Stories by Foreign Authors
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Various >> Stories by Foreign Authors
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For one moment I contemplated myself in the only whole glass which
I had in my room--that OF TRUTH,--and then wrote again with gloomy
feeling:--"Unhappy, indeed, may the forlorn one be called, who, in
the anxious and cool moments of life (which, indeed, come so
often), is pressed to no faithful heart, whose sigh nobody
returns, whose quiet grief nobody alleviates with a 'I understand
thee, I suffer with thee!'
"He is cast down, nobody raises him up; he weeps, nobody sees it,
nobody will see it; he goes, nobody follows him; he comes, nobody
goes to meet him; he rests, nobody watches over him. He is lonely.
Oh, how unfortunate he is! Why dies he not? Ah, who would weep for
him? How cold is a grave which no warm tears of love moisten!
"He is lonesome in the winter night; for him the earth has no
flowers, and dark burn the lights of heaven. Why wanders he, the
lonesome one; why waits he; why flies he not, the shadow, to the
land of shades? Ah, he still hopes, he is a mendicant who begs for
joy, who yet waits in the eleventh hour, that a merciful hand may
give him an alms.
"One only little blossom of earth will he gather, bear it upon his
heart, in order henceforth not so lonesomely, not so entirely
lonesome, to wander down to rest."
It was my own condition which I described. I deplored myself.
Early deprived of my parents, without brothers and sisters,
friends, and relations, I stood in the world yet so solitary and
forlorn, that but for an inward confidence in heaven, and a
naturally happy temper, I should often enough have wished to leave
this contemptuous world; till now, however, I had almost
constantly hoped from the future, and this more from an
instinctive feeling that this might be the best, than to subdue by
philosophy every too vivid wish for an agreeable present time,
because it was altogether so opposed to possibility. For some
time, however, alas! it had been otherwise with me; I felt, and
especially this evening, more than ever an inexpressible desire to
have somebody to love,--to have some one about me who would cleave
to me--who would be a friend to me;--in short, to have (for me the
highest felicity on earth) a wife--a beloved, devoted wife! Oh,
she would comfort me, she would cheer me! her affection, even in
the poorest hut, would make of me a king. That the love-fire of my
heart would not insure the faithful being at my side from being
frozen was soon made clearly sensible to me by an involuntary
shudder. More dejected than ever, I rose up and walked a few times
about my room (that is to say, two steps right forward, and then
turn back again). The sense of my condition followed me like the
shadow on the wall, and for the first time in my life I felt
myself cast down, and threw a gloomy look on my dark future. I had
no patron, therefore could not reckon upon promotion for a long
time; consequently, also, not upon my own bread--on a friend--a
wife, I mean.
"But what in all the world," said I yet once more seriously to
myself, "what helps beating one's brains?" Yet once more I tried
to get rid of all anxious thoughts. "If, however, a Christian soul
could only come to me this evening! Let it be whoever it would--
friend or foe--it would be better than this solitude. Yes, even if
an inhabitant of the world of spirits opened the door, he would be
welcome to me! What was that? Three blows on the door! I will not,
however, believe it--again three!" I went and opened; there was
nobody there; only the wind went howling up and down the stairs. I
hastily shut the door again, thrust my hands into my pockets, and
went up and down for a while, humming aloud. Some moments
afterwards I fancied I heard a sigh--I was silent, and listened,--
again there was very evidently a sigh--and yet once again, so deep
and so mournful, that I exclaimed with secret terror, "Who is
there?" No answer.
For a moment I stood still, and considered what this really could
mean, when a horrible noise, as if cats were sent with yells
lumbering down the whole flight of stairs, and ended with a mighty
blow against my door, put an end to my indecision. I took up the
candle, and a stick, and went out. At the moment when I opened the
door my light was blown out. A gigantic white figure glimmered
opposite to me, and I felt myself suddenly embraced by two strong
arms. I cried for help, and struggled so actively to get loose
that both myself and my adversary fell to the ground, but so that
I lay uppermost. Like an arrow I sprang again upright, and was
about to fetch a light, when I stumbled over something--Heaven
knows what it was (I firmly believe that somebody held me fast by
the feet), by which I fell a second time, struck my head on the
corner of the table, and lost my consciousness, whilst a
suspicions noise, which had great resemblance to laughter,
rang in my ears.
When I again opened my eyes, they met a dazzling blaze of light. I
closed them again, and listened to a confused noise around me--
opened them again a very little, and endeavoured to distinguish
the objects which surrounded me, which appeared to me so
enigmatical and strange that I almost feared my mind had vanished.
