The Bachelors

by Adalbert Stifter

  While the old man had thus been speaking, they had travelled gradually a good distance along the shore of the island and approached the place where the rocks are lower, forming a gentle, sandy bay that then rises up into sloping woodland. As soon as the rowers reached this spot, they immediately steered the tip of the boat into it, propelling it towards the sand. The old man got out, pulled the boat by the chain at the prow yet further towards dry land, so that Victor could disembark without getting his feet wet. The latter then stepped out over the prow and the dog sprang out after him.

  “Now if you take that path, which you’ll soon see up there,” the old man said, “you’ll come to the Hermitage. There’s also a very sturdy boathouse on the island, in fact—on the shore that faces the Grisel—which the monks had built with wooden beams into the sloping cliffside to store their boats; but you can’t get in that way because the wooden barricade is always locked. Now God bless you, young sir—and if you’re not staying too long and the owner of the hermitage doesn’t give you a boat for the return crossing, then just get old Christoph to let me know and I’ll pick you up again from this spot. They at the Hermitage don’t always have time to send out a boat.”

  Victor had meanwhile taken the agreed fare out of his small purse and handed it to the man, whereupon he said: “Goodbye, old friend, and if you’ll allow, I’ll call by at your house on my return and perhaps you can then tell me some more of your stories about the past.”

  He didn’t venture to speak to the girl, who had been standing still all the while in the back of the boat.

  But the old man replied: “Ah, and how could such a young and educated gentleman find pleasure in my stories, now?

  “More than you think perhaps, and more than in those to be read in books,” said Victor.

  The old man smiled, as the answer pleased him; he didn’t pursue the matter, though, but bent down, wound up the short chain, stowing it back into the prow, and got ready to leave.

  “Well, God be with you, young sir,” he concluded, gave the boat a shove with his foot, and jumped into it quickly, making it rock from side to side as it slid back into the water. After a few moments Victor could see the two oars rising and falling rhythmically as the boat thrust out across the mirroring water.

  The shore rose up and it took him several steps to climb to the topmost edge, from where he could look far out over the lake. Gazing after the people in the departing boat, he said to his companion, as if the dog were a rational being and could understand his words: “I thank God that we have arrived at our journey’s end. Whatever else may follow, the Lord has brought us here safe and sound.”

  He gave one last look out across the broad and beautiful surface of the lake, which in the fading light of evening was growing dark, then turned round and walked into the bushes towards the path in front of him.

  At first it was uphill all the time through shrubbery and deciduous trees—but then the ground levelled out. The bushes had petered out and now there were only exceptionally large sycamore trees standing round about in a dark meadow as if according to a certain order and set of rules. It was clear to see that a good road had once run along here but it had become choked and shrunken with rank scrub everywhere. Victor walked through the strange sycamore garden, after which, passing through a fresh growth of bushes, he reached a curious place. It was like a meadow, on which there were small fruit trees, some of which were rotten. But in the midst of these trees in the grass was the round, stone lip of a well and all around between the trees stood grey stone dwarves holding bagpipes, lyres, clarinets and other kinds of musical instruments. Many were disfigured and there was no track or made-up path from one to the other; instead they stood there simply in the long, straggling grass. Victor looked at this strange world for a while and then toiled onwards. His path took him from this garden, down some old stone steps into a hollow and up again on the other side. There were bushes here like everywhere else but behind them Victor saw a high windowless wall in which there was a iron grille and where the path ended.

  Victor correctly concluded that this must be the entrance to the Hermitage and so approached the grille. On reaching it, he found it closed and there was no bell and no knocker. It was patently clear now that this was indeed the entrance to the house. Behind the iron grille was a levelled, sandy square on which flowers were growing. On the square was a house, but only the front part of this was visible—the rear was lost to sight behind bushes. Wooden steps led up into the first floor of the house directly from the sand square. On the other side of the square, bordered again with bushes, it was clear that the lake began once more, for behind the greenery was the fine, soft mist that likes to collect over mountain water, and, rising up, the Grisel with a pink glow on its rock face.

