The Black Spider (3 page)

With rapid steps the godmother walked down the slope along the way to the church, bearing the fine child in her strong arms, behind her the two godfathers, the father and the grandfather, none of whom thought of relieving the godmother of her burden, although the younger godfather was wearing on his hat a good sprig of may, the sign that he was a bachelor, and in his eyes was a sparkle of something like approval of the godmother, hidden though this was behind an appearance of great nonchalance.

The grandfather informed everybody how terrible the weather had been when he himself had been carried to church to be christened, and how the churchgoers had hardly believed they would escape with their lives from the hail and lightning. Later on people had made all kinds of prophecies to him on account of this weather, some predicting a terrible death, others great fortune in war; but things had gone quietly for him just as they had for everybody else, and now that he was seventy-five he would neither die an early death nor have great fortune in war.

They had gone more than halfway when the maid came running after them; she had the duty of carrying the baby back home as soon as he had been christened, while relatives and godparents stayed behind, according to the grand old custom, in order to listen to the sermon. The maid had not spared any efforts so that she too might look beautiful. This considerable labour had made her late, and now she wanted to relieve the godmother of the baby; but the godmother would not allow this, however much she was pressed. This was too good an opportunity to show the handsome, unmarried godfather how strong her arms were and how much they could put up with. For a real peasant farmer strong arms on a woman are much more acceptable than delicate, miserable little sticks of arms that every north wind can blow apart if it sets its mind to it; a mother’s strong arms have been the salvation of many children whose father has died, when the mother has to rule the family alone and must lift unaided the cart of housekeeping out of all the potholes in which it might get stuck.

But all at once it is as if somebody is holding the strong godmother back by her plaits or giving her a blow on the head, she actually recoils, gives the maid the child, then stays behind and pretends that she has to see to her garter. Then she catches up, attaches herself to the men, mixes in their conversations, tries to interrupt the grandfather and distract him, now with this, now with that, from the subject which he has taken up. He, however, holds firmly on to his subject, as old people usually do, and imperturbably takes up afresh the broken thread of his narrative. Now she makes up to the father of the child and tries through all sorts of questions to lead him into private conversation; yet he is monosyllabic and keeps on letting the conversation drop. Perhaps he has his own thoughts, as every father should, when his child, and what is more the first boy, is being taken to be christened. The nearer they came to the church, the more people joined to the procession, some were already waiting by the wayside with their psalters in their hands, others were leaping more hurriedly down the narrow footpaths, and they came into the village like a great, solemn procession.

Next to the church was the inn, for these two institutions so often stand close to one another, sharing joy and suffering together, and what is more, in all honour. There a halt was made, the baby was changed, and the father ordered three litres of wine, although everyone protested that he shouldn’t do it, they’d only just had all the heart could desire, and they wanted nothing, great or small. Even so, once the wine was there, they all drank, especially the maid; she presumably thought she had to drink wine whenever anybody offered it to her, and that wouldn’t happen often from one year’s end to the next. Only the godmother could not be persuaded to touch a drop, in spite of her being pressed as if they would never stop, until the innkeeper’s wife said they ought not to force her, the girl was becoming visibly paler, and Hoffmann’s Drops would do her more good than wine. But the godmother did not want anything like that, scarcely wanted even a glass of wine, in the end had to allow a few drops from a bottle of smelling salts to be shaken onto her handkerchief, attracted in her innocence many a suspicious glance and could not justify herself or say what she needed. The godmother was suffering from a ghastly fear and could not say anything about it. Nobody had told her what name the baby was to have, and according to old custom it is the godmother’s duty to whisper the name to the pastor on handing the child over to him, since the pastor could easily confuse the names that have been registered with him if there are many children to be baptized.

