here in reality, I love to go
in fancy where Auerbach leads. He takes you to a house in the Black
Forest, and you sit at breakfast with the family eating _Haferbrei_
out of one bowl. You know the people gathered there as well as if you
had been with them all the summer, and you know them now in winter
time when the roads are deep in snow and a wolf is abroad in the
forest. The story I am thinking of was published in 1860, and I
believe that there are no wolves now in the Black Forest. But as far
as one outside peasant life can judge, I doubt whether anything else
has changed much. You hear the history of the _Grossbauer_, the rich
farmer of the district whose breed is as strong and daring as the
breed of the Volsungs. Seven years ago the only son and heir of this
forest magnate, Adam Roettman, loved a poor girl called Martina, and
their child Joseph is now six years old. Adam is still faithful to
Martina, but his parents will not consent to their marriage, and
insists on betrothing him to an heiress as rich as he will be,
Heidenmueller's Toni. The whole village looks on at the romance and
sides with Martina; for Adam's mother, _die wilde Roettmaennin_, is one
of those stormy viragoes I myself have met amongst German women. She
masters her husband and son with her temper. She is so rich that she
has more _Schmalz_ than she can use, and so mean that she would rather
let it go bad than give it to the poor. At midnight, when the roads
are deep in snow, she sends for the _Pfarrer_, and when he risks his
life and goes because he thinks she is dying, he finds she is merely
bored and wanted his company; for she has been used to think that she
could tyrannise over all men because she was richer and more
determined than most. Next day she gets up, orders her husband and son
to put on Sunday clothes, and well wrapped up in _Betten_ drives with
them to the _Heidenmuehle_, where Adam is formally betrothed to Toni.
The girl knows all about Martina, but she consents because she would
marry anyone to escape from her stepmother, who treats her cruelly,
and in order to hurt her feelings has given her mother's cup to the
_Knecht_. After the betrothal the two fathers sit together and drink
hot spiced wine, the two mothers gossip together, and the _Brautpaar_
talk sadly about Martina, who should be Adam's wife, and Joseph who is
his child. At last Adam could bear it no longer. He would go straight
to Martina, he said, and he would be with To