Part 8 (1/2)
Herr Giebenrath applied himself to his work at the cider press with dignity and considerable noise; Hans helped him. Two of Flaig's children had responded to the invitation. They were sorting apples, shared a little gla.s.s between them with which they sampled cider, and clutched big hunks of bread in their fists. But Emma had not come with them.
Not until his father had been gone for half an hour with the cooper did Hans dare ask where she was.
”Where's Emma? Didn't she feel like coming?”
It took a few moments for the children to swallow and clear their throats.
”She's gone, she has,” they said and nodded.
”Gone? Gone where?”
”Home.”
”With the train?”
The children nodded eagerly.
”When?”
”This morning.”
The children again reached for their apples.
Hans fumbled about at the press, stared into the cider keg until the truth slowly dawned on him.
When his father came back, they worked and laughed, and finally the children said thank you and ran off. At dusk, everyone went home.
After supper Hans sat alone in his room. It turned ten, then eleven o'clock, and he did not light his lamp. Then he fell into a long deep sleep.
At first, when he awoke later than usual, he had only an indistinct feeling of an accident or loss. Then he remembered Emma. She had left without saying good-bye, without leaving a message. She must have known when she would be leaving the last night he'd seen her. He remembered her laughter and her kisses and the accomplished way she had of surrendering herself. She hadn't taken him seriously at all.
The pain and anger over this loss and the restlessness of his inflamed but unsatisfied pa.s.sion came together in a single agonizing confusion. The torment drove him from the house into the garden, then onto the streets and into the woods and finally back home again.
In this way he discovered -- perhaps too soon -- his share of the secret of love, and it contained little sweetness and much bitterness: days filled with fruitless lamentation, poignant memories, inconsolable brooding; nights during which a pounding heart and tightness around the chest would not let him sleep or plagued him with dreadful nightmares; nightmares during which the incomprehensible agitation of his blood turned into haunting images, into deathly, strangling arms, into hot-eyed fantastic ogres, dizzying precipices, giant flaming eyes. Waking, he found himself alone in his room, surrounded by the loneliness of a cool fall night. Hans suffered with longing for his girl and tried to suppress his moans in a tear-stained pillow.
The Friday when he was to begin his appentices.h.i.+p drew near. His father bought him a set of blue overalls and a blue woolen cap. Hans tried the outfit on and felt quite ridiculous in it. Whenever he pa.s.sed the school house, the princ.i.p.al's house or the math teacher's, Flaig's workshop or the vicarage, he felt quite wretched. So much effort, so much pride and ambition and hope and dreaming -- and all for nothing. All of it only so that now, later than any of his former schoolmates and ridiculed by all, he could become the junior apprentice in a mechanic's workshop.
What would Heilner have said?
It took some time for him to reconcile himself to his blue mechanic's outfit but finally he began looking forward a little to the Friday on which he would be initiated. At least he would be experiencing something again!
Yet these hopes were not much more than glimmers in a generally gloomy sky. He could not forget the girl's departure, and his blood seemed even less willing to forget the agitation of those days. It gave him no peace and clamored for more, for relief from the awakened desire. And so time pa.s.sed with oppressive slowness.
Fall was more beautiful than ever -- with a gentle sun, silvery mornings, colorful bright middays, clear evenings. The more distant mountains a.s.sumed a deep velvety blue, the chestnut trees shone golden yellow and the wild grapevine curtained walls and fences purple.
Hans was in a state of restless flight from himself. In the daytime he roamed through town and fields. He avoided people since he felt they could detect his lovelorn state. But in the evening he went out into the streets, made eyes at every maid and crept guiltily after every pair of lovers. The magic of life and everything he had ever sought seemed to have been within reach with Emma. But even with her it had eluded his grasp. If she were with him now, so he believed, he would not be timid; no, he would tear every secret from her and completely penetrate that garden of love whose gate had been slammed in his face. His imagination had become inextricably tangled in this murky and dangerous thicket: straying despondently, his imagination preferred stubborn self-torment to acknowledging the existence of clear friendly s.p.a.ces outside this confining, magic circle.
In the end he was glad when the dreaded Friday arrived. With no time to spare in the morning, he donned his new blue outfit and cap and walked down Tanner Street, a little timidly, toward Schuler's workshop. A few acquaintances looked at him inquisitively and one even asked: ”What's happened, you becoming a locksmith?”
The shop already resounded with the din of work. The master himself was busy forging. He had a piece of red-hot iron on the anvil and one of the journeymen was wielding the heavy sledge hammer, the master himself only executing the finer, form-giving blows, handling the tongs which held the iron, and striking so rhythmically with the lighter forge hammer that it rang out through the wide-open door clear and bright into the morning.
