Joseph in the Snow, and The Clockmaker. In Three Volumes. Vol. II.

"Oh, oh!" whispered Pilgrim to Lenz. "Now I remember – he is one of Annele's admirers."

Lenz went hurriedly upstairs. Pilgrim did not see the expression of his face.

CHAPTER X.

A DINNER WITH PETROWITSCH

Petrowitsch was not yet arrived. In the mean time Lenz seated himself at his uncle's table, and conversed with the family and Pilgrim.

Annele was unusually sparing of her words today; indeed, when Lenz offered her his hand when he came in, she affected to be too busy to take it. No doubt her hand is promised, and she can no longer give it to any one, even in common courtesy. And yet she does not look much like a bride.

Uncle Petrowitsch now arrived; at least his dog appeared as his precursor – a mongrel, between a dachs and a terrier.

"Good day, Lenz!" said his uncle, rather crabbedly. "I expected you yesterday. Did you forget that I had invited you?"

"Indeed I did. I must confess that it quite went out of my head."

"At such a time it is allowable to forget, otherwise nothing is so inexcusable in a man of business as want of memory. During all my life I never either forgot anything, or lost anything – I never threw away a pin, or mislaid a pocket handkerchief A man ought always to make use of his seven senses. Now let us go to dinner."

Annele brought in the soup – the uncle filled two plates out of the tureen, and then said to Lenz, "You may take the remainder." Petrowitsch then took a newspaper out of his pocket, that he called for at the Post-office every day himself, and cut its leaves. While the soup was cooling, and after placing his tobacco bag and his meerschaum pipe on the paper, he began his dinner.

"You see," said he, after the soup, crumbling a quantity of bread into a plate for some one who had not yet appeared – "you see this is the way in which I like to live. If you dine at an inn, you are sure to have a clean cloth every day; and when my score is paid, day after day, then I am my own master." When the meat was put on the table, Petrowitsch cut a slice for Lenz with his own hands, then one for himself, and another for the unknown friend. He must have been on very intimate terms with him, for he put his finger into the plate, shook his head, and added some cold water to the meat. Now the friend came to light. "Come, Büble!" said Petrowitsch to his dog. "Gently, gently! – don't be in a hurry, Büble! – take it quietly." He put the plate on the floor, and the dog ate his food comfortably till he had finished the last morsel, when he looked up at his master gratefully, licking his lips and wagging his tail.

From this moment Büble only got little bits. Petrowitsch said very little, and after dinner, when he had lighted his pipe and glanced over the newspaper, Lenz asked: "Uncle, why did you spread a report that I was about to leave the country?"

Petrowitsch puffed away at his pipe for some minutes placidly, blowing away the smoke; then he called Büble, who jumped on his knee, and patted him; at last he said – "Why do you find fault with me for saying so? You told me yourself that you wished to make up for the idleness of your youth, and to visit other countries."

"I don't remember saying that."

"I don't reproach you with your supineness – you were not your own master; but it would be well worth your while to travel now – you would learn a good deal. I don't force you to go – indeed I can't."

Lenz allowed himself to be persuaded by his uncle's bold assertion, that he had really told him he wished to travel, and begged him not to take it amiss that he had forgotten he had ever said so.

"Lenz, bring your chair a little nearer," whispered Petrowitsch confidentially; "no one need hear what we are talking about. Listen! if you will take my advice, don't marry at all."

"There is little chance of my thinking of such a thing at this moment, uncle."

"Young people like you never know what they would be at – there can be no doubt of that. Now, Lenz, take example by me. I am one of the happiest men in the world. I have just been six weeks at Baden-Baden, and now I return to enjoy myself here; and wherever I go, I am my own master, and the world must serve me; and there are no girls in these days worth a farthing: those who are simple and good bore a man to death – those who are shrewd and clever, require constant amusement and excitement – all day long, at every meal, they must have some fresh diversion. And then you hear them say, day after day – 'Goodness! how tiresome it is to manage a house – you men know nothing of such toil.' And then, in addition to all this, comes the plague of screaming babies, and relations, and school fees, and taxes."

"If the whole world thought like you, uncle, the human race would come to an end in a hundred years," said Lenz.

