"Then I should like to go home this very night," said John.
"Before I do anything else," replied Barefoot, "I must go to Black Marianne. She has filled a mother"s place for me, and I have not seen her today, and have not been able to do anything for her. And besides that, she"s ill. Alas! It is too bad that I shall have to leave her; but what am I to do? Come, go with me to her."
They went together to the house. When Barefoot opened the inside door a moonbeam fell upon the angel on the stove, just as a sunbeam had fallen on that day of long ago. And it seemed to smile and dance more merrily.
Barefoot cried with a loud voice:
"Marianne! Marianne! Wake up, Marianne! Happiness and blessing are here!
Wake up!"
The old woman sat up in bed; the moonlight fell upon her face and neck.
She opened her eyes wide and said:
"What is it? What is it? Who calls?"
"Rejoice! Here I bring you my John!"
"My John!" screamed the old woman, "Good G.o.d, my John! How long--how long--I have thee--I have thee! Oh G.o.d, I thank thee a thousand and a thousand times! Oh, my child, my boy! I see thee with a thousand eyes, and a thousandfold--No, there--there--thy hand! Come here--there--there in the chest is thy dowry! Take the cloth! My son! my boy! Yes, yes, she is thine! John, my son, my son! my--"
The old woman laughed convulsively, and fell back in her bed. Amrei and John had knelt down beside her, and when they stood up and bent over her, she had ceased to breathe.
"Oh, heavens! She is dead! Joy killed her!" exclaimed Barefoot. "She took you for her son. She died happy. Oh, why is it thus in the world, why is it thus?" She sank down by the bed again, and sobbed bitterly.
At last John raised her up, and Barefoot closed the dead woman"s eyes.
For a long time they stood together beside the bed; then Barefoot said:
"Come, I will wake up people who will watch by her body. G.o.d has been very gracious; she would have no one to care for her when I was gone.
And G.o.d has given her the greatest joy in the last moment of her life.
How long, oh, how long, she waited for that joy!"
"Yes, but you cannot stay here now," said John. "You must go with me this very night."
Barefoot woke up the gravedigger"s wife, and sent her to Black Marianne.
Her mind was so wonderfully composed that she remembered to tell the woman that the flowers, which stood on her window-ledge at the farm, were to be planted on Black Marianne"s grave; and especially that she was not to forget to put Black Marianne"s hymn-book under her head, as she had always wished.
When at last she had arranged everything, she stood up erect and, stretching out her arms, said:
"Now everything is done. You must forgive me, good man, that I was obliged to bring you to a house of sorrow; and forgive me, too, if I am not now as I should wish to be. I see now that all is well, and that G.o.d has ordered it for the best. But still I shake with fear in every limb--it is a hard thing to die. You cannot imagine how I have almost puzzled my brains out about it. But now all is well, and I will be cheerful--for I am the happiest girl in the world!"
"Yes, you are right.--But come, let us go. Will you ride with me on my horse?" asked John.
"Yes. Is it the white horse that you had at the wedding at Endringen?"
"To be sure!"
"And, oh, that Farmer Rodel! If he didn"t send to Lauterbach the night before you came and have a white horse brought from there, so as to get you to come to his house. Holloa! white horse, go home again!" she concluded, almost merrily.
And thus their thoughts and feelings returned to ordinary life, and from it they learned to appreciate their happiness anew.
CHAPTER XVI
SILVERSTEP
[The two lovers mount the white horse, which Amrei suggests they call "Silverstep," and start out through the moonlight for John"s home. As they ride along they talk and sing and tell stories and enjoy themselves as only lovers can. At Amrei"s request, they stop on the way to see Damie, who is with Coaly Mathew in the forest; Amrei tells him all that has happened, and John promises to make him an independent herdsman, and gives him a silver-mounted pipe. Damie, inwardly rejoiced, but, as usual, not over-appreciative, reminds him of the "pair of leather breeches," a debt which John also promises to pay. Damie then displays unexpected cleverness by performing a mock-ceremony, in which he compels John to ask him, as his sister"s only living relative, for Amrei"s hand.
Damie surprises his sister by doing this with considerable histrionic success, so that the two lovers start out again more merry than ever.]
CHAPTER XVII
OVER HILL AND VALE
The day had dawned when the two lovers reached the town; and already long before, when they encountered the first early-riser, they had alighted. They felt that they must have a strange appearance, and regarded this first person they met as a herald who had come to remind them of the fact that they must adapt themselves to the order of human conventionalities. So they dismounted, and John led the horse with one hand and held Amrei with the other. Thus they went on in silence, and as often as they looked at each other, their faces shone like those of children newly waked from sleep; but as often as they looked down, they became thoughtful and anxious about the immediate future.
Amrei, as if she had already been discussing the subject with John, and in complete confidence that his mind must have been dwelling on the same thoughts, now said:
"To be sure, it would have been more sensible if we had done the thing in a more normal way. You should have gone home first, and meanwhile I should have stayed somewhere--at Coaly Mathew"s in the forest, if we could have done no better. Then you could have come with your mother to fetch me, or could have written to me, and I could have come to you with my Damie. But do you know what I think?"
"Not everything you think."
"I think that regret is the most stupid feeling one can possibly cherish. Do what you will, you cannot make yesterday into today. What we did, in the midst of our rejoicing, that was right, and must remain right. Now that our minds have been become more sober again, we can"t waste any time reproving ourselves. What we have to think of now is, how shall we do everything right in the future? But you are such a right-minded man that you will know what is right. And you can tell me everything you think, only tell me honestly; if you say what you mean, you won"t hurt me, but if you keep anything back from me, you will hurt me. But you don"t regret it, do you?"
"Can you answer a riddle?" asked John.
"Yes, as a child I used to be able to do that well."
"Then tell me what this is--it is a simple, plain word: Take away the first letter, and you"re ready to tear your hair out; put it back again, and all is firm and sure?"
"That"s easy," said Barefoot, "easy as anything; it"s Truth and Ruth."
At the first inn by the gate they stopped off; and Amrei, when she and John were alone in the room, and the latter had ordered some good coffee, said:
"How splendidly the world is arranged! These people have provided a house, and tables, and benches, and chairs, and a kitchen, in which the fire is burning, and they have coffee, and milk and sugar, and fine dishes, and it is all ready for us as if we had ordered it. And when we go farther on we find more people and more houses, with all we want in them. It"s like it is in the fairy-tale, "Table, be covered!""
"But you have to have the "Loaf, come out of the bag!" too," said John, and he reached into his pocket and drew forth a handful of money.
"Without that you"ll get nothing."
"Yes, to be sure," said Amrei; "whoever has those wheels can roll through the world. But tell me, John--did coffee ever taste to you in your whole life like this? And the fresh white bread! Only you have ordered too much; we cannot manage all this. The bread I shall take with me, but it"s a pity about the good coffee. How many poor people could be refreshed by it, and we must let it go to waste. And yet you have to pay for it just the same."
"That"s no matter; one cannot figure so accurately in the world."
"Yes, yes, you are right. You see, I have been accustomed to do with little. You must not take it amiss if I say things of that kind--I do it without thinking."