Lucy.
I am in no hurry at all. Please look out for my mother, however?
Landlady.
Right away.
Lucy.
She wants some real nice broth.
Landlady.
She shall have the best I’ve got.
[Exit .
Madame Sommer.
Strange that you cannot stop giving orders! It seems to me that our journey might have taught you a lesson or two! We have always paid for more than we have eaten; and in our circumstances!
Lucy.
We’ve never yet come out short.
Madame Sommer.
But we’ve been precious near it.
Postilion enters.
Lucy.
Well, my excellent driver, how do you feel? You’d like your fee, wouldn’t you?
Postilion.
Haven’t I driven like a special post?
Lucy.
That means that you have also earned a special fee I suppose! You should be my private coachman, it I only kept horses.
Postilion.
Even if you don’t keep them, I am at your service.
Lucy.
There!
Postilion.
Thank you, miss! Are you not going further?
Lucy.
We stop here for the present.
Postilion.
Good-by!
[Exit .
Madame Sommer.
I see by his face that you gave him too much.
Lucy.
Would you have him leave us discontented? He was so friendly the whole time. You are always saying that I am selfwilled, mamma; but at all events I am not selfish.
Madame Sommer.
I beg of you, Lucy, don’t misunderstand what I say to you. I honor your frankness as well as your good heart and your generosity; but they are virtues only in their proper places.
Lucy.
Mamma, this place pleases me very much. And I suppose that yonder house belongs to the lady whose companion I am going to be.
Madame Sommer.
I am glad if the place of your destination is agreeable to you!
Lucy.
Quiet it may be, that I can see. It’s just like Sunday in the great square. But her ladyship has a fine garden and must be a good woman. We shall see how we get on together. Why are you looking about you, mamma?
Madame Sommer.
Leave me, Lucy! Fortunate girl, in whose heart no recollections are stirred! Alas! it used to be different! There is nothing more painful to me than to come into an inn.
Lucy.
Where don’t you find something to worry about?
Madame Sommer.
And is there ever any lack of reasons for it? My darling, how different it used to be when your father travelled with me, when we enjoyed the happiest years of our lives in the free world, the first years of our married life! Then everything had the charm of novelty for me! And with his arm around me to hasten through so many thousand objects, when every trivial thing was made interesting to me by his intelligence, his love! —
Lucy.
I should like very much to travel.
Madame Sommer.
And when after a hot day, or after some series of accidents, perhaps on account of bad roads in winter, we arrived at much worse inns than this one, and together felt the enjoyment of simple comforts, or sat together on the wooden settle, eating our omelet and boiled potatoes — ah, then it was very different!
Lucy.
But now it is time to forget him.
Madame Sommer.
Do you know what that means? To forget? My dear girl, you have, thank God, never yet lost anything that could not be replaced. But since the moment when I became certain that he had deserted me, all the joy of my life was gone. Despair seized upon me. I had no faith in myself, I did not believe in a God. I can scarcely bear to think of it.
Lucy.
And all I know is that I sat on your bed and cried because you cried. It was in the green room, on the little bed. I felt worse about the room because we had to sell the house.
Madame Sommer.
You were seven years old and couldn’t realize what you were losing.
Annie (with the lunch),the Landlady, Carl.
Annie.
Here is madame’s lunch.
Madame Sommer.
Thank you, my love! Is that your little daughter?
Landlady.
My stepdaughter, madame; but she is so capable that she makes me forget that I have no children of my own.
Madame Sommer.
You are in mourning?
Landlady.
For my husband whom I lost three months ago. We had not lived together quite three years.
Madame Sommer.
Yet you seem somewhat comforted.
Landlady.
We have just as little time to weep as to pray. Alas! so it goes Sundays and work-a-days. If the parson did not come with his text once in a while, or once had a chance to go to a funeral — Carl, bring a couple of napkins! Put ’em here at the end!
Lucy.
Whose house is that over yonder?
Landlady.
It belongs to our gracious baroness. A most lovely woman!
Madame Sommer.
I am glad to have a neighbor confirm the report that was given to us at a distance. My daughter is going to live with her and be her companion.
Landlady.
I wish you the best success, miss.
Lucy.
I hope that she is going to please me.
Landlady.
You must have an extraordinary taste if your intercourse with the gracious lady does not please you.
Lucy.
So much the better! For if I am to get along well with any one my heart and will must be in it; else it does not succeed.
Landlady.
Well! well! we’ll talk some more about this by-and-by, and you shall tell me if I have not spoken the truth. Whoever lives near our gracious ladyship is lucky. When my daughter gets a little bigger, then she is going to serve with her for a few years at least; it’s a good thing for the girl all her life long.
Annie.
Ah! only wait till you see her! She is so sweet, so sweet! You can’t believe how anxiously she has been waiting for you. She likes me too. Will you not go right over to her? I will go with you.
