Коллектив авторов - The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Volume 08

Damie's whining and sensitive nature was very disgusting to Crappy Zachy, and he tried to cure him of it by giving him plenty to cry about and teasing him whenever he could.

Thus the two little stems which had sprouted in the same garden were transplanted into different soils. The position and the nature of the ground, and the qualities that were inherent in each stem, made them grow up very differently.

All Souls' Day came. It was dull and foggy, and the children stood among a crowd of people assembled in the churchyard. Crappy Zachy had led Damie there by the hand, but Amrei had come alone, without Black Marianne; many were angry at the hard-hearted woman, while a few hit a part of the truth when they said that Marianne did not like to visit graves, because she did not know where her husband's grave was. Amrei was quiet and did not shed a tear, while Damie wept bitterly at the pitying remarks of the bystanders, more especially because Crappy Zachy had given him several sly pinches and pokes. For a time Amrei, in a dreamy, forgetful way, stood gazing at the lights on the heads of the graves, watching the flame consume the wax and the wick grow blacker, and blacker, until at last the light was quite burnt out.

In the crowd a man, wearing handsome, town-made clothes and with a ribbon in his button-hole, was moving about here and there. It was the High Commissioner of Public Works, Severin, who, on a trip of inspection, had come to visit the graves of his parents, Brosi and Moni. His brothers and sisters and other relatives were constantly crowding around him with a kind of deferential respect; in fact, the usual reverence of the occasion was almost entirely diverted, nearly all the attention being fixed upon this stranger. Amrei also looked at him, and asked Crappy Zachy:

"Is that a bridegroom?"

"Why?"

"Because he has a ribbon in his button-hole."

Instead of answering her, the first thing that Crappy Zachy did was to go up to a group of people and tell them what a stupid speech the child had made; and from among the graves there arose a loud laugh over her foolishness. Only Farmer Rodel's wife said: "I don't see anything foolish in that. Although it is a mark of honor that Severin has, it is after all a strange thing for him to go about in the churchyard with such a decoration on—in the place where we see what we are all coming to, whether in our lifetime we have worn clothes of silk or of homespun. It annoyed me to see him wear it in the church—a thing of that kind ought to be taken off when one goes to church, and more especially in the churchyard!"

The rumor of little Amrei's question must have penetrated to Severin himself, for he was seen to button his overcoat hastily, and as he did so he nodded at the child. Now he was heard to ask who she was, and as soon as he found out, he came hurrying across to the children beside the fresh graves, and said to Amrei:

"Come here, my child. Open your hand. Here is a ducat for you—buy what you want with it."

The child stared at him and did not answer. But scarcely had Severin turned his back when she called out to him, half-aloud:

"I won't take any presents!"—and she flung the ducat after him.

Several people who had seen this came up to Amrei and scolded her; and just as they were about to illuse her, she was again saved from their rough hands by Farmer Rodel's wife, who once before had protected her with words. But even she requested Amrei to go after Severin and at least thank him. But Amrei made no answer whatsoever; she remained obstinate, so that her protectress also left her. Only with considerable difficulty was the ducat found again, and a member of the Village Council, who was present, took charge of it in order to deliver it over to the child's guardian.

This incident gave Amrei a strange reputation in the village. People said she had lived only a few days with Black Marianne, and yet had already acquired that woman's manners. It was declared to be an unheard of thing that a child so sunk in poverty could be so proud, and she was scolded up hill and down dale for this pride, so that she became thoroughly aware of it, and in her young, childish heart there arose an attitude of defiance, a resolve to evince it all the more. Black Marianne, moreover, did her part to strengthen this state of mind, for she said: "Nothing more lucky can happen to a poor person than to be considered proud, for by that means he or she is saved from being trampled upon by everybody, and from being expected to offer thanks for such usage afterward."

In the winter Amrei was at Crappy Zachy's much of the time, for she was very fond of hearing him play the violin; yes, and Crappy Zachy on one occasion bestowed such high praise upon her as to say: "You are not stupid;" for Amrei, after listening to his playing for a long time, had remarked: "It's wonderful how a fiddle can hold its breath so long; I can't do that." And, on quiet winter nights at home, when Marianne told sparkling and horrifying goblin-stories, Amrei, when they were finished, would draw a deep breath and say: "Oh, Marianne, I must take breath now—I was obliged to hold my breath all the time you were speaking."

No one paid much attention to Amrei, and the child could dream away just as she had a mind to. Only the schoolmaster said once at a meeting of the Village Council, that he had never seen such a child—she was at once defiant and yielding, dreamy and alert. In truth, with all her childish self-forgetfulness, there was already developing in little Amrei a sense of responsibility, an attitude of self-defense in opposition to the world, its kindness and its malice. Damie, on the other hand, came crying and complaining to his sister upon every trifling occasion. He was, furthermore, always pitying himself, and when he was tumbled over by his playmates in their wrestling matches, he always whined: "Yes, because I am an orphan they beat me! Oh, if my father and mother knew of it!"—and then he cried twice as much over the injustice of it. Damie let everybody give him things to eat, and thus became greedy, while Amrei was satisfied with a little, and thus acquired habits of moderation. Even the roughest boys were afraid of Amrei, although nobody knew how she had proved her strength, while Damie would run away from quite little boys. In school Damie was always up to mischief; he shuffled his feet and turned down the leaves of the books with his fingers as he read. Amrei, on the other hand, was always bright and attentive, though she often wept in the school, not for the punishment she herself received, but because Damie was so often punished.

Amrei could please Damie best by telling him the answers to riddles. The children still used to sit frequently by the house of their rich guardian, sometimes near the wagons, sometimes near the oven behind the house, where they used to warm themselves, especially in the autumn. Once Amrei asked:

"What's the best thing about an oven?"

"You know I can't guess anything," replied Damie, plaintively.

"Then I'll tell you:

And then, pointing to the wagons before the house, Amrei asked:

"What's full of holes, and yet holds? "—and without waiting for a reply, she gave the answer: "A chain!"

"Now you must let me ask you these riddles," said Damie.

And Amrei replied: "Yes, you may ask them. But do you see those sheep coming yonder? Now I know another riddle."

"No!" cried Damie, "no! Two are enough for me—I can't remember three!"

"Yes, you must hear this one too, or else I'll take the others back!"

And Damie kept repeating to himself, anxiously: "A chain," "Eat it itself," while Amrei asked: