The Bachelors

by Adalbert Stifter

  “Then I must also thank you for all the linen I’m taking with me.”

  “For goodness’ sake, I didn’t give it to you—Mother did. Also we’ve still got enough in our cupboards not to feel its loss.”

  “The little silver box that belonged to my dead mother—you know, the one you’ve always liked that looks like a miniature chest with the broken filigree and the little key—I didn’t pack it because I’m leaving it behind for you as a present.”

  “No, it’s too beautiful, I can’t take that.”

  “Please take it, Hanna—you’ll be doing me a very great favour if you take it.”

  “If I’m doing you a great favour, then I’ll take it and keep it for you until you come, and look after it carefully for you.”

  “And the carnations by the fence, tend them too, the poor things, do you hear—and don’t forget the dog; he’s old, it’s true, but he’s a loyal creature.”

  “No, Victor, I won’t forget him.”

  “But that’s not everything I actually want to say—there’s something else I must say.”

  “Let’s hear it, then, Victor!”

  “Mother said I should speak nicely to you today because more often we’ve squabbled with each other—I want to say something good before I leave for ever—and so I came to ask you, Hanna, not to be angry with me.”

  “What on earth are you saying—at no time in my whole life have I been angry with you.”

  “Oh, I know that now too well—you’ve always patiently put up with my cruelty.”

  “Victor, don’t frighten me—you’ve only felt this way today.”

  “No, you’ve always been good—I just didn’t realise it. Listen, Hanna, I want to pour out all my heart to you: I can’t describe to you how unhappy I am.”

  “Dear God! Victor, my dear Victor, what is it that’s troubling you?”

  “All day I’ve been choking with tears that I’ve had to hold back from falling. When I walked up after lunch to the sad little brook and the beech walk, it wasn’t that I was bored but rather so that no eyes might see me—and I thought, I have no one in the whole wide world, no father, no mother, no sister. My uncle is threatening to take the little I do have because my father was in debt to him, and I have to leave the only people who have been good to me.”

  “Oh, Victor, dear Victor, don’t grieve too much. Your father and your mother are dead, it’s true, but that was a long time ago, so you barely knew them. Instead you found another mother who loves you as if she really were yours—and in all this time you have never had to suffer grief at the loss of your dead parents. The fact that we must now part is very, very sad; but don’t wrong God, Victor, for putting us to the test. Bear it without complaint—I’ve borne it, too, all day long and haven’t complained; and I would have continued to, as well, even if you had never come and said another word to me.”

  “Oh, Hanna, Hanna!”

  “And even when you’re no longer here we’ll be thinking about what to send you, we’ll be praying for you and I’ll go into the garden every day and look at the hills you walked over when you left.”

  “No, don’t do that—otherwise it would be altogether too wretched.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it’s all no use—and because it’s not just the fact that I have to leave and that we have to part.”

  “But what, then?”

  “It’s because everything’s all over and because I’m the loneliest creature on God’s earth.”

  “But Victor, Victor.”

  “I’ll never marry—impossible—it’ll never be possible. So you see I won’t have a home, won’t belong to anyone; others will forget me—and that’s good. Do you understand?—I never realised but now it’s so clear—so clear. Can’t you see?—But why are you suddenly so silent, Hanna?”

  “Victor!”

  “What, Hanna?”

  “Did you think this before?”

  “I did.”

  “And now?”

  “Now—now—it’s all in vain, all futile.”

  “Be faithful to her, Victor!”

  “For ever, for ever—but it’s futile.”

  “But why?”

  “Didn’t I tell you? My uncle is taking from me the only property remaining. She is well off; I am poor and won’t be able to support a wife for a long, long time yet. So some suitor will come along who will support her, who will be able to give her beautiful clothes and gifts, and she will accept him.”

  “No, no, no, Victor, she won’t—she’ll never do that. She will love you all her life, as you do her, and will never leave you, as you won’t leave her.”

  “Oh, dear, dear Hanna!”

  “Dear Victor!”

  “And a time will surely come when I’ll come back again—and then I’ll never be impatient and we’ll live like brother and sister who love each other above everything, everything that this world could ever offer, and who will remain true to each other for ever and ever.”

  “For ever and ever,” she said, quickly taking hold of his outstretched hands.

  They burst into tears, weeping bitterly.

  Victor drew her gently to him and she complied. She leant her head and face against his coat and, as if all the floodgates had now, so to speak, been opened, she wept and sobbed so hard, as if her heart were breaking because she was having to lose him. He put a protective and comforting arm around her and pressed her to his heart. He held her to him more and more tightly like some helpless creature. She nestled against him as against a brother who is now so very, very dear. He stroked her hair, which she wore parted, and which he then bent down and kissed—but she lifted her face up to his and kissed him passionately on his lips, more passionately than she ever thought she could kiss anything.

  They then stood for a while without speaking.

  Then the gardener’s boy came and told them their mother had sent him to let them know they could come to supper.

