Two Little Misogynists/Chapter 4

by Carl Friedrich Georg Spitteler

IV
THE MALICIOUS MAILCOACH

pposite the window, in the haymow, a stable boy was greeting the morning by whistling a polka, while pigeons cooed on the roof. The sounds of blows, and the neighing of horses came from the stable, accompanied by the melody of chimes. Chimes of every note, sometimes in harmonies, now in solos, ringing in every direction, as if they were telling stories of all kinds of adventures off in the blue mountains, and of long journeys with the rapidly sailing clouds, away in the world.

Hänsli yawned, and asked, "What kind of a day is it?"

Gerold opened his eyes suspiciously. The shutters were closed and their room was pretty dark. But up under the ceiling the flies were swarming, manœuvering rapidly and accurately, and the corners of the room were no darker than the middle of it. These were favourable signs. When he noticed finally that the narrow ray of light streaming through the cracks in the shutters was not white but gold, he announced boldly and categorically, "It's fine weather."

"That's wrong," said Hänsli, "I hear it raining."

"That's the fountain you hear," said Gerold.

Hänsli jumped out of bed and opened the shutters. A stream of bright golden sunlight filled the room, and on the tiles of the barn roof opposite was a square of sunshine, dividing the shadows in two.

But on their night-table was something even better than sunlight—chocolate! If they had wanted to guess where it came from, they could easily have done so, but they preferred not to guess for fear that pride would prevent their acceptance of the gift. They, therefore, took it for granted and ate it anonymously.

Still lying in bed, they stared at the sunshine on the barn roof. The sunshine stared back at them and wearied their eyes so that they had to close them. But when they heard the cheerful rattle of the coffee spoons in the saucers they hopped out of their beds.

A particularly dainty little table had been set for them downstairs in the parlour. In a bowl decorated with ornamental flowers was golden honey in the comb, and near it, wrapped in fresh grape leaves, a pat of butter beautifully embossed with a representation of a lackadaisical bear climbing up a flower stalk. They sat down to the table with their best manners, as if they had to work over a composition about their vacation. Hänsli was attacked again by his former mania for examining the little girl.

"How do you spell bread, with an e or an ea?" he asked.

She stopped a minute to think, and then answered: "As long as the bread is fresh, it is spelled with an ea but when it gets old and hard you spell it with just an e."

"Your answer is both disrespectful and insufficient," censured Hänsli, "Gesima, I will mark you very low in spelling."

Gerold in the meantime was looking at her roguishly, and he remembered that she had spattered his face with water in his dream. As he went on looking at her, she gave him a rap on the knuckles with her spoon, and urged him to drink. And with one quick drink he emptied his cup.

Then suddenly he remembered how he had seized her by the hair the evening before, and he felt so sorry that he looked at her again, right in the face, to see if she held it up against him.

"Go on eating," she said, and stole his slice of bread and butter.

The doors were open, and the sweet morning air streamed in, charged with fragrant greetings from distant, unknown valleys. Labourers and servant girls were entering the smoking room, and their glowing presence and cheerful faces showed that they had been at their morning work, full of vigour and energy. As they entered the cool shady room, one by one, quietly, with red cheeks, their arms and foreheads shining with perspiration, it seemed as if each one brought in a bit of the fresh air and a block of the sunshine. Theresa, who was half a head taller than any of the rest, came in the last, walking very erect, and looking very content, with blue ribbons in her long yellow braids and a gleam of triumph in her eyes. There were some wisps of hay on her head, and one could see that she had been up with the early bird.

She went into the parlour to find the children and wished them a good-morning, asking them if they had rested well, if they had had a good breakfast, and if they wanted anything. Then she excused her father's absence, saying that he had had to leave for Sentisbrugg very early, before six o'clock, but that he sent them his regards and best wishes for their trip. After saying this, she first stared off into space, and then fixed a long steady look upon the youngsters.

"Something important has happened at Sentisbrugg," she said in a hushed voice, almost respectfully, as if speaking to grown-ups. "Have you heard?"

Gesima also looked at the boys, in fear.

"What has happened?" they asked.

Theresa looked at the floor. "Well, you will learn about it soon enough. You have a right to enjoy the last hours of your vacation. Where are you going with Gerold, Hänsli?"

"To explore round the house," Hänsli answered. "Stay where you are, Gesima, we don't need you."

"But you must not go too far," Theresa urged. "The stage-coach will be here in half an hour. And this time it won't be any private carriage either, which will wait half an hour for you. The stage runs on a schedule, with no special consideration for any one, and it has to be on time to the minute."

