A Country Comedy
In the open door of the house the dark figure of a woman stood out distinctly against the brilliant snow—it was Eva Barbara. Without a word she seized his hand and drew him after her; he felt her pulses beat, and her quick breath betrayed her excitement. At a rapid pace she drew him along the silent streets, retarding her steps only as she approached her father’s farmyard, where she dropped his hand, and with a shiver wrapped herself closer in her little shawl.
Suddenly the girl raised her head as if listening, and with a sob she said, “I am the most unhappy lass on God’s earth!” Then with a sudden start: “Hark! they are coming. I am yours, Paul, whatever may come. Sure you can depend on me. Don’t you hear them? For God’s sake, Paul, don’t stay here. It would be death to me to think you might fall into the hands of the Rottenstein lads! Be quick and away—why do you stand and look at me? If you care for me, go! God knows what a hard time I shall have of it with the old folks, without having to tremble for your safety!”
“Eva Barbara—my own Eva Barbara! I will turn over a new leaf; I——”
“Oh, my God, don’t you hear how they are surrounding the house? Away with you, before it is too late!”
Paul turned to fly—it was too late! Logs of wood came crashing into the farmyard, and were shivered into bits against the house. With a leap Martin, who was far ahead of his comrades, came bounding around the corner, and with a cry of rage he threw himself upon his hated rival. But in the face of danger Paul had regained his self-possession; cleverly evading the attack, he seized Martin and threw him down. Then he felt his hand seized, he dipped into deep darkness, a door was thrown to—at the same time there was a fearful crash upon the threshold, making the silent house resound. Eva Barbara quickly fastened the bolts and hooks, and for the time being Paul was safe.
For the time being!
A thrill of suppressed rage passed through the lad standing in the dark, icy-cold entry beside the weeping girl, while his enemies raged about without the house, now shaking the doors, now demanding admission. What an ill-fated, miserable sort of scrape was this he was in! He felt like a grain of wheat between two mill-stones. He dared not go out; his life, or at least his future bodily welfare, was at stake. But if he stayed, and the farmer found him in his house—and there was not the slightest doubt that the peasant would soon find him, what with the unearthly din without—what would await him then he faintly divined!
Again there were heavy thumps against the door, and Martin’s voice was heard crying, “Open it quick! Open it, peasant, or by the devil we’ll smash the door! Open it—Paul Schülzle is in your house—deliver him over, or we’ll open fight!”
“My God, my God! how shall this end?” moaned the trembling girl. “Hark! Don’t you hear anything? Sure enough——Oh, goodness me, father is awake! Come upstairs. I can’t let you into the barn because the door creaks, and you can’t stay here by the stairs. Come, find a hiding-place upstairs, in the hall or in the kitchen—come quick! Oh, blessed Saviour, turn this misfortune! Come! father will be here with a candle in a minute; if he finds us together—you know what his temper is!”
Paul’s hand was seized again, and he was drawn upstairs; fortunately the resounding blows against the door smothered his stumbling steps. In the sitting-room the peasant was swearing about the matches that would not catch fire; the girl trembled. “Straight ahead you’ll find the kitchen-door! God be with you; I can help you no further. If father finds me here all is lost.”
A ray of light falling through the key-hole frightened the girl away. Paul was alone. Cautiously he felt his way in the direction she had indicated, but he found no door; in fact, he did not have much time left to feel for it, for just then the sitting-room door was opened. Paul bounded into the shade and then behind the door, which the farmer in his excitement forgot to shut. Again Paul was safe for the moment, although he feared the beating of his heart might betray him.
A new attack upon the door put the peasant beside himself; he put his candle on the floor, then pulled open the hall window, and a very excited interview took place between him and the men without. Hot words fell between the peasant and Martin, until finally Martin declared that if the peasant did not deliver over Paul at once he would storm the house in good earnest; whereupon the peasant replied he certainly would not have that rogue of a trumpeter in his house for a minute, but as for doing a thing because Martin said so, there was nothing further from his mind, and if there was one more blow upon the door he would not be slow to reply.
The lads actually stepped back, and the peasant shut the window. He approached the door—Paul bit his lip; if he moved it, it would bring him face to face with the old man!
But the peasant paid no attention to the door—he merely called into the room, “Wife, they say that scamp of a musician is in the house! Get up! strike a light, and help me wake the servants; the fellow shall not go unpunished!”
