Andreas (3 page)

Then farm-hands appeared, with a young maid, followed by the farmer himself, a tall man, not much over forty, and slim and handsome. A stable was allotted to the strangers, Andreas was shown to a
pleasant room in the upper storey. Everything gave the impression of a well-to-do house where nobody is put out by the arrival of even unexpected guests. The farmer glanced at the little bay, went up and looked at the horse between its forelegs, but said nothing. The two strangers were bidden to table at once.

The room was massively arched, on the wall a huge crucifix, in one corner the table, with the meal already standing on it. The men and maids sat spoon in hand, at the head of the table the farmer’s wife, a big woman with an open face, but not so handsome and cheerful as her husband; beside her the daughter, as tall as her mother, yet still a child, with her mother’s regular features, though all lighting up with pleasure at every breath, like her father’s.

With the memory of the meal that followed Andreas struggled as with some mouthful of horror that he must get down his throat, whether he would or no. The farmer and his family so kind, so trustful, everybody so frank and mannerly, so unsuspicious, the grace pleasantly spoken by the farmer, the wife attentive to her guest, as if he had been her son, the men and maids neither bold nor bashful, and between master and man the same frank kindliness. But there sat Gotthilff, like a bull in the young corn,
insolent and patronizing with his master, lewd and overbearing with the servants, guzzling, showing off, bragging. It gripped Andreas’s throat to see the lengths to which the ruffian could go, and still laugh: it pierced him tenfold to see how unabashed he was in his shameless silliness. He felt as though his soul enfolded every one of the servants, and the farmer and his wife as well. The farmer’s brow seemed to grow so still, and his wife’s face stern and hard—he longed to get up and give Gotthilff what he deserved, beating his face with his fists till he should collapse, bleeding, and have to be carried out feet foremost.

At last the meal came to an end, grace was said—at any rate he ordered the ruffian at once to the stable to see to the sick horse, and in so peremptory a tone that the man looked at him amazed, and, although with a grimace and a scowl, immediately betook himself out of the room. Andreas went upstairs—thought he would go and have a look at the horse—thought better of it, to avoid seeing Gotthilff—was standing in the archway—a door was ajar in it—the girl Romana appeared and asked him where he was going. He: he didn’t know how to kill the time; besides, he ought to have a look at the horse so as to find out whether they would be able to leave the next day. She: do you have to kill it? It passes quickly enough for me. It often frightens me. Had he been
in the village? The church was really beautiful; she would show it to him. Then, when they came back, he could have a look at the horse; his man had been poulticing it with fresh cow-dung.

Then they went out at the back of the farmyard; between the byre and the wall was a path, and beside one of the corner turrets a little gate led into the open. On the narrow footpath up through the fields they talked freely; she asked whether his parents were still alive—whether he had brothers and sisters. She was sorry for him there, being so much alone. She had two brothers; there would have been nine of them if six had not died. They were all little innocents in Paradise. Her brothers were woodcutting up in the convent wood. It was a merry life in the woodcutters’ hut; they had a maid with them too. She was to go herself next year—her parents had promised.

Meanwhile they had reached the village. The church stood off the road, they entered, whispered. Romana showed him everything: a shrine with a knuckle of St. Radegunda in a gold casket, the pulpit with chubby-cheeked angels blowing silver trumpets, her seat, and her parents’ and brothers’, in the front pew, and, at the side of the pew, a metal shield, which bore the inscription
Prerogative of the Finazzers
. Then he knew her name.

They left the church on the other side and went into the churchyard. Romana moved about the graves as if she were at home. She led Andreas to a grave with a number of crosses on it, one behind the other. “Here lie my little sisters and brothers, God keep their souls,” she said, and bent to pull up a weed or two from among the lovely flowers. Then she took a little holy-water stoup from the foremost cross. “I must fill it again, the birds are always perching here and upsetting it.” Meanwhile Andreas was reading the names; there were the innocent boys Egidius, Achaz, and Romuald Finazzer, the innocent girl Sabina, and the innocent twins Mansuet and Bibiana. Andreas was moved with inward awe to think they had had to depart so young—not one had been on earth for even so much as a year, and one had lived only one summer and one autumn. He thought of the warm-blooded, jovial face of the father, and realized why the mother’s regular features were harder and paler. Then Romana came back from the church with the holy water in her hand, reverently careful not to spill a drop. Thus gravely intent she was indeed a child; but unconsciously, and in her beauty, grace, and stature, already a woman. “There’s none but my kin hereabout,” she said, and looked with shining eyes over the graves. She felt happy here, as
she felt happy sitting between her father and mother at table, and lifting her spoon to her shapely mouth. She followed Andreas’s eyes: her look could be as steady as an animal’s, and, as it were, carry the look of another as it wandered.

Built into the church wall behind the Finazzer graves there was a big, reddish tombstone, with the figure of a knight on it, armed
cap-à-pie
, helm in arm, a little dog at his feet, with its paws touching a scutcheon. She showed him the little dog, the squirrel with the crown between its paws, and crowned itself, as a crest.

“That is our ancestor,” said Romana. “He was a knight, and came over from the Italian Tyrol.”

“So you are gentry, and the arms painted on the sundial are yours?” said Andreas.

“Why, yes,” said Romana with a nod. “It is all painted in the book at home that is called
The Roll of Carinthian Nobles
. It goes back to the time of Emperor Maximilian I. I can show it to you if you like.”

At home she showed him the book, and took a real child’s delight in all the handsome crests. The wings, leaping bucks, eagles, cocks, and a green man—nothing escaped her, but her own crest was the finest, the little squirrel with the crown in its paws—it was not the most beautiful, but she loved it best. She turned over the pages for him, leaving him time to
look. “Look! Look!” she cried at each page. “That fish looks as fierce as a fresh-caught trout—what a hideous buck!”

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.