Andreas Read online

  Then she fetched another book: the pains of hell were pictured there, the tortures of the damned arranged under the seven deadly sins, all engraved on copper. She explained the pictures to Andreas, and how each punishment arose exactly from its sin. She knew everything and said everything, frankly and artlessly, and Andreas felt as if he were looking into a crystal holding the whole world, but it was innocent and pure.

  They were sitting side by side in the big room on the window-seat running round the embrasure; then Romana stopped and listened, as if she could hear through the wall. “The goats are home. Come and look at them.” She took Andreas by the hand, the goatherd put down the milking-pail, the goats crowded round it, trying to get their swollen udders in. There were fifty of them; the goat-boy was quite beleaguered. Romana knew them all. She pointed out the most vicious and the quietest, the one with the longest hair and the best milker. The goats knew her too, and came running to her. Over by the wall there was a grassy spot. Hardly had the girl lain nimbly down when a goat was standing over her to let her drink, and struggled to stay there till she had sucked, but Romana sprang behind a barrow, drawing Andreas by the hand. The goat could not find the way, and bleated piteously after her.

  Meanwhile Romana and Andreas climbed the spiral staircase of the turret looking towards the mountains. At its top there was a little round room, where an eagle was huddled on a perch. Across its stony face and lifeless eyes a light flashed, it raised its wings in faint joy, and hopped aside. Romana sat down beside it and laid her hand on its neck. Her grandfather had brought it home, she said, when it was barely fledged. For as to clearing out eyries, he had not his like for that. He never did much else, but often he would ride far away, climb about, track down the eyrie somewhere in the rocks, rouse the countryfolk, the cowherds, and huntsmen, and make them tie the longest ladders together or let him down on ropes almost out of sight. He was good at that, and at marrying handsome women. He had married four of them, and as each died took a still handsomer one, and every time a kinswoman, for he said there was nothing like Finazzer blood. When he had caught the eagle he was already fifty-four, and had hung for nine hours at the end of four church ladders over a most frightful precipice, but directly afterwards, he had gone courting his handsomest wife. She was a young cousin’s widow, and had never looked at any one but him, was almost glad when her husband was killed—by a runaway ox, that was—though she had a little girl by him and was far gone with child at the time. And so her father and mother were half-sister and half-brother, her mother a year older than her father, and that was why they were so dear to each other, because they were of one blood and had been brought up together. When her father rode away to Spittal or over into the Tyrol to buy cattle, even if it were only for a night or two, her mother could hardly let him go; she cried every single time, clung to him, kissed his mouth and hands, and could not stop waving, and looking after him, and calling blessings on him. And that was how she was going to live with her husband—she would not have it any other way.

  Meanwhile they had crossed the yard. Beside the gate, inside the wall, there was a wooden bench; she drew him towards it and told him to sit down beside her. Andreas marvelled how the girl told him everything, as frankly as if he had been her brother. Meanwhile evening had drawn in—on the one hand, the clouds had sunk down over the mountains, on the other there was a piercing clearness and purity, with a few golden clouds scattered over the sky, the whole sky in movement, the puddle with the quacking ducks a spray of fire and gold, the ivy on the chapel wall like emerald; a tit or robin glided out of the green gloom, and wheeled with a sweet sound in the shimmering air. Romana’s lips were loveliest of all: they were shining, transparent crimson, and her eager, innocent talk flowed between them like fiery air carrying her soul, while from the brown eyes came a flash at every word.

  Suddenly, over in the house, Andreas saw her mother standing in an embrasure in the upper storey and looking down at them. He pointed her out to Romana. Through the leaded window the woman’s face looked sad and stern; he thought they ought to get up and go into the house, her mother might need her, or she did not like them sitting there together. Romana merely gave a frank and happy nod, drew him by the hand. He was to stay where he was. The mother nodded back and went away. Andreas could hardly understand this; the only attitude he knew towards parents and elders was constraint and fear: he could not imagine that the mother could find such freedom anything but displeasing, even though she might not say so. He did not sit down again, but said he must have a look at the horse.

