XI
About Kickel, who went
to Prison
You were on for a bit of gipsying, were you, Peterkin? Home, everlastingly home, isn't very cheerful—always having the green-glazed mug to drink from, always having your face wiped over by the mother with a wet rag, always having to sleep in the little box-bed by the stove—it's no fun! One can't help wanting sometimes to gather a dinner from the whortleberry plants and drink from the brook, to roll on the ground sometimes, and even to walk about in mud; and now and again one wants to sleep in an old hay barn, with water never seen before rushing along outside, in an unknown gorge, with quite strange trees standing in the red sunshine when you wake up in the morning, and unknown people mowing the grass in the meadows.
Suppose you long for this, and then your father forbids it! "Children belong at home!" And, "After school, you will come home by the shortest way!" The shortest way! There isn't such a thing in our high lands, especially if Zutrum Simmerl is in school, and if Zutrum Simmerl says, "Peterl, come with me; at home, in Zutrumshaus, there are all sorts of jolly things; a spotted white yard-dog, who's got puppies; cherry-trees, which are all just red and black; and behind the house is a charcoal-burner's hut with straw that one can lie on, and in the stream you can catch trout and crayfish with your hand, which your mother can bake and cook afterwards."
The Zutrum family were far-away cousins of ours, so that when young Cousin Simmerl said "Come with me," one naturally went. It was a whole hour's walk from my parents' house there, and as the school where we, from Alpel and Trabachgraben, met together, lay just half-way, the world became stranger and stranger to me with each step of my way to Zutrum. And when the sun sank down over the black saddle of the wooded range, and the sycamores threw long shadows across the newly mown meadows, I felt very strange. The hay smelt, the grasshoppers chirped, the frogs quacked as they did at home, but all else was different, the mountains much steeper, the coombs much deeper. I was oppressed. We looked down at last on the grey shingled roofs of the farm, from whose whitewashed chimneys thin smoke was going up. It was already dusk, and the homely smell of charcoal-burning, which I knew so well, came from among the tall pines. On the road we made many halts by ant-heaps, foxes' holes, hedge-stiles, little streams and puddles; but now Simmerl hurried up. I did not want to go on, I wanted to turn back. I should be going into a strange house for the first time in my life—my courage gave way. But Simmerl gripped me quickly by the arm and led me into the farmyard and through the great door into the house.
The air was cool in the entrance and scented with fruit; the kitchen was plastered and had nearly white walls, like an inn. At the open hearth women were busy with pots and kettles, and to one of them, who had a pale, pretty, kind face, went Simmerl, gave her his hand and said, "God greet you, mother!" It was in this house that I first heard children reverently greeting their parents at coming in and going out, just as if they were going to a distant country or were coming back from one. In our district at home we ran out like a calf from its stall, and the most that I ever said in the morning when I was off to school was, "I'm going now," and the mother answered, "Well, go, in God's name." That was certainly something, but it was not so cordial and fine as when the Zutrum children said "God greet you!" or "God keep you!" and clasped their parents' hands. In short, this entrance into the Zutrums' house appeared very splendid to me.
"And that is my school-friend, Peterl, from the Forest farm," so Simmerl introduced me to his mother.
"Now, that's nice!" she said; wiped her right hand on her blue apron and held it out to me. I was not quite sure if my little paw ought to be stretched out too, hesitated, but finally did it.
"Mother," called Simmerl, "we are running down to the brook."
"Not too far—it will soon be supper-time."
We were in the open air again, and it had all gone off very smoothly. We did not get to the brook that evening, for there was the white, spotted yard-dog with puppies! These last were all together in mottled heap, which constantly surged and twisted, while every now and then a tiny creature hardly bigger than a rat got loose and rolled clumsily away. These things were absolutely all head, and the head again was all muzzle, and the muzzles burrowed to the teats which the old white dapple placed ready for use. All that, and the anxious growling of the old dog and the frightened whimpering of the young ones, and the doggy smell which came out of the kennel, nearly stupefied me with sheer delight.
"Does she bite?" I asked Simmerl; for I wanted to stroke the puppies.
"Not now, so we have taken the chain off her. My father says, 'She has no enemies now, she is just a mother now.'" But still, when he wanted to lift one of the young ones, she snapped at his finger.
