Part 2 (1/2)
By this time the house-people were coming back from the hay-field, and a loud, clear, female voice was heard without, urging the maids to hasten. ”Hurry, hurry, come out with your milk-pails, the sun is going down, and this year the pasture is so far off; we shall have to milk to night in the twilight. Girl, where are your trenchers? Quick, run in and fetch them. Go right along; I must look after my little ones first.” And into the room came a tall young woman, of seven and twenty years, full of life and energy in face and figure, her cheeks red with health and labor and the heat of the summer day, hair and eyes light, and forehead white as snow, so far as the chip hat had sheltered it from the sun. At the first glance one saw the likeness between her and Habermann, but his features and demeanor seemed reserved, and hers quite fresh and open; her whole appearance showed that she was as active a worker from temperament as he was from honor and duty.
To see her brother, and to fly toward him was all one. ”Karl, my brother Karl, my other father!” cried she, and hung about his neck; but, as she looked more closely into his eyes, she held him back from herself: ”Tell me what has happened, tell me what dreadful thing has happened! what is it?”
Before he could answer, her husband entered the door, and going up to Habermann gave him his hand, and said slowly, as if with an effort; ”Good day, brother-in-law; take a seat.”
”Let him tell what has happened to him,” cried his wife, impatiently.
”Yes,” said Jochen, ”sit down, and then tell. Good day to you also, Brasig; sit down too, Brasig,” and with that Jochen Nussler, or as he was generally called young Jochen, sat down himself in a corner by the stove, which piece of furniture he had bought with his own separate money. He was a long lean man, who carried himself with stooping shoulders, and it seemed as if all his limbs had particular objections to being put to the ordinary use. He was well on toward forty, his face was pale, and as dull as his speech, and his soft sandy hair hung in front and behind of equal length, over his forehead and the collar of his coat, and never had known any fas.h.i.+ons of parting or curling; his mother had from his childhood up combed the hair over his face, and so it had stayed, and when it looked rather tangled his mother would say: ”Never mind, Joching, the rough foal makes the smartest horse.” Whether it was because his eyes must always peer through this long hair, or from his nature, his glance had something shy, as if he could not see things clearly or make up his mind positively, and though he was right-handed, his mouth was askew. This came from tobacco-smoking, for that was the one business which he followed with perseverance, and as he kept the pipe hanging in the left corner of his mouth, it had drawn it down in that direction, and, while looking at him from the right it seemed as if he could not say ”zipp,” from the left he appeared like an ogre who would devour children.
Now he sat there in his own especial chimney-corner, and smoked out of his peculiar mouth-corner, and while his impulsive wife for sorrow and compa.s.sion lamented over Habermann's story as if it had all happened to herself that very day, and now it was her brother, and now his little daughter that she kissed and comforted, he sat and looked over at the chief actors, from the side next Brasig, and with the tobacco smoke came now and then a couple of broken words from the left side of his mouth: ”Yes, it is all so, as you say. It is all as true as leather.
What shall we do about it?”
The Herr Inspector Brasig was the exact opposite of young Jochen; now he ran about the room, now he sat down on a chair, and now on a table, and worked his little legs with jumping up and down, like a linen-weaver, and when Frau Nussler kissed and stroked her brother, he kissed and stroked him also, and when Frau Nussler took the little child in her arms and patted her, then he took her up afterward, and carried her about the room, and sat her down again in a chair, but always on grandmother's cap.
”G.o.d bless me!” cried the house wife suddenly, ”have I clean forgotten everything? Brasig, you should have thought of it. All this time you have had nothing to eat and drink!” and with that she ran to the cup-board, and brought fair, white, country bread, and fresh b.u.t.ter, and went out and brought in sausages and ham and cheese, and a couple of bottles of the strong beer brewed especially for grandfather, and a pitcher of milk for the little ones; and when all was neatly arranged on the white table-cloth, she drew her brother to the table, and taking up the little girl, chair and all, sat her down to the table also, and cut bread, and served them, and all so nimble with hand and foot, and as nimble with mouth and speech. And so bright were knife and fork, and as bright mien and eye; and so pure and white ap.r.o.n and table-cloth, and as pure and white her good heart!
”You shall have something next,” said she to her little twin-apples, and stroked the little flaxen heads. ”Little cousin comes first.
Brasig, sit up to the table. Jochen, you come too.”
”Yes, I may as well,” said Jochen, took a long, last pull at his pipe, and brought his chair and himself to the table.
