Sali

“ Vreni became afraid and blushed from sheer embarrassment, but Sali took her hand and led her away. And the poor girl followed him willingly, bearing in her hand the huge gingerbread cottage, although the trumpets and horns from inside the inn sounded so invitingly, and although she was most anxious and eager to dance.
"We cannot dance here," said Sali, when they had been going some little distance aside, "for there would not be any amusement in it under the circumstances." ”

“ It was almost a pathetic sight to observe how notwithstanding all these serious obstacles pretty Vreni instantly would respond to the calls of joy if the occasion was at all favorable, as a flower after drooping in a heavy rainstorm will raise its head at the first rays of the reappearing sun.
Sali was not faring quite so ill. He was a good-looking and vigorous young fellow who knew how to take care of himself and whose size and physical strength alone would have forbidden harsh bodily mistreatment. ”

“ Sali lifted Vreni in his arms high up, and began to wade through the water towards the boat. But she caressed him so fervently and wriggled like a fish on the angle, that Sali was losing his footing in the rather strong current. She strained her hands and arms in order to plunge them in the water, crying: "I also want to try the cool water. Do you remember how cold and moist our hands were when we first met? That time we had been catching fish. Now we ourselves will be fish, and two big and handsome ones to boot." ”

“ And she fell on his neck, but then they both looked at one another, and they shouted: "How poorly you look!" For Sali was as pale and sorrowful as the girl herself. Forgetting everything she drew him to her on the hearth, and questioned him: "Have you been ill, or have you also fared badly?"
"No, not ill," said Sali, "but longing for you. At home things are going fine. My father now has rare guests, and as I believe, he has become a receiver of stolen goods. And that is why there are big doings at our place, both day and night, until, I suppose, there will come a bad end to it all. ”

“ But Vreni was trembling like aspen in Sali's arms, and he asked her: "What do you think of all that? To me it seems indeed it would be best to let the whole world go hang, and to love each other without hindrance and fear."
But Sali said this more jokingly than in earnest. Vreni, on the other hand, took it all seriously, kissed him and replied: "No, I should not like that. These people do not act according to my notions. That young man with the French horn, for instance, and the girl in the silk skirt also belong together in that way, and are said to have been very much in love. ”

“ When Sali and Vreni noticed these many couples out for a holiday stroll, they laughed to themselves, and rejoiced that they, too, were such a happy pair; they lost themselves on side paths that led away from every noise, and there they felt protected by the green solitude. They remained where they liked, went on or rested again for a spell, and in unison with the sky overhead which was cloudless, no carking care came to disturb their serenity. ”

“ Sali sighed deeply, and rejoined: "I myself wanted a hundred times to become a soldier or else go far away and hire out on a farm, but I cannot do it, I cannot leave you here, and after we are separated it will kill me, I feel sure of it, for longing for you will not let me rest day or night. I really believe, Vreni, that all this misery makes my love for you only the stronger and the more painful, so that it becomes a matter of life or death. ”

“ Indeed, in his youthful pride he had the strong wish to become, if possible, a man such as he recalled his own father once to have been, a man of substance and of rational and successful conduct of his life. Sali was really very much as his father knew himself to have been at his own age, and a queer remnant of respectability urged the father to treat his son well. In honoring him he seemed to honor his old self. ”

“ Sali silently nodded his head, and Vreni shrieked: "Oh, God, oh, God! It is my father! The poor man!"
And quite out of her senses she knelt down alongside of him, lifted up his head and began to examine his hurt. But there was no flow of blood, nor any other trace of injury. She let the limp body drop to the ground again. Sali put himself on the other side of the unconscious old man, and both of them stared helplessly at the pale and motionless face of Marti. They were silent and their hands dropped.
At last Sali remarked: "Perhaps he is not dead at all. I don't think he is dead. ”

“ Sali embraced the girl, pressed her ardently against his heart, and covered her with kisses. His confused thoughts were struggling for some way out of the labyrinth that encompassed them both, but he saw none. Even if the blot of his family misery and his neglected education were not weighing against him, his extreme youth and his ardent passion would have prevented a long period of patience and self-denial, and then there would still have been his misfortune in having injured Vreni's father for life. ”

“ But now at last their children had reached the spot, and Sali, with a bound, came to his father's help, to enable the latter to make an end of the hated foe, Marti being just about spent and exhausted. But Vreni also sprang, dropping all her burdens, to the rescue, and after the manner of women in such cases, embracing her father tightly and really thus rendering him unable to move and defend himself. Tears streamed from her eyes, and she looked with silent appeal at Sali, just at the moment when he was about also to grasp old Marti by the throat. ”

“ Sali's heart knocked against its prison door like a living being; anon it stood still, and he breathed with difficulty and said slow and in a whisper: "There is one thing, only one thing, we can do, Vreni; we keep our wedding this hour, and then we leave this world forever--there below is the deep water--there is everlasting peace and fulfilment of all our hopes--there nobody will divorce us again--and we have had our dearest wish--have lived and died together--whether for long, whether for short--we need not care--we are rid of all care--"
And Vreni instantly responded. ”

“ But she continued the childish dialogue willingly enough for some time longer, showing plenty of patience the while, feeling instinctively her lover's mood. And the simple sallies on both sides seemed to them the height of wisdom, so soft and sweet and full of their mutual feelings they were. At last, however, Sali waxed bold and aggressive, and seized Vreni and pressed her down into the scarlet bed of poppies by main strength. There she lay panting, blinking at the sun with eyes half-closed. ”

