had better let the law-suit go, and let things take their course,” Auntie shook her head, while she gazed at her brother from top to toe with wide open eyes.
“Well, I never!” said she. “I fear me the ride and the fright have done you some injury. If the Baron did not turn you out into the pitch-dark night, giving you lodging and food instead, he did no more than heathens and barbarians would have done. You need not think I’ll give him Susie for his roasts and his Burgundy. A weak sort of man you must be to be willing to sacrifice your principles and all the disgrace and sorrow our family has suffered through the Baron for one poor supper.”
Then did the Vicar arise in indignation and say, “Why, Aunt Rosmarin, has all Christian charity gone out of you? I wish then that you had ridden the Baron’s horse in my stead; I wish you had been called upon to fly through the air, and to swim through the surging billows, to make the acquaintance of an honourable man. Then you would think different.”
Aunt Rosmarin thought her brother’s remarkable wish very improper, as well as insulting. She thereupon gave him a lecture lasting three hours, and having for its perpetual refrain, “I will not hear another word about the Baron. In future I shall act alone, in strict accordance with my principles.”
Heinrich Zschokke (1771-1848).