Fairy Tales & Ghost Stories by Theodor Storm
Page 7
Chapter Five: The Entrance to the Rose Garden
The sun was already high in the sky. Hinzelmeier had taken a short cut across a field of green winter wheat that stretched before him boundlessly. At the end of that the trail led through the opening in the embankment out to a spacious area, and Hinzelmeier stood in front of the buildings of a large farm. It had been raining and now the thatched roofs were steaming in the sharp spring sunshine. He thrust his walking stick into the ground and looked up to the ridge of the house, where a host of sparrows went on in their own way. Suddenly he saw out of one of the two white chimneys a shiny disc rise into the air, turn slowly in the sunshine, and fall back down into the chimney.
Hinzelmeier took out his pocket watch. “It’s noon!” he said. “They’re baking pancakes.” A delicious fragrance spread out, and again a pancake rose into the sunshine and fell after a short moment back into the chimney.
Hunger announced itself. Hinzelmeier came into the house and entered through a wide vestibule into a large, spacious kitchen like those that used to be in the larger farms. At the hearth, on which a bright brushwood burned, stood a sturdy farm woman who poured batter into a sizzling pan.
Krahirius, who had silently flown in from behind, set himself on the hearth mantle while Hinzelmeier asked whether he could for love or money get a good meal there.
“This is not an inn!” said the woman and swung her pan, so that the pancake went crackling up the black chimney and after only a short moment slapped back into the pan on the flipped side.
Hinzelmeier reached for his stick, which he had placed by the door upon entering. The old woman stuck a fork into the pancake and flipped it quickly onto a dish. “Now, now!” she said. “That’s not how I meant it. Let it sit; this one is just ready.” Then she pushed a wooden chair to the kitchen table for him and put the steaming pancake in front of him along with bread and a jug of fresh local wine.
Hinzelmeier approved and soon consumed the robust food and a good portion of the hard rye bread. Then he put the jug to his lips and took a hearty gulp to the health of the old woman and then took another to his own good health. This pleased him so that he began to sing simultaneously. “He is a jovial man,” cried the old woman across from her stove. Hinzelmeier nodded. At once all the songs occurred to him that he had formerly heard from his beautiful mother in his parents’ home. Now he sang them to her, one after the other:
There once was a Nightingale
That sang the entire night;
From her sweet song,
From the sound and its echoes,
The roses sprang up.
It was otherwise a wild breed,
Now goes it deep in thought,
Carries in hand the summer hat,
And silently tolerates the sun’s heat,
And she knows not what to do.
There once was a Nightingale
That sang the entire night! -
There was in the wall, opposite from the hearth, under the rows of shiny pewter plates, a little sliding window that was drawn back, and a beautiful blond girl, who could have been the farmer’s daughter, stuck her head out of curiosity into the kitchen.
Hinzelmeier, who heard the rattling of the little sliding window, stopped singing and let his eyes wander over to the walls of the kitchen, over the butter churn and the shiny cheese kettle and over the wide back of the old woman to the open little sliding window, where they stayed stuck on two other young eyes.
The girl turned red. “He sings beautifully!” she finally said.
“It just now came to me,” Hinzelmeier responded. “But I really don’t sing.”
Then they were both silent for a while, so one could hear the sizzling of the frying pan and the crackling of the pancakes.
“Kasper also sings beautifully!” began the girl again.
“Well of course!” Hinzelmeier said.
“Yes,” said the girl, “but not as beautiful as you. Where did you get that beautiful song?”
Hinzelmeier did not answer, but stepped on an overturned washtub that stood underneath the sliding window and looked passed the girl into the chamber. The inside was full of sunshine. On the paving stones of the floor were the shadows of carnations and rose trees, which may have stood aside the front of a window. Suddenly, in the back of the chamber the door flew open. The spring wind came roaring in and tore from the girl’s Riegelhaube cap a blue silk ribbon, then carried it through the sliding window and flew its prize whirling around the kitchen. Hinzelmeier threw his hat after it and caught it like a summer bird.
The window was a little high. He wanted to stretch up to the girl, and she bent down to him. Then both heads came together so that they cracked. The girl screamed. The plates rattled. Hinzelmeier became quite confused.
“He has a truly valiant head!” said the girl and wiped the tears from her cheeks with her hand. As Hinzelmeier brushed the hair from his forehead and looked boldly into her face, she cast her eyes down and said, “You haven’t hurt yourself?”
Hinzelmeier laughed. “No, miss,” he said – he did not know how it had suddenly occurred to him – “don’t take it the wrong way, but you certainly have a sweet heart!”
She placed her fist under her chin and tried to look defiantly at him, but her eyes remained stuck on his. “He babbles well,” she said softly.
Hinzelmeier shook his head. There was silence between the two.
“Miss,” Hinzelmeier said after a while, “I’d like to bring the ribbon to you in the chamber!”
The girl nodded.
“But how do I get in there?”
A sound came to his ears. “Sometimes through the window!” – That was the voice of his mother. He saw her sitting on his bed. He saw her smile. It was suddenly to him as if he were caught in a rosy mist that came into the kitchen from the sliding window. He stepped again on the tub and laid his hands around the girl’s neck. There he looked through the open chamber door into a garden. In it stood blooming rose bushes like a red sea, and in the distance sang crystalline girls’ voices:
Rose light
Open, then seal us tight!
Hinzelmeier gently pressed the girl back into the chamber and propped his hands on the windowsill in order to swing himself in with a leap. Then he heard “Krahira, Krahira!” buzzing over his head, and before he knew it the raven let the green eyeglasses fall from the air straight on his nose. Just like in a dream he saw the girl’s arms reach out for him; then everything suddenly vanished before his eyes. But in the distance he saw through the green glasses a dark figure sitting in a deep rock basin, who seemed to be eagerly boring with a chisel into the ground.