"Have you got a church?" I asked, for a little bell rang. Simmerl laughed, for it was the house-bell, and it was calling people to supper.
In the room, where it was already nearly dark, stood two great square tables. When grace had been said out loud by everybody and all together, and the great big soup-tureens were sending up their warm, savoury clouds, about twelve young men, older men, young girls and old women sat themselves down to the one table. At the other table right in the corner the house-father took his place, a stout, comfortable, cheerful man with a smooth-shaven face and a double chin; then came his children, from the merry grown-up Sennerl right down to Simmerl, and still further down to two quite tiny babies, who had their milk-soup spooned into their little mouths by the servant-maid. I was allowed to sit by Simmerl, and, because the common bowl was rather a long way from us, we received a little special basin, out of which we ladled the pieces. It was wheaten bread, which was not every day to be had at home with us! The house-mother went to and fro, looking after the tables, and now and then she sat down with us for a short time, just to eat a morsel as she passed by. Ah, yes, that was like my mother at home. "Who cooks needs nothing to eat," say overwise people.
I was obliged to keep thinking of home, where just then they would be waiting for me with supper, and wondering why that boy didn't come home and where he could possibly be. Then, probably, it would occur to one or other of them, "Oh, he has gone home with his school-friend to Zutrum."
After the milk-soup came a bowl of salad in vinegar. That again was something new for me; at my home there was only salad in butter-milk, which is acid and wet and can therefore well take the place of expensive vinegar. At home we ate the greenstuff with a spoon, here one did it with a fork. I several times stabbed my mouth with the strange tool, but dared make no noise; whereas at home if such a thing happened there would have been a fine outcry.
After the salad came the largest dish of all, and this contained stewed cherries in their own juice. Now I might use the spoon again. If only it had been a bit bigger—for this black cherry stew was delicious! The company was very ceremonious. They squeezed the stones out of their mouths and put them back either on to a plate or into their fists. At home we ate the stones with the cherries.
I do not know what was talked about at table, and I was certainly quite indifferent to it, because mere talk is nothing to eat. They were louder and gayer at the servants' table than we were over at the house-father's table, because there was an old man amongst them who said the strangest things in the gravest manner at which they all laughed, until a maid said, "No, no; one must not laugh so at Kickel. It isn't right that Kickel should be laughed at."
"Who's laughing at him?" laughed a boy. "We're only laughing because we please to."
I must have overheard that, as otherwise I should not have known it. I know also that suddenly the old Kickel jumped up from his place, and with his shirt-sleeve fluttering from his wide, strong arm, chucked a cherry-stone at the door opposite, which fell back again into the middle of the room. At that he cried "Bang!" and shouted with laughter. He did this several times, whereupon the others said, "It was quite right, and he must make a hole in the door so that one could look out into the kitchen to see whether or no stew was being cooked to-day." Then Kickel raised his other arm, and "Bang!"—he threw the entire handful at the door, so that it rattled like a hail-storm. At the same moment the old man wrinkled up his wizened face and shouted out an angry curse.
Then the house-father got up from our table, went to the infuriated old fellow and said soothingly, "Now, now, Kickel, don't be so vexed. Sowing so many cherry-trees in the rooms! None of them will grow, you know. Be sensible, Kickel." At my home the father would have talked very differently if such a person had strewn the room full of cherry-stones!
Then the old servant stood before the house-father with folded hands, and in a voice of groaning anxiety he cried, "Zutrum, Zutrum, I don't know how to help myself, it's coming on again!"
"Michel! Natzel!" said the house-father to the other two men, "take Kickel to bed. It is time for him to go to sleep."
Then they led Kickel away. Whatever did it mean?
"It's time for the children to go to sleep also," added the house-father. "The Forest-farm boy must sleep in the top room."
The disappointment was bitter. I had thought that Simmerl and I would have been able to lie near each other on a pile of hay, and this was actually the reason that I had come with him into this strange house. Tears came into my eyes in proportion to the anguish of finding out that it was all up with the hay, and that I had to sleep by myself in a dark little room. The house-mother must have noticed something, for she said, "He can very well sleep in the little room with Simmerl; there's a bed empty there."
"Well and good, but don't talk long, boys." So the house-father, after which Simmerl went to his parents, kissed their hands and said "Good night."
