Two Little Misogynists/Chapter 8

by Carl Friedrich Georg Spitteler

VIII
IN THE ALTHAUSLI

ust as he was beginning to feel comfortable, the cold wet nose of a dog touched his cheek, and two bloodshot eyes stared at him a moment, then blinked good naturedly as much as to say in apology, "Oh, if it's you, it's all right." Then the beast rubbed his shaggy body affectionately against him, nudging him in spots with its slobbery black muzzle When the dog's whole hairy length had pushed past him, down to the tail, Gerold saw that it was unwillingly dragging a cartridge box along behind it. He immediately concluded that Hänsli was near. And it was only a few seconds later than Hänsli himself rushed out of the entry, boisterously hunting for the box. He gave a shriek of fright at the sight of his offended brother. "Look out, Gesima, here's Gerold."

He gave his warning in a shrill voice, as a faithful roebuck warns his doe of impending peril. Then he beat a hasty retreat. Gerold did not stir, but on the sly he prepared his fists for the welcome he expected and peeked stealthily through his eyelids, like a cat when it is listening to some suspicious movement. After waiting a minute he smelt something like violets, and immediately a mouse made of a knotted handkerchief, with tremendously long ears and tail, hopped over his face. He threw it down in the road. An icy pebble slipped under his collar and all the way down his back, little by little, from one vertebra to the next. He was sure of it now. It was Gesima! Then he heard her run away with stifled giggles. Extremely annoyed, he kept perfectly silent, and manœuvered with great caution to get into a better position for offensive operations without being seen, and he felt for the ground with his toes.

For a time nothing suspicious happened. Then all of a sudden two soft hands covered his ears and his lips were sealed with a kiss. Raging at this unspeakable insult, he leaped to his feet in a fury. It was not Gesima at all but the strange lady whom he had seen the day before in the stagecoach at Schoenthal.

While he was staring at her dumbfounded, she pressed his cheeks together with her hands so that his lips stuck out like a pair of cushions. Then, instead of telling him to say "Phaff," as he expected, she suddenly kissed him again. Mortified though he was, he did not dare to protest. At that moment the handsome gentleman who was with her appeared on the threshold.

"Come in, Colonel," said the latter, with a charming little smile which reminded one of Dolf. "Dinner has been waiting two hours for your Highness."

Touching Gerold's shoulders lightly and taking him by one hand, he directed him into the vestibule. In the corner of a rickety verandah there was a table all set for him, hidden by a line of clothes hung out to dry. As they pushed past, the whole line shook.

The two strangers wished Gerold a good dinner and then walked off slowly towards a neglected vegetable garden. Presently a young girl appeared, short and vivacious, with a soup tureen which she put on the table. She sat down near Gerold and waited till he had eaten a little soup, then she asked him a great many questions.

"I hear you spent the night at Friedli's Mill?"

"Yes," he answered briefly, being busy with his soup.

"And she said you were to call her Aunt?"

"Who did?"

"That big Theresa, of course."

"Yes."

"And did you really call her Aunt?'

"No."

She stroked his head, and then went on. "Hänsli says that Dolf took you aside just as you left, and gave you something that he whispered to you about. Wasn't it a message for me, or a letter perhaps?"

"Oh, but who are you?"

"Marianneli."

"All right, if you are Marianneli, yes, I have a letter for you. But I don't know exactly where."

He began to rummage in his pockets. "I will help you hunt," she said, and she jumped to his side quickly, feeling all over his coat and trousers, handling them, and turning his pockets inside out like a customs-house officer, breathing warmly right into his face all the while, as if he were nobody at all.

"Oh! I remember where it is," he suddenly exclaimed. "In the lining of my cap."

Like a cat she jumped upon it, tore the letter out of the lining, and ran into a corner. But after she had glanced at the first few lines, she suddenly crumpled the letter, threw it away, and ran back into the house sobbing violently. In answer to her sobs, there arose within the house a sound of abuse and vituperation, first in one voice then in a number, increasing until it came from the attic, where a fearful hubbub began. The girl continued to weep piteously, and the more sadly she wept the louder the others shouted and screamed.

Gerold could not understand how people could possibly scold any one who was already so miserable. It seemed very strange to him, too, that his nice, kind Uncle Dolf, who looked so sad himself, should have written a letter that would do so much harm to somebody else. And how can letters carry injuries anyhow over a distance that even a cannon's shot can not cover? To think that he himself had been the means of directing this poisonous missile at poor Marianneli made him feel sad too.

The whole affair was not at all clear in his mind, and it did not please him. It was over his head and beyond his comprehension. Well, as long as that was the case, he would not trouble about it, and he ate his soup imperturbably.