  When they entered the stable the young maid was crouching by the fire, her hair hanging in wisps over her flushed face, the servant more on than beside her. She seemed to be brewing something in an iron pot.

  “Shall I go for more saltpetre, Mr Sergeant?” asked the slut, tittering as if it were some great secret. When the ruffian saw Andreas with Romana behind him he scrambled into a more decent posture. Andreas ordered him to take the portmanteau, which was still lying in the straw, up to his room, and the valise, too.

  “All in good time,” said Gotthilff. “I’ve got to get finished here first. That’s a draught to make a sick horse sound and a sound dog sick.” As he said this he turned to Andreas with a most insolent look.

  “What’s the matter with the horse?” said Andreas, and stepped towards the stall, but he halted before the second step because he realised that he knew nothing about it, and the bay looked the picture of misery.

  “What should be the matter? Tomorrow it will be all right. Then off we go,” replied the fellow, and turned back to the fire.

  Andreas took the portmanteau, pretending he had forgotten his order to the servant. He pondered whether he was pretending to himself, to the fellow, or to Romana. She followed him upstairs. He left the door open behind him, threw the portmanteau down; the girl came in carrying the valise, and laid it down.

  “That’s my grandmother’s bed. She bore her children in it. Look how beautifully it is painted, but my mother and father’s bed is much grander, and still bigger. It has St James and St Stephen painted at the head, and lovely wreaths of flowers at the foot. This is shorter, because my grandmother was not over big. I don’t know if it will be long enough for you. It’s so short. We’re of a height. Let’s try whether we can sleep in it full length. It’s no sleep at all to sleep all doubled up. Mine is long and broad. There’s room enough for two in it.”

  Nimbly she swung her big, light limbs on to the bed and lay full length in it, the tips of her toes touching a moulding at the foot of the bed. Andreas was bending over her. She lay as joyous and innocent under him as she had lain under the goat. Andreas looked at her half-open mouth, she stretched out her arms, and drew him gently to her, so that his lips touched hers. He straightened himself—it flashed through him that this was the first kiss of his life. She let him go, then gently drew him to her again, and gave him another kiss, and then, in the same way, a third and fourth. The door swung in the wind—Andreas felt that somebody had looked in. He went to the door and out into the passage—it was empty. Romana followed close behind, he went downstairs without a word, and she followed him, quite buoyant and free.

  Downstairs, her father was standing telling the foreman how to bring in the part of the aftergrowth which had dried first. She ran confidingly to him and leaned against him. Standing beside the great child, the handsome man might have been her betrothed.

  Andreas went towards the stable as if he had important business there. The servant came hastily out of the gloom, nearly ran into him, cried “Hallo there!” as though he had not recognized his master, and at once talk spurted from his moist mouth. The maid—that was a fine girl for you, she was busy helping him to cure the horse. She didn’t come from here either: she came from the valley, and could do what she liked with the farmer folk. But the master needed no telling; he knew pretty well what he was about: he had got a young and pretty one. Well, well, that was the way in Carinthia—that was life! For by the time t
hey were fifteen every maid had had her man, and the farmer’s daughter was just as willing to leave her door unbolted as the dairymaid, one today, another tomorrow, so that everybody got his chance. There was a fire in Andreas’s breast which leapt to his throat, but not a word left his mouth. He longed to strike the fellow across the mouth—why did he not do so? The other felt it, and recoiled half a pace. But Andreas’s mind was elsewhere. His eyeballs quivered. He saw Romana sitting in the dark on her virgin bed, in her nightgown, her feet drawn up under her, watching the door. She had shown him her door and the empty room beside it, and it all rolled past his eyes like mountain mist. He did not want to pursue the thought—strove to turn away from it. Without more ado he turned his back on the wretch, who had won the day again.

  At the evening meal Andreas felt as he had never felt in his life: everything had fallen apart—the shadows and the light, the faces and the hands. The farmer stretched out his hand towards him for the cider jug. Andreas was startled to the depths of his being, as if the hand of doom were groping for the veins of his heart. At the other end of the table the maid was cackling her “Mr Sergeant!” “Who should that be?” demanded Andreas angrily. His voice sounded so strange, like a dreamer talking in his sleep. From far away the servant stared at him, white and unkempt—sullen.