  While Victor was thus looking looking in through the iron bars of the grille and trying in various ways to find a device which might open it, an old man stepped out of the bushes and looked towards Victor.

  “Would you be so good,” said the boy, “as to open the gate for me and take me to the master of this house, if this building is indeed called the Hermitage?”

  The man said not a word in reply but instead came nearer, looked at Victor for a while and then asked: “Did you come on foot?”

  “I came on foot as far as Hul,” Victor replied.

  “But is that really true?”

  Victor went bright red, for he had never lied.

  “If it were not,” he answered, “then I wouldn’t say so. If you are my uncle, as it would perhaps seem, I have a letter here from my guardian that states who I am and that I have covered the journey here on foot only at your express request.”

  With these words the youth pulled out the letter, which, as his foster-mother had recommended, he had kept clean, and reached it through the bars of the grille.

  The old man took the letter and put it away unread.

  “Your guardian is a fool and a man of limited ability,” he said. “I can see that you look exactly like your father did when he started to get up to his tricks. I saw you already as you were coming across the lake.”

  Victor, who had never heard a callous word in his life, was struck dumb and waited simply for the other to open the gate.

  The old man, however, said: “Take a rope and a stone and drown that dog in the lake, then come back here; I’ll open up for you in the meantime.”

  “Whom should I drown?” asked Victor.

  “That dog you brought with you.”

  “And if I don’t?”

  “Then I won’t open the gate for you.”

  “Come, then, Pom,” said Victor.

  With this he turned round, ran down the steps into the hollow, climbed up the other side, ran through the dwarf garden, through the sycamore plantation, through the shrubbery beyond, and so reached the bay of the lake, shouting out with all the strength he could muster: “Boatman! Old man!”

  But it was impossible for the old man to hear him. You wouldn’t have been able to hear the crack of a rifle shot any more at that distance. The little boat stood out like a black fly against the dark promontory at the foot of Mount Orla that jutted out into the evening light of the lake. Victor took out his handkerchief, tied it to his staff and waved it back and forth every which way to attract attention. But no one saw him and finally, with him still waving, the black fly disappeared around the spit of land. The lake was completely empty and all that Victor could see, playing along the rocks of the island, was the soft flecking of the waters in the evening wind that had arisen meanwhile.

  “It doesn’t matter—it really doesn’t matter,” he said. “Come, Pom, we’ll sit ourselves down in the bushes by the shore and see the night through there. Tomorrow a boat is sure to appear which we can wave over to us.”

  He was true to his word. He sought out a spot where the grass was short and dry and where there were thickly overhanging bushes but where he still had a good view of the lake.

  “You see what a good thing it is,” he said,
“to put something by every morning. You’re seeing the truth of this for the second time now on this journey.”

  At this he pulled out two bread rolls he had taken with him that morning at the inn by the river Afel and began to feed both himself and the dog with them. When this business was concluded, the traveller, who had believed he had reached his journey’s goal, sat for the first time in the simple lodgings of the open air and looked at the objects around him. The mountains, the beautiful mountains he had so delighted in as he had approached, grew darker and darker and cast threateningly dark and splintered patches onto the lake, in which was still mirrored the pale gold of the evening sky, which now and then leapt up through the dark mountain reflections. And the objects round about him, wrapping themselves about in the shadows of the night, grew ever more strange. The lake was the colour of dross and pale gold and these were stirring and often intermingling, a sign that a gentle wind must have been getting up. Victor’s eyes were accustomed of course only to the beautiful and lively impressions of the day, but he found himself unable to divert his gaze from this gradual draining away of colour from things and from the night’s enshrouding peace. His limbs were so tired that sitting on the soft grass, protected by the bushes stretching over him, seemed very pleasant to him. He sat there with the dog next to him so long that eventually the darkness closed in with ever-increasing swiftness over lake, mountains and sky. He then decided to lie down. He fastened all the buttons of his coat, as his foster-mother had taught him, so as not to catch cold—round his throat he tied the neckerchief he had taken off during the day—he took out his waxed raincoat and put it over him—then he arranged the knapsack as a pillow and laid his head down, now that the darkness stood round him like a wall. Soon the urge to sleep spread through all his tired limbs where he lay. The bushes whispered in the gentle breeze from the lake which had wafted over to where he was, and the surf murmured distinctly from one rock face to the other.

