The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Volume 07

"Now, John," said the Baron, "do tell me all about your adventures. But," as he surveyed him through his glasses, "you wasted away terribly there in Turkey, didn't you?" John began telling how Mergel had called him away from the hearth at night and said he must go away with him.

"But why did the foolish fellow ever run away?—I suppose you know that he was innocent?"

John looked down.

"I don't know exactly; I think it was on account of some forest affairs. Simon had all kinds of dealings, you know; they never told me anything about it, but I do not believe everything was as it should have been."

"But what did Frederick tell you?"

"Nothing but that we must run away, that they were at our heels. So we ran to Heerse; it was still dark then and we hid behind the big cross in the churchyard until it grew somewhat lighter, because we were afraid of the stone-quarries at Bellerfeld; and after we had been sitting a while we suddenly heard snorting and stamping over us and saw long streaks of fire in the air directly over the church-tower of Heerse. We jumped up and ran straight ahead in the name of God as fast as we could, and, when dawn arose, we were actually on the right road to P." John seemed to shudder at the remembrance even now, and the Baron thought of his departed Kapp and his adventures on the slope of Heerse.

"Remarkable!" he mused; "you were so near each other! But go ahead."

John now related how they had successfully passed through P. and across the border, telling how, from that point, they had begged their way through to Freiburg in Breisgau as itinerant workmen. "I had my haversack with me, and Frederick a little bundle; so they believed us," he went on. In Freiburg they had been induced to enlist in the Austrian army; he had not been wanted, but Frederick had insisted. So he was put with the commissariat. "We stayed over the winter in Freiburg," he continued, "and we got along pretty well; I did, too, because Frederick often advised me and helped me when I did something wrong. In the spring we had to march to Hungary, and in the fall the war with the Turks broke out. I can't repeat very much about it because I was taken prisoner in the very first encounter and from that time was a Turkish slave for twenty-six years!"

"God in Heaven, but that is terrible!" exclaimed Frau von S.

"Bad enough! The Turks consider us Christians no better than dogs; the worst of it was that my strength left me with the hard work; I grew older, too, and was still expected to do as in former years." He was silent for a moment. "Yes," he then said, "it was beyond human strength and human patience, and I was unable to endure it. From there I got on a Dutch vessel."

"But how did you get there?" asked the Baron.

"They fished me out of the Bosphorus," replied John. The Baron looked at him in astonishment and raised his finger in warning; but John continued. "On the vessel I did not fare much better. The scurvy broke out; whoever was not absolutely helpless was compelled to work beyond his strength, and the ship's tow ruled as severely as the Turkish whip. At last," he concluded, "when we arrived in Holland, at Amsterdam, they let me go free because I was useless, and the merchant to whom the ship belonged sympathized with me, too, and wanted to make me his porter. But," he shook his head, "I preferred to beg my way along back here."

"That was foolish enough!" said the Baron.

John sighed deeply. "Oh, sir, I had to spend my life among Turks and heretics; should I not at least go to rest in a Catholic cemetery?"

The lord of the estate had taken out his purse. "Here, John, now go and come back soon. You must tell me the whole story more in detail; today it was a bit confused. I suppose you are still very tired."

"Very tired," replied John; "and"—he pointed to his forehead—"my thoughts are at times so curious I cannot exactly tell how things are."

"I understand," said the baron; "that is an old story. Now, go. Huelsmeyer will probably put you up for another night; come again tomorrow."

Herr von S. felt the deepest sympathy with the poor chap; by the next day he had decided where to lodge him; he should take his meals in the castle and his clothing could, of course, be provided for too. "Sir," said John, "I can still do something; I can make wooden spoons and you can also send me on errands."

Herr von S. shook his head sympathetically. "But that wouldn't work so remarkably well."

"Oh, yes, sir, if once I get started—I can't move very fast, but I'll get there somehow, and it won't be as hard as you might think, either."

"Well," said the Baron, doubtfully, "do you want to try it? Here is a letter to P. There is no particular hurry." The next day John moved into his little room in the house of a widow in the village. He carved spoons, ate at the castle, and did errands for the Baron. On the whole he was getting along tolerably well; the Baron's family was very kind, and Herr von S. often conversed with him about Turkey, service in Austria, and the ocean. "John could tell many things," he said to his wife, "if he wasn't so downright simple."

"More melancholic than simple," she replied; "I am always afraid he'll lose his wits some day."

"Not a bit of it," answered the Baron; "he's been a simpleton all his life; simple people never go crazy." Some time after, John stayed away much longer than usual on an errand. The good Frau von S. was greatly worried and was already on the point of sending out people, when they heard him limping up the stairs.

