VI
Three Hundred and Sixty-four
Nights and a Night
The white kid was gone.
But my father still had four big nanny-goats in the stable, just as he had four children, who always stood in close relationship to the goats. Each of the goats had her own little manger, out of which she ate hay or clover while we milked her. Not one of them would give milk at an empty manger. The goats were called Zitzerl, Zutzerl, Zeitzerl and Heitzerl, and were the property of us children—a welcome present which father had made us. Zitzerl and Zutzerl belonged to my two little sisters; Zeitzerl to my eight-year-old brother Jakoberle; Heitzerl was mine!
Each of us faithfully tended and looked after his allotted charge; but we put all the milk together in a pot, mother boiled it, father gave us the slices of bread that went with it—and the Lord God blessed the spoonful of soup for us.
And, when we had ladled up our suppers with our broad wooden spoons, which had been carved by our uncle and which, because of their size, would hardly go into our mouths in the first place or out of them in the second, we would each of us take our horsehair pillow and lie down, one and all, in the goats' mangers. These were our beds for a time; and the beloved animals used to fan our cheeks with their soft beards and lick our little noses with their tongues.
But, when we lay thus in our cribs, we did not always go to sleep at the very first lick. My head was crammed with a multitude of wonderful stories and fairy-tales of our grandfathers. I would tell these stories in those evening-hours; and my brothers and sisters revelled in them and even the goats were fond of listening to them too. Only now and again, when the thing struck them as too incredible, they would give a little bleat to themselves or bang at the mangers impatiently with their horns. Once, when I was telling of the corn-wraith who blackens the oats when she cries at midnight in the fields, and eats nothing but the grey beards of old charcoal burners, my Heitzerl began to bleat so violently that the other three joined in until at last my brother and sisters burst into wild peals of laughter and I was shamefully obliged to hold my tongue like a convicted boaster.
For a long time after that, I told my sleeping-companions no more stories and I resolved never to speak another word to Heitzerl so long as I lived.
Then came Ascension Day, on which day mother made us the usual egg-cake, my favourite dish in all the world. That year, however, the hawks had taken our best laying-hens; the egg-basket would not fill; and, when the cake appeared on Ascension Day, it was only a tiny little loaf. I gave a woe-begone look at the wooden dish.
My little five-year-old sister peeped up at me; and, as though noticing my longing, she suddenly cried:
"I say, Peterle, look here! If you will tell us a short story every night for a whole year long, I will give you my share of the cake."
Strange to say, the others all chimed in and echoed this noble renunciation on the little one's part; they clapped their hands; and—I entered into the bargain. So, suddenly, had I attained the object of my desire.
I tucked my cake under my jacket and went with it to the dairy, where no one could see or disturb me. I bolted the door, sat down on an overturned tub and allowed my ten fingers and the well-ordered host of my teeth to work their will on the poor cake.
But now came this anxiety. There could not be a doubt that my brother and sisters would insist strictly on their due. When I went out a-herding, I begged a story of every pitch-maker, every charcoal-burner, every keeper and every knowing little woman that I met in the wood and on the fields. They were productive sources, and I was able to meet my liabilities every evening. Meanwhile, of course, it was a daily misery until I hit upon something fresh; and, after a time, it happened not seldom that little sister would interrupt me and call out from her manger:
"Look here, we know that one! You have told it us before!"
I could see that I must think of new ways and I therefore struggled to improve my reading, so as to draw treasures from the many story-books which lay idling on the sooty shelves in our little house in the forest. Now I had new sources: the story of the Countess-palatine (Jakoberle always said, "The Countess-Gelatine") Genovefa; the four sons of Aymon; the Fair Melusina; Wendelin von Höllenstein: wonderful things by the dozen. And my brother would often say from his manger:
"I don't mind going without my cake a bit! This is just too lovely. What do you say, Zeitzerl?"
Now the evenings grew too short; and I had to tell some of these stories in serials and sequels, a proceeding to which little sister refused point-blank to agree, for she stuck to it that a whole story every night was what we bargained for.
So the year went by. Little by little, I acquired a real skill in telling stories and even told them in High German, as they stood printed in the books! And it often happened that, during the telling, my listeners buried themselves in their coverlets and began to groan with fright at the stories of robbers and ghosts; but I was not allowed to stop, for all that!
Ascension Day was very nearly there again, and with it, the completion of my bargain. But—it was like my luck!—just before the last evening, my thread gave out entirely. All my recollections, all the books which I could get hold of, all the little men and women whom I met were exhausted, drained, pumped dry beyond all hope. I implored my brother and sisters:
"To-morrow is the last evening; make me a present of it!"
There was a general outcry:
"No, no, no presents! You got your Ascension cake!"
Even the goats bleated their approval.
The next day, I went about like a lost sheep. Then the thought suddenly came to me: "Deceive them! Invent something!"
But my conscience at once stepped in and cried aloud:
"What you tell must be real! You really had the cake!"
Nevertheless, an event occurred in the course of that day which made me hope that, in the heat of the excitement, it would release me from my duty.
My brother Jakoberle lost his Zeitzerl. He went this way and that over the heath, he went into the wood and, crying and calling, hunted for the goat. But, at last, he brought her home, late in the evening. We ate our porridge quietly and went to our cribs; and a story was expected of me.
All was silent. The listeners waited eagerly. The goats clashed their teeth together as they chewed the cud.
"Very well, they shall have their story," said I.
I reflected. I began:
"There was once a great, great wood. And everything in the wood was dark. No little birds sang: only the screech-owl's cry was heard. But, even though the other birds had sung, all the boughs and all the leaves on the trees wept thousands and thousands of tears. In the middle of this wood is a heath, silent as the graveyard; and he who goes over it and does not turn back is never seen again. Once upon a time, two knees went over this heath; and inside those knees was blood."
"Jesus Mar…!" gasped the elder of my little sisters; and all three crept under their coverlets.
"Yes, two knees with blood inside them," I continued, "and they passed over the heath towards the dark wood, like a lost soul. But, all at once, the two bloody knees…."
"I say, I'll give you my blue trouser-belt if you stop!" whimpered my brother in his fear and hid still deeper in the coverlet.
"The two bloody knees stopped," I continued, "and on the ground lay a stone as white as a winding-sheet. Then two flickering lights appeared between the trees; and thereupon four more knees, all with blood—hovered to the same place…."
"I'll give you my new pair of shoes if you stop!" Jakoberle panted in his trough and, for sheer terror, drew Zeitzerl to him by her beard.
"And so they all six together passed through the dark wood and out upon the heath and over the oat-field to our house … and here into the stable…."
Now they all three cried out and whimpered; and there was no end to their terror, and my little sister timidly promised me her share of to-morrow's Ascension cake, which was expected this year too, if I would only stop. But I went on:
"Well, ah, yes, I forgot to begin by saying that the first two knees—with blood—belonged to our Jakoberle and the last four to his Zeitzerl … as they went about in the wood to-day."
Suddenly, they all burst out laughing.
"Why, everybody has two knees with blood in them!" cried little sister; and the goats bleated their share of the jubilation.
I had played my part right out. For three hundred and sixty-four nights long, I had shone as a wise and veracious story-teller; the three-hundred-and-sixty-fifth had unmasked me as a deceitful humbug. The promise of the second Ascension cake was withdrawn; little sister declared that her offer had been made in self-defence.
And I had shattered the confidence of my public for good and all; and, thereafter, whenever it wanted to express its doubts of anything I related, it cried, with one voice:
"Ah, that's only one of your old knees again!"