Lucy.
I must set myself to rights first, and I want something to eat too.
Annie.
Then can’t I run over, mamma, and tell her ladyship that the mademoiselle has come?
Landlady.
Well then, run along!
Madame Sommer.
And tell her, little one, that we will wait upon her immediately after dinner.
[Exit Annie.
Landlady.
My daughter has an extraordinary fondness for her. And she is the best soul in the world and her whole heart is with children. She teaches them to do all sorts of work and to sing. She likes to have the peasant girls wait on her until they get some skill and then she gets them good places, and this is the way she spends her time since her husband has been gone. It’s incomprehensible how she can be so unhappy and at the same time so kind and so good.
Madame Sommer.
Isn’t she a widow?
Landlady.
God knows! her husband went away three years ago, and since then nothing has been seen or heard of him. And she loved him above all things. My man could never get done when he began to tell about them. And yet! I myself say it, there is not such a heart as hers in the world. Every year on the day when she saw him for the last time, she will not admit anyone, shuts herself up in her room, and generally when she speaks of him it goes through your very soul!
Madame Sommer.
Poor creature!
Landlady.
There’s been a good deal of talk about it, first and last.
Madame Sommer.
What do you me
an?
Landlady.
It is not pleasant to repeat it.
Madame Sommer.
I beg you to tell me.
Landlady.
If you will not abuse my confidence I will tell you the story. It’s about eight years ago since they came here. They bought the barony. No one knew them; the people called him baron and called her my gracious lady, and they thought that he was an officer who had got rich in foreign wars and now wanted to settle down in peace. At that time she was just in the bloom of youth, not more than sixteen years old and handsome as an angel.
Lucy.
Then she can’t be more than twenty-four now?
Landlady.
But she has had trouble enough for her years. She had one child; it did not live long; its grave is in the garden, with only turf over it, and since her husband went away she has had a hermitage built near it, and her own grave is to be made right by it. My blessed man was well along in years and not easy to get stirred up; but he liked to tell nothing better than about the happy lives of those people as long as they lived together. It made quite another man of him, he used to say, only to look on and see how fond they were of each other.
Madame Sommer.
My heart is moved for her.
Landlady.
But this was the way of it: Folk said he had curious principles; leastwise he never went to church; and folks that haven’t any religion haven’t any God, and are apt to get into bad ways. All of a sudden the report got out that the baron was off. He had started on his travels, and since then he has never come back.
Madame Sommer.
(Aside.) The very counterpart of my own fate!
Landlady.
Then all the mouths were full of it! It was just at the time that I came here as a young bride — three years ago St. Michael’s day. And then everybody had a different story, and they went about whispering in their neighbor’s ears that they’d never had any confidence in him. But don’t you betray me. It was said that he was a highborn gentleman who had eloped with her, and all sorts of things were said. Ah, yes, if a young girl makes a false step like that she has to repent of it all her life long.
Enter Annie.
Annie.
Her ladyship begs most earnestly that you will come right over to her; she wants to speak with you just a moment, just to look at you!
Lucy.
It is not suitable to go in these clothes.
Landlady.
Oh, do go! I pledge you my word that she will not care at all.
Lucy.
Will you go with me, little girl?
Annie.
With all my heart.
Madame Sommer.
Lucy, a word with you! (Landlady goes away.) Don’t you commit yourself at all. Don’t speak of our rank, our fate. Meet her deferentially.
Lucy.
(Softly.) Trust it all to me! My father was a merchant, went to America, is dead and hence our circumstances. You just trust it to me; I’ve told the story often enough. (Aloud.) Don’t you want to rest a little while? You need to. The good landlady will show you to a room where there’s a bed.
Landlady.
I have indeed a pretty, quiet chamber looking out into the garden. (To Lucy.) I hope that the gracious lady will please you.
[Exit Lucy with Annie.
Madame Sommer.
My daughter is still a little flighty.
Landlady.
That is the way of youth; but the proud waves get calmed down after a little.
Madame Sommer.
So much the worse.
Landlady.
Come with me, madame, if you like to.
[Exeunt both.
A Post-horn is heard.
Fernando (in officer’s uniform),a Servant.
Servant.
Shall I have the horses harnessed again right away and your things packed?
Fernando.
You’re to fetch them into the inn, I tell you. This is the end of our journey; do you hear?
Servant.
This is? But you said —
Fernando.
I tell you: have a room secured and bring my bags to it.
[Exit Servant.
Fernando.