I lay upon a sofa, and--no, I really did not deceive myself,--that
charming girl, who on this evening had so incessantly floated
before my thoughts, stood actually beside me, and with a heavenly
expression of sympathy bathed my head with vinegar. A young man
whose countenance seemed known to me held my hand between his. I
perceived also the fat gentleman, another thin one, the lady, the
children, and in distant twilight I saw the shimmer of the
paradise of the tea-table; in short, I found myself by an
incomprehensible whim of fate amidst the family which an hour
before I had contemplated with such lively sympathy.
When I again had returned to full consciousness, the young man
embraced me several times with military vehemence.
"Do you then no longer know me?" cried he indignantly, as he saw
me petrified body and soul. "Have you then forgotten August D--,
whose life a short time since you saved at the peril of your own?
whom you so handsomely fished up, with danger to yourself, from
having for ever to remain in the uninteresting company of fishes?
See here, my father, my mother, my sister, Wilhelmina!"
I pressed his hand; and now the parents embraced me. With a stout
blow of the fist upon the table, August's father exclaimed, "And
because you have saved my son's life, and because you are such a
downright honest and good fellow, and have suffered hunger
yourself--that you might give others to eat--you shall really have
the parsonage at H--. Yes, you shall become clergyman, I say!--I
have jus patronatum, you understand!"
For a good while I was not at all in a condition to comprehend, to
think, or to speak; and before all had been cleared up by a
thousand explanations, I could understand nothing clearly
excepting that Wilhelmina was not--that Wilhelmina was August's
sister.
He had returned this evening from a journey of service, during
which, in the preceding summer, chance had given to me the good
fortune to rescue him from a danger, into which youthful heat and
excess of spirit had thrown him. I had not seen him again since
this occurrence; earlier, I had made a passing acquaintance with
him, had drunk brotherhood with him at the university, and after
that had forgotten my dear brother.
He had now related this occurrence to his family,
with the easily kindled-up enthusiasm of youth, together with
what he knew of me beside, and what he did not know. The father,
who had a living in his gift, and who (as I afterwards found) had
made from his window some compassionate remarks upon my meagre
dinner-table, determined, assailed by the prayers of his son, to
raise me from the lap of poverty to the summit of good fortune.
August would in his rapture announce to me my good luck instantly,
and in order, at the same time, to gratify his passion for merry
jokes, made himself known upon my stairs in a way which occasioned
me a severe, although not dangerous, contusion on the temples, and
the unexpected removal across the street, out of the deepest
darkness into the brightest light. The good youth besought a
thousand times forgiveness for his thoughtlessness; a thousand
times I assured him that it was not worth the trouble to speak of
such a trifling blow. And, in fact, the living was a balsam which
would have made a greater wound than this imperceptible also.
Astonished, and somewhat embarrassed, I now perceived that the ear
and the shoulder, whose possessor had seized so horribly upon the
contents of the rusk basket, and over whom I had poured out my
gall belonged to nobody else than to August's father, and my
patron. The fat gentleman who sat upon the sofa was Wilhelmina's
uncle.
The kindness and gayety of my new friends made me soon feel at
home and happy. The old people treated me like a child of the
house, the young ones as a brother, and the two little ones seemed
to anticipate a gingerbread-friend in me.
After I had received two cups of tea from Wilhelmina's pretty
hand, to which I almost feared taking, in my abstraction of mind,
more rusks than my excellent patron, I rose up to take my leave.
They insisted absolutely upon my passing the night there; but I
abode by my determination of spending the first happy night in my
old habitation, amid thanksgiving to the lofty Ruler of my fate.
They all embraced me afresh; and I now also embraced all rightly,
from the bottom of my heart, Wilhelmina also, although not without
having gracious permission first. "I might as well have left that
alone," thought I afterwards, "if it is to be the first and last
time!" August accompanied me back.
My host stood in my room amid the overturned chairs and tables,
with a countenance which alternated between rain and sunshine; on
one side his mouth drew itself with a reluctant smile up to his
ear, on the other it crept for vexation down to his double chin;
the eyes followed the same direction, and the whole had a look of
a combat, till the tone in which August indicated to him
that he should leave us alone, changed all into the most friendly,
grinning mien, and the proprietor of the same vanished from the
door with the most submissive bows.
August was in despair about my table, my chair, my bed, and so on.
It was with difficulty that I withheld him from cudgelling the
host who would take money for such a hole. I was obliged to
satisfy him with the most holy assurances, that on the following
day I would remove without delay. "But tell him," prayed August,
"before you pay him, that he is a villain, a usurer, a cheat, a--
or if you like, I will--"
"No, no; heaven defend us!" interrupted I, "be quiet, and let me
only manage."