This custom pleased me mightily, and I resolved to introduce it also into my home. I never got so far as that; I had always been ashamed of being entirely naughty to my parents, but also of being quite good, and in particular it had been impossible to me to show certain courtesies, much as I liked them.
I gathered from the order "not to talk long" that we had permission to talk, and as we lay, each in his little bed, having put out the light, so that nothing more was to be seen than the two faintly lighted square windows, I asked Simmerl, "What was wrong with that fellow Kickel?"
"Cherry-stones," answered the lad.
"Why did he get so wild?"
"Oh, poor old Kickel!" said my comrade. "Don't you know that he was in prison for ten years? Last year they let him out."
"Why?"
"Because the Kaiser was married."
"What, they locked him up for that?"
"No, that's why they let him out."
"But, good Lord, I want to know why they put him in prison," I cried.
"If you shout like that father will come with the strap. He killed his son."
This was horrible. I did not know whether Kickel or House-father Zutrum had killed his son. I dared question no farther, and when I did try it later Simmerl gave no answer, for he was asleep.
Next morning we were awakened by a clear voice, "Schoolboys, it's time!" A bough of elder swayed about in front of the heart-shaped opening in the shutter, and through it the sun shone hot and bright on to our snow-white beds, and the house-spring splashed outside. I should have liked to dress at the same time as Simmerl, but was shy about drawing my legs from under the coverlet. With a long arm I drew my trousers from the bench into bed, and slipped them on to my limbs with a suggestive slickness, and so out to the spring. After the washing the morning prayers. Simmerl, out of consideration for his guest, would have gone out during these, suggesting that he would then take me to the grey horse in the stable; but his mother said, "He will see enough grey horses during his life; you need the Holy Spirit in school. Now say your morning prayer. Both kneel together."
We knelt on the bench before the table, and each said an Our Father to himself, while it occurred to me, "We are not so strict at home." Certainly, our mother said one ought to say one's prayers, but she did not order one straight away on to the bench.
Now I was to see too what came of the prayers. We had hardly raised our elbows from the table when it was spread with a white cloth, and set with white platters and with white bread, and a brown soup was poured out of the spout of a bright tin pot. At home it was just the other way round, everything else brown and the soup white. There was no milk-soup for breakfast here, but coffee! I had already heard about it, that the grand people ate coffee, but that an old charcoal-burner had said, "My dear people, I am certainly black. Look at me and see if I'm black or no! But I'm not so black and bad as the black broth from Morocco. The devil has invented it, and the peasant will come to an end if he eats it."
I do not know if the charcoal-burner knew how wisely he had spoken, and I do not know if they had believed him. I only know that everyone was crazy for coffee, and that I could not help putting my spoon into the black soup—Ugh! that isn't good, that is as bitter as gall! The devil has certainly invented it——
"You haven't put any sugar," laughed Simmerl, and threw some pieces out of a cup into my bowl. Now it was a little different. Simmerl looked at me and grinned to himself. I should have liked to know why.
After breakfast it was "God keep you!" to the Zutrum people and off to school. I had become quite brave and held out my right hand when saying "Good-bye and thank you," just like a well-mannered, grown-up man, and it occurred to me, "How easy it is to be good when one is not at home!"
As we went along the hill-meadow old Kickel was to be seen with a wooden fork spreading haycocks out so that they should dry better in the new sunshine. To-day I saw, for the first time, that he was very decrepit, bent double almost to cracking-point, and swaying and limping at every step. His knee-breeches had certainly once been leather, but now they had many, many patches of other stuffs stuck on with large, ungainly stitches. His feet and very brown ankles were bare. Breast and arms were covered by a coarse brown shirt; the old felt hat sat like a battered inverted kettle on the little grey head, but all the same it was decorated by an eagle's feather, which stood up high into the air. Knees, elbows and fingers were all so terribly bony that one felt as if the old man would never be able to do anything properly for the rest of his life; he was like a deformed and twisted oak tree up on the high land where the storm-wind cripples everything. When he caught sight of us he raised his hat politely and then he went on working.
"Oh, I say," I questioned my schoolfellow, "what is the matter with Kickel?"