"Pooh! they would never die out," said old Petrowitsch, laughing, and filling his pipe with tobacco, pressing it down with a china stopper of antique shape. "Look, there goes Annele!" Lenz involuntarily started, he scarcely knew why; but his uncle continued, coolly – "No doubt, she is a vastly knowing little thing, always on the alert, and I call her my court jester. The kings of old were wise, for they kept jesters, whose office it was to make them laugh during meals. That is very healthy, and assists digestion. Annele is my court fool, and never fails to make me laugh."

When Lenz looked round. Pilgrim was gone. He seemed, indeed, resolved that his friend should disown him before Petrowitsch. Lenz, however, made a point of saying to his uncle, that he was a true friend of Pilgrim's, and intended always to be so.

The uncle said he was right, and commended his nephew; and Lenz was quite surprised when Petrowitsch even began to praise Pilgrim; adding, that he was something like himself, in some points, for he also disliked matrimony, and had a poor opinion of the female sex.

Büble now became very fidgety, and began to whine.

"Silence!" said Petrowitsch, angrily. "Have patience – we are going home immediately to take a nap. Down, down, Büble! Are you coming with me, Lenz?"

Lenz accompanied his uncle to his house – a large handsome building, in which no one lived but himself. The door opened of itself as if by magic, for the maid was obliged to be on the watch, and to open the door before her master had time to knock.

Lenz said – "Good bye!" to his uncle, who thanked him, yawning.

The young man was glad when he was again seated at his work the same afternoon. The house, which had seemed so desolate that he thought he could not possibly continue to live in it, now appeared to him once more like home – no real rest or peace is to be found in amusement elsewhere – a man is only really happy at home. He looked for a place to hang up his mother's picture; the best was just above his father's file, for there she could look down on him as he worked, and he could often look up at her.

"Mind you have the room tidy!" said Lenz to Franzl, who, with just indignation, replied – "It is always tidy!" Lenz did not choose to say that he had his own reasons for wishing it to be in particularly good order, for every hour he expected a visit from Annele and her mother, to see and hear his large clock, before it went forth into the wide world. Then he was resolved to ask her, in a straightforward manner – the straight way is always the best – whether the report about her and the Techniker had any foundation. He cannot tell, indeed, what gives him any right to ask such a question; but he feels that he must do so, and then he can talk to her in his own way, just as he may choose. Day after day passed and Annele did not come; and Lenz often went past the "Lion," but without going in, or even looking up at the window.

CHAPTER XI.

THE GREAT CLOCK PLAYS ITS MELODIES, AND FRESH ONES ARE ADDED

It was quite an event in the valley when the news was circulated that the large, handsome clock – the "Magic Flute," as it was called, made by Lenz of the Morgenhalde – was to be sent off in the course of a few days to its destination in Russia. It attracted a perfect pilgrimage to Lenz's house – every one wished to admire the fine instrument before it left the country for ever. Franzl had a great deal to do in welcoming all the people, and shaking hands with them – first wiping her hands carefully on her apron – and then escorting them a little way. There were not chairs enough in the house, for all the people who came to sit down at the same time.

Even uncle Petrowitsch condescended to come, and he not only brought Büble with him – for that was a matter of course – but Ibrahim, Petrowitsch's companion at cards – of whom people said that, during his fifty years' absence from home, he had become a Turk. The two old men said little; Ibrahim sat still and smoked his long Turkish pipe, and moved his eyebrows up and down; Petrowitsch fidgeted round him, just as Büble fidgeted round Petrowitsch. For Ibrahim was the only man who had a certain influence over Petrowitsch, which he only retained because he rarely exercised it. He would listen to no man who applied to him to obtain any favour from Petrowitsch. They played cards together for whole evenings, each paying his losses on the spot; and the restless, lively disposition of Ibrahim made Petrowitsch more polite and complaisant; and here, in the old family house, Petrowitsch seemed, in some degree, inclined to assist his nephew in doing the honours.

While the clock was playing a grand piece, Petrowitsch stood beside the work bench, examining everything that lay there or hung on the wall. At last he took down the well known file, with its worn handle. When the piece was finished, he said to Lenz – "This is your father's file, is it not?"