  They were still holding the silk strips that had begun their conversation but these were crumpled and many were wet with Hanna’s tears. They therefore put these together as best they could and went hand-in-hand up the garden path towards the house. When the mother saw them coming and noticed her children’s tear-reddened eyes, she smiled and had them go into the dining-room.

  The meal was brought in and the mother served both of them with what she believed they liked best; she didn’t ask what they had been talking about, and so all three of them ate together just as they had always eaten together every evening before now.

  Hanna had very large brown eyes that were constantly and for no reason filling with tears during the meal.

  When they had finished and before they got ready for bed, Hanna’s present had to be fetched. It was a wallet lined with snow-white silk and contained the travel money that the mother had put inside it.

  “I’ll take the money out,” said Victor, “and keep the wallet.”

  “No, no,” said the mother, “leave the money where it is; see how lovely the crisp, printed notes look lying against the white silk. Among other things Hanna will always have to keep you supplied with wallets.”

  “I’ll take very good care of it,” Victor replied.

  His mother then locked the side of the wallet containing the money with the tiny little key, which she showed him how to hide.

  This done she shooed them off to bed.

  “Never mind that,” she said, when she saw that Victor was about to thank her for the travel money, “off to bed with you both. You, Victor, have to be up in the hills by five o’clock tomorrow morning. I’ve seen to it that the farm-hand wakes us in time, in case I should oversleep. Before you set off you must get a good solid breakfast down you. So, children, good night and sleep well.”

  While saying this, she had lit two candles for the children, as she did every evening; they both took their own from the table, respectfully wished their mother a good night and went to their rooms.

  Victor was not yet ready for his
bed. The multitude of bulky shadows thrown by the things stacked around made the room inhospitable. He went to one of the windows and looked out. The elder bush had become a black clump and the water was no longer visible: where it should have been flowing, in its place was a dark slab—only the occasional glint of light showed that it was there and moving; when all the voices of the house and village had fallen silent, a soft, soft trickling sound could also be heard coming in through the open window from this friend, which had over so many years flowed past the boy’s sleeping quarters. Thousands of stars were burning in the night-sky but not a single glimmer of light from the moon, not even the thinnest sickle.

  Victor finally lay down on his bed to sleep his last night here where he had spent his life for as long as he had been able to think, and to await the morning which was to take him away perhaps for ever.

  That morning came very quickly. Hardly had Victor, so he thought, begun take those first deep, refreshing breaths of sleep when he heard a soft knocking on his door and the voice of his mother, who had needed no farmhand to wake her: “It’s four o’clock, Victor. Get dressed, don’t forget anything and then come downstairs, do you hear me?”

  “I hear you, mother.”

  She went back downstairs but he jumped out of bed. In the double grip of the pain of leaving and the thrill of travel, he got dressed and went downstairs to the dining-room. In the dim morning light he could see breakfast already laid out on the table—never had they eaten so early. They ate in silence. Victor’s foster-mother looked at Victor almost unflinchingly; Hanna didn’t trust herself to raise her eyes and look at anything. Victor soon stopped eating. He rose from his chair and gathered himself. After walking round the room a couple of times, he then said: “It’s time, Mother—I’ll leave now.”

  He put the knapsack over his shoulders, tightening the straps so it was firmly positioned. Then he picked up his hat, put his hand to his chest to see if he had his wallet and checked to see if there was anything at all he had forgotten. After this he stepped forward towards his mother, who with Hanna had got to her feet, and said: “Thank you, dear Mother, for everything …”

  He could scarcely bring himself to say anything more and she anyway didn’t let him continue. She led him to the consecrated water by the door, sprinkled him with a few drops, made the sign of the cross on his forehead, mouth and chest, and said: “So, my child, be off with you now. Stay as good as you’ve always been till now and be sure your heart remains kind and loving. Write often and be sure to say if there’s anything you need. God will surely bless the road you tread, since you have always followed Him.”

  At these words the tears began to trickle down her face, her lips continued only to move and she was unable to say anything.

  After a moment she braced herself again and said: “You’ll find the boxes and the suitcase upstairs waiting for you at your destination when you arrive. Take good care of the money and the letters of recommendation your guardian gave you, don’t get overheated and don’t drink anything chilled. All will be well. Going away is not such a bad thing and everywhere you will find good people, who will be well-disposed towards you. If I hadn’t lived so long in our hills and by the apple-tree, then I would love to travel to strange parts. And so farewell, my Victor, farewell.”

  With these words she kissed him on the cheeks. Silently he reached out a hand to Hanna, who was overwhelmed with weeping, and left. Outside in front of the door were also standing the servants and the gardener. Without saying anything he shook hands with all of them—they stepped to one side and he headed down the narrow garden path towards the little gate.

  “How handsome he is,” said his mother, almost bursting out loud into tears, as with Hanna she watched him go, “how handsome with his brown hair, his fine gait—oh, the preciousness, the vulnerability of youth, dear God!”

  And the tears ran down her wet hands, which she was holding up in front of her face and eyes.

  “You once told me and Victor,” said Hanna, “that no one would ever see you crying again in sorrow—and now you are, Mother.”