“ She pulled up a bit her blue dress in order to admire them the better, and with extreme pleasure she examined the red loops in front, while Sali could not get his fill of the charming picture the girl presented--the lovely excitement that beautified her the more, the willowy shape, the gently heaving bosom, the delicate oval of the face with its pretty features, animated with feminine enjoyment of the moment, eager with the mere joy of living, grateful to the giver of this last bit of finery that her childish soul had longed for. ”

“ To-morrow you can leave and look for some work. You'll be able to get along anywhere."
"But without you? Get along without you?" said the girl.
"You must forget me."
"Never," she murmured sadly. "Never in my life." And she added, glancing sternly at him: "Could you do that?"
"That is not the point, dear heart," answered Sali, slow and distinct. He caressed her feverish cheeks, while she kept pressing herself against his bosom. "Let us only consider your own case. You, Vreni, are still so very young, and quite likely you will fare well enough after a short while." ”

“ At last they both began to grumble, one blaming the other for things that had gone wrong, dropping into an uneasy slumber from time to time from which a nightmare would waken them with a start, and in which their unquiet consciences upbraided them for past misdeeds. Only Sali heard and saw nothing of all this, for his mind was entirely engrossed with Vreni. Still the illusion was strong with him of being immeasurably wealthy, but beside that he had a hallucination that he was powerful and had learned how to conduct the most complicated and important affairs in the world. ”

“ Nobody evidently had missed them in the midst of the whole spook. The shrill tones of the fiddle, the laughter of the girls, and the yodels of the men resounded for another spell through the night, fainter and fainter, until at last the noise died away down by the shores of the river.
"We have escaped those," now said Sali, "but how are we going to escape from ourselves? How shall we separate, and how keep apart?"
Vreni was not able to answer him. Breathing hard she lay on his breast. ”

“ For nothing is just like this happiness of love, this sharing of a mystery between two persons, which approaches human beings in the form of unspeakable bliss, yet in a form so clear and precise, sanctioned and sanctified by the priest, and endowed with a name so mellifluously fine that no other word sounds half so sweet as Love.
On that day Sali felt neither lonesome nor unhappy; where he went and stood Vreni's image followed him and glowed in his inner self ”

“ Without doubt you will live as happily as a mouse in the cheese, or there is no justice in this world. Handsome, clean, smart and wise, fit for and willing to tackle all work at any time. None is as good-looking and as fine as thou art, no, not in the whole village, and even some distance further away. And who has got you for wife can congratulate himself; he is bound to be in paradise, or he is a scoundrel, and he will have me to deal with. Listen, Sali, do not fail to be nice to Vreni, or you will hear a word from me, you lucky devil, to break such a rose without thorns as this one here! ”

“ But where?"
"Ah, Sali, to-morrow there will be kermess in a number of places near by. Of two of these I know. On such occasions we should not be spied upon and could enjoy ourselves to our heart's content. Below at the river front I could await you, and then we can go wherever we like, to laugh and be merry--just once, only once. But stop--we have no money." And Vreni's face clouded with the sad thought, and she added blankly: "What a pity! Nothing can come of it."
"Let be," smilingly said Sali, "I shall have money enough when I meet you." ”

“ But Vreni grasped his arm, and she shouted laughing: "What are you about? Are we to wind up by stealing from the peasants their haycock?"
"That is to be the dowry they give us," replied Sali with humor. "See! A swimming bedstead and a couch softer than any royal couple ever had. Besides, they will recover their property unharmed somewhere near the goal whither it was to travel anyway, and they will hardly trouble their hard heads with the question how it got there. Do you notice, dear, how the boat is swaying and rocking? It is impatient to start on the journey." ”

“ One Sudanese in particular, a boy named Sali, used to squat silently on the deck and watch me by the hour.
“We were after the finest pearl—the bilbil. And one morning Sali and I launched his dugout and piled in, the natives laughing a good deal, for I wasn’t used to their tipsy little pirogues. I paddled, while Sali looked through a glass-bottomed box for a good spot. When he found it, he went over the side with a weight to a depth of forty or fifty feet, while I watched through the box to see if he was all right and kept a lookout for shark. ”

“ And Sali was experiencing similar hallucinations, since the fiddler's enticing remarks, while he meant not to listen to them, had also been fuel to his passion. So he said in embarrassment to Vreni: "Let us go inside for a spell. At least we must eat and drink something."
They were greeted in entering the guest room where nobody had remained but the fiddler's friends, the vagrants, which latter were seated about a poor meal at table, by a merry chorus: "There comes our bridal pair!" "Yes," added the fiddler, "now be friendly and comfortable, and we will see you married." ”

“ Madame de Salis went back to Ireland, where her parents, the old Bishop of Kilmore and Mrs. Foster, were still alive, and welcomed her with rapture. But she had left them a radiant, beautiful, animated girl; she returned to them a haggard, weird, worn woman, with that fixed look of anguish which only the most chronic suffering can leave. ”

“ In the time of my youth one of the cleverest and most agreeable women in Europe was Madame de Salis—the Countess de Salis—who had been in her youth a Miss Foster, daughter of the Irish Bishop of Kilmore. As a girl she had been most beautiful and the darling of her parents’ hearts, but she married against their will with the Count de Salis. He was a Swiss Count, but he took her, not to Switzerland, but to Florence, where he hired a villa at Bellosguardo. ”

“ When a young Count Mastai, in the Guardia Nobile, not only felt, but showed the most unbounded devotion to Miss Foster, Madame de Salis did more than express to him her regret that untoward family circumstances prevented her having the pleasure of seeing him again; she let her villa at Bellosguardo, she packed up her things, and she took her sister with her to Rome. ”