The Bachelors

by Adalbert Stifter

  Victor also went over to the window and looked down.

  Later, when the housekeeper came and cleared the table, and when Christoph, who was back from Hul already, led the dogs out, the old man went through the concealed door into the gun room.

  The boy, however, who would in fact have wandered about in the open far and wide after the storm, now went to his room and stood at the window staring out …

  After a while he saw his uncle down in the garden tying flowers to small stakes.

  After walking up and down in his room a while longer, he finally left it after all and went outside again. He walked across the sandy forecourt—his uncle was no longer there—and towards the lakeshore where there was a rocky ridge forming an elevated spot, which offered a remarkable panorama. There he stopped and looked out. Meanwhile evening had set in. Some of the mountains lay in the embrace of dark wisps of cloud, others towered up like glowing coals from the debris, and islands of pale sky shimmered unseen above the boy’s head. He gazed out at this picture until gradually everything burnt out and was extinguished, and there was nothing there any more save thick darkness.

  Through this darkness he then walked slowly and pensively past the black ghosts of the trees and back into the house.

  He had decided to leave the island the next day.

  When it was time for dinner he made his way out of his room and along the passage into the dining-room. His uncle was already seated at table and straight away dinner was served. The old man informed the youth that Christoph had brought back the news from Hul that the fisherman would be waiting for him at the landing place where he had set Victor down on his arrival.

  “So you can leave tomorrow after breakfast,” his uncle concluded, “if that’s what you have resolved to do, for you are completely your own master and can do what you please.”

  “I have indeed made up my mind to set off tomorrow,” Victor replied, “but I place the matter in your hands, uncle, and will do whatever you think best.”

  “If that’s the case,” his uncle said, “then I think it best, as I said at midday, that you go tomorrow. Whatever will be, will be, and as you wish to follow my advice, then follow it. You are in every respect at liberty.”

  “Then I’ll look out for the fisherman tomorrow at the landing place,” replied Victor.

  These words were the only ones the two relatives spoke during the meal concerning their relations with one another. They went on to speak about several other matters. In particular, his uncle told him that old Christoph had gone over to Hul before the storm, where it had had a devastating effect, especially at the mouth of the Afel, that the landslide had brought down fresh and indeed huge amounts of rubble and that the water had burst its banks in a dreadful fashion.

  “And here, as it passed over the Grisel,” he continued, “it was so gentle and tame that it watered my flowers for me, knocking hardly any of their stems over. Christoph, when he crossed back over after the storm, was surprised to find such little devastation here.”

  When dinner was over the two relatives wished each other a last goodnight and repaired to bed, except that Victor still had to pack his knapsack, this time not in vain, he thought, and then he laid out his travelling clothes on a chair.

  When the next day dawned, he dressed in these clothes, took up his travelling staff and hung his knapsack over his arm by one of the straps. His dog, who understood everything, danced for joy.

  Over breakfast little of any import was said.

  “I’ll come with you as far as the gate,” his uncle said, when Victor had stood up, put his knapsack on his back and showed signs of wanting to take his leave.

  The old man had gone into the neighbouring room and must have pressed a spring or closed some other device for in that moment Victor heard the clanking of the gate and through the window saw it slowly opening.

  “So,” his uncle said, as he came back in, “all set.”

  Victor fetched his staff and put on his hat. The old man went down the steps with him, across the garden and as far as the gate. On the way neither said a word. At the gate his uncle stopped, drew a small bundle from his pocket and said: “Here are the papers.”

  However, Victor replied: “I’d rather not take them, uncle, if you’ll allow.”

  “What? Not take them? What are you thinking of?”

  “Please. And don’t do my feelings a violence,” Victor said, “but let me do things my way in this, so that you can see I am not self-seeking.”

  “I’ll not force you,” the old man said, and pushed his papers back in his pocket.

  Victor looked at him for a moment. The tears glistened as they filled his bright eyes, testimony of his deep feelings—then he bent down suddenly and fervently kissed his uncle’s wrinkled hand.

  The old man let out a strange, muffled sound—like a sob—and pushed the youth out through the gate.

  Immediately the clattering noise could be heard and the clank as the gate closed and the lock snapped shut. Victor turned round and saw the old man’s back in its grey coat, as he walked towards his house. The young man pressed his handkerchief to his eyes, which were streaming in torrents that would not cease. Then he, too, turned back again and started out on the way that led to the place where he had first set foot on this island. He walked down one side of the hollow and up the other, through the dwarf garden, through the little wood with its tall trees and through the thicket. When he came to the landing place, his eyes had dried but were still a little reddened. The old man from Hul was waiting for him there already, as well as the friendly, blue-eyed girl, who was standing in the stern of the boat. Victor climbed in with his dog and sat down. Immediately the boat was pushed out, while its prow swung round so it faced the lake and then plunged forward into the lake water, while the island behind retreated.

