4 How Florian and Crescence Met Again for the First Time
Crescence rose an hour before daybreak next morning, fed the cattle, and attended quietly to the house-affairs. Once she looked up with pain when it occurred to her that she had not hummed a single tune. She went into the field.
With a bundle of fresh clover on her head,Crescence with a bundle of fresh clover on her head. she came up the valley on her return, looking beautiful, as the healthful exercise brought out her fine form in all its strength and pliancy. With her right hand she held the bundle, and with her left the rake, which lay on her shoulder and also served to steady the load. She walked with leisurely and measured pace, the red blossoms blinking into her rosy face. Not far from Jacob’s crucifix, the voice of Florian, who said, “God bless you, Crescence!” rooted her to the earth.
“Come,” said Florian, again; “I’ll carry it for you.”
“For pity’s sake, don’t make me stop here, Florian, when all the people are looking at us. You see I can’t help myself now, and can’t run away, but I’ll never speak a word to you again as long as I live if you don’t go away. Come to Melchior’s Lenore to-night before curfew, and I’ll tell you every thing.”
“Shake hands, won’t you?”
Laying her left arm across the rake, Crescence took his hand, saying, “Good-bye till to-night.”
All at once, in resuming her steps, Crescence perceived what a heavy load she had to carry: she groaned as if Firnut Pete had clambered on her shoulders in broad daylight. Having reached the crucifix, she deposited the burden on the high stone erected there for that purpose. This silent assistant is always found beside the symbol of faith. At the feet of Him who laid the heaviest burden on himself to make men free and brotherly, men take off a while the load of the day, to gather strength for further toil.
Crescence looked intently at the crucifix, but without thinking of what she did; for her mind was occupied with dread of Florian’s following her. She determined not to turn round to look at him, and did turn, nevertheless; while a glow of pleasure lighted her face as she saw the brisk young fellow striding across the field.
All that day Crescence was serious and taciturn. Before dark, she took a collar, to get Walpurgia to wash it, as she said; but, instead of going to Walpurgia, she hurried to Lenore’s house. The latter came to meet her, saying,—
“Go through the barn: you’ll find him in the garden.”
“Come with me,” said Crescence.
“I’m coming directly: just you go first.”
As she entered the garden, Crescence saw Florian sitting on a log,Crescence saw Florian sitting on a log. stooping greatly, and digging into the wood with a knife which looked somewhat like a stiletto. His long chestnut hair nearly covered his forehead.
“Florian, what are you doing?” asked Crescence.
He threw the knife aside, shook his hair out of his face threw his arms around Crescence, and kissed her. She offered no resistance, but at length said,—
“There! that’s enough now: you are just the same you always were.”
“Yes; but you’re not what you used to be.”
“Not a bit changed. You are cross because I go with the geometer, a’n’t you? Well, you know you and I could never have got married. My folks won’t let me go to service; and stay with them I don’t want to, either, until my hair turns gray.”
“If that’s the way, and you like the geometer, I’ve nothing more to say: you might have told me that this morning. I remember a time when the king might have come,—and he owns the whole country, which is more than helping to measure it,—and you’d have said, ‘No, thank you: I like my Florian better, even if he have nothing but the clothes on his back.’”
“Why, how you talk! What’s the use of all that when we never can get married?”
“Oh, yes: there’s the Red Tailor’s daughter all over. If I’d only never cast eyes on you again! If I’d only broken both my legs before they ever carried me back home!”
“Oh, don’t be so solemn, now! You’ll look kindly at me yet, and laugh with me a little when you meet me, won’t you?”
She gave him a look of playful tenderness, and smiled,—though she was more disposed to weep. Florian, picking up his knife and putting it in his pocket, made a move to go, when Crescence seized his hand and said,—
“Don’t be angry with me, Florian: talk to me, dear. Don’t you see? I haven’t married the geometer yet, but cut him I can’t now: my folks would throttle me in my sleep if I was to turn him off. Nothing can come of it for two or three years, anyhow; and who knows what may happen in that time? Perhaps I shall die. I wish I would, I’m sure.”
Her voice was choked.
Florian’s manner suddenly changed. The languor so unusual in him was gone: their eyes met, and held each other beaming with joy.
“You see,” he began, “as I sat there waiting, I felt as if somebody had broken all my bones. I was thinking how unlucky we are, and again and again I was tempted to stab myself with this knife. If some one had come under my hands, I don’t know—— And I don’t want to go away, either; and I must stay here; and I must have you.”
“Yes; I wish you had; but we can’t live on the old Emperor’s exchequer. I know somebody who could help us, and I could make him.”
“Never tell me about him: he’s nothing to you, and shall be nothing. I won’t have it: you are your father’s child, and if anybody says any thing else I’ll stick him like an eight-day calf. My father has half emptied my pockets already, but I’ve got some money yet: I mean to stay here a while and work under my father’s right as a master-butcher. I want to show these Nordstetters what Florian can do: they shall have respect for me, they shall.”
“You’re a fine fellow,” said Crescence. “Haven’t you brought me any thing?”
“Yes, I have. Here.”
Taking from his pocket a broad ring of silver, and a flaming heart in colors, with a motto in it, he handed them to Crescence.
After the first expressions of delight, she offered to read the motto; but Florian stopped her, saying, “You can do that after I am gone: now let’s have a talk.”
“Yes; tell me something. Is it true that you are courting your master’s daughter in Strasbourg?”
“Not a bit of it. If I was, I wouldn’t stay here; and stay I shall. All the Nordstetters must say that the like of Florian’s not to be seen anywhere.”
They remained long together. When Crescence returned home, she found the geometer waiting for her, and was forced to receive him with smiles. With a heavy heart she reached her chamber at last, and read the motto on the flaming heart:—
“Better build my grave of stone
Than love and call you not my own.”
Weeping, she laid the picture into her hymn-book. It was the old story of what occurs in thousands of instances, in town and country, though often the colors are more blended and the contrasts not so harsh. Crescence loved Florian, and yet could not renounce the hope of a good establishment, such as she might expect to receive at the hands of the geometer: love drew her in one direction, interest in another. It would be strange if such discords did not lead to misery.