The Silent Mill Part 1

The Silent Mill.

by Hermann Sudermann.

No one can tell how many years ago it is was since the "Silent Mill"

first received its name. As long as I can remember it has been an old, tumble-down structure, an ancient relic of long-forgotten times.

Old, and weather-beaten, and roofless, its crumbling walls stretch upwards toward the sky, giving free access to every gust of wind. Two large, round stones that once, maybe, bravely fulfilled their task, have broken through the rotten wood-work and, obeying the natural law of gravitation, have wedged themselves deep into the ground.

The large mill-wheel hangs awry between its moulding supports. The paddles are broken off, and only the spokes stick up into the air, like arms stretched forth to implore the "coup de grace."

Moss and lichen have clothed all in green, and here and there some water-cress puts forth its sickly green, sodden growth. From a half-broken pipe the water runs slowly down, trickles in sleepy monotony onto the spokes and breaks there, filling the surrounding air with fine, drizzling spray. Under a gray thicket of alders the little rivulet lies hidden in malodorous slothfulness, washed full of water-weeds and frog-sp.a.w.n, choked up with mare's tail and flowering rushes. Only in the middle there trickles still a tiny stream of thick, black water, in which the little palegreen leaves of the duck-weed lazily drift along.

But those long years ago the mill-stream flowed right gayly and jauntily; snow-white foam gleamed at the weir; the merry chatter of the wheels resounded as far as the village; in long rows the carts drove in and out of the mill-yard; and far into the distance there echoed the mighty voice of the old miller.

Rockhammer was his name, and all who saw him felt that he did honor to it, too. What a man he was! He had it in him to blast rocks. Of course there was no such thing as trying to bully or contradict him, for it only served to make him perfectly wild with rage: he would clench his fists; the veins on his temples would swell up like thick thongs; and when he started swearing into the bargain, every being trembled before him, and the very dogs fled in terror to their kennels. His wife was a meek, gentle, yielding creature. How could it be otherwise? Not for twenty-four hours would he have endured at his side a more st.u.r.dy-natured being, who might have attempted to preserve even the shadow of an independent will. As it was, the two lived together fairly well, happily one might almost have said, had it not been for his fatal temper, which broke forth wildly at the slightest provocation and caused the quiet woman many a tearful hour.

But she shed most tears when misfortune's hand fell heavily upon her children. Three had been born to them--bonny, healthy, st.u.r.dy boys.

They had clear, blue eyes, flaxen hair and, above all, "a pair of promising fists," as their father was wont to declare with pride, though the youngest, who was still in his cradle, could as yet only make use of his to suck at them. The two elder boys, however, were already splendid fellows. How defiantly they looked about them, how haughtily they took up their stand! With their heads thrown back and their hands in their trousers pockets, each seemed to a.s.sert: "I am my father's son. Who'll dare me?"

They fought each other all day long and it was their father himself who always goaded them on. And if their mother in her terror intervened and begged them to be at peace with one another, she got laughed at into the bargain for her fears. The poor woman lived in constant anxiety about her wild boys, for she saw to her terror that both had inherited their father's violent temper. Once already she had only just arrived in the nick of time, when Fritz, then eight years old, was about to attack his brother, two years older than himself, with a large kitchen knife; and a half a year later the day really dawned on which her dark presentiments were realized.

The two boys had been fighting in the yard, and Martin, the elder one, wild with rage because Fritz had beaten him, had hurled a stone at him and hit him so unfortunately at the back of his head that he fell down bleeding and immediately lost the power of speech. They could stanch the blood, and the wound healed up, but his speech did not return.

Indifferent to all around, the boy sat there and let them feed him: he had become an idiot.

It was a hard blow for the miller's family. The mother wept whole nights through, and even he, the energetic hard-working man, went about for a long time as if in a dream.

But the perpetrator of the disastrous deed was the one most impressed by it. The defiant, boisterously happy boy was hardly recognizable. His exuberance of spirits had disappeared; he spent his days in silent brooding, obeyed his mother to the letter and, whenever possible, avoided joining in the games of his school-fellows.

His love for his unfortunate brother was touching. When he was at home, he never stirred from his side. With superhuman patience he accustomed himself to the brutalized habits of the idiot, learned to understand his inarticulate sounds, fulfilled his every wish, and looked on smilingly when he destroyed his dearest toy.