"You stayed out a long time, John," she said; "I was beginning to think you had lost your way in the forest of Brede."

"I went through Fir-tree Hollow."

"Why, that's a long roundabout way! Why didn't you go through the Brede Woods?"

He looked up at her sadly. "People told me the woods were cut down and there were now so many paths this way and that way that I was afraid I would not find my way out. I am growing old and shaky," he added slowly.

"Did you see," Frau von S. said afterwards to her husband, "what a queer, squinting look there was in his eyes? I tell you, Ernest, there's a bad ending in store for him!"

Meanwhile September was approaching. The fields were empty, the leaves were beginning to fall, and many a hectic person felt the scissors on his life's thread. John, too, seemed to be suffering under the influence of the approaching equinox; those who saw him at this time said he looked particularly disturbed and talked to himself incessantly—something which he used to do at times, but not very often. At last one evening he did not come home. It was thought the Baron had sent him somewhere. The second day he was still not there. On the third his housekeeper grew anxious. She went to the castle and inquired. "God forbid!" said the Baron, "I know nothing of him; but, quick!—call the forester and his son William! If the poor cripple," he added, in agitation, "has fallen even into a dry pit, he cannot get out again. Who knows if he may not even have broken one of his distorted limbs! Take the dogs along," he called to the foresters on their way, "and, first of all, search in the quarries; look among the stone-quarries," he called out louder.

The foresters returned home after a few hours; no trace had been found. Herr von S. was restless. "When I think of such a man, forced to lie like a stone and unable to help himself, I—but he may still be alive; a man can surely hold out three days without food." He set out himself; inquiry was made at every house, horns were blown everywhere, alarms were sent out, and dogs set on the trail—in vain! A child had seen him sitting at the edge of the forest of Brede, carving a spoon. "But he cut it right in two," said the little girl. That had happened two days before. In the afternoon there was another clue. Again a child had seen him on the other side of the woods, where he had been sitting in the shrubbery, with his face resting on his knees as though he were asleep. That was only the day before. It seemed he had kept rambling about the forest of Brede.

"If only that damned shrubbery weren't so dense! Not a soul can get through it," said the Baron. The dogs were driven to the place where the woods had just been cut down; the searching-party blew their horns and hallooed, but finally returned home, dissatisfied, when they had convinced themselves that the animals had made a thorough search of the whole forest. "Don't give up! Don't give up!" begged Frau von S. "It's better to take a few steps in vain than to leave anything undone." The Baron was almost as worried as she; his restlessness even drove him to John's room, although he was sure not to find him there. He had the room of the lost man opened. Here stood his bed still in disorder as he had left it; there hung his good coat which the Baroness had had made for him out of the Baron's old hunting-suit; on the table lay a bowl, six new wooden spoons, and a box. Herr von S. opened the box; five groschen lay in it, neatly wrapped in paper, and four silver vest-buttons. The Baron examined them with interest. "A remembrance from Mergel," he muttered, and stepped out, for he felt quite oppressed in the musty, close room. The search was continued until they had convinced themselves that John was no longer in the vicinity—at least, not alive.

So, then, he had disappeared for the second time! Would they ever find him again—perhaps some time, after many years, find his bones in a dry pit? There was little hope of seeing him again alive, or, at all events, certainly not after another twenty-eight years.

One morning two weeks later young Brandes was passing through the forest of Brede, on his way from inspecting his preserve. The day was unusually warm for that time of the year; the air quivered; not a bird was singing; only the ravens croaked monotonously in the branches and opened their beaks to the air. Brandes was very tired. He took off his cap, heated through by the sun; and then he put it on again; but one way was as unbearable as another, and working his way through the knee-high underbrush was very laborious. Round about there was not a single tree save the "Jew's beech"; for that he made, therefore, with all his might, and stretched himself on the shady moss under it, tired to death. The coolness penetrated to his limbs so soothingly that he closed his eyes.

"Foul mushrooms!" he muttered, half asleep. There is, you must know, in that region a species of very juicy mushrooms which live only a few days and then shrivel up and emit an insufferable odor. Brandes thought he smelt some of these unpleasant neighbors; he looked around him several times, but did not feel like getting up; meanwhile his dog leaped about, scratched at the trunk of the beech, and barked at the tree. "What have you there, Bello? A cat?" muttered Brandes. He half opened his lids and the Hebrew inscription met his eye, much distorted but still quite legible. He shut his eyes again; the dog kept on barking and finally put his cold nose against his master's face.