  When they reached the headland beneath Mount Orla, the island was already a long way behind and, as before, reared up with its green trees out of the water. As the body of the boat now made the turn round the mountain base, so the headland began to cover up the island, making it appear like a green tongue, which on the journey there had grown ever longer but which now withdrew behind the mountain walls. At last, as they approached Hul, only the blue walls encircling and reflected in the solitary water were visible, just as when Victor had first set off.

  In Hul Victor tarried a short while, in order to talk with the fisherman and give him his fare. No mention was made, however, of the tales of old that had been the subject on the outward journey.

  When he had landed in Hul, he had already seen the ravages of yesterday’s storm from the furrowed-up ground and the damage done to the shore. The landslide, however, had left a horrific amount of debris lying about, this having fallen down from high up, loosened by the eroding effect of the water. From this scene of devastation he walked on towards the mouth of the river Afel and from there up through the long forest path.

  On the ridge he stopped and looked back at the lake. Mount Grisel could barely be seen, but the bare and darkening rock face he had so admired when he first arrived was Mount Orla. He looked at this now for a while and thought to himself that behind there was the island, where things would now be as so often they had been when he had come back from his long walks—back from the fluttering sycamores, back from the rush of the surf—that somewhere on it two lonely old men were sitting, one here, the other there, with neither of them speaking to the other.

  Two hours later he was in Attmaning and, as he emerged out of the dark trees and walked towards the town, he happened to hear the ringing of the town’s bells, and never had a sound seemed to him so sweet as this ringing, which thrilled his ear because he had not heard it for so long. In the street outside the inn were cattle merchants with their beautiful brown mountain breed, which they were driving down to the plains, and the inn itself was packed with people, since it was the weekly market. It seemed to Victor that he had been dreaming for a long time and now was back in the world.

  Aft
er he had eaten his meal at this inn where the landlord had earlier lent him the young lad, he set off on the further stage of his journey, not with the lad this time, but in the landlord’s fine little wagon, which took him trundling alongside the course of the Afel and into more open country.

  When he came once again to the fields of men, to roads and the lively bustle of fellow human beings—when the land, set off with gentle hills, spread out endlessly far and wide in front of him and the forsaken mountains hovered behind him like a blue wreath, then, on seeing this vast panorama, his heart took wing and hurried him far, far over that distant line of the horizon, behind which he was certain his foster-mother and her daughter Hanna lived, the two people he loved above all else.

  VI

  RETURN

  VICTOR GOT DOWN from the hired wagon after a while, since he felt walking was far more pleasant, and set out on the rest of the journey on foot, as before. The long road home to his mother was taken also with the object of asking her, too, the person he so looked up to and loved, for her advice as to what to do next in this new state of affairs. And so it was that after many days spent on this road, walking with his dog through fields and woods, over hill and down dale, he found himself walking again across the shining meadows he had walked over with his friends so many weeks before, and down into his home valley. He walked over the first footbridge, he walked over the second, past the big elder tree and in through the little old garden gate. When he got nearer to the house, he saw his mother standing on the path in front of the apple tree in the clean white pinafore she usually had on in the mornings when she had to attend to things in the kitchen and to the whole round of housework.

  “Mother,” he cried, “I’ve brought Pom back to you—he’s been well cared for and looked after—and I’m back, too, as I’ve got a lot to talk to you about.”

  “Oh, Victor, it’s you,” cried the old woman. “Welcome, my son, a thousand times welcome, dear child.”

  So saying, she went towards him, pushed the cap back a little that he had on, stroked his forehead and hair with one hand, while with the other she took his right hand and kissed him on the forehead and cheek.

  The dog, who had shot ahead towards the house from the garden gate, now pranced around Victor’s mother, barking furiously.

  The windows and doors of the house were open, as was usually the case on fine days, so that Hanna, on hearing this racket from inside the house, came running out of the house but then came to a sudden standstill, unable to utter a word.

  “So, greet each other, children, greet each other, after being apart for the very first time.”

  Victor walked closer and said shyly: “Hello, dear Hanna.”

  “Hello to you, dear Victor,” she replied, taking his outstretched hand.

  “And now go inside, children,” their mother said. “Victor has to set down his things and say what he needs, whether he’s tired perhaps and what we can give him to eat.”

  So saying, she made to go inside, taking the children, as she called them, with her. In the big room Victor put his knapsack down by the table he hadn’t expected to see again so soon, leant his staff in a corner and sat down on a chair. His mother sat down in the large armchair next to him.

  The dog, because he had become, as it were, so important and belonged to the new arrival, went in with them, but when they had begun to talk and exchange news, he went out again and because he could clearly see that all danger now of his being separated from his friend, Victor, had disappeared, he was seen later lying in his kennel under the apple tree, comfortably sleeping off the tiredness he had accumulated in the course of all the travels he had undergone.

  Being seated at the table, Victor’s mother urged him to say whether he was hungry, whether he needed anything else, and that he should feel free to do anything that would help him recuperate. He answered that he didn’t need anything, that he wasn’t tired, that he had breakfasted late and could therefore wait until the usual time for the midday meal, and after she had eventually gone out in order to make arrangements for a more sufficient and better meal, she then came back in again, sat down where he was and began to speak about his affairs.