The invalid boy got so used to his companions.h.i.+p that he would not be without him. When Martin was at school, he cried incessantly and preferred to go hungry rather than take food and drink from anyone else.

For three years he dragged on this miserable existence; then he began to ail and died.

Though his death certainly came as a relief to the whole household, all mourned his loss sincerely, and Martin especially was inconsolable.

During the first months he wandered out daily to the cemetery and often had to be torn by force away from the grave. Only very gradually he grew calmer, chiefly through intercourse with the youngest boy, Johannes, to whom he now appeared to transfer the intense love which he had lavished upon his dead brother.

As long as the invalid lived, he had taken little notice of Johannes, for he seemed to think it almost sinful to give even the merest fraction of his affection to any one else. Now that death had robbed him of the poor unfortunate, an invincible longing drew him towards his younger brother--as if by his love for him he might fill the agonizing void which the loss of his victim had left in him as if he might atone toward the living for what he had inflicted on the dead.

Johannes was at that time a fine lad of five, already quite a little man, who was to have his first pair of stout boots at next fair-time.

He seemed to have inherited nothing of his father's harsh, defiant nature; he took much more after his gentle, quiet mother, to whom he clung specially as her pet, and whose very idol he was. Not hers alone, though, for all in the house spoiled and petted him, their sunbeam, their source of joy.

Indeed, none who saw him could help loving him! His long, fair hair gleamed like so many sunbeams, and in his eyes, which could twinkle so merrily and at other times gaze so dreamily, there lay depths of goodness and love. He attached himself fervently to his elder brother, who had so long neglected him; but the disparity in their ages--they were nearly nine years apart--did not allow of purely brotherly relations between them.

Martin was already at the close of his boyhood; his serious, thoughtful mien and measured, old-fas.h.i.+oned speech made him appear older than he was. Besides, he was already destined to commence work in the following year. Under these circ.u.mstances it was only natural that he should a.s.sume a somewhat fatherly tone towards his younger brother, and though he was not ashamed to join in his childish games and to be driven as his patient horse with a "gee-up" and a "whoa," through the mill-yard and across the fields, there was even in this more of the smiling indulgence of a kindly tutor than of the spontaneous pleasure of an older playmate.

The affectionate-natured boy, craving for love and sympathy, gave himself up heart and soul to his big brother. He recognized his boundless authority more even than that of his father and mother, who were further removed from his childish sphere--and when school-days commenced and Martin proved such a patient helper in word and deed whenever lessons were hard, then the younger boy's veneration for his elder brother knew no bounds. Old Rockhammer was the only one who was not pleased with the closeness of their friends.h.i.+p. They were too sweet; they "s...o...b..red" each other too much, they had much better "live like cats and dogs together" as a proof that they were really "one's own flesh and blood." But their gentle mother was all the happier. Her prayer to the Almighty by day and night was to protect her children and nevermore to allow the flame of wrath to burst forth in Martin. And her supplication seemed to have been heard. Only once more was her soul filled with horror through an outburst of rage in her son.

Johannes--then nine years old--had been playing with a whip near some carts standing in the yard ready to take away flour. Suddenly one of the horses took fright; and the driver, a coa.r.s.e, drunken fellow, tore the whip out of the boy's hand, and gave him a cut with it across his face and neck.

At the same instant Martin, lithe as a tiger, rushed out of the mill; the veins on his temples swollen, his fists clenched, got hold of the man and began to throttle him so that he was already black in the face.

Then his mother threw herself with a loud scream of terror between the two. "Think of Fritz!" she cried, throwing up her arms in an agony of horror; and the infuriated boy let his hands drop as if paralyzed, tottered back and fell down sobbing on the threshold of the mill.

Since then his temper seemed to have died out entirely, and even when he was once insulted and attacked on the highroad, he kept his knife, which the people of those parts are quick to use, quietly in his pocket.

The years sped on. Shortly after Martin came of age, the old miller closed his eyes. His wife soon followed him. She did not recover after his death, and quietly and without complaining, she withered away. It was as if she could not exist without the scoldings which she had had to take daily from her husband for twenty-three years.

The two brothers now dwelt alone in the orphaned mill. So it was no wonder that they clung to each other even more closely, and that each lived only for the other!

And yet they were very different outwardly and inwardly. Martin, thick-set and short-necked, was awkward and silent in the presence of strangers. His bushy, lowering eyebrows gave his face a dark look, and his words came with difficulty and by fits and starts as if speaking were in itself torture--in fact one might have taken him for a hard misanthropist, if he had not had such an honest, hearty look in his eyes, and such a good-natured, almost childlike smile that it sometimes illumined his broad, coa.r.s.ely-cut features like a ray of sunlight.