“I’ve been up this long while,” replied a faint woman’s voice trembling with cold; “but there’s no finding those matches!”
“I don’t wonder! I was so flurried I threw them in the wash-bowl,” replied the peasant. “Strike a light in the kitchen, and hurry up.”
The peasant disappeared with his candle in the narrow passage-way which passed through the entire depth of the house; in the dusk a figure flitted past Paul; he heard a rustling sound beside him, and then a ray of faint bluish light streamed through a half-open door. So that was the kitchen! If the woman came out now the light would first fall into that nook between the wall and the door which harboured him—discovery was inevitable. He could not stay where he was—but whither should he turn? The approaching steps of the farmer’s wife startled him. He must away—just then there was only one exit possible—with one bound he was in the sitting-room behind the stove.
Again he was safe for the moment—but he was more securely than ever in the trap. Where should he go when the farmer came back with his servants?
The woman shut the door of the room and walked away along the passage to the back of the house. Paul stepped up to one of the frost-painted windows, thawing it with his breath, and looked out.
A leap into the garden was hazardous, but it was not impossible. By the pale light of the moon he saw how the men from Rottenstein were surrounding the house. This cut off all possibility of escape for the present.
He heard steps approaching; he heard the peasant’s wife talk soothingly to his weeping sweetheart, Eva Barbara, the maid-servants also endeavouring to comfort her. So then he might expect all the feminine inmates of the house to enter the room at any moment—where should he find refuge?
Other sounds became audible throughout the house. He heard the farmer rail, the men-servants laugh and swear—whither, oh whither? In the room there was no nook, no hiding-place.
Nearer and nearer came the women; desperately, with a curse between his lips, he ran out into the bed-chamber of the worthy couple. It was a narrow room, a so-called rafenetle; two thin panels of wood, about six feet high, connected with the ceiling above by carved lattice-work, just enclosed two broad beds, leaving merely a passage between them. The panelled walls were closely hung with wearing apparel, under which Paul quickly crept, squeezing himself tightly into a corner and resigning himself with a sigh to his fate.
It was a tragic situation! How could he ever hope to leave this prison unnoticed? The only window was barred, and there was no other exit except through the room and across the hall! It was horrible! More than once did Paul scratch his head. As a measure of precaution he began to take off his boots, and, together with his trumpet, he hung them across his shoulders in order to have his arms and hands free in case of need.
His situation was the more painful for the proximity of his beloved; he saw her shadow on the wall and ceiling, he heard her pitiful sobs, which showed him how helpless were the words of her mother and of the maids to comfort her—he knew only too well why Eva Barbara would not be comforted. How despicable he seemed to himself, crouching in his corner!
Meanwhile the uproar in the house continued; by the zeal with which all nooks and corners were searched he could judge what store the farmer set upon his discovery, and at the same time how hot a reception was awaiting him if he were found. Time seemed endless until the peasant came back into the room shivering with cold, and declared—to Paul’s infinite relief, “Those Rottenstein fellows shall pay dearly for this hubbub! Thunder and lightning! Those fools! It’s clear as day that Paul Schülzle is not in this house. Like as not he got away from them while they were thumping on the door for dear life! He can’t crawl into a rat’s hole, I take it, and he’s not invisible—we should have found him sure as pop if he were in the house. Every corner has been searched—every room except the rafenetle, and there he can’t—humph, the devil! There is no knowing! Never say die!”
Terror took Paul’s breath away—whither, oh whither? He heard the old man’s wife say fretfully, “Go along with you! Have you lost your senses? How could anybody get into this room, not to mention the rafenetle?”
But he did not wait to hear the result of this intervention, and with an alacrity worthy of a better cause he crawled under the bed nearest him. This was no easy thing to do; first his boots and his trumpet hindered him, and then he found under the bed a collection of band-boxes, jars, and baskets filled with eggs, which he cautiously pushed aside, arranging them in such fashion that in case of need they might serve as a barrier to screen him from view. One round basket of eggs he very nearly knocked over; the eggs were still rolling and rumbling about in their receptacle as the farmer entered the rafenetle saying, “That’s all very well, but there is no knowing!”
The farmer examined the clothing hanging along the panels, then, sure enough, he put his candle on the floor and looked under the beds—but for the boxes and baskets the poor devil had been lost. So the farmer went back into the sitting-room grumbling, and Paul heard him say, “There’s nothing to be seen of him! Now I’ll have a word to say to those Rottenstein lads!”