The senior journeyman and August both stood at the long workbench black with grease and iron filings, each of them busy at his vise. Along the ceiling purred the rapidly moving belts that drove the lathes, grindstone, bellows and drilling machine -- all driven by water power. August nodded to his companion as he entered and motioned to him to wait at the door until the master had time for him.
Hans gazed timidly at the forge, lathes, the whirring belts and the neutral gears. When the master had finished forging his piece of iron he came over and extended his warm, callused hand. ”You hang your cap up there,” he said and pointed to an empty nail on the wall. ”Now come with me. There's your place and your vise.” With that he led Hans to the vise farthest in the back. He demonstrated how a vise is handled and how you keep your bench and tools in order.
”Your father already told me that you're no Hercules, and I guess he's right. Well, until you're a little stronger you don't have to work at the forge.”
He reached under the workbench and drew out a cast-iron cogwheel.
”You can start on that. The wheel is still rough from the casting and has little k.n.o.bs and ridges all over. They've got to be filed off, otherwise the fine tools will be ruined later on.”
He clamped the wheel into the vise, picked up an old file and showed Hans how it was done.
”Well, now you take it from here. But don't you use any other of my files! That'll keep you busy till lunch break. Then you can show it to me. And while you're working don't pay attention to anything but your instructions. An apprentice doesn't need to have ideas of his own.”
Hans started to file.
”Stop!” shouted the master. ”Not like that. You put your left hand on top of the file. Or are you a lefty?”
”No.”
”Well, all right. It'll work out somehow.”
He went back to his vise, the one nearest the door, and Hans tried to do his best.
As he made his first strokes he was surprised how soft the ridges were and how easily they came off. Then he realized that only the topmost brittle coating was flaking off and the granular iron he had to file off was underneath. He pulled himself together and kept on filing. Not since the days of his boyhood hobbies had he tasted the pleasure of seeing something concrete and useful take shape under his hands.
”Not so fast!” shouted the master over the din. ”You've got to file in rhythm: one-two, one-two, and press on it, or you'll ruin the file.”
The oldest of the journeymen had to go to the lathe, and Hans could not keep from glancing in his direction. A drill bit was fitted into the chuck, the belt was moved into position, and the s.h.i.+ning drill buzzed while the journeyman severed a hair-thin glinting steel shaving from it.
All around lay tools, pieces of iron, steel and bra.s.s, half-completed jobs, s.h.i.+ning little wheels, chisels, drills, drill bits and awls of every shape and size; next to the forge hung the hammers, top and bottom tools, anvil, tongs and soldering irons. Along the walls lay rows of files and cutting files; along the shelves lay oil rags, little brooms, emery files, iron saws and oil cans, soldering fluid, boxes with nails and screws. Every moment someone or other had to go to the grindstone.
Hans noted with satisfaction that his hands were already black and hoped that his overalls would follow suit, for they still looked ridiculously new and blue next to the black and patched outfits of the others.
Later on in the morning people coming from the outside brought even more activity into the shop. Workers came from the nearby garment factory to have small parts ground or repaired. A farmer came and asked about a mangle of his they were repairing and cursed blasphemously when it was not ready. Then a smartly dressed factory owner came and the master took him to a room off to the side.
In the midst of all this, people, wheels and belts went on working smoothly, evenly, and thus for the first time in his life Hans understood labor's song of songs -- work. It has -- at least for the beginner -- something enchanting and pleasantly intoxicating as he beholds his own small person and own small life become a part of a greater rhythm.
At nine o'clock they had a fifteen-minute break and everyone received a chunk of bread and gla.s.s of cider. Only now could August greet the new apprentice. He talked to him encouragingly and enthused some more about the upcoming Sunday on which he wanted to treat his friends to a great spree with his first wages. Hans asked him what kind of wheel that was which he was filing smooth and was told that it was part of the watchworks of a tower clock. August was about to demonstrate the part it would play in the mechanism when the senior journeyman picked up his file again and they all quickly went back to their places.
Between ten and eleven Hans felt himself tiring. His knees and his right arm ached a little. He kept s.h.i.+fting his weight from one leg to the other and surrept.i.tiously stretched his limbs, but it did not help much. So he put down the file for a moment and rested against the vise. No one was paying any attention to him. As he stood there resting and heard the belts whirring above him, he felt slightly dizzy and he closed his eyes for a minute. Just then the master came up behind him.
”Well, what is it? p.o.o.ped already?”
”A bit,” Hans admitted.
The journeyman laughed.