"Yes; it belonged to my deceased father."

"I will buy it from you."

"You are not in earnest, surely, uncle: it is not likely I should sell it."

"To me you certainly might."

"Not even to you, though I hope you will not be offended."

"Very well; then make me a present of it. I will give you something in return some day."

"Uncle, I scarcely can tell – I really don't know what to say; but my feeling is, that I cannot bear to part with the file."

"Very good! – 'Stay there,'" said he to the tool, hanging it up again in its place; and soon he was walking down to the valley with Ibrahim.

People came from miles distant, and from quite the other side of the valley, to admire the clock; and Franzl was particularly pleased when the first man out of her village, Kunslingen, the balance maker, came and said openly – "Such an instrument has not been produced in our country for a hundred years. It is a pity that it must be dumb while it is travelling; and that it cannot go on playing all the way from here to Odessa, saying – 'I come from the Black Forest – clever men must live there to complete such mechanism.'"

Franzl smiled with delight, and said – "This is the way the Kunslingen people speak – no others, from any part of the world, are as clever as they are." She told them how long and how eagerly Lenz had worked at the clock, and how often he used to rise in the night to adjust some part of the instrument, which had just struck him as requiring improvement. There were mysteries in the trade which few could explain. She, of course, was one of the initiated; and no girl's heart, listening to a first declaration of love, could receive it with greater delight than Franzl, when she heard the most esteemed man in her village say – "Yes, Franzl; and a house from which such a work proceeds – so accurate and so delicate – such a house must be a well ordered one, so you have some share in the merit also."

"I hope no one will take it amiss – I don't wish to offend any one; but I must say that nowhere in the world are people so clever as in our village. This man is the only person who has defined the matter properly. See how the others all stood there! just like a cow before a new barn door. Moo! moo! – not a bit more sense than that! But the Kunslingers! God be praised that I was born in Kunslingen!" Franzl's gestures and looks said all this, as she placed her hand on her beating heart, and her eyes looked devoutly up to Heaven.

Lenz could not help laughing when, at each meal, she brought in with every dish the good news that he was now quite famous in Kunslingen; and Kunslingen is no insignificant spot, for it has two parishes – Fuchsberg and Knelingen.

"Tomorrow I intend to nail up the case – tomorrow evening the 'Magic Flute' is positively to be sent off," said Lenz.

"So soon?" said Franzl sorrowfully; and she looked at the case, as if she wished to entreat it to stay a little longer. "It looks so well here, and brings us so much honour."

"I am only surprised," continued Lenz, "why the Doctor and his family have not been here; and – and the family at the 'Lion' promised they would come."

Franzl rubbed her forehead, and shrugged her shoulders, and regretted her ignorance; but it was impossible for her to know what went on in such fine houses.

Annele had repeatedly reminded her mother of her promise, but she refused to go without her husband, for their dignity is sadly diminished when the Landlord is not present; but this dignified person never runs after other people's things – if they wish for his approval, they must come to him.

But now, however, on this last day, Annele had heard – she always got good information – that the Doctor and his daughters intended to go to Lenz's; this being the very last day, the superior families reserved themselves for that. Mother and daughter resolved not to go to the Morgenhalde till the Doctor's family had preceded them: they said nothing to the majestic Papa of the diplomacy here displayed, for his sense of dignity would have been hurt.

"Here comes the Schoolmaster!" exclaimed Franzl early in the morning, looking out of the kitchen window. His companions called this young man the "Singing Master" – a title that he liked, for he was, in fact, the founder of the Choral Society; and when he sung with Lenz, Faller, and Pilgrim, they were a first rate quartett. Lenz gave him a hearty welcome, and Franzl begged him to stay with them for a couple of hours, to assist them in receiving the numerous visitors that were sure to come on this last day.

"Yes, do stay," said Lenz. "You can't imagine how grieved I am to see my work depart. I can fancy a person feeling just like that, when a brother or a child leaves home for foreign parts."