"Let me alone! What's the matter with you, anyway?" Brandes was lying on his back, looking up; suddenly he jumped up with a bound and sprang into the thicket like one possessed.

Pale as death he reached the castle; a man was hanging in the "Jew's Beech-tree"; he had seen his limbs suspended directly above his face.

"And you did not cut him down, you fool?" cried the Baron.

"Sir," gasped Brandes, "if Your Honor had been there you would have realized that the man is no longer alive. At first I thought it was the mushrooms!" Nevertheless Herr von S. urged the greatest haste, and went out there himself.

They had arrived beneath the beech. "I see nothing," said Herr von S. "You must step over there, right here on this spot!" Yes, it was true; the Baron recognized his own old shoes. "God, it is John! Prop up the ladder!—so—now down—gently, gently! Don't let him fall! Good heaven, the worms are at him already! But loose the knot anyway, and his necktie!" A broad scar was visible; the Baron drew back. "Good God!" he said; he bent over the body again, examined the scar with great care, and in his intense agitation was silent for some time. Then he turned to the foresters. "It is not right that the innocent should suffer for the guilty; just tell everybody this man here"—he pointed to the dead body—"was Frederick Mergel."

The body was buried in the potter's field.

As far as all main events are concerned, this actually happened during the month of September in the year 1789.

The Hebrew inscription on the tree read: "When thou comest near this spot, thou wilt suffer what thou didst to me."

* * * * *

FERDINAND FREILIGRATH

THE DURATION OF LOVE39 (1831)

  Oh! love while Love is left to thee;    Oh! love while Love is yet thine own;  The hour will come when bitterly    Thou'lt mourn by silent graves, alone!  And let thy breast with kindness glow,    And gentle thoughts within thee move,  While yet a heart, through weal and woe,    Beats to thine own in faithful love.  And who to thee his heart doth bare,    Take heed thou fondly cherish him;  And gladden thou his every hour,    And not an hour with sorrow dim!  And guard thy lips and keep them still;    Too soon escapes an angry word.  "O God! I did not mean it ill!"    But yet he sorrowed as he heard.  Oh! love while Love is left to thee;    Oh! love while Love is yet thine own;  The hour will come when bitterly    Thou'lt mourn by silent graves, alone.  Unheard, unheeded then, alas!    Kneeling, thou'lt hide thy streaming eyes  Amid the long, damp, churchyard grass,    Where, cold and low, thy loved one lies,  And murmur: "Oh, look down on me,    Mourning my causeless anger still;  Forgive my hasty word to thee—    O God! I did not mean it ill!"  He hears not now thy voice to bless,    In vain thine arms are flung to heaven!  And, hushed the loved lip's fond caress,    It answers not: "I have forgiven!"  He did forgive—long, long ago!    But many a burning tear he shed  O'er thine unkindness—softly now!    He slumbers with the silent dead.  Oh! love while Love is left to thee;    Oh! love while Love is yet thine own;  The hour will come when bitterly    Thou'lt mourn by silent graves—alone!* * * * *

THE EMIGRANTS40 (1832)

  I cannot take my eyes away    From you, ye busy, bustling band,  Your little all to see you lay    Each in the waiting boatman's hand.  Ye men, that from your necks set down    Your heavy baskets on the earth,  Of bread, from German corn baked brown,    By German wives, on German hearth.  And you, with braided tresses neat,    Black Forest maidens, slim and brown,  How careful, on the sloop's green seat,    You set your pails and pitchers down.  Ah! oft have home's cool shady tanks    Those pails and pitchers filled for you;  By far Missouri's silent banks    Shall these the scenes of home renew—  The stone-rimmed fount, in village street,    Where oft ye stooped to chat and draw—  The hearth, and each familiar seat—    The pictured tiles your childhood saw.  Soon, in the far and wooded West    Shall log-house walls therewith be graced;  Soon, many a tired, tawny guest    Shall sweet refreshment from them taste.  From them shall drink the Cherokee,    Faint with the hot and dusty chase;  No more from German vintage, ye    Shall bear them home, in leaf-crowned grace.  Oh say, why seek ye other lands?    The Neckar's vale hath wine and corn;  Full of dark firs the Schwarzwald stands;    In Spessart rings the Alp-herd's horn.  Ah, in strange forests you will yearn    For the green mountains of your home;  To Deutschland's yellow wheat-fields turn;    In spirit o'er her vine-hills roam.  How will the form of days grown pale    In golden dreams float softly by,  Like some old legendary tale,    Before fond memory's moistened eye!  The boatman calls—go hence in peace!    God bless you, wife and child, and sire!  Bless all your fields with rich increase,    And crown each faithful heart's desire!* * * * *