  “No, my child,” replied the mother, “these are tears of joy that he has grown into the young man he is. It is really strange: he never knew his father and yet, when he walked out just now, he had his father’s head, his gait and bearing. He will turn out fine and my tears, my child, are tears of joy.”

  “Oh, not mine, not mine,” said Hanna, lifting her handkerchief again to her ceaselessly streaming eyes.

  Victor, meanwhile, had gone out through the gate. He passed the elder bush, crossed the two footbridges, walked past the fruit trees he had known over so many years and climbed up towards the meadows and fields. At this high point he stopped for a moment and, on hearing above the faint and indistinct sounds of the village the furious howling of the Pomeranian dog, which they had had to catch and tie up to prevent it from following him, the tears suddenly came pouring out and he almost shouted out loud: “Where will I ever find such a mother again and such creatures that so love me? The day before yesterday I was in such a great hurry to leave the town in order to spend another few hours in the valley and today I’m leaving to go somewhere else for ever and ever.”

  As he had finally reached a place which was no longer so far away from the highest ridge of the hill, he looked back once more for the last time. He could still make out the house, along with the garden and fence. Against the green he could see something that was as red as Hanna’s shawl. But it was only a little chimney cowl.

  He then walked up as far as the ridge of the hill—he did look round again—over the entire valley a radiantly beautiful day lay spread out. Then it took only a few steps for him to walk round the summit and everything had disappeared behind him, and a new valley and new horizon lay before his eyes. In the meantime the sun had risen quite high, drying the grass and his tears, sending down its warm rays to the lands beneath. He walked on, taking a steep course along the slope of the hill; on pulling out his pocket watch later, he saw that it was half-past seven.

  “Now the bed will have been stripped and be looking bare,” he thought, “the last object remaining to me. The linen bedclothes will have been taken out and the cold wood exposed. Or perhaps the maids are already in my room, busy making it look completely different.”

  And then he walked on further.

  He found himself climbing higher and higher; the space between him and the house that he had left behind him grew, as did the time between his present thoughts and the last words he had spoken in the house. His path led him always across hillsides he had never crossed before—now uphill, now downhill, but always higher overall. He was glad he hadn’t had to go into the town again to take his leave, since he wouldn’t have wanted to have seen any of his friends today. The tenant farms and dwellings he came across lay now to his right, now to his left—every so often he met someone walking along who paid him no attention.

  Midday approached and he continued walking, on and on.

  The world grew bigger, grew brighter and spread wider all about him as he headed forward—and everywhere he went thousands upon thousands of creatures rejoiced.

  IV

  THE JOURNEY

  AND THE WORLD BECAME even bigger and brighter, with its countless beings rejoicing all around, and Victor strode from one hill to the next, one valley to the next, in his heart the heavy ache of a child and in his head fresh and wondering eyes. Every day he spent far from his home made him stronger and more capable. The barren breeze swept through his brown hair; the white clouds piled up like dazzling snow here as they did, too, in the valley of his birth; his fine cheeks had already taken on a darker hue, while on his back he carried his rucksack, in his hand a staff. The sole creature that bound him to his home was the old Pomeranian, which was running alongside him looking desperately thin. Incredibly, it was on the third day after his departure that the dog had unexpectedly caught up with him. Victor had been walking up through a wood along a cool, broad and damp path when, lo
oking round, as he often did in order to drink in the sight of the wet pine trees glinting in the sun, he became aware of something racing towards him. But how astonished he was when, once the dark little shape had reached him, it sprang up and proved to be none other than his foster-mother’s old and trusty Pomeranian. But what sort of condition the animal was in: mud had caked its beautiful fur, which was filled to the roots with white dust from the road, and its eyes were red and inflamed; when it tried to pant out whining sounds of joy, it couldn’t, for its voice had become hoarse and when it tried to jump up, also for joy, it fell back on its hind legs into the ditch.

  “Poor old Pom,” said Victor, squatting down next to him, “do you see now what a crazy thing that was you just attempted, you silly old chap?”

  But at these words the dog wagged its tail as if it had been praised to the skies.

  The first thing the young man did was to wipe him down a little with a cloth so that he at least looked better. Then he took out two chunks of bread he had put into his pocket that morning in case he should run into a beggar, sat himself down on a large stone and began to break off pieces that he threw to the dog; the animal bolted them down ravenously and then carried on eyeing the boy’s hands long after these were empty.

  “I haven’t got any more now,” said Victor, “but at the first farmhouse we come to we’ll buy a bowl of milk and you can have it all to yourself.”

  The dog seemed reassured, as if he had understood these words.

  A few steps further on where a thin thread of water was running down from a moss-covered rock, Victor caught up enough water in the leather beaker his mother had given him until it was full and offered it to the dog to drink. But the latter tasted it just a little and then looked up expectantly at the boy, for he wasn’t thirsty and must have drunk out of all the hundreds of ditches and streams he had passed through.

  They then walked on together and at the first inn Victor wrote a letter to his mother telling her that the dog was with him and that she shouldn’t worry about it.