"I thank you, Pilgrim; I am truly glad that you think so," cried Lenz, and the two friends grasped each other's hands affectionately.

CHAPTER XXI.

A GAY WEDDING,--AND A HARD NUT TO CRACK.

Lenz of the Morgenhalde is going to be married to Annele of the "Golden Lion!" This report quickly spread through the whole valley, and far beyond it, and often in the same house first Annele was discussed and then Lenz, for their names were not yet coupled together till after the wedding, when Annele of the "Golden Lion" will be called Lenz Annele.

There had been deep snow, and now the sky had cleared up, bringing genuine bright sledging weather, and from every hill and valley bells and cracking of whips resounded, and a hundred sledges at least were standing before the door of the "Golden Lion" on the wedding morning; every stall had its share of strange company, and many a solitary cow could not comprehend how it came to pa.s.s, that a pair of such handsome horses should suddenly come to pay her a visit. To be sure a cow pa.s.sing the winter in retirement, is not likely to know what is going on in the world, but men know all about it; an event is about to take place of no small importance in the village, and even bedridden old women never rest till they are dressed, and able to sit at the window, though they live far from the highroad, so that they can see nothing, and can only catch distant sounds of the bells on the horses' necks, and the cracking of whips.

Ernestine, the grocer's wife, had been helping for several days before the wedding in the "Lion." She would not show any symptoms of displeasure at not being particularly visited or invited; the head of the family was celebrating a feast, and all its branches must rally round their chief.

Ernestine had left her children in a neighbour's house; her husband in the mean time was to keep house, attend to the shop, and dress his food, as best he could: when the "Golden Lion" sends forth a summons no one can stand on their rights.

Ernestine knew every nook and corner of the house, and gave everyone what they wanted in a moment; she had unlimited authority both in kitchen and cellar, and exulted in her own importance. On the wedding morning Annele dressed herself, for she had no particular friend to a.s.sist her.

Lenz would have preferred, from his retiring disposition, to have had a very quiet wedding; but Annele was right in saying:--"I am quite aware of what you would have preferred; but it is our duty to our neighbours to provide some pleasure for them also, and we have only one wedding day in our lives. Year after year we have plague enough from these people, let us give them an opportunity of showing their grat.i.tude to us. There are very few weddings during the year in the whole country that we do not attend, and take gifts with us. Two thousand gulden would not cover what we have laid out on such occasions. It is but fair that the neighbours should give in their turn. I don't want to gain by my wedding; I shall be quite satisfied if we get back the half of what we sent in this way."

And in truth the marriage gifts were very valuable, both in money and in money's worth. They were not satisfied with one day, but the marriage feast continued during two whole days; one day for friends and relations, and the other for strangers.

On the wedding morning Pilgrim arrived with his hair well oiled, and a bunch of rosemary tied with a ribbon in the b.u.t.ton hole of his coat, and he said:--"I bring you no wedding present."

"You have already given me enough: the portrait of my mother."

"Oh! that does not count; I know very well what I ought to do, but I cannot. No, Lenz. I have given myself something, however, on the occasion of your marriage. See here! with this paper I am like Siegfried, whom you and I have read of: I have now a skin of callous horn, which nothing can pierce."

"What is it?"

"It is a bond which secures to me a hundred gulden annually, from the age of sixty; and till then I shall manage to get through; and then, when I can no longer live alone, you must give me an attic in your house, and a warm corner behind your stove, where I can play with your grandchildren, and make drawings for them, which they are sure to be pleased with. It cost me a good deal to make the first payment, and no wonder, for though I can gain my livelihood, I have nothing to spare. So I hit upon a good plan: for a whole year I gave up my breakfast,--the Landlord of the 'Lion,' I think, suspected that my dinner and breakfast were combined,--and in this way I contrived to get the money. I intend to give up my dinner presently. It would be a very good idea, in this way by degrees to close gently all the shutters,--and then, good night, world!"

While talking thus, he was a.s.sisting Lenz to dress in an entirely new suit of clothes. Lenz thanked his friend for telling him his scheme, and reminded him that all the members of the annuity society formed one family, with the sole exception of not wishing each other joy on their birthday, and that not from any negligence or ill will, but merely because they were not acquainted with each other.

