The Young Bride
The Young Bride was always unable to define the precise moment when fear ebbed away, leaving its place to hatred, even if this was what always happened. She did not remember when she had stopped being afraid of her elder sisters, her mother, or her father. She was certainly very aware that her only spiritual solace, as paltry as it was, was to imagine them dead in a hole, wrapped tightly in a shroud, with shovelfuls of dirt hitting their linen-overlaid faces. When her parents sold her to the Husband for a paltry sum, after the ceremony she hugged her mother tenderly, and whispered: “I hope the reiters come to sup in your home tonight.” She had once heard the miller’s wife say the exact same words to Farmer Braun, to great effect. Her mother too was affected, and turned lividly pale. But her father noticed, and dragged her back to the high table to sit beside her Husband. “With all these dead men littering the land,” he whispered to her en-route, “You should be grateful to be handed over to a good one.”
“He is old, and fat,” she pointed out, “and I dearly wish both you and him had already joined all those dead men, Father.”
He had laughed, then. “You’ll make a splendid widow — one of the best, child. But you won’t be an orphan. You lost your chance: I already sold you, and you will be mistress of your own house and never again a daughter in mine.”
And she wept — Her father never exerted himself to make her taste utter defeat. Not so the Husband. He endeavoured to make her afraid and miserable since the very moment she stepped into his tavern, and in his home. And worse than that, she felt this darkness the Husband instilled into her spirit wasn’t borne out of hatred, it was just him wishing to cow her, and to prevent her from distressing him. And the Young Bride also feared Old Krüger’s smile in the morning, when the horrible woman asked her whether she’d been chastised, knowing full well how it had gone down. That wizened old maid was no more than an ancient servant, yet she treated her like a surly child, even if she was a married woman and a mistress in her own house. The Young Bride had begged her Husband to get rid of her, but he never listened to anyone, except for Old Krüger. He hearkened religiously to her evil-begotten gossip, to her conflicting folk tales and superstition, to her badly remembered Bible verses. The Young Bride had once tried to correct her obvious ignorance, and all she had gained was a vehemently enforced prohibition from doing it ever again.
When plague hit the village, so came other prohibitions, and not only for the Young Bride: Old Krüger had warned that naming the plague aloud would naturally result in attracting its attention, enticing it to come hither, while keeping silent would keep it wandering far and abroad from one’s hearth. As soon as it was uttered, so this edict was enforced to the utmost degree, and just as staunchly against the customers as towards the members of the sad household. This led to awkward incidents, and much yelling and recriminations, and evil-tempered stares in the half-derelict Sunday Mass. After this had gone on for a while, the Young Bride went to count the money in the strongbox and found it greatly diminished. As things stood, they were alone in her Husband’s tavern, and it was really easy, nay, logical, to come to the conclusion that Old Krüger’s superstition had driven them unto the edge of pauperhood.
“Is it really thought in this house as necessarily true, that a mere word could call evil upon our—,” began the Young Bride, using her most reasonable tone.
But Old Krüger immediately snapped: “Oi, Master! This child persists in flapping her tongue. Hadn’t you said that it would be best for her to be silent until such a time as she is addressed?”
The Husband raised his head, and just stared at the Young Bride coldly. She in turn fixed her eyes to the ground, and uttered no more words, banned or otherwise, for the rest of the evening. Neither the Husband nor Old Krüger noticed in any way whatsoever.
That night, once the Husband was deeply asleep, she abandoned her bridal bed. She ventured into the forest, and her resolve, as half-baked as it was, was to search in the darkness for the moment she wished for the most, the one where hatred conquered fear. And when she had ventured far from her sleeping household, she finally felt hatred straining to break free from her chest. So she gripped a tree-trunk, and then she screamed as strongly as she could: “Plague! Plague!”
How deeply she rejoiced! Such a relief this cursed word brought to her belly, where it had festered unsaid in fear and anger. It tumbled from her mouth and through the leafy branches, and was utterly swallowed by the dark forest.
“Plague! Plague, come hither!”
She opened her eyes, briefly seeing sparks and swooning from the strain of yelling blindly into the night. The forest still stood, unfazed. She used the trunk for support, and her breath was hollow and puffed white. A strange goat-like creature stood between the trees, neither near, nor far. The Young Bride had never seen its like and had no name for it: she did not know any animal walking on cloven hooves, which had a flaccid, trailing udder and sported a human face. And no child of Adam, not even Old Krüger, ever featured a countenance so vile and spiteful, utterly devoid of any grace.
“Plague….,” whispered the Young Bride, not knowing why. The Goat stepped forward once. “Plague,” said she yet again, and so the Goat took another step. And from flimsy, her voice became firm, and finally happy. “Plague! Plague!”
And thus the Goat-creature stood facing her, and the Young Bride laid her head on its horned brow. And there and then, she discovered the precise moment in which fear ceased to define her, and a merry, pure sort of hatred took its place.
She went back to the household that had claimed her, and passing through she planted a kiss on the cheek of a slumbering Old Krüger. Then she climbed on her bridal bed, and kissed the Husband in turn. The following day she was a very diligent Wife. And upon nightfall, she held her Husband’s hand, for he seemed to her quite distressed with some unsaid worry, just as much as Old Krüger had been a really silent servant all day long. The Husband shivered, sweated, and finally thrashed — still, she held on that hand, as it became hot as soup, and then limp, and then by slow degrees cold. The Young Bride then slept in the kind of silence one experiences when there is only your own breathing to listen to. She was startled to wakefulness when her husband withdrew the hold, his hand slithering away like a rill trout. She stared at him with eyes wide, while he groped blindly for his clothes, weeping in a soft, dejected way, dressing himself. She still watched when he rammed his hat on, and opened the main door with the biggest key, to hustle outside. Then she ran to the window, very curious to know where a cold, rigid man hurried to. She saw all the village there, even her father, mother and sisters, and of course Old Krüger. All were being led away in deathly procession by the Goat-creature. It was staring right at her. The Young Widow then knew the moment a new feeling took the place of her hatred, and she didn’t yet know its name. Still, now she looked forward to a lot of time and peace to get a taste for it.
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