He was lying in bed, his heart pounding. It was already dawn, but not yet day. The house was astir, doors were banging, from the courtyard came a noise of hurrying steps and loud voices. Then the screaming began again which had torn his dreaming soul from the depths of his dream to the livid light. It was the piercing weeping and wailing of a woman’s voice—a shrill complaint ceaselessly rising and falling. Andreas leapt out of bed and dressed, but he felt like a condemned man awakened by the voice of the executioner: he was still too much in his dream—it was as if he had committed some dreadful deed, and now everything would come to light.
He ran downstairs in the direction of the voice ringing so dreadfully through the house. Thinking it might be Romana, his blood froze. Then he knew that no such sounds could issue from her though she was being roasted alive in martyrdom.
Downstairs, on the ground floor, a little passage leading sideways was full of farm-hands and maids staring in at the open door of a room. Andreas joined them and they made way for him. On the threshold of the room he stopped. Smoke and a stench of burning rose towards him. A half-naked woman was tied to the bed-post, and from her mouth burst the ceaseless, piercing complaints or imprecations, such as the damned in hell might utter, which had penetrated to the depths of Andreas’s dream. The farmer was busying himself about the raving creature; his wife, half dressed, beside him; the steward was cutting with his pocket-knife the knotted rope which bound her ankles to the bed. The cords from her hands and a gag lay on the floor. The head maid was pouring water from a jug on to the smouldering mattress and the charred posts at the head of the bed, and stamping out the glowing sparks in the straw and twigs piled up beside the bed.
Then Andreas recognized in the screaming woman bound there the young maid who had been carrying on with his servant the day before, and a frightful foreboding made his blood run cold. The half-demented woman seemed to be calming down, reassured by the farmer and his wife. Twitching, she lay across the knees of the housekeeper, who wrapped her up in a horse-rug. She began to answer the farmer’s questions; her swollen face took on a human expression, but every answer turned to a soul-rending shriek, which forced its way from her distended mouth and rang though the house. Had the man stunned her with a blow, or in some other way, and then gagged her? asked the farmer. What kind of poison had been mixed for the dog? Had a long or short time passed since she had contrived to tear the gag out of her mouth? But the woman could utter nothing except that she had screamed with horror for a just God to hear her: he had tied her up like that, had made up the fire under her very eyes, and bolted her in from the outside, had grinned in at her through the window and taunted her in her deadly fear. And all mixed with imploring prayers to forgive her her grievous sin. No name was spoken, but Andreas knew only too well whom they were speaking about. As though he had seen what he had come to see, he passed like a sleepwalker through the crowd of farm-hands and maids, who silently made way for him; behind them all, cowering in a doorway, stood Romana, half dressed, barefoot and trembling—almost as I saw her in my dream, something in him said. When she became aware of him her face took on an expression of boundless horror.
He went into the stable; a young groom followed him, perhaps suspicious. The stall where Andreas’s chestnut had stood the day before was empty; the bay stood in its misery. The tall young groom, who had an honest face, looked at Andreas, who forced himself to ask: “Did he take anything else with him?”
“It doesn’t seem so for the moment,” said the groom. “A few of us are after him, but his horse is certainly the faster, and he’s had as much as two hours’ start.”
Andreas said nothing. His horse was gone, and with it more than half his journey money which was sewn into the saddle. But that seemed nothing compared with the shame of standing thus before the farmer’s people, into whose house he had brought this horror. The saying: “Like master, like man,” came into his mind, and then, like a lightning flash, the saying reversed, so that he stood as if drenched with blood before the honest face of the lad.
“The horse there was stolen from us too,” said the groom, pointing to the bay. “The master knew it at once, but he didn’t want to say anything about it at first.”
Andreas made no answer. He went upstairs, and without counting what money he had left, he took out as much as he thought would repay Finazzer for his stolen property. As he had no idea what a horse like the bay might fetch among the country folk, he put into his pocket as much as he had paid for it in Villach to make sure. Then he stood in unconscious thought for a long time by the table in his room, and at last went downstairs to settle the affair.