After my young friend had left me, I passed several happy hours in
thinking on the change in my fate, and inwardly thanking God for
it. My thoughts then rambled to the parsonage; and heaven knows
what fat oxen and cows, what pleasure grounds, with flowers,
fruits, and vegetables, I saw in spirit surrounding my new
paradise, where my Eve walked by my side, and supported on my arm;
and especially what an innumerable crowd of happy and edified
people I saw streaming from the church when I had preached. I
baptized, I confirmed, I comforted my beloved community in the
zeal and warmth of my heart--and forgot only the funerals.
Every poor clergyman who has received a living, every mortal,
especially to whom unexpectedly a long-cherished wish has been
accomplished, will easily picture to himself my state.
Later in the night it sunk at last like a veil before my eyes, and
my thoughts fell by degrees into a bewilderment which exhibited on
every hand strange images. I preached with a loud voice in my
church, and the congregation slept. After the service, the people
came out of the church like oxen and cows, and bellowed against me
when I would have admonished them. I wished to embrace my wife,
but could not separate her from a great turnip, which increased
every moment, and at last grew over both our heads. I endeavored
to climb up a ladder to heaven, whose stars beckoned kindly and
brightly to me; but potatoes, grass, vetches, and peas, entangled
my feet unmercifully, and hindered every step. At last I saw
myself in the midst of my possessions walking upon my head, and
whilst in my sleepy soul I greatly wondered how this was possible,
I slept soundly in the remembrance of my dream. Yet then, however,
I must unconsciously have continued the chain of my pastoral
thoughts, for I woke in the morning with the sound of my own voice
loudly exclaiming, "Amen."
That the occurrences of the former evening were actual truth, and
no dream, I could only convince myself with difficulty, till August
paid me a visit, and invited me to dine with his parents.
The living, Wilhelmina, the dinner, the new chain of hopes for the
future which beamed from the bright sun of the present, all
surprised me anew with a joy, which one can feel very well, but
never can describe.
Out of the depths of a thankful heart, I saluted the new life
which opened to me, with the firm determination that, let happen
what might, yet always TO DO THE RIGHT, AND TO HOPE FOR THE BEST.
Two years after this, I sat on an autumn evening in my beloved
parsonage by the fire. Near to me sat my dear little wife, my
sweet, Wilhelmina, and spun. I was just about to read to her a
sermon which I intended to preach on the next Sunday, and from
which I promised myself much edification, as well for her as for
the assembled congregation. Whilst I was turning over the leaves,
a loose paper fell out. It was the paper upon which, on that evening
two years before, in a very different situation, I had written down
my cheerful and my sad thoughts. I showed it to my wife. She read,
smiled with a tear in her eye, and with a roguish countenance which,
as I fancy, is particular to her, took the pen and wrote on the other
side of the paper:
"The author can now, thank God, strike out a description which
would stand in perfect contrast to that which he once, in a dark
hour, sketched of an unfortunate person, as he himself was then.
"Now he is no more lonesome, no more deserted. His quiet sighs are
answered, his secret griefs shared, by a wife tenderly devoted to
him. He goes, her heart follows him; he comes back, she meets him
with smiles; his tears flow not unobserved, they are dried by her
hand, and his smiles beam again in hers; for him she gathers
flowers, to wreathe around his brow, to strew in his path. He has
his own fireside, friends devoted to him, and, counts as his
relations all those who have none of their own. He loves, he is
beloved; he can make people feel happy, he is himself happy."
Truly had my Wilhelmina described the present; and, animated by
feelings which are gay and delicious as the beams of the spring
sun, I will now, as hitherto, let my little troop of light hopes
bound out into the future.
I hope, too, that my sermon for the next Sunday may not be without
benefit to my hearers; and even if the obdurate should sleep, I
hope that neither this nor any other of the greater or the less
unpleasantnesses which can happen to me may go to my heart and
disturb my rest. I know my Wilhelmina, and believe also that I
know myself sufficiently, to hope with certainty that I may always
make her happy. The sweet angel has given me hope that we may soon
be able to add a little creature to our little happy family, I
hope, in the future, to be yet multiplied. For my children I have
all kinds of hopes _in petto_. If I have a son, I hope that he will be
my successor; if I have a daughter, then--if August would wait--
but I fancy that he is just about to be married.
I hope in time to find a publisher for my sermons. I hope to live
yet a hundred years with my wife.
We--that is to say, my Wilhelmina and I--hope, during this time,
to be able to dry a great many tears, and to shed as few ourselves
as our lot, as children of the earth, may permit.
We hope not to survive each other.
Lastly, we hope always to be able to hope; and when the hour comes
that the hopes of the green earth vanish before the clear light of
eternal certainty, then we hope that the All-good Father may pass
a mild sentence upon His greatful and, in humility, hoping
children.
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