  “Victor,” she said, “when you had been away for several days, a letter from your uncle came, in which he asked us not to write to you for the whole period while you were with him. I assumed he must have a reason for making such a demand, that he perhaps he had something in mind that would prove useful to you, and so I agreed. You will have felt really hurt when you didn’t hear a single syllable from us, no greeting, no friendly word.”

  “Mother, my uncle is a wonderful, excellent man,” Victor interjected.

  “Yesterday another letter arrived from him addressed to your guardian with all sorts of documents,” said his mother. “Your guardian drove out here and read the letter out to us. Your uncle thought that you would probably be back home and wanted you to be told of the letter. Now you must hear what it contains. Yes, he is an excellent man, no one can know that better than I, which is why I always insisted you should be allowed to go to him, as he demanded, until your guardian agreed. But Victor my dear, he also has a rough and hard side, which is why he has never been able to get anyone to love him. Many is the time I was reminded by him of the saying in the Holy Scriptures about how the Divine Form would appear one day, not in the rolling of the thunder, not in the roaring of the storm but in the rustling of the breeze moving alongside the stream and through the fruit-laden bushes. I had no idea then, when we were all still young, that I would find myself obliged to regard him highly. One day when you’re older, I will tell you something about us.”

  “He told me about it himself, mother,”

  “He told you himself, child?” the old woman answered. “Then he’s been better disposed to you than I thought.”

  “He just briefly told me the facts.”

  “I’ll tell them to you one day at greater length, then you’ll see what sorrowful and sad times I went through before everything became so pleasant and beautifully autumnal for me, as it now is. Then you’ll also see why it is that I love you so, my poor dear Victor!”

  So saying, she put her arm round his head, as old people do, drew him to her a little nearer and laid her cheek against his hair, appearing deeply moved.

  When she had gathered herself once more and leant back, she said: “In the letter, Victor, he wrote of what he spoke to you about recently and about what he’s done for you.”

  When her mother said this, Hanna quickly went out of the room.

  “He sent the papers,” his mother continued, “which transfer the estate to you, to your guardian; you should accept this joyfully and gratefully.”

  “It’s difficult, mother, it’s so strange …”

  “Your guardian says you should carry out everything exactly as your uncle wishes. You no longer need now to take up the post he wished to set you up in, for this turn of events couldn’t have been foreseen and a wonderful life has opened up in front of you.”

  “But will Hanna be willing?” said Victor.

  “Who mentioned Hanna?” replied his mother, her eyes shining with joy.

  But Victor was too hotly confused to be able to say anything; he sat there, his cheeks appearing to be about to catch on fire.

  “She’ll be willing, don’t worry,” his mother spoke again. “All will be well, child, and everything will turn out for the best. Now we’ll be working on all the things you’ll be needing for your travels. You are your own master now, a man of means—so everything has to be different and the journey, too, means things must be arranged differently. I’ll be taking care of all that. But now I must take care of lunch—go and look round the house meanwhile and see if anything’s changed, or do whatever you want—it’ll soon be lunchtime anyway.”

  At these words she got up and went into the kitchen.

  When lunch had been prepared and served, the three of them sat again at the table they hadn’t sat at together for a long while.
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br />   In the afternoon Victor went out for a walk and visited all the places that had once been dear and familiar to him: Hanna, however, ran around in the house all fingers and thumbs.

  In the evening after supper, when he wanted to go to bed and his mother went with him holding a candle, she led him into his old room, and when they entered he saw that nothing had been altered as he had so vividly imagined it would have been when he had set off. Even the suitcase and the boxes were still sitting there where he had packed them.

  “You see,” his mother said, “we left everything as it was because your uncle wrote that we shouldn’t send anything off while it was still uncertain what shape your life would take. And now, goodnight, Victor.”

  “Good night, mother.”

  And when she had gone, he looked down through the window at the dark bushes again and the rippling water in which the stars were reflected, and when he was lying in bed he could still hear the rippling of the water, as he had heard it on so many evenings in his childhood and youth.

  VII

  CONCLUSION

  IF WE MAY BE ALLOWED to add something to the scenes of youth represented in the above sections, then it is as follows.

  After Victor’s mother had finished fitting him out for his journey and everything was settled that could in the future contribute to the well-being of the young man, a farewell took place again in that same year in the middle of autumn. But this time it was not a sad one like the first, since it was not for his whole life, so to speak, but entailed only a short period of necessary absence to be followed by one that would be long, beautiful and rapturous.

  The fact that Hanna badly wanted to become a very important part of this happy period was demonstrated by the fiery and passionate kisses with which she covered Victor’s lips when they bade each other a private farewell, when he pressed her to him fervently and painfully, declaring himself unable to part from her. The two foster-siblings wept such a deal at this propitious farewell one might have thought it was to divide them, tear them apart in the most dreadful fashion, and not just for a long time but perhaps never allowing hope of a reunion.