He had to wait before he could speak to the farmer, for the three men who had ridden in pursuit had just come back, and were reporting what they had seen and what they had found out from the shepherds and wayfarers they had met; but there was little likelihood of laying hands on the scoundrel. The farmer was kind and composed, Andreas all the more embarrassed.
“Then do you want to keep the horse and buy it from me a second time? For I’m sure you’ve paid honestly for it.”
Andreas said no.
“If not, how can I take your money? You have brought back my stolen property; besides, through you I know there is a bad girl in the stable, so that I can get her out of the house and into the hands of the law before she does more mischief. You are an inexperienced young gentleman, and our Lord had His hand visibly over you. The maid has confessed that when she was with the ruffian she saw a brand on his shoulder, and she thinks that if he had not caught her looking at it, for he turned as white as chalk when he did, he would not have used her so savagely. Thank your Maker that He has preserved you from spending a night in the woods with a runaway murderer. If you mean to go on to Italy, there is a carrier passing here this evening. He will take you to Villach, and from there you will find an opportunity of travelling down to Venice any day.”
THE CARRIER did not arrive until the following evening, and so Andreas spent two more days at the Finazzer farm. It was terrible to him to be on the farmer’s hands after such an affair: he felt like a prisoner. He crept about the house, the people went about their work, nobody heeded him. Through a window he saw the farmer in the distance mount and ride away: he had no further sight of the wife. He went out of the house and up the fields behind the farm. The clouds were hanging low over the valley, the whole world was dreary and heavy, and as desolate as the end of time. He did not know where to go, sat down on a stack of wood. He tried to imagine other weather, but it seemed to him as if this valley could only look as it did now. “And yet I was so happy here yesterday,” he said. He tried to recall Romana’s face, but could not, and at once gave up the attempt. “Such a thing could only happen to you,” he heard his father’s voice saying, as sharp and clear as if it were outside him. He stood up, took a few heavy steps, the voice said it again. “Why do I believe it myself?” he brooded, and with dragging feet he went slowly up the path; yet it was dreadful to him because he had been that way yesterday. Not that he had any thought of Romana: it was only the intolerably distinct feeling of yesterday, of the afternoon hour, which had been followed by the evening, the night, and this morning hour. “Why do I know myself that it had to happen to me?” he brooded on, looking up now and then at the wooded slopes beyond, with the mist lying about them, as a prisoner looks up at the walls of his cell.
Thus dully brooding he counted up his expenses for the four days’ journey from Vienna to Villach, which now seemed exorbitant, then the money for the second horse and the stolen sum. Then he worked out what was left from Austrian into Venetian money: in sequins it seemed scanty enough, but in doubloons so beggarly that he stopped and wondered whether to turn back or travel farther. In his present state of mind he would have turned back, but his parents would never have forgiven him, as so much money had been squandered for absolutely nothing. He seemed to feel as if his parents were not really concerned with him, and his happiness, but only with outward show and what peopl
e would say. The faces of friends and relations rose before him; among them some were malicious and bloated, some indifferent, some even kindly, but there was not one the sight of whom warmed his heart.
He thought of his grandfather Ferschengelder, who had been called Andreas, like him, and of how he had once tramped off from his father’s farm down the Danube towards Vienna with nothing but a silver groat tied up in his handkerchief, and of how he had risen to be an Imperial Lackey-in-Ordinary, with a title. He had been a handsome man, and Andreas had his stature, though none of his bearing. He remembered the taunt that he had nothing of his grandfather, who was the pride of the family, but that it was his Uncle Leopold that he took after. He too as a child had been cruel to animals, and had grown up to be a violent, unhappy wretch, who wasted his substance, could not maintain the honour of the family, and had brought nothing but grief and trouble on those who had had to do with him.