”Karl,” said Brasig, ”I can recommend these sausages, your sister has an uncommon knack at them, and I have many a time told my housekeeper she should get the recipe, for the old woman messes all sorts of unnatural things together, which don't harmonize at all; in short there is no suitability or connection, although the ingredients are as good as a swine fed exclusively on peas can furnish.”
”Mother, help Brasig,” said Jochen.
”Thank you, Frau Nussler; but with your leave I will take my drop of k.u.mmel. Karl, since the time when you and I and that rascal Pomuchelskopp were serving our apprentices.h.i.+p under old Knirkstadt, I have accustomed myself to take a little k.u.mmel with my breakfast, or with my bit of supper, and it suits me well, thank G.o.d! But, Karl, how came you to get in with that rascal Pomuchelskopp? I told you long ago the beggar was not to be trusted; he is such an old snake, he is a crafty hound, in short, he is a Jesuit.”
”Ah, Brasig,” said Habermann, ”we won't talk about it. It is true he might have treated me differently, but still I was to blame; why did I fall in with his proposal? Something else is in my head now. If I could only have a place again!”
”Of course, you must have a place again. My gracious Herr Count is looking out for a competent inspector for his princ.i.p.al estate; but, Karl, don't take it ill of me, that wouldn't suit you. Do you see, you must be rigged every morning with freshly blacked boots and a tight-fitting coat, and you must talk High-German to him, for he regards Platt-Deutsch as uncultivated, and then you have all the women about your neck, for they rule everything there. And if you could get along with the boots and the dress-coat, and the High-German,--for you used to know it well enough, though you may be a little out of practice now,--yet the women would be too much for you. The gracious Countess looks after you in the cow-stable and in the pig-pen. In short it is a service like--what shall I say? like Sodom and Gomorrah!”
”Look here!” cried the mistress of the house, ”it just occurs to me that the Pumpelhagen inspector is going to leave on St. John's day; that will be the place for you, Karl.”
”Frau Nussler is always right,” said Brasig. ”What the Herr Kammer_rath_ von Pumpelhagen is,”--for he laid the emphasis in the man's t.i.tle always upon _rath_, so that it seemed as if he and the Kammerrath had served in the army together, or at least had eaten out of the same spoon and platter,--”what the Herr Kammerrath von Pumpelhagen is, n.o.body knows better than I. A man who thinks much of his people, and gives a good salary, and is quite a gentleman of the old school. He knew you too, in old times, Karl. That is the right place for you, and to-morrow I will go over there with you. What do yow say to it, young Jochen?”
”Yes,” said Herr Nussler, ”it is all as true as leather.”
”Bless me!” cried the young wife, and an anxious look overspread her handsome face, ”how I forget everything to-day! If grandfather and grandmother knew that we were sitting down to supper with company, and they not called, they would never forgive me. Sit a little closer together, children. Jochen, you might have thought of it.”
”Yes, what shall I do about it now?” said Jochen, as she was already out of the room.
It was not long before the two old people came back with her, shuffling in with their leathern slippers. Upon both their faces lay that lurking expectation and that vague curiosity which comes from very dull hearing, and which quite too easily pa.s.ses into an expression of obstinacy and distrust. It has justly been said that married people, who have lived long together, and have thought and cared and worked for the same objects, come at last to look like each other; and even if that is not true of the cut of the features, it holds good for the expression. Both looked like people who never had allowed themselves any pleasure or satisfaction which would be in the least expensive; both looked shabby and dingy in their clothing, as if they must still be sparing and tug at the wheel, and as if even water cost money. No look of comfort in their old age, no pleasure sparkled in their eyes, for they had had but one pleasure in their whole lives,--that was their Jochen and his good success; now they were laid aside and heaviness lay on their natures, and on their only joy, for Jochen was quite too heavy; but for his success they still cared and toiled,--it was the last goal of their lives.
The old man was almost imbecile, but the old woman still kept her faculties, and her eyes glanced furtively into all the corners, like a pair of sharpers watching their opportunity.
Habermann rose and gave his hand to the two old people, and his sister stood by, looking anxiously in their faces to see what they thought of the visit. She had already told them the occasion of her brother's coming, and that might have been the reason why their faces looked sourer than usual; or it might have been on account of the luxurious supper with which the table was spread.
The old folks sat down to the table. The old woman looked sharply at Habermann's little girl. ”Is that his?” she asked.
The young woman nodded.