Pilgrim had in his head all the statistics of the Annuity Society, and he began detailing them, to prevent Lenz giving way to emotion.

When Lenz was dressed in his bridal attire, Petrowitsch came of his own accord to act as best man. He said, with a mysterious face--"You will get no marriage present from me, Lenz; you know why; but it shall be made up to you some day." With this bait, and hint that Lenz was to be his chief heir,--which, however, he never said plainly--Petrowitsch became, of course, the most highly considered person at the marriage festivities. This was just what he liked; to sit in the place of honour, with all the others flocking round him, and yet to have the agreeable consciousness, "I have the keys of my house in my pocket, and my fireproof money-box safe at home." This was quite characteristic of the man. Two such festive days were a grand break, in the midst of the monotony of the winter season.

The Landlord of the "Lion" carried his apostolic head even higher than usual on this occasion, and stroked with dignity his newly shaved chin.

Music, and firing, and shouting, resounded in the bright wintry morning, as the wedding party were going to church, which could not contain all the curious and sympathizing crowd. There was, besides, as great a collection of people round the church door, as within the sacred building. The Pastor gave an appropriate exhortation, not resembling a public store of uniforms for recruits, supposed to fit all chance comers, but made to measure. He spoke most impressively on family respectability, and on the honour of the husband and the wife being identical. Children inherit the good name of their parents, but when they turn out badly, the parents are free from blame in the sight of G.o.d and man,--they did their best, they could do no more. The children of disreputable parents may attain respectability by their own efforts,--they have their life before them. The brother shares the honour of his brother, but he can leave him, and pursue his own path.

But the honour of married people is different: here they are, in the purest sense of the word, one flesh; here harmony is a mutual object.

When the one aspires to honour at the cost of the other, nothing can ensue but discord, disunion, and death. It is a holy and wise ordinance that the woman, though she preserves her baptismal name, receives a new family name from her husband. She adopts the man's name, and the man's honour. The Pastor commended the good qualities of the couple now standing before the altar, though Lenz came in for the largest share of praise; but Annele too had a fair portion; and he reminded them that no man living had any cause to be proud of his good qualities; that the slow and the quick should mutually esteem and regard each other; that marriage was not only according to the law of the land--a mere community of temporal goods,--but still more according to the law of G.o.d--a community of spiritual good, where _mine_ and _thine_ cease, and where every possession is called _ours_, and not only _ours_, but as belonging to the world at large, and, above all, to G.o.d.

Under cover of generalities, and yet easily applicable to the young couple, the Pastor gave utterance to the anxious wish of their mutual friends, that two persons so unlike in disposition, and in worldly occupations, might live henceforth in peaceful and happy union together.

Pilgrim, who was sitting with the singers in the gallery, nodded to the leader of the choir, who nodded back significantly. Faller did not once look up; he pressed his hand to his eyes, and thought, "It was thus I spoke myself to Annele; who knows what she would say to our Pastor, if she dared speak! But I pray thee, good Lord! who once performed so many miracles on this earth, do this one more,--implant good thoughts in her heart, and place good words on her lips, for my excellent Lenz, the most admirable--"

No voice sounded louder than that of Faller when he joined in the hymn, after the ceremony was over. The leader of the choir made him a sign to moderate his deep ba.s.s voice, for the tenor was very weak, and Lenz's voice was wanting; but Faller utterly refused to suppress his tones, which fairly overpowered both the organ and his fellow-singers, in the hymn, "Oh Lord, bless this bond!"

When the wedding was over, the women who were so fortunate as to see and hear the ceremony, had plenty to talk about when they left the church. Never before had the bridegroom been heard sobbing audibly; no man had ever done such a thing till now. To be sure, the Pastor had spoken in a most touching way, especially when he had alluded to Lenz's mother, and implored her blessing, which had caused Lenz to sob so violently that they really thought he must have fallen down, and all present had cried along with him; indeed, those who were talking of it had cried too; they had come to attend the marriage, and had a right to have a share of all that was going, whether it was crying or rejoicing.

The men said to the strangers present--"No other village can have a more admirable Pastor than ours! His words come out so smoothly and glibly, and not stiff or precise; just as if he wished to discuss the matter quietly with us all. Oh, yes! our Pastor! few like him!"