His Uncle Leopold’s thickset figure rose before him, his red face and bulging eyes. He saw him lying on his deathbed, the arms of the Ferschengelders on a wooden scutcheon at his feet. Through one door, flung open by a servant, came the childless, legitimate wife, a Della Spina by birth, with a handkerchief in her beautiful, high-born hand; through the other half-open door slipped in the other, illegitimate wife, the round-faced peasant woman with the pretty double chin, her six children holding hands behind her, and gazing timidly past their mother at their dead, noble father. And as is generally the way with those in sorrow and darkness, in memory Andreas envied the dead man.
Turning back to the farm he began again to reckon by how much the portion of the Ferschengelders had dwindled; he counted up how much of their present income had been sacrificed to his journey, and fell a prey to morbid imaginings. At the dinner-table he found his place set, but today, at the head of the table, the old, white-haired maid sat and served. Not only was the farmer absent, but his wife and Romana too. Andreas felt that he had always known it would be so; he felt that he would not see Romana again. He ate in silence, the servants talked to each other, but none let fall a word about the event of the night. It transpired that the farmer had ridden to Villach to speak to the magistrate. The steward, as he stood up, said to Andreas across the table that the farmer had left a message for him: the carrier might possibly not pass that way until the next day. In that case, Andreas would be so good as to stay on, and to excuse his absence.
It was a cheerless, still afternoon. Andreas would have given anything for a breath of wind. The mist had rolled together into clouds, big and small: they hung there motionless, as if from everlasting to everlasting. Andreas once more mounted the path towards the village. The thought of going downhill was repugnant to him: he could not have borne the return uphill with the Finazzer farm ahead. He knew no road on the other side of the valley. If he only had a companion—a farm dog, or some animal. I have thrown that away for ever, he said to himself.
The only thought that came to him was a torment. He saw himself as a twelve-year-old boy, saw the little stray dog following his every step. The humility with which it took him, the first being it met, as its master, the joy, the bliss with which it moved if he so much as looked at it, were past understanding. If it thought its master was angry it would roll on its back, draw up its little legs anxiously, yield itself utterly, with an indescribable expression in its upturned eyes. One day Andreas saw it in front of a big dog in the posture he thought it took only for him, to soothe his anger and win his good graces. His blood rose, he called the dog to him. Ten paces off it became aware of his angry look. And it came creeping on, its tremulous eyes fixed on Andreas’s face. He taunted it for a low, cowardly beast, and under his taunts it crept closer and closer. It seemed to him that he raised his foot and struck the creature’s spine with his heel. The dog gave a yelp of pain and collapsed, still wagging its tail. He turned on his heel and went away. The dog crept after him; its loins were broken, yet it crawled after its master like a snake, its back giving at every step. At last he stopped; the little dog fixed its eyes on him, wagged its tail, and died. He was not sure whether he had done the thing or not—but it issued from him. Thus the infinite touched him. The memory was torture, yet he felt a wave of home-sickness for the twelve-year-old Andreas who had done it. Everything seemed good that was not here, everything worth living that was not the present. Below him he saw a Capuchin tramping along the road. Before a crucifix he knelt. How serene his untrammelled soul must be! With his thoughts Andreas took refuge in the figure, till it vanished at a bend in the road. Then he was alone again.
He could not bear the valley; he climbed up to the wood. He felt better among the tree-trunks. Damp twigs struck his face, he bounded forward, rotting branches crackled under him on the ground. He measured his bounds so that with each he was hidden behind massive tree-trunks: there were old maples and beeches still standing among the pines, and he hid behind each of them, then bounded on, until he had escaped from himself, as from a prison. He leapt on—he knew nothing of himself save the moment. Now he thought he was Uncle Leopold pursuing a peasant girl like a faun in the forest, now that he was a criminal and murderer like Gotthilff, with the sheriff’s men after him. But he contrived to elude them—fell on his knees before the Empress …
All at once he felt that a human being was really watching from close by. So even this was poisoned! He crouched behind a hazel-bush, as still as an animal. The man in the little clearing, fifty paces in front of him, was peering into the wood. When he had heard nothing for a while he went on with his work. He was digging. Andreas leapt towards him from tree to tree. When a twig cracked the man outside looked up from his work, but at last Andreas came quite close to him. It was one of the farm-hands from Castell Finazzer. He buried the house dog, then threw the earth back into the grave, flattened it down with his spade, and went away.