How utterly different was Johannes! His eyes beamed into the world so frankly and cheerfully; the corners of his mouth seemed constantly twitching with fun and merriment; and over his whole lithe, pliant figure was cast the glamour of youth. The la.s.sies all noticed it, and sent many a glance after him, and many a blush, many a warm squeeze of the hand told him plainly, "You could easily win my love." Johannes did not care much about these matters. He was not yet "ripe for love," and preferred a game of skittles to a dance, and would rather sit with his silent brother beside the lock than walk with Rose or Gretel.

The two brothers had promised each other one still, solemn evening, that they would never part and that no third person should ever come between them in love or in hate.

But they had made their reckoning without taking into account the Royal Recruiting Commission. The time came for Johannes to serve in the army.

He had to go far, far away, to Berlin, to the Uhlans of the Guard. It was a hard trial for both of them. Martin kept his trouble to himself as usual, but impetuous Johannes behaved as if he were absolutely inconsolable, so that he was well teased at parting by his comrades.

His grief was, however, not of long duration. The fatigues of service as a recruit, the novelty of it all, the lively bustle of the metropolis, left him little time for dreaming and only now and then, as he lay in the calm dawn on his camp bed, a great longing came over him; the homely mill gleamed through the darkness like a lost Paradise and the clatter of the wheels sounded in his ears like heavenly music. But as soon as he heard the trumpet call, the vision pa.s.sed away.

Martin fared worse at the mill, where he was now quite alone, for he could not reckon as companions the millhands, or old David, an inheritance from his father. Friends he had never had either in the village or elsewhere. Johannes sufficed him and took their place entirely. He slunk about brooding in silence, his mind ever gloomier, his thoughts ever darkened, and at last melancholy took such hold of him that the vision of his victim began to haunt him. He was sensible enough to know that he could not go on living like this, and forcibly sought to distract his thoughts--went on Sundays to the village dance and visited the neighboring hamlets under pretense of trade interests.

But as for the result of all this--well, one fine day at the commencement of his second year of service, Johannes got a letter from his brother. It ran as follows:

"My Dear Boy:

"I shall have to write it some time, even though you will be angry with me. I could not bear my loneliness any longer and have made up my mind to enter into the matrimonial state. Her name is Gertrude Berling, and she is the daughter of a wind-miller in Lehnort, two miles from here.

She is very young and I love her very much. The wedding is to be in six weeks. If you can, get leave of absence for it.

"Dear brother, I beg of you, do not be vexed with me. You know you will always have a home at the mill whether there is a mistress there or not. Our fatherly inheritance belongs to us both, in any case. She sends you her kind regards. You once met each other at a shooting-match, and she liked you very much, but you took no notice of her, and she sends you word she was immensely offended with you.

"Farewell,

"Your faithful brother,

"Martin."

Johannes was a very spoiled creature. Martin's engagement appeared to him as high treason against their brotherly love. He felt as if his brother had deceived him and meanly deprived him of his due rights.

Henceforth a stranger was to rule where hitherto he alone had been king, and his position at the mill was to depend on her favor and good will. Even the friendly message from the wind-miller's daughter did not calm or appease him. When the day of the wedding came, he took no leave, but only sent his love and good wishes by his old schoolfellow Franz Maas, who was just left off from military service.

Six months later he himself was at liberty.

How now, Johannes? We are so obstinate that on no account will we go home, and prefer to seek our fortune in foreign parts; we roam about, now to right, now to left, up hill and down hill and rub off our horns, and when, four weeks later, we come to the conclusion that in spite of the wind-miller's daughter there is no place in the world like the Rockhammer mill, we went our way homewards most cheerfully.

One sunny day in May Johannes arrived in Marienfeld.

Franz Ma.s.s, who had set up the autumn before as a worthy baker, was standing, with his legs apart, in front of his shop, looking up contentedly at the tin "Bretzel" swinging over his door in the gentle noon-day breeze, when he saw an Uhlan come swaggering down the village street with his cap c.o.c.ked to one side and clinking his spurs. His brave ex-soldier's heart beat quicker under his white baker's ap.r.o.n as he took his pipe out of his mouth and shaded his eyes with his hand.