Part 11 (1/2)
”Do you see, there is one flitting now,” whispered Sali, and Vreni replied just as low: ”I can hear it, but I do not see it.”
”Oh, but watch now,” breathed Sali, ”right there, where the small white cloud is floating, a hand's breadth to the right.”
And then both stared with all their might, and meanwhile opened their lips, thirsty and hungry for more nourishment, like young birds in their nest, in order to fasten these same lips upon the other if perchance they both felt convinced of the existence of that lark.
But now Vreni made a stop, in order to say, very seriously and importantly: ”Let us not forget; this, then, is agreed, that each of us loves the other. Now, I wish to know, what do you have to say about your sweetheart?”
”This,” said Sali, as though in a dream, ”that it is a thing of beauty, with two brown eyes, a scarlet mouth, and with two swift feet. But how it really is thinking and believing I have no more idea than the Pope in Rome. And what can you tell me about your lover? What is he like?”
”That he has two blue eyes, a bold mouth and two stout arms which he is swift to use. But what his thoughts are I know no more than the Turkish sultan.”
”True,” said Sali, ”it is singular, but we really do not know what either is thinking. We are less acquainted than if we had never seen each other before. So strange towards each other the long time between has made us. What really has happened during the long interval since we grew up in your dear little head, Vreni?”
”Not much,” whispered Vreni, ”a thousand foolish things, but my life has been so hard that none of them could stay there long.”
”You poor little dear,” said Sali in a very low voice, ”but nevertheless, Vreni, I believe you are a sly little thing, are you not?”
”That you may learn, by and by, if you really are fond of me, as you say,” the young girl murmured.
”You mean when you are my wife,” whispered Sali.
At these last words Vreni trembled slightly, and pressed herself more tightly into his arms, kissing him anew long and tenderly. Tears gathered in her eyes, and both of them all at once became sad, since their future, so devoid of hope, came into their minds, and the enmity of their fathers.
Vreni now sighed deeply and murmured: ”Come, Sali, I must be going now.”
And both rose and left the cornfield hand in hand, but at the same instant they spied Vreni's father. With the idle curiosity of the person without useful employment he had been speculating, from the moment he had met Sali hours before, what the young man might be wanting all alone in the village. Remembering the occurrence of the previous day, he finally, strolling slowly towards the town, had hit upon the right cause, merely as the result of venom and suspicion. And no sooner had his suspicion taken on a definite shape, when he, in the middle of a Seldwyla street, turned back and reached the village. There he had vainly searched for Vreni everywhere, at home and in the meadow and all around in the hedges. With increasing restlessness he had now sought her right near by in the cornfield, and when picking up there Vreni's small vegetable basket, he had felt sure of being on the right track, spying about, when suddenly he perceived the two children issuing from the corn itself.
They stood there as if turned to stone. Marti himself also for a moment did not move, and stared at them with evil looks, pale as lead. But then he started to curse them like a fiend, and used the vilest language toward the young man. He made a vicious grab at him, attempting to throttle him. Sali instantly wrested himself loose, and sprang back a few paces, so as to be out of the reach of the old man, who acted like one demented. But when he perceived that Marti instead of himself now took hold of the trembling girl, dealing her a violent blow in the face, then seizing her by the back of her hair, trying to drag her along and mistreat her further, he stepped up once more.
Without reflecting at all he picked up a rock and struck the old man with it against the side of the head, half in fear of what the maniac meant to do to Vreni, and half in self-defense. Marti after the blow stumbled a step or two, and then fell in a heap on a pile of stones, pulling his daughter down with him in so doing. Sali freed her hair from the rough grasp of the unconscious man, and helped the girl to her feet. But then he stood lifeless, not knowing what to say or do.
The girl seeing her father lying p.r.o.ne on the ground like dead, put her hands to her face, shuddered and whispered: ”Have you killed him?”
Sali silently nodded his head, and Vreni shrieked: ”Oh, G.o.d, oh, G.o.d!
It is my father! The poor man!”
And quite out of her senses she knelt down alongside of him, lifted up his head and began to examine his hurt. But there was no flow of blood, nor any other trace of injury. She let the limp body drop to the ground again. Sali put himself on the other side of the unconscious old man, and both of them stared helplessly at the pale and motionless face of Marti. They were silent and their hands dropped.
At last Sali remarked: ”Perhaps he is not dead at all. I don't think he is dead. That blow can never have killed him.”
Vreni tore a leaf off one of the wild roses near her, and held it before the mouth of her father. The leaf fluttered a little.
”He is still alive,” she cried, ”Run to the village, Sali, and get a.s.sistance.”
When Sali sprang up and was about to run off, she stretched out her hand towards him, and cried: ”Don't come back with the others and say nothing as to how he came by his injury. I shall keep silent and betray nothing.”
In saying which the poor girl showed him a face streaming with tears of distress, and she looked at her lover as though parting from him forever.
”Come and kiss me once more,” she murmured. ”But no, get along with you. Everything is over between us. We can never belong to each other.”
And she gave him a gentle push, and he ran with a heavy heart down the path to the village.
On his way he met a small boy, one he did not know, and him he bade to get some people and described in detail where and what a.s.sistance was required. Then he drifted off in despair, wandering at random all night about the woods near the village.