In their hurry about the many things that had to be done and in their fear of coming too late, they had forgotten to inform her of the name, and her father’s sister, her aunt, had once and for all strictly forbidden her to ask what the name was, unless she really wanted to make a child unhappy; for as soon as a godmother asked about a child’s name, this child would become inquisitive for his whole life. Thus she did not know the child’s name, might not ask about it, and if the pastor had also forgotten it and asked what it was loudly in public or else made a mistake and christened the boy Magdalena or Barbara, how people would laugh and what a humiliation this would be her whole life through! This appeared to her as ever more terrible; the strong girl’s legs trembled like bean plants in the wind, and the sweat poured off her pale face in streams.

At this point the innkeeper’s wife urged them to depart, if they wanted to avoid being hauled o’er the coals by the pastor; but to the godmother she said, “You’ll never go through with it, lass, you’re as white as a newly washed shirt.” That was from running, the godmother asserted, it would get better again when she came into the fresh air. But it would not get better, in church all the people looked quite black to her, and now the baby began to scream with an increasingly murderous yell. The poor godmother began to rock him in her arms, and the louder he cried, the more vigorously she rocked him, so that the petals scattered from the flowers on her breast. Her breast felt more constricted and heavier, and her breathing could be heard loud. The higher her breast rose, the higher the child flew up in her arms, and the higher he flew, the louder he screamed, and the louder he screamed, the more forcefully the pastor read the prayers. The voices actually resounded against the walls, and the godmother no longer knew where she was; there was a whistling and roaring around her like the waves of the sea, and the church danced around with her in the air. At last the pastor said “Amen,” and now the terrible moment had come, now it was to be decided whether she was to become a laugh­ingstock for children and grandchildren; now she had to take off the covering, give the child to the pastor and whisper the name into his right ear. She removed the cloth, though trembling and shaking, handed over the child, and the pastor took him, did not look at her, did not ask her with sharp eyes, dipped his hand in the water, wetted the forehead of the suddenly silent child and did not christen him a Magdalena or a Barbara, but a Hans Uli, an honest-to-goodness­ real-life Hans Uli.

At that the godmother felt not only as if all the Emmental hills were falling off her heart, but sun, moon and stars too, and as if someone were carrying her from a fiery furnace into a cool bath; but all through the sermon her limbs trembled and would not be still again. The pastor preached very finely and penetratingly, all about man’s life being nothing more nor less than an ascension towards heaven; but the godmother could not arrive at a proper devotional state of mind, and by the time they left the church she had already forgotten the text. She could hardly wait to reveal her secret fear and the reason for her pale face. There was a lot of laughter, and she had to hear many a joke about inquisitiveness, and how scared the womenfolk were of this, and how all the same they saw to it that their daughters became inquisitive, although they left the boys out of it. She really needn’t have worried about asking.

Soon, however, fine fields of oats and plantations of flax and the magnificent growth in meadows and fields came to be noticed and attracted everyone’s attention. They found a number of reasons for going slowly and standing still, but by the time they arrived home the beautiful May son, which was higher in the sky now, had made them all feel warm, and a glass of cool wine did everybody good, however much they resisted it. Then they sat down in front of the house, while in the kitchen busy hands were at work and the fire was crackling mightily. The midwife was gleaming like one of the three men from the fiery furnace[
1
]. Already before eleven o’clock came a summons to the meal, but only for the servants, who were given their food first, and in ample quantity of course, but all the same one was glad when the servants were out of the way.

The conversation of those sitting in front of the house flowed rather slowly, but it did not dry up completely; before a meal preoccupation with the stomach disturbs the thoughts of the soul, but nobody is pleased to reveal this inner state, rather it is cloaked over with slow words on trivial subjects. It was already past midday when the midwife appeared at the door with flaming face, though her apron was still spotless, and brought the news, welcome to all, that they could eat if they were all there. But most of the guests were still missing, and the messengers who had already been sent out after them earlier returned, like the servants in the Gospel[
2
], with all kinds of information, with the distinction, however, that actually all were willing to come, only not just now; the one had ordered workmen to come, the other farm-servants, and the third still had to go off somewhere—but they weren’t to wait for them, but just to get on with the business. It was soon agreed to follow this exhortation, for if you were going to wait for everyone, it was said, it would drag out until the moon rose; it is true that the midwife growled in passing that there was nothing sillier than keeping people waiting, when in fact everybody would like to be there, the sooner the better in fact, so long as nobody should notice it. So you have the trouble of getting everything warmed up again, you never know whether there’s enough, and you never get finished.