"When we are higher up I'll tell you," answered Simmerl, and when we came into the wood, where the ground became more level, he put his arm in mine, and said, "He had a son, and he shot him."
"By accident? On purpose?" I asked, horrified.
"On purpose—quite on purpose."
"What had he done then—the son?"
"Nothing; he was a thorough good fellow, my father said."
"Good God! And did he hate his son so dreadfully then?"
"He loved his son ever so much; much too much."
"And therefore shot him down?"
"Well, I don't know myself how it was," acknowledged Simmerl.
"So Kickel is mad?" I put in.
"Not mad, but a bit crazy, certainly; a bit crazy all his life, and people say one can't imagine how sharp he used to be, and what a fine keeper he was up there, and how well educated! But the people say that the many books he read must have sent him silly."
I quickened my steps.
"Why do you hurry so, Peter?"
"Supposing he runs after us!"
"Oh, Kickel won't do anything to us. People say he would not have killed his son if he hadn't been so fond of him."
"Oh, Simmerl, supposing he is fond of us?"
"Oh, not so fond as he was of his son!"
"But, Simmerl, I don't understand."
"Some time I'll ask father just how it all was."
Nothing more. On that particular day I was not much use in school. Just think!—My father is very fond of me. He certainly has never told me so, but mother has said it to me. If things are like this, one will never trust oneself again with people who are fond of one.
"What is the matter with Peter?" asked the schoolmaster, "he is so absent-minded to-day."
In the afternoon I came back to my parents' house. I stood awhile rooted to the sandy ground behind the pines. What was going to happen next? My father came towards me with a clacking wheelbarrow. "Go in and eat," he called to me, "and afterwards come out into the wood. We must cut down some wood for firing."
"Did you sleep at Zutrum last night?" asked my mother, as she set before me the dinner which had been saved for me.
"Mother, Simmerl wouldn't let go of me until I went home with him."
"It's quite right, child. Just lately Mistress Zutrum was complaining to your father that you did not come to see your cousins and aunt and uncle. My mother and the mother of Mistress Zutrum were sisters."
The danger was quite over. Out in the forest I asked my father whether he knew the Zutrums' old servant, Kickel, and what was the matter with him.
"It isn't the time for gossip now, it's the time for cutting firewood,"—that was his answer.
A few weeks later I was with my father in the cattle pasture. It was already dusk, and the oxen, who had been yoked to the plough all day, thrust their muzzles into the food and grazed busily. We stood by and waited until they were satisfied. It occurred to me that now was the time for gossip, and I asked him again about Kickel.
"Child, let Kickel be," answered my father. "He's never harmed you—and may God Almighty preserve from all craziness! See—they won't eat the grass—they're not hungry any more."
Soon after, we led the oxen into the farmyard. If I had died at that time, reader, you would hardly ever have learnt anything about Kickel. Meanwhile, I grew into a thin, but sadly tall lad, too narrow for a peasant, but long enough for a town gentleman—well, you know all about that!
And once on a time, in summer, as I was going to visit far-away Alpel again, in the forest on the way I overtook a peasant lad—a young, handsome but earnest fellow, in Sunday clothes although it was a work-day. He had an upright carriage, and moved his legs lightly and regularly in walking, so that I thought, "He has been a soldier, or is one still." His auburn hair, too, was cut short and shaved behind in such fashion that his round, fresh-coloured neck was bare for a couple of inches down to his shirt-collar. The long face, with the somewhat thinly modelled nose, the very fair little moustache and the open, shrewd eyes, suggested that he was by no means one of the most foolish and simple of people. In those days I was as glad to have company on such a road as now I am to go alone. So I tried it on with him. My question was, where he went? He was going home to his wood-cutting in Fischbacherwald. "Where had he been?" In Krieglach, in the churchyard. "What had so lively a young fellow to do with the churchyard?"
"Well, it's just what happens often enough," answered he. "It was on account of old Kickel."
Old Kickel! I had often heard the name mentioned. Ah, yes! it was the old servant at Zutrum, who—— "We'll go together, so that it will be more entertaining. I am Peter from the Forest farm." That was my introduction.
"I've known you before," was his answer. "I have often met you in Graz when I was with the soldiers, but you have never recognised me."
"And why have you never made yourself known since you were from home?"