  His senses surrendered up to these ever-weakening impressions, and he was about to lapse into oblivion when he was awoken by a soft growling from the dog. He opened his eyes—a human shape was standing several steps in front of him close to the landing place, silhouetted darkly against the glittering water of the lake. Victor strained his eyes to see if he could recognise more from the shape but the outline revealed only that it was a man, whether young or old he was not able to ascertain. The figure was standing there very quietly and seemed to be looking fixedly out over the water. Victor raised himself to a sitting position and also remained quiet. On the dog growling again more loudly this time, the figure turned round suddenly and called out:

  “Is that you there, young sir?”

  “A young traveller with his dog is here,” said Victor. “What do you want?”

  “For you to come to dinner, for the mealtime is nearly over.”

  “For dinner? To whose dinner? And who is it you’re looking for?”

  “I’m looking for our nephew, for his uncle has been waiting for a quarter-of-an-hour already.”

  “Are you his companion—or his friend?”

  “I am his servant and go by the name of Christoph.”

  “Of the master of the Hermitage, of my uncle?”

  “Of the very same. He received notice of your landing.”

  “Then tell him,” said Victor, “I intend to sit here the whole night and that I will rather hang a stone about my own neck and throw myself into the lake than drown the dog that is with me.”

  “I’ll tell him that.”

  At this the man turned round and was about to leave.

  Victor cried out after him again: “Christoph, Christoph.”

  “What do you want, young sir?”

  “Is there no other house or cottage or anything else on the island where one could spend the night?”

  “No, there’s nothing here,” the servant replied. “The old cloisters are locked, the church, too—the store rooms are crammed full of old tools and also bolted and barred—apart from that there’s nothing.”

  “All right,” said Victor. “I definitely won’t be visiting my uncle’s house—I won’t be asking for shelter there. I think the old boatman who brought me across mentioned your name and said you sometimes went to Hul.”

  “I fetch our provisions and other things.”

  “Listen, then, I’ll pay you handsomely if you ferry me back to Hul tonight.”

  “Even if you paid me far more than I would ask, it would be out of the question for three reasons. First, all the boats are in the log boathouse, the gate is locked and, what’s more, every boat is chained up with a padlock round its crossbeam, to which I have no key. Secondly, even if there were a boat, no ferryman would take you. I’ll tell you why. Do you see the white patches on the lake over there towards Mount Orla. Those are patches of mist, sitting almost on the rocks of the shore below the Orla. We call them ‘the geese’. And if the geese are ever sitting in a row, then a mist is on the way. When the westerly—that’s the wind that comes out of the ravines down onto the lake after every sunset—when that stops blowing, then within half-an-hour the lake is full of mist and it’s then impossible to know where to steer a boat. The mountain ridges run down into and under the water and are often barely submerged. If you ran into one of those and the boat sprang a leak, then you’d have to clamber out and wait in the water until someone saw you when it was light. But no one would see you because the fishermen never come near those reefs. Do you understand what I’m saying, young sir?”

  “Yes, I understand,” Victor answered.

  “And the third reason I can’t take you across is because if I did I would be a disloyal servant. The master hasn’t instructed me to take you to Hul, and if he doesn’t do so, then I won’t.”

  “All right,” replied Victor, “then I’ll stay sitting here until some vessel comes close enough tomorrow for me wave it over here to me.”