(Going to the window.) And do I see thee again? Heavenly prospect! Do I see thee again? Scene of all my felicity! How silent is the house! Not a window open! How empty the balcony whereon we so often sat together! Fernando, behold the cloister-like air of her dwelling; how it flatters thy hopes! And can it be that in her loneliness Fernando is the object of her thoughts, of her occupation? And has he deserved it of her? Oh! it seems to me as if I had awakened into life again after a long, cold, joyless death-sleep; so novel, so significant is everything! The trees, the fountains, everything, everything! Even now the water runs from the pipes just as it did when I — ah! how many thousand times, gazed thoughtfully from our window and saw all things silently reflected in the running waters. The voice of the fountain is melody to me, thought-transporting melody! And she? She will be as she used to be! Yes, Stella, thou hast not changed; my heart tells me truly. How it beats in response to thine! How its beating urges me toward thee! But I will not, I dare not! I must first recover, must first persuade myself that I am actually here, that I am not deceived by the dream which so often, when I slept and when I waked, brought me hither from the farthest regions of the earth. Stella! Stella! I am coming! Dost thou not already feel my presence? In thy arms all shall be forgotten! And if thou hoverest about me, beloved shade of my unlucky wife, forgive me, depart from me! Thou art gone; so let me forget thee, forget everything in the arms of this angel — my fate, all my loss, my sorrows and my repentance! I am so near to thee and yet so far! And in a single moment — I cannot, I cannot! I must recover myself or I shall suffocate at her feet!
Enter Landlady.
Landlady.
Would you like something to eat, sir?
Fernando.
Is dinner ready?
Landlady.
Oh, yes! we are only waiting for a young lady who has gone across to the gracious lady’s.
Fernando.
And how is her ladyship?
Landlady.
Do you know her?
Fernando.
A few years ago I used to be there a great deal. How is her husband?
Landlady.
Heaven only knows! He is somewhere in the wide world!
Fernando.
What! gone?
Landlady.
Fact! He has deserted the poor lady! God forgive him!
Fernando.
She will soon learn to console herself.
Landlady.
Do you think so, indeed? Then you can’t know her very well. She lives as close as a nun ever since I’ve known her. Almost no one, nobody in the neighborhood, comes to visit her. She lives with her people, keeps all the children of the village attached to her, and except for her secret sorrow, is always friendly and pleasant.
Fernando.
I am going to see her, however!
Landlady.
I would. Oftentimes she has invited us, that is, the bailiff’s wife and the pastor’s wife and me, and she likes to discuss all sorts of questions with us. But faith, we avoid speaking of her husband, the baron! It happened we reminded her of him one day. God knows how we felt when she fell to and began to speak of him, to praise him and to cry about him. My dear sir, we all wept like children, and we could hardly get over it.
Fernando.
(Aside.) Hast thou deserved this of her! (Aloud.) Does my servant know which my room is?
Landlady.
Up one flight, number two! Carl, show the gentleman his room.
[Exit Fernando with the lad.
Enter Lucy and Annie.
Landlady.
Well, how was it?
Lucy.
She is a lovely little woman and I shall get along with her very well. You have not praised her too highly. She did not want to let me
go. She made me promise by all that is holy that I would bring my mother and my things right over after dinner.
Landlady.
I thought it would turn out so. Would you like to dine right away? Only a tall, handsome officer has just come; but you need not be afraid of him.
Lucy.
Not in the least! I like to have soldiers around better than anyone else. At least they don’t set themselves up to know how to read people’s characters at first sight. Is my mother asleep?
Landlady.
I don’t know.
Lucy.
I must go and look after her.
[Exit .
Landlady.
Carl! there you’ve gone and forgotten the saltcellar again. What kind of work do you call that? And just look at the glasses! I’d smash one or two over your head if they didn’t cost more than you are worth.
Enter Fernando.
Landlady.
The young lady has got back. She will be down to dinner right away.
Fernando.
Who is she?
Landlady.
I am not acquainted with her. She seems to be of good birth but without means: she is going to be lady’s companion to the baroness.
Fernando.
She is young?
Landlady.
Very young and pert. Her mother is here too — up stairs.
Enter Lucy.
Lucy.
Your humble servant, sir.
Fernando.
I am fortunate to have such a charming companion at dinner.
[Lucy makes a courtesy.
Landlady.
Sit here, mademoiselle! And will you take this place, sir?
Fernando.
Shall we not have the honor of your company, good mistress?
Landlady.
Ah, no; if I rest, everything rests.
[Exit .
Fernando.
So we shall have a tête-à-tête!
Lucy.
With the table between us, I can endure it.
Fernando.
So you have determined to be companion to the baroness?
Lucy.
I’ve got to be.
Fernando.
It seems to me that you ought to be able to be a companion to some one who would be more entertaining than the baroness.
Lucy.
I have no way of finding such.
Fernando.
But your charming face?
Lucy.
I see that you are like all other men!
Fernando.
That means?
Lucy.
Why just this, you are all very assuming. You think that you are indispensable; but I don’t think so, I grew up without men.
Works of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Page 192