the day before “all souls” mariann said to the children, “go and find the mountain-ash berries; to-morrow we shall want them for the churchyard.”
“i know where i can find them,” said dami, with a truly avaricious joy, and ran out of the village with such haste that amrie could scarcely overtake him. when she arrived at the parental house, he was already upon the tree, and signed proudly to her that she should also come up, because he knew that she could not. he plucked the red berries and threw them down into the apron of his sister. she prayed him to break off the stems with the berries, and she would weave a crown. “that i shall not,” he answered, and yet there came no berry down afterwards without a stem.
“listen, how the sparrows scold,” cried dami from the tree. “they are angry because i take their food from them.” when he had plucked them all, he said, “i will not go down again from[26] this tree, but will stay up here day and night, till i fall down dead. i will never go down to you, amrie, unless you promise me something.”
“what then?”
“that you will never wear the present that the landfried gave you—never, as long—as long as i can see it.”
“no!”
“then i will never come down.”
“not on my account?” said amrie, and went and sat down at a little distance, behind a pile of wood, and began to weave a crown, peeping out, however, every moment, to see if dami was coming. she placed the crown upon her head, but suddenly an inexpressible anxiety, on account of dami, overcame her. she ran back. dami sat upon a branch, his back against the trunk of the tree, and his arms crossed before him.
“come down,” she said, “oh! come down; i will promise every thing you wish.” in a second dami was at her side, upon the ground.
they went home, and mariann scolded the foolish children because they had made crowns from the berries which were needed at the graves of their parents. she tore the crowns apart—at the same time saying some mysterious words. then she took both children by the hand, and led them out to the churchyard. pointing to the two graves lying together, she said, “there are your parents!”
[27]the children looked amazed at each other. mariann made, with a stick, a deep cross upon both the graves, and showed the children how to strew the berries therein. dami was the more nimble, and triumphed because his red cross was ready before his sister’s. amrie looked at him with tears, and when dami said, “that will make father glad,” she gave him a little blow and said, “be still!”
dami wept, more perhaps because he had become serious. then amrie cried aloud, “for heaven’s sake forgive me—oh! forgive me that i did that. yesterday i promised, that for my whole life long i would do for you all i can, and give you all that i have. say, dami, that i have not hurt you. can you not forget it? it shall never happen again as long as i live. oh never! never again! never! oh, mother! oh, father! i will be good! i promise you, oh, mother! oh, father!” she could say no more, but wept silently, and they say that one deep sob after another convulsed her. then as brown mariann wept aloud, amrie wept with her.
they went home, and as dami said, “good-night,” she whispered softly in his ear, “now i know that we shall never see our parents again in this world!” yet in this communication there mixed a certain childish joy, a child’s pride in knowing something, a consciousness that the parents’ lips are closed forever. when death closes the lips of one who must call thee child, a living[28] breath has vanished which can never again return.
as mariann sat by the bed of amrie, the child said to her, “i feel as though i were falling and falling forever! let me have your hand.” she held her hand fast and began to slumber, but as often as mariann withdrew her hand she caught it again. mariann understood what that feeling of endless falling signified to the child. by the inward consciousness of the death of her parents, which she had gained to-day, they seemed to her to hover in an undefined distance,—she knew not whence, nor where. not before midnight could mariann leave the bed of the child, and after she had repeated her prayers, who knows how many times?
a stern scorn lay upon the countenance of the sleeping child. one hand was crossed upon her breast. mariann took it softly away, and said, as though to herself, “if always an eye could watch over thee, and a hand help thee, as now, in thy sleep, and without thy knowledge could lift the weight from thy heart! but this can no mortal do—only he! do thou to my child in a strange country as i do for this.”
brown mariann was a person whom people feared—she was so austere and crabbed in appearance. it was eighteen years since she lost her husband, who was shot as he made an attack with other companions upon the post-wagon. mariann[29] bore child beneath her heart, when her husband’s corpse was brought into the village with his blackened face. but she suppressed her agony, and washed the black from the face of the dead, as though she could thereby wash the guilt from his soul. her three daughters died in close succession, after the last child was born. he had become a smart little fellow, although with a strange dark face. he was now a journeyman mason, out upon his wanderings in some distant place; and his mother, who for her whole life had never been out of the village, and never had any desire to wander, often said, “that she was like a hen who had hatched one egg, but clucked always secretly at home.”
it would scarcely be believed that mariann was one of the most cheerful persons in the village. she was never observed to be melancholy. she would not allow people to pity her, and therefore she was disliked and solitary. in winter she was the most industrious spinner in the village, and in summer the most diligent wood-gatherer, so that she was able to sell a good part of it.
“my john,”—so she called her son,—“my john,” was heard in every sentence from her lips. the little amrie, she said, she had taken not out of compassion, but because she would have a living being near her. she was rough and cross outwardly, and to other people, and enjoyed secretly the pride of being kind, and doing right.
[30]exactly the opposite of this was krappenzacher, with whom dami had found a shelter. before the world he showed himself one of the most good-humored benefactors; in secret he ill treated his dependants and especially dami, for whom he received but a very small compensation. his true name was zacharia. he received his nickname because he once brought home to his wife what he called a daintily-prepared roast, of a pair of doves. they were but a pair of plucked ravens, here in the country named krappen. krappenzacher spent the most of his time knitting woollen stockings and jackets, and sat with his knitting-needles in any part of the village where tattling was to be had. this gossip in which he heard every thing, served him to meddle with the business of his neighbors. he was the so-called match-maker of the place. when any of his marriages were really brought about, he played the violin at the wedding. in this he was really a country amateur. he also played the clarionet and the horn, when his arm was weary with the fiddle. he was, indeed, a “jack-of-all-trades.”
thus were both scions, which had sprung from the same root, transplanted into very different soil. position and culture, and the nature which they severally possessed, would lead them to very different fortunes.