Neither men nor women made any allusion, however, to the matter of the exhortation.

When Lenz left the church, escorted on one side by Petrowitsch, and on the other by the Landlord, Faller's mother came up to him, and said, "I have done what I intended--your mother's clothes have been in the church, and she could not have prayed from her heart for you more earnestly than I did."

Lenz could not answer, for the Landlord reproved the old woman for being the first to speak to the bridegroom,--although he condemned the foolish superst.i.tion, that saw an evil omen in being addressed by an old woman first; but, however, he called forward a handsome young lad to give Lenz his hand first.

From this moment, however, all was gaiety and merriment. It was not easy to believe that any one present had shed a single tear.

Lenz now shook hands with his sisters-in-law, and then with their husbands, in the back parlour. The Doctor, too, and his daughters came,--and very kind it was in them to come,--one after another came in and went out, wishing the young couple joy; while Annele sat in a chair, with a white handkerchief pressed to her eyes; and Lenz said, "I could not help crying so much, but you know for all that how happy I am; and we will remember to keep our honour one and the same, and, with the help of G.o.d, we shall preserve it entire. And when I see what a family you connect me with, I can never forget it. And, please G.o.d!

these shall be the last tears we ever shed together. Take off your gloves, dear Annele, I have none."

Annele shook her head, but said nothing.

Dinner! dinner! dinner! was called out three times, and certainly people seemed to eat threefold. There was only one person who complained, "I can't eat, I cant swallow a single mouthful; it is a sad pity when there are so many good things before me; but I can't!" and this was Franzl.

Even before every one had dined, dancing had begun in the room above, and the bride and bridegroom went backwards and forwards from the dancing room to the dinner table.

"It is too bad in the Techniker to come to my wedding," said Annele to Lenz, on the stairs. "No one invited him; pray don't speak to him."

"Oh, never mind him! I wish to see no one dissatisfied to-day," said Lenz, kindly. "I am only vexed that Faller is not here. I sent a messenger to him, but I see he is not come."

Pilgrim danced the first dance with Annele, who said to him, "You are a first-rate dancer."

"But not a first-rate painter, you think?"

"I never said so."

"At all events, you won't be painted by me; and yet I had rather a fancy to-day to take your portrait. Besides, I don't think you would be easy to take: you are pretty so long as you are talking, but when you are silent there is something in your face I don't like. I can't say what it is."

"If you could only paint as well as you can chatter!"

"Well! well! you shall never be painted by me!

"I have no wish to go down to posterity painted by you," said Annele, who soon recovered her good humour.

The bridal pair were summoned to the lower room, where the most respectable of the connexions had a.s.sembled round Petrowitsch. They wished him to declare distinctly what sum he intended to bequeath to Lenz. Don Bastian, Pilgrim's cunning landlord, was the princ.i.p.al speaker. He had a good opportunity of larding his shabby wedding gift with another man's bacon, and he drove Petrowitsch into such a corner, that he could scarcely slip through his fingers. The blacksmith, who valued himself on being Lenz's only neighbour,--he lived about a mile from him, but his house was the only one to be seen from the Morgenhalde,--had been a schoolfellow of Petrowitsch, and knew how to put him into good humour, by recalling old times.

The Landlady thought that the presence of the young couple might do good, so she had sent for them. When they joined the circle, Petrowitsch, who was by this time at his wit's end, said--"Here is Lenz; he knows what my intentions are. In our family we don't send the public crier about to announce our affairs. You know, Lenz, how we stand, don't you?"

"Certainly, uncle," said Lenz.

"Now, I am not going to say one word more on the subject!" cried Petrowitsch, impatiently starting up. He was in mortal fear lest any one, his old schoolfellow the blacksmith especially, should discover that this was his sixty-fifth birthday, in which case he would no doubt have been congratulated on all sides, and been obliged to pay for their good wishes by making some settlement on his nephew. He pushed his way through the circle out of the room. Buble, who followed closely at his heels, howled loudly, having received a hearty kick from some invisible foot.

Lenz looked after his retreating uncle, rather disconcerted, for he felt he had not perhaps acted very prudently in helping him out of his dilemma. Petrowitsch might possibly have been induced to say something decided, and now all hope of such a thing was at an end.