When Hänsli spoke of going only a little way to look around, he did not tell the whole truth. The fact was that he was plotting against Gesima. As soon as the boys reached the barn behind the poplar trees, he stopped and took Gerold into his confidence, clinging tightly to him in order to be more persuasive.

"We must both try to get seats on top," he whispered, "and to get Gesima put inside. If we can, we'll be rid of her as far as Bischoffshardt."

Gerold did not answer, but only grumbled. Hänsli went on. "It would be fine if she missed the coach. But for that we'd have to tempt her out of the house somehow. Supposing we said something about there being raspberries in the garden? What do you say?"

Gerold only grunted again.

"But isn't that the stage already, down in the pass? It is much too early."

Hänsli, who was gifted with sharper sight than his brother, strained his eyes.

"Oh no, it is only one horse, and there isn't any carriage at all."

Suddenly he gave a jump and a shout, "A dragoon!" But Gerold irritably reproached him for the heedlessness of this assertion. Experience had made Gerold wise. His faith in real live soldiers, especially his faith in dragoons, had died in the course of a thousand bitter disappointments. He would just as soon have believed this was Puss-in-Boots as a Dragoon. Alas! how often he had taken the rattling of a rickety old cart for the sound of a drum, and the gay colours of some woman's hat for a drum-major's helmet! The disappointment of such hopes was bitterly cruel. It was much better never to indulge in them at all.

However, this time it really did look in the distance like a dragoon. Something which looked like a real helmet was shining on the head of the rider. Something glittered at his side like a sheath. Could Hänsli be right? What agonizing suspense! The question was now whether he had epaulets and red stripes on his breeches, and a red collar. Yes, yes! It's true, it's a dragoon! A real live dragoon! But where will he go when he comes through the pass? Sideways into the valley or this way towards Friedli's Mill? Panting with eagerness, both boys fixed their eyes on the horse and followed its every movement.

"Now he's getting to the cross road. Now he's got to decide… He is coming! No he isn't, he's turning! Oh my goodness! He is riding towards the valley!"

"Let's follow him," screamed Hänsli.

"Yes, let's," breathed Gerold.

And they set off like hungry wolves at a gallop, paying no attention to the warning calls from behind, which summoned them back.

Although the dragoon seemed to be ambling along at a slow pace, the distance between him and them appeared to increase instead of to diminish, and they began to lose their breath. But there are taverns all along the roadside in this country and he might get off his horse and stop at one of them. If he did, we wouldn't have to run so hard, we could trot. So they trotted, and got ahead nearly as fast as before, and with much better breath. The fugitive horseman was getting smaller and smaller in the distance, until they just caught glimpses of him through the trees from time to time. But was it possible? It did seem as if he had stopped getting smaller, and as if he remained in fixed relation to a house beside him. "He has got off his horse," said sharp-sighted Hänsli.

He had indeed jumped off, and the house must be a tavern. So, with renewed courage, they began to run again.

The dragoon for whom they yearned, was sitting in the tavern, and through the window they could see his padded helmet. His horse was tied to a post before the door. So they began to pay court to him, as it were, not without some self-confidence, considering that they were not just ordinary boys, but cadets, in uniforms with gold buttons, and Gerold even had grenades on his buttons. They could boast a sword and a cartridge box, and hence were really fellow-soldiers. The dragoon would certainly vouchsafe them a greeting and perhaps he might even give them a word of approval. The difficulty was simply to attract his attention.

They strutted up and down before the window, as soldier-like as possible, threw out their chests and walked on their toes, coughing a little, then humming a little tune.

"Show your sword," Hänsli advised. "That may impress him."

Gerold drew his sword and saluted before the window. But as this had no effect either, Hänsli climbed up on the window ledge to show off his shako with its black horse-hair tassel. An ill-tempered old woman, sullen and forbidding, tottered out of the main door, looking angry and suspicious, and asked them what they were about.

"We only wanted to look at the dragoon," Hänsli answered crestfallen.

"Then go inside like well-behaved boys," she barked, "and order mug of wine, instead of hanging around like beggars."

"We do not drink wine."

"Then get away from the window." And she disappeared with a black look angry and scornful.

The boys next turned their attention to the horse, hoping to touch the rider's heart indirectly. They patted its neck, its nose and its back, and once in a while they even dared to touch the saddle and stirrups, modestly and with awe. In the midst of this effort Gerold had an inspiration. He remembered that he had read somewhere about a lover who used to surprise his lady with gifts hidden about, secretly, flowers and such things. Sad to say he had no flowers. But he did have the five-franc piece which his godfather had given him. So he slipped it gently into the pistol case of the saddle. And at this very moment the head of the dragoon shot out of the window, like a Jack-in-the-Box. "What are you fiddling around that horse for? That's my horse, not yours! Ragamuffin! Dirty little pig! Rascals, both of you! If you don't clear out at once, I will come right there and box your ears."

