Part 20 (1/2)
Even Pilgrim said one day to Lenz: ”Most men are glad to be proved in the right, but I rejoice to see I was mistaken.”
”So? In what?”
”There is no learning a woman. Annele has that in her which may make your life happy. Very likely it is all the better she should not be as dreamy and soft-hearted as you are.”
”Thank you. Heaven be praised for bringing this to pa.s.s!” cried Lenz.
The two friends held each other long and closely by the hand.
CHAPTER XXI.
A GREAT WEDDING WHICH LEAVES A BITTER TASTE BEHIND.
Lenz of the Morgenhalde is to be married! This is the wedding day of Annele of the Lion! Through the whole valley and far beyond its limits this was the one subject of conversation. The same household talked at one time of Annele only, and then only of Lenz. Their names had not yet been joined together. Not till the wedding was fairly over would Annele of the Lion be called Annele Lenz.
The day was clear after a heavy fall of snow, and the sleighing excellent. The jingling of bells and cracking of whips sounded from every hill and valley. At least a hundred sleighs stood before the Lion inn on the wedding morning. Strange horses were quartered in every stall. Many a solitary cow was startled by a visit from a span of n.o.ble horses. It is not for the like of a poor cow, shut up in her solitary winter quarters, to know what is going on in the world; that privilege is reserved for men. Such an event was indeed seldom witnessed in the village. Even the sick old grandmothers who lived on side streets, where they could see nothing and hear nothing but the whips and the sleigh-bells, insisted on being dressed and set up at the window.
Ernestine, the shopkeeper's wife, had been at the Lion for days beforehand helping on the preparations. This was no time to be sensitive at not having been visited or specially invited. The great house entertains, and the va.s.sals must come of themselves.
Ernestine had left her children in charge of a neighbor and her husband to see to the house, tend the shop, and do his own cooking while she was away. When the Lion calls, no other duties must be regarded.
She knew all the arrangements of the house, and could put her hand on whatever was wanted. She presided over kitchen and cellar, enjoying her importance. The dressing of Annele, too, on the wedding morning, fell to her share, as there was no more intimate friend to claim the right.
The Lion showed that day what a wide circle of friends and patrons it had. The whole first-floor, running the entire width of the house, was turned into a single hall. The part.i.tion walls, which were nothing but boards, were taken down, so that the s.p.a.ce was now really a great market-place with a fire in it.
Lenz would naturally have preferred a quiet wedding, but Annele was quite right in arranging otherwise. ”I know what you would like,” she said; ”but we have no right to deprive our acquaintances of their good time. Besides, we are only married once in a lifetime. These people give us trouble enough the year through, we ought to let them have a chance to show their grat.i.tude. Where is there a wedding anywhere about that we don't carry presents? Two thousand florins is the least we have spent in that way. Now let them give us a share. I ask no favors, only to be paid back a portion of what is owed us.”
The wedding presents were, indeed, rich and abundant, both in money and in money's worth. Two days had to be given up to the marriage festivities,--one for neighbors and relations, the second for more distant acquaintances.
Pilgrim appeared at Lenz's house, on the wedding morning, with well-sleeked hair, and a bunch of rosemary in his b.u.t.ton-hole. ”I bring you no wedding present,” he said.
”My mother's picture was present enough.”
”That counts for nothing. I cannot do what I very well know custom requires of me on such an occasion. The truth is, Lenz, I have made myself a present on your wedding day. Do you see this paper? It makes me like the Siegfried we used to read about. I am proof against all the thrusts of fortune, with this hard sh.e.l.l about me.”
”What is the paper?”
”It is an annuity. From my sixtieth year I begin to receive a hundred florins annually, till which time I shall manage to scratch through.
When I am no longer able to live alone, you must fit up a little room for me in your house,--a warm corner behind the stove, where I can play with your grandchildren, and draw them pictures that to their eyes at least will seem beautiful. I had to work hard to pay the first instalment. My painting, stupidly enough, just gets me a living, with not a copper over. So for the last year I have done without my breakfast. The landlord noticed that I took my breakfast and dinner together. In that way I saved up enough. By and by I shall get used to doing without my dinner, and so on, by degrees, till I learn to do without anything. It would be fine to put up the shutters one after another, and with the last one, bid the world good night.”
All the while he was talking, he had been helping Lenz on with his new clothes,--spic and span new from head to foot. He thanked his friend for making him, too, a family man; for, as he pleasantly explained, the annuitants were members of the same household, only they did not keep one another's birthdays. The omission proceeded from no ill will, but simply from their not being acquainted. Pilgrim had all the statistics of the matter at his tongue's end, and reeled them off for Lenz's entertainment, for the sake of warding off any unnecessary excitement or emotion on his friend's part.
When Lenz's toilet was made, came Petrovitsch, of his own free-will, to escort him to the wedding. ”You get no wedding present from me, Lenz,”
he said, with an expression of mystery and cunning on his face; ”you know the reason. You will have it in good time.” By thus holding out the hope that Lenz should be his heir, though he made no actual promise, Petrovitsch secured for himself the place of chief importance at the wedding festivities. He liked to be the central figure, with all revolving about him, and enjoy the consciousness of having his keys in his pocket, and his fire-proof safe at home. That was a pleasure after his own heart. Two such merry days made a pleasant break, too, in the winter's monotony.
Mine host wore his apostle's cap somewhat higher than usual to-day, and was radiant with dignity as he walked to and fro, stroking his freshly shaven chin.
The clear cold winter air rang with music and firing and shouting as the bridal party walked to the church. The building could not hold the numbers that interest and curiosity had brought together. As many stood outside the church as in it. The minister preached a special sermon,--not one taken from a book, that would suit one case as well as another, but one adapted to this particular occasion. He laid great stress upon the sanct.i.ty of the home, the mutual dignity of man and wife. A child naturally inherits the virtues of its parents; but if he turns out badly, the parents are justified before G.o.d and man if they can say, We did our duty; the rest was not in our hands. A child of depraved parents may work his way up to honor and respect; his life is his own. The brother shares a brother's honorable name, but he may also cut himself adrift from it. Not so with the honor of man and wife. They are, in the truest sense, one flesh. Here should be perfect sympathy, a single end and aim. Where either seeks his own advancement at the expense of the other, there is discord, h.e.l.l, eternal death. It is by a righteous ordinance that the wife retains her baptismal name, while receiving a new family name from her husband. She bears the husband's name, the husband's honor. The minister praised the good qualities of the two who now came before the altar. Lenz received the warmest commendation, but Annele came in for a goodly share. Yet he warned them not to think too highly of their peculiar merits. The quick and active must prize and honor the slow; the slow, in the same way, the more active. He reminded them that marriage was not merely a communion of worldly goods, according to the laws of the land, but a communion of spiritual gifts, according to the eternal laws of G.o.d; that all mine and thine should cease, and everything be ours,--and yet not ours, but the world's and G.o.d's.