Thereupon a heated debate took place in the hall and in the courtyard, which Paul could not understand. At last the farmer clapped the window to, sent the servants to bed, and came back into the room panting with ire.
“So there!” he roared, “we are well rid of the musician, and of that fellow Martin as well! It is well—quite well so! About Martin I am rather sorry, but you never cared for him much, Eva Barbara, so let him go—there’ll be no lack of suitors. And now, stop crying, child! Go to bed and sleep! But there’s one thing you must promise me, Eva Barbara: be sure you don’t so much as look at that trumpeter again,—that’s all over, d’ye hear me? Eh, will you promise me that?”
“Now hush, don’t say another word, and leave the poor lass in peace!” interrupted his wife. “Have you forgotten that this whole business is your fault? Now go to bed, dear child. Don’t you be troubled; I’ll let no harm come to ye! Go now, the Lord will turn it all to a blessing!”
To lose no word of this conversation, which made Paul’s heart beat faster, he had kept quite still, and now it was too late to leave his uncomfortable place under the bed. The maids left the room and the old people hastened to get into bed.
Shame, rage, fear, and contrition joined to raise Paul’s bitter indignation against himself. So this was what his stubbornness had brought him—to lie in fear and trembling, shaking with cold, under the bed of the man whose son he might have been! To hide like a thief, to be so disgracefully situated that he dared not stir for fear of discovery. Paul ground his teeth. Suppose to-night’s adventures should become known! Holy Virgin! to think of the laughter and the scoffs!
The peasant threw himself from side to side in a restless manner, greatly to the discomfort of his guest, who was vastly alarmed every time the bedstead creaked. And when his wife on the other side began to sigh audibly, the farmer said, “I say, old woman, I can’t sleep. I can’t for the life of me get that vile affair out of my head!”
“It’s just the same with me!” was the troubled answer.
“A most provoking piece of business it is, confound it!”
“Swearing don’t make it any better! Don’t be foolish! The lass likes him better than Martin; there’s no denyin’ it! It’s not so very dreadful that he walked home with her!”
“That’s not what I mean!” growled the peasant. “The lass will not be willing to let Paul slip; and, to tell the truth, for all I’m so enraged with the fellow, I like him better now than all the other lads. That’s where the trouble lies!”
“Good gracious! If that is what you mean——”
“I might have known what was coming!” interrupted the farmer angrily. “There’s no such thing as talking sensible to you women-folks. It’s all over between the lass and Paul Schülzle, now and forever, I tell you. Don’t you say another word about that, whatever you do!”
Except the sighs of the woman and the creaking of the peasant’s bedstead, it was now quiet in the chamber. Paul did not stir. Although the frost was shaking him, and he was biting his fur-cap so that the chattering of his teeth might not betray him, there was a fire raging within him. He was very unhappy under the bed!
In feverish excitement he waited for the couple to fall asleep. After a while the sighs died away, the bedstead ceased to creak, but it was in vain he waited for the reassuring sound of healthy snoring. At Paul’s slightest movement the peasant would lift his head and ask, “Old woman, don’t you hear anything?”
“Be quiet, it’s only mice a-chattering!” was the answer every time; but Paul was obliged to resign himself to keeping very quiet, so as to raise no suspicions.
He suffered the pangs of hell under that bed. It was not only that he was growing stiff and stark with cold—every limb pained him from his uncomfortable position. Now and then he would consider the question of leaving his hiding-place, even at the risk of a fight, and so escaping by main force. What was there to fear? To overpower the old man was child’s-play to him, and before the servants could be roused he would be well out of the way. He would do it—yes, he would! When he had reached this point a tremor seized him. Should he lay hands on a man who had never harmed him, in his own house—ay, in his own bed-chamber? Paul cursed and raved, then he set his teeth more firmly in his fur-cap, and stayed where he was.
His only hope was that in the morning the peasant and his wife would leave the chamber to wake the servants. This movement should serve him to leave his undignified retreat, and seek a transient hiding-place in the hall or kitchen, from whence to slip out of the house later on, when the farm-work had begun.