Completely mortified, and much depressed, they trotted back, hanging their heads. The cannoneer, aside from the disgrace of being turned down, suffered from the mortification of having thrown away his five-franc piece. And the loss of it troubled him less than the agonizing doubt, suggested by his uneasy conscience, that in giving away a present which had been given to him he might have transgressed the eighth commandment, "Thou shalt not steal."

Properly speaking, he had not exactly stolen. But at school they had been given to understand most forcibly and painfully that the Ten Commandments have much wider bearing than the mere words seem to express. If you didn't look where you were going, you suddenly found that you had sinned against one of the dreadful Ten. At best, he had been guilty of careless squandering, and, therefore, he was a spendthrift, like the Prodigal Son.

"You won't tell a soul, will you?" he begged his brother, after confessing his misdeed, as they ran. Their mutual misfortune softened Hänsli's heart, so that he promised Inviolable Silence.

"If only we don't miss the stage too," Gerold sighed, running faster than ever. How far they had been running! The distance was endless.

"There comes the stage!" shouted Hänsli in horror. And it was so! They saw it coming out of the pass, about ten minutes' run from where they were. Turning towards Friedli's Mill, it disappeared behind the trees without heeding their desperate signals.

Too late! They began to weep from the bottom of their hearts. Gerold stopped running, and delivered a speech to his brother.

"There is one thing we must not do; as long as we are too late for it, let's not run after it. That would be the most foolish thing we could do. If we did, this is what would happen. The stage would see that somebody was running after it, and would stop until we got quite near, and then, at the last moment, it would drive off and leave us. And the worse we felt about it, the more pleased it would be. Don't let's give it that satisfaction. Let's walk calmly along and not hurry. It all comes to the same thing."

This reasoning appeared good to the infantryman, and so the boys walked on slowly, delighted to feel that they were cheating the wicked coach out of its malicious pleasure. Pretty soon they caught sight of it looking very crafty indeed, as it stood still before Friedli's Mill with a harmless expression, as if it were waiting for them.

"That's all bluff. Look out for it!" Gerold warned. "It is counting on our chasing it, and then it will drive off immediately, you can be sure." And so in defiance they again slackened their pace. However, the tricky old coach continued to stand stock-still as if it were nailed to the spot, so that although they walked slower and slower they continued to get nearer to it. This steadfastness surprised them, and in their surprise there dawned a hope. "Do you know what I think?" Gerold said. "If we run like lightning, we shall catch it after all. But run as quick as you can." So, with tremendous bounds, they ran madly. There! The winding of the postillion's horn! The crack of a whip! Zigzagging, the coach drove into the distance.

"You see! You see! The nasty yellow beast! The darned old stage-coach!" gasped Gerold in a fury. "What did I tell you? As soon as we began to run, it flourished its tail and pranced off, jeering at us. If we had walked calmly on, we would have caught it napping." And in his rage he threw his sword after it.

Hänsli made fun of him for his useless anger. "You are as crazy as Xerxes when he ordered the sea to be whipped." Saying which, he threw his cartridge box after the sword. "Well, there's one consolation," Hänsli said, by way of comfort. "We are rid of Gesima for good and all."

"How do you mean?"

"Because she went off in the stage."

Gerold was forced to admit the likelihood of this assumption, but he did not feel any noticeable relief, in fact almost the contrary. Although she was only a girl he had already got used to Gesima. And all of a sudden, everything seemed stupid and tiresome.

"Well, what shall we do now?" asked Hänsli.

"I don't care," grumbled the cannoneer.

"I think we'd better walk on to Bischoffshardt."

"I don't care."

"Oh darn! There comes Theresa! That means a lecture for us."

"I don't care."

There was no lecture at all, only a kind request for an explanation of their curious behaviour. Why had they crawled like snails as if they intended to miss the coach? For ten long minutes she had succeeded in holding the postillion, but she could not take it upon herself to make him wait longer still. How did they intend to manage now? The young lady's opinion was that all three children might walk on together. She had walked the whole distance from Bischoffshardt to Schoenthal twice before. So, if they thought the same…?

"Well, all right, but… didn't she take the coach?" Gerold asked.

"She absolutely refused to go in it without you. There she is, on the stairs.

"A fine business! A fine business indeed! The stage is gone. The stage is missed," mocked Gesima, raising her hands with a despairing gesture. Whereupon all three set out on their way.

"A pleasant journey!" called Theresa after them. "Don't you want to take something to eat? Some pears or plums, or anything you like?"

"We don't need anything. And thank you very much for everything."