THE LION'S RIDE 41 (1834)

  King of deserts reigns the lion; will he through his realm go riding,  Down to the lagoon he paces, in the tall sedge there lies hiding.  Where gazelles and camelopards drink, he crouches by the shore;  Ominous, above the monster, moans the quivering sycamore.  When, at dusk, the ruddy hearth-fires in the Hottentot kraals are    glowing,  And the motley, changeful signals on the Table Mountain growing  Dim and distant—when the Caffre sweeps along the lone karroo—  When in the bush the antelope slumbers, and beside the stream the gnu—  Lo! majestically stalking, yonder comes the tall giraffe,  Hot with thirst, the gloomy waters of the dull lagoon to quaff;  O'er the naked waste behold her, with parched tongue, all panting    hasten—  Now she sucks the cool draught, kneeling, from the stagnant, slimy basin.  Hark, a rustling in the sedges! with a roar, the lion springs  On her back now. What a race-horse! Say, in proudest stalls of kings,  Saw one ever richer housings than the courser's motley hide,  On whose back the tawny monarch of the beasts tonight will ride?  Fixed his teeth are in the muscles of the nape, with greedy strain;  Round the giant courser's withers waves the rider's yellow mane.  With a hollow cry of anguish, leaps and flies the tortured steed;  See her, how with skin of leopard she combines the camel's speed!  See, with lightly beating footsteps, how she scours the moonlit plains!  From their sockets start the eyeballs; from the torn and bleeding veins,  Fast the thick, black drops come trickling, o'er the brown and dappled    neck,  And the flying beast's heart-beatings audible the stillness make.  Like the cloud, that, guiding Israel through the land of Yemen, shone,  Like a spirit of the desert, like a phantom, pale and wan,  O'er the desert's sandy ocean, like a waterspout at sea,  Whirls a yellow, cloudy column, tracking them where'er they flee.  On their track the vulture follows, flapping, croaking, through the air,  And the terrible hyena, plunderer of tombs, is there;  Follows them the stealthy panther—Cape-town's folds have known him well;  Them their monarch's dreadful pathway, blood and sweat full plainly tell.  On his living throne, they, quaking, see their ruler sitting there,  With sharp claw the painted cushion of his seat they see him tear.  Restless the giraffe must bear him on, till strength and life-blood fail    her;  Mastered by such daring rider, rearing, plunging, naught avail her.  To the desert's verge she staggers—sinks—one groan—and all is o'er.  Now the steed shall feast the rider, dead, and smeared with dust and    gore.  Far across, o'er Madagascar, faintly now the morning breaks;  Thus the king of beasts his journey nightly through his empire makes.* * * * *

THE SPECTRE-CARAVAN42 (1835)

  'Twas at midnight, in the Desert, where we rested on the ground;  There my Bedouins were sleeping, and their steeds were stretched around;  In the farness lay the moonlight on the mountains of the Nile,  And the camel-bones that strewed the sands for many an arid mile.  With my saddle for a pillow did I prop my weary head,  And my caftan-cloth unfolded o'er my limbs was lightly spread,  While beside me, both as Captain and as watchman of my band,  Lay my Bazra sword and pistols twain a-shimmering on the sand.  And the stillness was unbroken, save at moments by a cry  From some stray belated vulture sailing blackly down the sky,  Or the snortings of a sleeping steed at waters fancy-seen,  Or the hurried warlike mutterings of some dreaming Bedouin.  When, behold!—a sudden sandquake—and atween the earth and moon  Rose a mighty Host of Shadows, as from out some dim lagoon;  Then our coursers gasped with terror, and a thrill shook every man,  And the cry was "Allah Akbar!—'tis the Spectre-Caravan!"  On they came, their hueless faces toward Mecca evermore;  On they came, long files of camels, and of women whom they bore;  Guides and merchants, youthful maidens, bearing pitchers like Rebecca,  And behind them troops of horsemen, dashing, hurrying on to Mecca!  More and more! the phantom-pageant overshadowed all the Plains,  Yea, the ghastly camel-bones arose, and grew to camel-trains;  And the whirling column-clouds of sand to forms in dusky garbs,  Here, afoot as Hadjee pilgrims—there, as warriors on their barbs!  Whence we knew the Night was come when all whom Death had sought and    found,  Long ago amid the sands whereon their bones yet bleach around,  Rise by legions from the darkness of their prisons low and lone,  And in dim procession march to kiss the Kaaba's Holy Stone.  More and more! the last in order have not passed across the plain,  Ere the first with slackened bridle fast are flying back again.  From Cape Verde's palmy summits, even to Bab-el-Mandeb's sands,  They have sped ere yet my charger, wildly rearing, breaks his bands!  Courage! hold the plunging horses; each man to his charger's head!  Tremble not as timid sheep-flocks tremble at the lion's tread.  Fear not, though yon waving mantles fan you as they hasten on;  Call on Allah! and the pageant, ere you look again, is gone!  Patience! till the morning breezes wave again your turban's plume;  Morning air and rosy dawning are their heralds to the tomb.  Once again to dust shall daylight doom these Wand'rers of the night;  See, it dawns!—A joyous welcome neigh our horses to the light!* * * * *