Although it did not take long to come to a decision about the absentees, there was a certain amount of trouble with those who were present in leading them to the living-room and persuading them to sit down there, for nobody wanted to be first, at one thing any more than another. When at last they were all seated, the soup came on to the table, a beautiful meat soup, colored and spiced with saffron and so thickly covered with the beautiful white bread that the grandmother had been cutting, that there was little of the soup itself visible. Now all heads were uncovered, hands were folded together, and each one prayed to himself long and earnestly to the Giver of all good gifts. Only then did they slowly take up their metal spoons, and after wiping these on the beautiful, fine tablecloth they applied themselves to the soup, and many a wish could be heard that they could ask for no more than this, that they might have such a good soup every day. When they had finished their soup, they again wiped their spoons on the tablecloth; the Bernese cake was handed round, and everybody cut himself a piece, at the same time observing that the first meat course was being served up, which consisted of meat in saffron broth—mutton, brains and liver prepared in vinegar. When this course had been dealt with, after people had helped themselves in a slow and deliberate manner, the beef was brought in, both fresh meat and salted meat, whichever one might fancy, piled up high in dishes; with this went dried beans, slices of dried pear, fat bacon and wonderful joints from pigs that weighed three hundred weight, beautifully red and white and succulent. All this slowly took its course, and whenever a new guest arrived, the whole meal was brought on again, beginning with the soup, and each newcomer had to begin where the others had begun earlier, none was let off a single course. In between, Benz, the father of the newborn child, assiduously poured out wine from the beautiful, white bottles which held more than a gallon and were richly decorated with coats of arms and mottoes. Where his arms could not reach, he transferred to others his office of cupbearer, earnestly pressing his guests to drink and very often exhorting them: “Drink it up, that’s what it’s there for, to be drunk!” And whenever the midwife came in carrying a dish of food, he held out his glass to her, and others did the same too, so that things might have gone very queerly in the kitchen if she had drunk a pledge every time that one was offered her.

The younger godfather had to listen to a number ol jokes to the effect that he did not know how to encourage the godmother to drink as well as he should; if he could not give toasts better than that, he would never get a wife. “Oh, Hans Uli won’t want a wife,” the godmother finally said; unmarried fellows these days had quite different ideas in their heads from marriage, and most of them couldn’t even afford to get married now. “Huh,” said Hans Uli, he wasn’t so sure about that. Such slovenly creatures as most girls are nowadays make very expensive wives; most of them thought that all that was needed to make a good wife was a blue-silk piece of material to wrap round their heads, gloves in summer and embroidered slippers in winter. If you found that one of the cows in the cowshed was a poor specimen, that was certainly bad luck, but you could change it all the same; but if you are landed with a wife who does you out of a house and farm, that’s the end of it, and you can’t get rid of her. That’s why it’s more useful to think about other things rather than marriage and to let girls remain girls.

“Yes, yes, you’re quite right,” the older godfather said; he was an insignificant looking little man in cheap clothes, but he was respected very much and called “Cousin,” for he had no children, but did possess a farm of his own without a mortgage on it and 100,000 Swiss francs in capital. “Yes, you are right,” he said. “Womenfolk are just no use any more. I won’t say that there isn’t one here or there who would do credit to a house but such are few and far between. All they can think about is foolery and showing off; they dress up like peacocks, strut about like daft storks, and if one of them has to do half a day’s work, she gets a headache that lasts three days, and spends four days lying in bed before she is herself again. When I was courting my old woman, things were different, you didn’t have to fear as much as you do now that you might get, instead of a good mistress of the house, only a fool or a devil about the house.”