"I wanted to speak to you once, but I thought, 'A common soldier! Who knows if he'd like it?'"
"Naturally—you a common soldier—and I absolutely nothing."
"Ah—not that," he rejoined. "You are already somebody. I know it well."
"So they have buried Kickel to-day! And where are the others, then?"
"The few people have already gone on. Not many of them followed him. He was only a poor pauper."
"You have surely been one of the bearers?"
"No," said he; "I have only followed on after. There has been no praying even, because they said he had been a heathen. I thought to myself that he wasn't any worse than most other people, and that he had had bad luck—it was certainly his fate. Now in God's name he has rest."
"What bad luck did he have, then?" was my question. I believed that I was at last near to the satisfaction of my old and now re-awakened curiosity.
"You will have heard of the story before," said my road companion.
"Yes, just rumours; but never knew where they came from. Do you know anything exactly?"
"I know all about it," said he.
And I had led him on so far that he began to tell me everything. It is again many years since then, but one never forgets such things, and now I will tell the story of Kickel.
"Isidor Kickel was the only son of a steward at the Schloss of Prince Schwarzenberg, in Muran. He had to study, and wanted to also, but suddenly dropped it all in his seventeenth year, just when he should have repeated his annual course. After that he tried an agricultural school, learnt forestry and became a forester. But he only got as far as being a forester's assistant or huntsman, and as this he was placed in the Imperial forests at Neuberg. He ought, perhaps, to have been a scholar, for there was something speculative in him, and he read many books in his spare time. He was much too much in books. He said such things oftentimes, and kept so away from church, that the people said: 'Huntsman Kickel has fallen away from the Christian faith.' That often happens to-day," commented my travelling companion. "At that time it was something novel. No one knew how he felt about it himself inside; the people said it could not feel quite right. Otherwise he was not a bad man. Once when he was in the church during a feast, he took money out of his purse and wanted to give it to the bell-pocket man, but the man passed by him as if to say, 'You monster, your money is too bad for me.' Whereupon Kickel gave the coins to a poor little old woman; they were not too bad for her, and the people laughed no end! Once a swallow flew into the church and could not get out again, because the windows have wire-netting and the door was at the far end. And no one could catch her, either. So Kickel went into the church every day and the sacristan thought he had been converted. Kickel, however, was only taking in bird's food so that the swallow should not starve. And as to conversion, there was nothing of that sort at all. In spite of everything, people liked him well, and nobody could accuse him of anything wrong. Then he married a schoolmaster's daughter from the Veitsch, and had seven children; and of these he lost six by death while they were quite little, three at one time, and his wife also through consumption. Only one single child remained to him, a boy called Oswald. One often sees that people who are unable to believe in a future life are all the more thirsty for life here, and for love too. It was just that way with Kickel. His love for this only child became an overwhelming passion, and all and everything which lay in his power that could make life lovely for the handsome, merry young Oswald, he gave him. He had him taught, and when he was twelve years old wanted to send him to an Institute in Vienna; but, on the other hand, Oswald wanted to stay among his home mountains, and the huntsman had to force himself to thrust him out. A few years later he secured him a clerkship in the State Forestry Office at Neuberg, and a few years after that there was a wedding.
"Oswald's choice was a pretty daughter of a burgher of Mürzzuschlag. The love-story apparently was just like other love-stories, and went much the same road as they. Oswald became master-woodman in the Hochschlag, behind Mürzsteg, on the high Veitsch. After barely a year, naturally enough, the 'little lad' was there, and Oswald could say to his father, 'I can wish nothing better for myself, and only fear lest things should become worse!' So he must have been a much more contented man than his father, and no one ever heard how he stood with regard to religion. His wife," continued my lad, "has often told me since, that he laid his arm round her neck and said, 'God be praised and thanked that I have you!' So he must have believed something. And his father, Kickel, just revelled in joy because all went so well for his Oswald.
"Huntsman Kickel lived in an old dismantled farm-house, in the only room which was still habitable. At that time he was suffering with a wound in his foot, which he had got by leaping from a rock, and for months he had been unable to go into the coverts. As Oswald on Sundays went up to his mountain-hut from the valley, his way led him past, and he spoke to his father to ask him how the sick leg was, and to bring him this thing or the other and to chat with him about his wife and his dear boy. He often brought the boy with him, too, and then Huntsman Kickel would throw his boxes and cupboards open and invite son and grandson to take with them anything that particularly pleased them.