HAD I AT MECCA'S GATE BEEN NOURISHED43 (1836)

  Had I at Mecca's gate been nourished,    Or dwelt on Yemen's glowing sand,  Or from my youth in Sinai flourished,    A sword were now within this hand.  Then would I ride across the mountains    Until to Jethro's land I came,  And rest my flock beside the fountains    Where once the bush broke forth in flame.  And ever with the evening's coolness    My kindred to the tent would throng,  When verses with impassioned fulness    Would stream from me in glowing song.  The treasure of my lips would dower    A mighty tribe, a mighty land,  And as with a magician's power    I'd rule, a monarch, 'mid the sand.  My list'ners are a nomad nation,    To whom the desert's voice is dear;  Who dread the simoon's devastation    And fall before his wrath in fear.  All day they gallop, never idle—    Save by the spring—till set of sun;  They dash with loosely swaying bridle    From Aden unto Lebanon.  At night upon the earth reclining    They watch amid their sleeping herds,  And read the scroll of heaven, shining    With golden-lettered mystic words.  They often hear strange voices mutter    From Sinai's earthquake-shattered, height,  While desert phantoms rise and flutter    In wreaths of smoke before their sight.  See!—through yon fissure deep and dim there    The demon's forehead glows amain,  For as with me so 'tis with him there—    In the skull's cavern seethes the brain.  Oh, land of tents and arrows flying!    Oh, desert people brave and wise!  Thou Arab on thy steed relying,—    A poem in fantastic guise!  Here in the dark I roam so blindly—    How cunning is the North, and cold!  Oh, for the East, the warm and kindly,    To sing and ride, a Bedouin bold!* * * * *

WILD FLOWERS44 (1840)

  Alone I strode where the broad Rhine flowed,    The hedge with roses was covered,  And wondrous rare through all the air    The scent of the vineyards hovered.  The cornflowers blue, the poppies too,    Waved in the wheat so proudly!  From a cliff near-by the joyous cry    Of a falcon echoed loudly.  Then I thought ere long of the old love song:    Ah, would that I were a falcon!  With its melody as a falcon free,    And daring, too, as a falcon.  As I sang, thought I: Toward the sun I'll fly,    The very tune shall upbear me  To her window small with a bolt in the wall,    Where I'll beat till she shall hear me.  Where the rose is brave, and curtains wave,    And ships by the bank are lying,  Two brown eyes dream o'er the lazy stream—    Oh, thither would I be flying!  With talons long and strange wild song    I'd perch me at her feet then,  Or bold I'd spread my wings o'er her head,    And gladly we should greet then.  Though I gaily sang and gaily sprang,    No pinions had I to aid me;  I took my path through the corn in wrath—    So restless my love had made me.  Then branch and tree all ruthlessly    I stripped, nor ceased from my ranting  Till with hands all torn and heart forlorn    I sank down, weary and panting.  While I heard the sound from all around    Of frolicking lads and lasses,  Alone for hours I gathered flowers    And bound them together with grasses.  O crude bouquet, O rude bouquet!—    Though many a girl despise it,  Yet come there may the happy day    When thou, my love, shalt prize it.  In fitting place it well might grace    An honest farmer's dwelling  These cornflowers mild and poppies wild,    With others past my telling;  The osier fine, the blossoming vine,    The meadow-sweetening clover—  All vagrant stuff, and like enough    To him, thy vagrant lover.  His dark eye beams, his visage gleams,    His clenched hand—how it trembles!  His fierce blood burns, his mad heart yearns,    His brow the storm resembles.  He breathes oppressed, with laboring breast—    His weeds and he rejected!  His flowers, oh, see!—shall they and he    Lie here at thy door neglected?* * * * *