  Later, Andreas was alone in his room. He was standing by the table fidgeting with his portmanteau—there was a tinder-box, but he needed no candle: the moon shone bright through the window, casting black shadows. He was listening to the noises in the house, he had taken off his riding-boots—he did not know what he was waiting for. And yet he knew, and suddenly found himself standing out in the passage in front of a bedroom door. He held his breath. Two people, lying together in bed, were talking in a low, confiding tone. His senses quickened, he could hear the farmer’s wife plaiting her hair as she spoke, and the house-dog moving about in the yard eating something. “Who can be feeding the dog at this time of night?” something in him wondered, and at the same time it seemed to him as if he must return to his boyhood, when he still slept in the little room next to his parents and overheard them talking in the evening through the wardrobe in the wall. Even now he did not want to eavesdrop, yet he heard all the same, but through what he heard he could hear his parents talking—they were certainly older than the farmer and his wife, yet not much—ten years maybe. “Is that so much?” he thought; “are they so much nearer death—worn out? For every word they say could be left unspoken; one speaks, the other replies, and real life passes by. But those two in there are as confiding and warm-hearted as a newly married couple.”

  Suddenly he started as if an icy drop had fallen straight on to his heart. They were speaking of him and the girl, but even that was harmless. Whatever the child might do, said the wife, she let her have her way, because the girl would never carry on behind her back. She was too straightforward; she got that from him, for he had always been a fiery friend and a happy-natured man, and now, by God’s goodness, the girl had grown like that too. No, said the husband, she got that from her, because she was her mother’s child, and so there could be nothing deceitful or underhand in her.—But now here she was, nothing but an old woman, with a daughter already running after a strange man, and the time would soon come when he would be ashamed to treat her like a lover.—No, God save him, she was always the same to him—nay more, always dearer, and these eighteen years he had not rued it for one hour. No, nor had she, not for an hour. He was the only thing she cared for; and, his pleasant voice replied, he cared only for her and the children; they were one with her, those that were left, and the others too. And that old couple the Schwarzbach had swept away in the April floods might be counted happy. They had floated away on a bed together, holding each other’s hands, and the river had carried them down into the mill-race, and her white hair had shone like silver under the willows. And that was what God gave to His chosen. That was beyond wishing and praying for.

  Meanwhile the room had grown quite still. There was the sound of gentle movement in the beds, and he thought he heard the two kissing. He wanted to go away and did not dare, the silence was so perfect. It came heavily home to him that things had not been so beautiful between his parents—no such fond closeness between them, although each was proud of the other and although, in the face of the world, they stood firmly side by side, and jealously guarded each other’s honour and public respect. He could not get clear in his mind as to what his parents lacked. Then the two in the room began to say the Lord’s Prayer together, and Andreas stole away.

  Now more than ever he felt drawn to Romana’s room, irresistibly, yet differently from before, everything stood out clear in black and white. He said to himself: one day this will be my house, my wife, then I shall lie beside her talking about our children. He was sure now that she was waiting for him, just as he was going to her, for many innocent, glowing embraces, and a secret betrothal.

  With quick, sure steps he approached the door: it was ajar, and yielded noiselessly to his pressure. He felt that she was sitting awake in the dark, aglow with expectation. He was already in the middle of the room when he noticed that she did not move. Her breath came and went so soundlessly that he had to hold his own as he strained to listen, and could not tell whether she was awake or asleep. His shadow lay as if rooted to the floor; in his impatience he all but whispered her name, to wake her with kisses if no answer came—then he felt as if a cold knife had pierced him. In another bed, over which a cupboard cast black shadow, another sleeper stirred, sighed, turned over. The head came near the moonlight—white-streaked hair. It was the old maidservant, the nurse. Then he had to go; between each step and the next, time stretched endlessly. Frustrated, as in a dream, he stole along the long moonlit corridor to his room.