"Are they taking good care of you?" asked the stranger, from the kitchen garden.

"Oh, yes," answered Gerold with sincerity. "Very good."

And he continued to enjoy his soup. But at that moment the stockings and underdrawers which were hanging on the line in front of him began to hop and turn somersaults like so many marionettes. At first he was much amused, but gradually a suspicion crept into his mind that some mischievous hand was at work pulling the wires of this puppet show. Pretty soon he caught sight of Gesima's black stockings skipping behind a big shirt and he shouted loudly that if the performance didn't cease he would throw a plate at the person who was pulling the strings, at her risk and peril. The show stopped at once.

Hänsli then appeared on the stage, though at a respectable distance, on the other side of the little brook in the vegetable garden. From there he made an effort to open negotiations, by announcing that he had important news. The people here, he began, were friends of Uncle Dolf, who often stayed several days at a time in the Althäusli. For instance, the shaggy dog was a present from him. Seppli, the stable boy, had said so. And the brown horse in the stable too, a splendid young horse. It was going to drive them to Bischoffshardt, he thought they said. The strange gentleman arranged it because he thought it would be too much for Gesima to walk that far, and because there would probably be a thunderstorm before long. The strange gentleman was going to pay for everything, the drive and the dinner. He was on his wedding trip, and very, very rich. And so on, with similar details.

But, getting no response to these astonishing statements except some humored grunts, Hänsli realized that the time to negotiate had not yet come and he fell back.

When Gerold had finished his soup, he got up to walk around a little. First he looked at the drawings which were stuck all

along the walls of the verandah, pictures of cavalry soldiers, landscapes, all well drawn, but with a hard pencil—Faber No. 3, or No. 2 at least. Under each drawing was written "Adolphus Wengimanus fecit," with different dates. There was a print among them representing the distribution of prizes at a shooting match, with a lot of loving cups and flags, and in the middle the poet of the occasion, crowned with laurel, who looked just like Uncle Dolf.

Advancing thus from one picture to the next, Gerold turned the corner and came upon a little bridge. He stood before the balustrade, leaning his elbows on the top rail, with his head between his hands and his left foot on the lower rail of the balustrade as if in a stirrup. There he remained. The balustrade swarmed with earwigs which crawled around among the splinters as if in a forest. The wood had been carved with a pocket knife, and as he watched the earwigs he noticed that the carvings made letters. As these were lighter in colour than the background, he made out without difficulty that they spelled the interwoven names of Dolf and Marianneli. The combination of the two names was repeated all over the banister, sometimes coloured with ink and adorned with little garlands. In one of the combinations was written For ever and ever.

Below him, in the half-dry bed of the brook, near the bridge, Gesima and Hänsli were wading barefooted on a tour of exploration, with their arms waving like wings from their lifted elbows in their efforts to keep their balance. Hänsli was holding a boot in each hand, and Gesima had hung her shoes and stockings on the skipping rope which was wound, girdle fashion, around her waist. Her thin bare legs looked as if they had been tattooed, all covered as they were with white spots and streaks and splashes of bluish black, multicoloured bruises and red scratches. The children stopped on a spacious island in the middle of the brook and organized a pearl fishery. Their work was profitable, for the bank was lined with coral reefs of dark green bottles, iridescent glass splinters, and bits of gay pottery, with a mixture of buttons, rusty coins, and whatever the current had left stranded there. By right of salvage, they took possession of all these treasures, and while Hänsli continually brought new booty, Gesima washed out the gold from the dross. After a while they started in pursuit of living, crawling things and collected a menagerie on a red quilt, which had fallen into the bed of the brook from the garden wall where it had been spread to dry.

All this industrial activity could prosper in spite of the state of war because the hostile cannoneer, who stood above them on the bridge, was perfectly aware that he was no good at leaping or climbing. He held apart and did not meddle. But when Hänsli with intolerable self-assurance dared to put his boots on the bridge, Gerold kicked them splash! into the water.

Suddenly Gerold noticed that the stranger, sitting on a camp chair in the vegetable garden some distance away, was drawing something while his wife looked on smiling. From where he stood he could not see, of course, the subject of the drawing, but his attention was attracted by the movements of the artist, who constantly lifted and then lowered his head, and he was fascinated by the light of intelligence in his observant eyes. Then the stranger held his pencil horizontally in front of his face and both he and the lady looked sharply at Gerold. Then he understood that he was himself serving as a model, and from that moment he considered it his duty not to stir, for he greatly honoured the art of drawing and appreciated its difficulties from experience of his own.

Gesima, while this was going on, stole through the garden, placed herself behind the artist, and standing on tiptoe, looked over his shoulder. She began then to make signals to the cannoneer concerning the part of his anatomy which was appearing under the artist's pencil. She described two targets, with a point in the middle of each for his eyes, then she gave a transverse sweep like a sword stroke cutting his face in half, for his mouth. To indicate his ears she seized the lobes of her own, stuck her tongue out, and stretched her hands up as high as she could over her head.

As for Hänsli, having grasped the situation, he took advantage of the helplessness of his angry brother in order to pursue his effort at reconciliation. Having made sure the cannoneer could not fall upon him, he bravely took hold of Gerold's coattails and poured forth a conciliatory speech, paying no attention to the fierce growls that issued from his brother's closed lips. Was it really worth while quarreling about a useless thing like a girl? They had always lived in peace together till the deceitfulness of this carrot-top had spoiled everything. He didn't want to have anything more to do with Gesima, because she was fooling one of them as well as the other.

"Do you know what she has been saying about you? You are a cruel boy who wouldn't even allow cats to eat mice. And then she said she didn't care a bit about anybody who lives things over twice. She said that last winter she had a tooth pulled out, and once was quite enough without having it pulled out again. She even made a joke about you."

"I can't believe that," Gerold said, grinding his teeth. "She couldn't be so mean as all that."

"I can tell you the joke. She said you must certainly belong to the heavy artillery. One only had to look at you to know it."

This speech had the desired effect. Gerold could stand a good deal, but jokes and allusions to his weight! that was entirely too much. His haughty demeanour thawed out. His look of wrath was the sign that he accepted the proposals of his brother for peace, a joint peace excluding Gesima, who was thus cast off by both parties. As Gerold was bound not to move, they substituted for the ceremonial hand-shake a flower stalk, which Hänsli pushed into his ally's hand, each holding fast to one end of the stem to symbolize the alliance.

Immediately, by a lively pantomime on the bridge, consisting of mocking gestures and provoking hops, Hänsli let Gesima understand the new grouping of forces. But in order to be perfectly fair and to leave no doubt on the matter, he felt that a formal declaration of war was necessary. Couldn't he find a scrap of paper somewhere? There, on the ground, was a crumpled letter. It was entirely covered with close writing but at the end, between the words: Do not think, on account of this, that I love you any the less, and the signature, Dolf, he found a small empty place. There he wrote: Ugly Gesima. You have red hair. Then he coaxed the curly dog to him, slipped the letter under his collar and made signs to the little girl that she was to call it. Gesima snapped her fingers and the dog went to her. She took the letter, read the few words, scribbled something, and Hänsli called the messenger back again. At the top of the letter, above the words: My poor, poor Marianneli, he read: Bad Hänsli, you have a wart on your left forefinger.

Nature interrupted further correspondence. A shower of big drops, glittering like silver, came rushing down all at once out of the blue sky, and everybody fled with cries. The three children, reunited by irresistible forces, met on the verandah. The rain had frightened the young couple into a small summer house. Then suddenly it was all over, as if somebody had snipped it off with scissors. A jovial milky-faced fellow appeared in the hall.

"Come on, the carriage is ready," said he. "Be quick. We have hardly time to reach Bischoffshardt before the bombardment begins. The clouds are piled up on the Dürenburg, all on top of each other as thick as a herd of black bullocks."

Before he left, Gerold expressed his thanks to the kind strangers by making one of the new bows Gesima had taught him in the direction of the summer house, clicking his heels together, and saluting. Then the children hurried through the hall.

"Up on the front seat," begged the boys. The milky-faced man lifted each in turn by the collar and dumped him on the seat, like a puppy. "My name is Seppli," he said, as he took his seat between them.

A window on the upper floor of the house burst open and the tearful face of Marianneli appeared. She seemed to want to call out to them, but she was pulled back into the room and they heard her scream, "I don't want any one else. I won't take any one else."

Seppli grinned expansively. "There's the devil to pay! But I know several fellows in the canton who would be glad enough to console her, and I'd be the first! All ready? Can we start?"

The brown horse had begun to prance with impatience but there came a plaintive whimper from behind. Gesima couldn't get in. The step of the carriage was so high that she couldn't reach it. Her little foot was waving around like the paw of a dog who wants to "shake hands." Gerold at once jumped to the ground and propping her up on his knee and his stomach, put his hands under her arms and shoved her into the carriage, in spite of her cries.

"I beg your pardon," she whispered by way of thanks, and held out her hand to him. This made him feel so gentle, that he nearly accepted her hand-shake, when he suddenly remembered that she had called him a heavy artillery man. So he hardened his heart and climbed up on the front seat without a single kind word. As soon as he was up the carriage rolled off with the bells jingling.