Anne Warner

“ No, that I can’t do.”
“There’s the small Emilia,” said Bermann; “Pfalz can’t have the town-doctor to her because he has no money to pay him. You paid the town-doctor to come to your mother and so you can’t pay Pfalz. You’ve a curious notion of honesty, Hendrik; you keep your neighbor out of what you owe him sooner than do a thing that’s so common in business that there’d be no business without it. Does the king make every piece of money that bears his name? Did Herr Krupp sweat over every cannon shaped at Essen? As soon as anything has a value many are hired to make it. ”

“ As for Hendrik, he was buried amid the Alpine whiteness. No monument marked his grave. Some lives are like some stories—they finish very simply, and it is for those who come after to understand or not just as they please. ”

“ You don’t carve with your head, do you?” asked Bermann quite impatiently.
Hendrik laughed and nodded.
“Yes, master, just that. I carve with my head: that’s why I do so well. Hands don’t matter a bit; it’s the head that counts. It’s my head from start to finish. The fingers are but my machine.”
“What do you mean?”
“Why, master, can’t you see? Look you, there’s the tree first, I see the sheep in the branch, I see the twigs that have made the knots that are going to give meaning to the fleece—”
“Give meaning to the fleece! You’re talking moonshine!” ”

“ What do you mean?”
“Ottillie. She’s been here every day with me.”
“My wife!” cried Bermann. “Why, she’s dead!”
“My wife now,” said Hendrik, happily. “Listen, master. I don’t mind telling you now. It wont take long; it’s soon told.
“Long ago when she was a child—I knew her, but I was so poor. And my mother—you know how it was with my mother; I couldn’t have my life to live. And then later there wouldn’t be any life to live. The priest explained it all to her and to me. So Ottillie chose to become a nun—at least, I thought so. We were very simple, she and I—so she chose to become a nun. ”

“ He was a tall young fellow, very handsome, with beautiful brown eyes, a sweet boyish mouth, and square shoulders. Of course he knew nothing of his celebrity in the world or of the value of his work. Bermann took care of that. Were not the Alps a big sure barrier between the carver and the world, and is it not just that some such barrier shall be? The carver who is in the world and of the world can meditate the answer to that at his leisure.
So now it was August and Bermann had come. Everyone brought out his work and the buyer took it all and paid for it all. ”

“ In Genoa, in that grotesque cemetery-court of grotesque monuments, you may see his, splendidly done in a frock-coat that adapts itself to development in marble as gracefully as the cemetery adapts itself to the ideal conception of Death. ”

“ I turned to them when I went mad among the sheep.”
“But, man! man!” almost shrieked Bermann, “why did you do sheep when you could do these? One of these is worth a hundred sheep.”
Hendrik smiled. “Ah, who could risk it?” he said. “You might have set Johann and Walther to carve out these, too, then and even who knows?—to carve my mark upon their poor work after I was gone. You see, master, it is the work and not the mark that counts. That’s where your world goes wrong. ”

“ The carver considered.
“I’ll go back to the sheep,” he said at last; “I’ll leave Her till the debt’s paid.”
“Sheep wont help much now,” Bermann answered with a little scornful laugh. “I can’t pay for sheep that aren’t made yet and Pfalz can't wait until next year for his money.”
“That’s true,” said Hendrik, raising his eyes to the others.
“Be a sensible fellow,” urged Bermann; “do as I asked you before. Cut your mark into Johann’s and Walther’s sheep, and I'll give you a franc apiece without your doing one splinter of other work on them. ”

“ Then a year went by and on the next August when Bermann came he came alone. It was all settled now that Hendriks was dying just as his mother had died—only younger.
“It doesn’t matter,” the buyer said to Pfalz, after the latter told him that bit of news. “I’ve found a man that can do better than sheep—a fellow that does figures. I’ll buy his mark just as I did Hendrik’s.” ”

“ We have seen that he was persistent by nature and no one will be astonished that he had succeeded in marrying a girl who had personally preferred to be a nun. She was a very young girl, barely nineteen, with a Madonna face and big, unhappy eyes.
Hendrik saw her and she saw him on the day when all the carvings came to the market-place. ”

“ Hendrik took the carving into his own hands.
“That’s Johann’s,” he said with a nod; “he’s a smart boy. He’ll learn to carve someday—if he keeps his eyes open and watches real sheep.”
“Why, what’s wrong with this piece?” asked Bermann. “You speak as if it wasn’t well done.”
“Well done!” said Hendrik. “Why, master, have you never seen sheep? Look at this leg—and then a lamb never lies down that in that way. But still, Johann’s a smart boy.”
“Now, I'll tell you something,” said the buyer. “Look at that bit. I'll get six pieces of silver for that in the city ”

“ The son herded goats and sheep and helped with the work about the small mountain-hut, but his chief occupation was carving, and although he accomplished but a few groups or single pieces yearly he was already widely known as a true artist in wood. ”