  “There aren’t any vessels that come this near,” replied the servant. “There’s no trade route across this lake of ours because the only route that continues from the other shore is just a footpath over the Grisel and travellers wanting to get to this path travel from the shore opposite our island. Then there’s so much surf round the shores of the island that fish are few and far between and fishermen rarely come this close. It could be eight days or more before you saw one.”

  “Then my uncle will have to get someone to take me back to Hul tomorrow because he was the one who demanded I came here and I don’t wish to stay here any longer,” said Victor.

  “He may do that,” the servant replied, “I don’t know, but right now he’s waiting for you with supper.”

  “How can he be waiting,” said Victor, “when he said I should drown my dog, when he said he wouldn’t let me in if I didn’t, and when he saw me then leave and didn’t call me back?”

  “I don’t know about all that,” Christoph answered, “but at the Hermitage your arrival was known about and the table was laid to include you. The master instructed me to call you because you don’t know our mealtimes—he didn’t say anything else. However, when he instructed me to call you, since I saw you leaving the grille entrance gate and running off the way you did, I immediately thought to come to this place, that I’d find you here. At first, when I couldn’t see you, I fully thought you’d gone back across the water, but that wasn’t possible of course—the man who brought you must have already gone round the Orla promontory by the time you got back here.”

  When Victor said nothing in reply to this, the man stood there for a short while and then said again: “The master is certain to have started eating by now, for he has his set times and sticks to them.”

  “That’s of no consequence to me,” replied Victor. “He can eat his fill, I want nothing from his table, for my dog and I have already eaten the bread that I put aside.”

  “Well, I must go and tell him that,” the servant continued, “but you should consider, as you said yourself, that you came here because your un
cle wanted you to, that he wants to talk to you and that you are the one making this impossible if you stay sitting here in the open air in the grounds of his house.”

  “I wanted to go to him,” Victor rejoined, “I wanted to speak to him and greet him respectfully—my mother told me it was a good thing, and my guardian recommended it, too—but before I let any harm come to the animal that sought me out at great risk to himself and accompanied me here, I’d rather put up with injury and death myself.”

  “Nothing will happen to the animal,” said Christoph. “The master was just giving you a piece of good advice; if you don’t take it, it won’t bother him unduly. He’s clearly forgotten all about it, otherwise he wouldn’t have sent me to fetch you for supper.”

  “If you can guarantee me that nothing will happen to the dog, then I’ll come with you,” said Victor.

  “I can guarantee you that,” replied the servant. “Such a trifle as a dog is now the last thing on his mind and he’ll have no objection to it.”

  “Come on then, old Pom,” said Victor, getting to his feet.

  His hands appeared to tremble as he rummaged in his knapsack for a rope, which he always took with him, along with a variety of other things. This he tied to the ring on the collar the dog was wearing. He then shouldered his knapsack, picked his staff up from the ground and followed old Christoph, who took him the same route he had gone at dusk and when he had then run back again. It would have been difficult to find in the dark if old Christoph hadn’t been leading the way. They passed through the bushes, through the sycamores, through the dwarf garden, across the broad hollow and so reached the iron grille gate. Christoph pulled a small object out of his pocket that Victor thought was a key, but it was a whistle, with which the servant blew a piercing sound. Immediately the gate was opened by unseen hands—to Victor’s total incomprehension—and then closed behind them again with a clang. From the sandy forecourt, on which they now found themselves, Victor looked immediately towards the house. There was light coming from only three of the front windows, two upstairs and one on the ground floor—all the rest were dark. Christoph led the youth from the forecourt up the covered wooden steps, and so to the first floor. They came into a corridor, and from there into the room to which the two lit windows belonged. Here, and without another word, Christoph left the youth standing and backed out of the room. At the table Victor’s uncle was sitting all by himself and eating. Earlier in the evening, when Victor had first seen him, he had been wearing a wide coat of grey cloth—he had removed this and was now in a wide dressing gown with a floral pattern and had on a red skullcap with gold edging.