This hope also was made futile by no less a person than Eva Barbara! Anxiety for Paul had robbed the poor child of sleep; his mysterious disappearance filled her mind with horrible fancies. What if he had come to grief by a fall! Or perhaps in his distressed search for a hiding-place he had wedged himself into some tight place which would not let him escape! There was no doubt to her that he was still in the house; she had seen only too well how the Rottenstein men had surrounded the house; an attempt at flight would have caused a great tumult at the least. Where could he have hidden? She wept bitterly, and each passing hour laid a new burden upon her soul. At last the deep, unbroken stillness in the house grew unendurable to her. How could she rest while he was in danger, suffering pain and distress perhaps? Softly she arose, and walked stealthily through the house, wringing her hands, and whispering his name. There was no reply; everywhere the same deep and fearful silence. Without, the Rottenstein men were still guarding the house. Where could he be? Overpowered by grief and despair, she fell upon her knees.
But there was no help or satisfaction in that. If Paul was still in the house, he was in need of aid and succour. Above all she must master the situation, and gain a free hand to act in his favour. Rousing herself, she hastened to her parents’ bedroom, asked them to remain in bed to make up for the night’s rest they had lost, and saying that she would wake the servants and look after the household.
Had she but known in what a despairing rage her lover close beside her was biting his cap and clenching his fists!
The old people were greatly touched by this tender filial attention after the storms of the previous night; they praised the girl, and gladly assented to her proposal. The house now grew lively; a shrill whistle in the courtyard told Paul that his opponents had given up their plan and were about to disperse. Holy Virgin!—and he was still under the bed! Every moment lessened the chances of escape. How should this end?
At last the family sat about the breakfast-table, on which an enormous dish of sourkraut was steaming. Eva Barbara came in, and without ceremony turned out a large potful of boiled potatoes directly on the table-cloth round about the sourkraut-dish. While the men and maids eagerly seized the potatoes, blowing them, and often shaking their burned fingers, the farmer shook his head thoughtfully, and said, “Lass, lass, if I but knew what’s the matter with ye! You look like a ghost, and there’s still water in your eyes! Do be sensible! Come, wipe off your tears and eat. Sit down; my breakfast swells in my mouth when I see you so woful!”
“I cannot eat, not the least bit. There’s nothing the matter. I’ll be all right again, ere long!” replied Eva Barbara softly. The mother shook her head, the father growled; but they let the girl have her own way, and Eva Barbara walked slowly away to make up the beds in the rafenetle.
Suddenly something began to stir in the clothing on the wall, a pale face emerged, and a pair of lips, trembling with cold, whispered, “Eva Barbara, help me!” With a scream the girl retreated.
The face disappeared, and immediately the good mother put her head through the door, and cried, “For the Lord Christ’s sake—what is it?”
Eva Barbara began to grow dizzy; rapture to find Paul still living, terror to find him so dangerously near discovery, nearly robbed her of her senses. Covering her face with her apron, she stammered, “Oh, dear—I don’t know—I shouldn’t wonder if it was a mouse!”
“How you did frighten me, you silly girl. I am trembling in every limb!” cried the mother indignantly. “Is that all? The mice made a deal of noise the whole night long. I’ll tell you what, you’d better take out the old straw, and fill the ticks with new at once.”
Eva Barbara was unable to reply; she only nodded her head. When her mother was gone, she whispered, “Keep quiet, I’ll help you!” and she hastened away. Before long she returned with a huge basket, removed the bedding, and began to fill in the straw.
Eva Barbara was an uneducated girl; she had never heard of the women of Weinsberg, but in the simplicity of her heart she hit upon the same expedient. It was a difficult piece of work that she undertook; while she was panting under her load it seemed as if her heart would break, for she was deeply conscious of the fact that she was now bearing away her life’s happiness on her back.
Hanehret, one of the servants, thoughtfully remarked, “It’s queer how that basket creaks, and how hard it seems for Eva Barbara to carry it, and there’s naught but straw in it!”
Eva Barbara started, and tried to walk faster, when there was a sudden crash! All of a sudden her load grew horribly light, and there was a muffled thud behind her! She did not dare to look about her; with a cry of despair, “God have mercy upon us!” she rushed out of the room.
The heap of straw in the middle of the room began to stir, a dark figure arose—slowly Paul emerged out of the cloud of dust, and sitting down with the resignation of despair upon the bench behind the stove, he put his hand under his fur-cap, scratching his head, and saying dejectedly, “Good-morning to you all! Here I am—do what you will with me.”
Heinrich Schaumberger (1843-1874).