"You go too far," said the Schoolmaster, reprovingly; "you cling with your whole heart to everything – you have always some fresh object to devote yourself to! You know I don't care much for musical clocks." Franzl looked very angry, but the young man continued: – "They are for children and childish people. I don't even like the piano, because its tones are already made. Music on the piano is little better than whistling a song; and as for your clocks and barrel organs, they have tongues and lungs but no hearts."

Franzl bolted out of the room, very cross. "God be praised, that there are still Kunslingers in the world, who understand things better!" She heard them in the next room singing that touching song, "To-morrow must I leave thee!" Lenz sang a clear, though not a very full, tenor; and the Schoolmaster could not venture to put forth the energies of his bass voice, for fear of drowning Lenz's sweeter tones. Franzl interrupted the song by calling out through the open door – "Here come the people from the Doctor's."

The Schoolmaster, as master of the ceremonies, went to meet them at the door.

The Doctor came in, accompanied by his wife and his three daughters, and immediately said, in his unceremonious way, which had nothing imperious, but yet admitted of no denial, that Lenz was not to lose his working hours by talking, but merely set the clock going. He did so, and they were all evidently delighted. When the first piece was finished, Lenz cast down his eyes on hearing so much praise, and yet it was all said in a way which did not require deductions to be made for politeness.

"Grandmamma desires to be remembered to you," said the eldest daughter; and Bertha exclaimed – "Fancy a clockcase having so many voices!"

"I suppose you would like to have as many?" said her father, laughing.

The eldest, however, said to Lenz, while her brown eyes sparkled – "You seem to have a most superior talent for music."

"If my worthy father," said Lenz, "had bought me a violin when I was a child, so that I might have learned to play on it, I do think that I might have been a good musician in time, and perhaps done something."

"You have done something," said the stout Doctor, laying his large hand kindly on Lenz's shoulder.

The Schoolmaster, who was very proud of understanding the internal mechanism of the instrument, saved Lenz the trouble of explaining it to the ladies; and, indeed, Lenz could not so well have illustrated how the delicate shades of crescendo and decrescendo were produced, and what a quick ear it requires to produce a full tone without depriving the instrument of sweetness, and to blend the two properly. He repeatedly asserted that a sense of music and mechanical skill must be united to complete such a work; and especially pointed out how admirably Lenz had succeeded in the long drawn mournful tones. Nothing could be more difficult than to produce feeling and harmony, while working by the metronome; for a musician, playing as his sense of music dictates, never plays with a metronome, and is not therefore checked in his musical expression. He was on the point of showing how waltzes were constructed and nailed close together, and that the outside was made of soft alder wood, while in the inside there were various kinds of wood, the grain of which was in different directions, when his explanation was interrupted by hearing Franzl welcoming some visitors outside, with more than usual eagerness. Lenz went out: it was the Landlord of the "Lion," with his wife and Annele. The landlord offered him his hand, and nodded with the consciousness that there was no more to be said, when so dignified a person did a young man the honour to survey for a quarter of an hour, a work on which he had bestowed years of industry.

"So, you are really come at last?" was Lenz's greeting to Annele.

"Why at last?" asked she.

"What! have you forgotten that you promised me to come six weeks ago?"

"When? – I'm sure I don't remember."

"On the very day after my mother died; you said you would come soon."

"Yes, yes! – it must be so – no doubt I did. I felt that there was something on my conscience, but I did not know what. Now this is it – of course it is. But, good heavens! in a house like ours, you have no idea of all the things that pass through my head." So said Annele, and Lenz felt something like a sharp pain in his heart.

He had no leisure, however, to reflect at that moment as to what had caused him either pain or pleasure; for now there were mutual greetings on the part of the Doctor and the Landlord of the "Lion."

Annele had even some thoughts of following the town fashion, and kissing the Doctors daughters, the friends whom she detested so cordially – for they were always rather reserved with Annele.

Amanda, the daughter who cultivated herbs, had taken off her broad-leaved hat, as if she had been at home; and now Annele did the same, and she had much finer hair than all the other three put together – indeed, she could sit on hers; and it was so long and so luxuriant, that she wore it like a coronet in three thick plaits, and looked remarkably well in it too.