Andreas threw himself on to the grave and lay for a long time in heavy thought. “Here!” he said to himself. “Here! All this wandering about is futile, we cannot escape from ourselves. We are dragged hither and thither, they sent me all this long way—at last it comes to an end somewhere—here!” There was something between him and the dog, he did not know what, just as there was something between him and Gotthilff, who had brought about the dog’s death. Threads ran to and fro, and out of them a world was woven, behind the real one, and not so empty and desolate. Then he was amazed at himself: “Why am I here?” And he felt as if another man were lying there, and that he must enter into him, but had forgotten the word.
Evening had fallen without a gleam of red in the sky, without any of the signs with which the beauty of the changing day is made manifest. From the heavy clouds a dismal gloom descended, and from the misty air a quiet rain began to fall on Andreas as he lay on the grave. He felt cold, rose, and went down.
In his dream that night the sun was shining. He went deeper and deeper into the forest and found Romana. The deeper he went into the forest the brighter it shone: in the middle, where everything was darkest and most radiant, he found her sitting on a little island meadow, round which shining water flowed. She had fallen asleep hay-making, her sickle and rake beside her. As he stepped over the water she looked up at him, but as she would look at a stranger. He called to her: “Romana, can you see me?” Her eyes moved so vacantly.
“Why, yes, of course,” she said. “Do you know, I don’t know where the dog is buried.”
He felt strange, could not help laughing at what she said. She shrank from him in fear, stumbled into the heap of hay and sank half down on to the ground like a wounded doe. He was close to her and felt that she took him for the wicked Gotthilff, and yet not for Gotthilff either, and he himself was not quite sure who he was. She besought him not to tie her naked to the bed in front of all the people, and not to run away on a stolen horse. He took hold of her, called her tenderly by her name—she was distraught with fear. He let her go: she struggled after him on her knees.
“Come back! I will go with you, if it were to the gall
ows. Father wants to lock me in, mother has her arms around me, my dead brothers and sisters are trying to cling to me too, but I’ll get away, I’ll leave them all to come to you.” He tried to reach her, but she had vanished.
In despair he rushed into the wood—and she came to meet him between two beautiful maples, as friendly and kind as if nothing had happened. Her eyes shone with a strange lustre, her feet were luminous on the moss, and the hem of her dress was wet.
“What kind of woman are you?” he cried.
“This kind,” she said, holding up her mouth to him. “No, this kind!” she cried, as he stretched out his arms to embrace her, striking at him with her rake. She struck him on the forehead, there was a sharp, clear sound as if a pane of glass had broken. He awoke with a start.
He knew that he had been dreaming, but the truth in his dream filled him with joy to the last fibre. Romana’s whole being had been revealed to him with a vividness that was more than life. All his heaviness was dispelled. Within him or without he could not lose her. He had the knowledge—even more, the faith, that she lived for him. He returned to the world like one blessed. He felt that she might be standing below, had thrown a stone at the window pane and awakened him. He ran to the window; a pane was cracked, a dead bird lay on the sill. He went slowly back, the bird in his hand, and laid it on his pillow. The little body poured delight through his veins, he felt as if he could easily have restored the bird to life if he had only taken it to his heart. He sat on the bed, a thousand thoughts streamed round him, he was happy. His body was a temple in which Romana’s being dwelt, and time in its flow swept round him, and lapped on the steps of the temple.
Andreas Page 4
