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Updated: June 22, 2025
Simmen was in his speech, bearing and appearance a peasant like Fausch but less rugged, and stouter, though strong and broad shouldered. He had a fat red face, a grayish white beard, and was not as large as the smith, though he was a well grown man, and had rather a large stomach, and very large arms, but he was as quick at his work as a young and slender man.
"Have you anything against the boy himself, just as he really is," began Fausch without any preamble. Now Simmen had slept the whole long night since yesterday's fit of anger, and in the morning his wife, who was quieter than he, and rather peaceable for all that she was so resolute, had interposed between him and the stubborn Vincenza to such good purpose that his anger had passed away.
I will give him employment, Franz, and he will stay here alone, as I said! Time will show what comes of it not that he is to think that he is going to get the girl But he will do well enough for me so far!" The last few words Simmen said for his own satisfaction, meaning to cloak his own yielding disposition. "Good!" said Fausch, and no more, not one unnecessary word.
But Simmen hit the table another blow as if he were impatient all the same the affair was not quite to his taste. When Hallheimer, the trader, came back from Italy, he heard something on the mountain which astonished him; he was not to sell the smithy at Waltheim, for Stephen Fausch was going back to his old place within a short time. The trader asked what had happened. He got no answer.
Simmen, the landlord, sent for Fausch to come to his little office, which was near one of the guest rooms. It was a small room, containing a table strewn with papers, and a chair in front of it; at this table Simmen used to make out the bills for his guests. A little oil lamp that hung from the ceiling was burning, and threw a fairly good light upon the two men, and around the room.
It soon appeared that in the special dining room, where those of the upper classes sat, and where Simmen, who had a keen eye for the rank of his guests, always brought the more important travelers, these guests took especial pleasure in the two young people, and gradually Simmen told them to devote their whole attention to the service of this room. Many eyes were fixed upon them.
The very fact that the taciturn fellow came of his own accord astonished Simmen. He willingly opened the door of his little office for him, sat down once more at his table, and Fausch stood on the very same spot as on the previous evening. Everything in the little room was just the same, except that the lamp was not burning. A gray light reflected from a bare rocky slope, filled the room.
Since he could not find a word to say, he stroked her hand, which was resting on the woodpile. Just then Simmen came out of the tavern door, with his face flushed, and called out angrily to Vincenza: "Are you there again with the smith's boy, you?" It was the first time that he had had anything to say against the friendship of the two. The girl turned around.
Even Hallheimer did not come, and just as both Simmen and Fausch began to wonder at his absence, the smith got a letter saying that the trader was confined to the house by a severe illness, so that not only had he been unable to make his usual trips to Italy, but the smithy at Waltheim was still unsold, because he had been unable to attend to such business.
It was the evening of the day when the landlord had scolded his daughter on Cain's account. Simmen looked very much displeased. Fausch had come just as he was, dirty, and leaning a little forward, as if he had to thrust his great head through a wall.
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