Lenz first put in a pretty waltz, and then a gay melody out of Mozart's "Magic Flute," which was set in a particular way – the "Song of the Moor."

The Landlord growled out – "Hum! Hum!"

That was a high compliment; and he nodded and drew in his under lip, as if he was tasting good wine.

"Very good!" said he, at last, in a pedantic tone, spreading out both hands as if he were scattering the praise letter by letter. "Very good, indeed!" These were important words, pronounced by such a man!

The Landlady crossed her hands on her breast, and looked at Lenz with unparalleled admiration. "Well! – really I – to think that a man can make a thing so cleverly, and such a young man too! and he stands there just as if he was no better than the others. Remain just so. The best ornament to a great artist is modesty. Go on your course – make more instruments like that: you can do so if you like, I can tell you."

After this speech, she looked pleasantly at the Doctor's wife, inwardly rejoicing thus: – "I suppose that stick of a woman – that hoppole – can't speak a word; and if she were to speak, what would she say? It is rather different, I imagine, when I say anything!"

Annele, too, took courage, and said – "You completed that fine clock while your good mother was still alive, and her blessing rests on it. I can easily understand how hard you must find it, to send it away into the wide world. Do you know what has just occurred to me? You must bring me that favourite tune of yours, and I will learn to play it on the piano."

"I can lend you the piece," said the Doctor's eldest daughter, who had heard Annele's last words.

"But we only have it arranged as a duett," said the second daughter.

"And I have only two hands," said Annele, pertly. The girls would have gone on talking together if the Doctor had not looked at them gravely, and made them a sign to be quiet, for the second piece was about to begin.

When it was finished, they all went into the next room. Franzl had placed on the table, cheese, wine, and bread and butter. The Landlord said – "Lenz, tell me, honestly, for I don't mean to take advantage of it, how much do you get for this musical instrument?"

"Two thousand two hundred gulden – money down. I don't make much by it – I have devoted a great deal of time to it, and the outlay has also been considerable; but when I make my next one, I expect to have more profit."

"Do you intend to make another?"

"No; for I have not one ordered as yet."

"I cannot bespeak one, for I have no traffic with musical instruments: so, as I say, I do not order one; but if you do make another, I think it probable that I will buy it from you. I have a kind of idea as to where I should dispose of it."

"Knowing that, I shall begin a new one with fresh spirit, and it shall be even better than the last. Now I feel as if I could see this one go with a light heart, although it takes with it the whole year that I laboured at it."

"As I said before, I say again – not a word more, not a word less. With me all is accurate and clear. I do not give the order; but it is possible."

"That is quite enough for me, and makes me quite happy. Your Annele said, just now, something of the same kind that I said to Pilgrim only yesterday: 'I cannot tell you how it grieves me to send away a work in which my mother felt so much interest.'"

Annele looked down modestly.

"And I will take an interest in it," said the Landlady, "just like your mother." At these words the Doctor's wife and daughter looked at the Landlady in surprise. The Landlord knit his brows fiercely, and cast a glance of reproof at his wife; but the very pause that ensued, made the words of the Landlady more insidious. Franzl, however, came to the rescue, by pressing every one to eat and drink; and she was made quite happy by Annele saying, that she might well be proud of having the house so neat, that its lamented mistress was not missed in that respect.

Franzl dried her eyes with her newly washed apron.

The Landlady soon thought of an appropriate question, and said – "Lenz, has your uncle not been here yet? and is he not proud of your fine clock?"

"He was here, but the only remark he made was, that I had sold it far too cheap, and did not understand my own advantage."

Now nothing can answer better than to bring forward some absent person, and especially one so generally disliked as Petrowitsch. The point now was in what tone he was to be spoken of Annele and her mother had already sharpened their tongues, when they were forced to silence by a warning glance from the Landlord. The Doctor began to praise Petrowitsch, saying that he affected to be rough because he dreaded his own soft heart; and, turning to the Schoolmaster and Lenz, he said – "Petrowitsch is like those trees that were not transformed into coal at the Deluge, but yet have rich warm substance within: this is just Petrowitsch." The Schoolmaster smiled assentingly, Lenz looked puzzled, and the Landlord hemmed.