  He felt more at ease, more at home, than ever before in his life. He looked out over the back courtyard; the full moon was hanging over the stable, it was a glassy clear night. The dog was standing in the full moonlight, holding its head strangely, away to one side, and in this posture was turning round and round on itself. The creature seemed to be suffering horribly—perhaps it was old and very near death. Andreas was seized with dull pain; a sadness beyond all measure possessed him to see the animal suffering when he was so happy, as though the sight were a premonition of the approaching death of his father.

  He left the window. He could think of his Romana again, but now more truly and solemnly, since he had just thought of his parents in the same way. He was soon undressed and in bed, and in his imagination was writing to his parents. Thoughts poured in upon him, every argument that occurred to him was unanswerable, they had never had such a letter from him. They must feel that he was no longer a boy now, but a man. If he had been a daughter instead of a son—he began somewhat in this way—they would long ago have known the joy, while still hale, of embracing their grandchildren and seeing their children’s children growing up. Because of him they had had to wait too long for that joy; it was one of the purest joys of life, and in a way itself a renewal of life. His parents had never had much joy from him—the thought was as vivid as if they were dead, and he must lay himself upon them to warm them with his body. Now they had sent him on a costly journey to a foreign land. Why? To see foreign peoples, to observe foreign customs, to polish his manners. But all these things were means, means to one end. How much better it would be if this supreme end, which was nothing more nor less than his life’s happiness, could be reached by one sudden step! Now, by God’s sudden guidance, he had found the girl, the life-mate to make that happiness secure. From then on he had but one aim—by her side to content his parents by his own content.

  The letter he wrote in his imagination far surpassed this poor abstract; the most moving words came unsought, a chain of beautiful phrases formed of itself. He spoke of the fine estate of the Finazzer family, and of their ancient and noble descent, without boasting, but in a way which really pleased him. If he had a pen and ink-well at hand he would have jumped out of bed a
nd had the letter written at a sitting. But then fatigue began to dissolve the beautiful chain, other visions thrust themselves between, and all brought horror and dread.

  It might have been a little past midnight. He sank into one confused and ugly dream after another. All the humiliations he had ever suffered in his life, everything that had ever caused him pain and fear, came over him again. He had to relive all the troubled and false situations of his life as a child and boy. And Romana fled before him, strangely dressed, half peasant, half lady, barefoot under her black pleated brocade skirt, and it was in Vienna, in the crowded Spiegelgasse, quite close to his parents’ home. He had to follow her, in dread, and yet, in dread, conceal his hurried pursuit. She forced her way through the crowd, turned her face to him, and it was expressionless and distorted. As she sped on, her clothes were torn in disorder from her body. Suddenly she vanished in an entry, and he after her, as far as he could with his left foot, which dragged intolerably and kept catching between the paving stones. Now at last he was in the entry, and here no horrible encounter was spared him. A look that he had feared more than any other as a boy, the look of his first catechist, shot through him, and the dreaded little podgy hand seized him. The loathsome face of a boy, who had told him on the backstairs in the twilight what he did not want to hear, was pressed close to his cheek, and as he struggled to push it away he saw lying in front of the door through which he had to follow Romana a creature which moved after him: it was the cat whose back he had once broken with a cart shaft, and which had taken so long to die. And so it was not dead, after all these years! Creeping like a snake with its broken back it came towards him, and panic seized him as it looked at him. There was no help for it. He had to step over it. With unspeakable torment he raised his left foot over the creature, whose back writhed up and down unceasingly—when the look of the cat’s upturned face struck him from below, the roundness of the cat’s face from a head at once cat and dog, filled with a horrible mixture of sensual gratification and death agony—he opened his mouth to scream—a scream issued from the house: he had to writhe his way through the wardrobe, which was full of his parents’ clothes. The screams from within grew more horrible, as though a living creature were being butchered by a murderer. It was Romana, and he could not help her. There were too many worn-out clothes, the clothes of many years, which had not been given away. Dripping with sweat, he writhed his way through …