"'Take—just take them all,' he would always say; 'they're mere nothings. The little bit of pleasure in this world! I've had my share, and there's nothing beyond. And if things get worse—end it!'
"Then that Sunday came. It was in August, and so hot in the morning that the young master-woodman Oswald begged a glass of water of his father on his way to church.
"'When I come back after noon,' he said to his father, 'I will pay you for the well with St. John's blessing.' He meant by that he would bring wine with him. The old man answered that he ought to take it up to the little wife and the laddie. But they were in want of nothing; the little wife sang from dawn onwards like a lark, and little Anderl had laughed in his sleep as he, Oswald, before going out, had kissed him.
"'Ah, you poor burdened fellow!' Huntsman Kickel said again, and clapped his son on the shoulder and then 'Good-bye till this afternoon.'
"About midday a storm arose over the Hochschwab Mountain. It did not rain much, but the thunder crashed heavily several times. An hour later a woodman came down from the hill, who called into the open windows, 'Huntsman Kickel, look up if you want to see the smoke!'
"'What's the matter? What are you shouting for?' asked Kickel, who was quite alone in the house.
"'The mountain-hut is burning—the lightning struck it.'
"'What do you say, woodman?'
"'When the master-woodman comes home he will find nothing left. Everything has gone!'
"'The wife? The child?'
"'Everything's gone. If your son goes home, prepare him for it. I must go to Niederalpel.'
"That was what the woodman said—and then he was off."
I cannot repeat as my fellow-wayfarer told it; it went straight into my heart like a knife. But the young fellow remained unmoved, and went on telling:
"No one knows what Huntsman Kickel thought of this message. At first he wanted to go up to the heights where the black smoke was making the whole heavens dark. But he was unable, because of the bad foot. 'His wife and his child! His wife and his child! His wife and his child!' The whole time just that. 'End it!' Kickel went into the parlour and stared out of the window. 'Now he's coming—and now he's coming.' He took the gun from the wall and stood in the middle of the parlour and looked out through the window to the path outside. At last he came, Oswald, out from the green wood; he did not look up, and still did not know anything about it, and came so quickly and gaily to the house where his father lived. And Huntsman Kickel aimed through the window and shot him down."
"Jesus Christ!" I cried. "Had he gone mad?"
"One cannot say that," answered the lad. "When his old housekeeper came home, he sent her at once for a cart, went to the police, and when examined he said he could not endure that his Oswald should have trouble and go on living, and he had thought to himself, 'He knows nothing, and needs to know nothing. That useless grieving for many a day and year is quite unnecessary. A quick death, and you are after them, you are set free from everything—and I, your father, can do you no better service than that.' He said, 'I did not aim badly; and now, your honours, please make an end of me.' I believe they gave him fifteen years, but when the Kaiser married in fifty-four they let him off the rest."
I went thoughtfully along the woodland path, and said:
"It's almost beyond belief."
"It was best," continued my companion, "that they fetched him away at once and took him to Loeben. He couldn't have lived after knowing the worst of all."
"What the woodman said—was it not true, then?" I asked it with my breath stopping.
"Yes, the lightning had certainly struck the hill-hut and it was burnt down, but nothing had happened to Oswald's family."
It's awful to think of the fate of some men!
We went on together for a while; neither said a word.
At last I stood still and asked, "When did he learn it?"
"When after nine years he had been free for half a year, and he came home and was always laughing in the air, then I told it him myself."
"How did you say it to him?"
"'Father Kickel, your daughter-in-law and your grandson Anderl are still alive, and all is well with them.'"
"And what did he say to that?"
"'So,' said he, 'they are still alive? And I had always dreamt that they were all dead, all! God, what tales the young people tell!' And then he laughed again."
"It must have been so," said my companion. "For a while after that he tried to earn his bread as a farm-servant, but later on, as he couldn't succeed in that, he came on the parish. As a rule, one saw nothing amiss with him, but many a time one did—many a time one did."
"You knew him quite well?" I asked the young fellow.
"Well, naturally," was his answer; "he was my grandfather."