The summer which followed brought nothing but grief and care to Meyerhofer’s house. The former owner wished to have the mortgage paid off, and there was no prospect of any one lending the necessary sum.
Meyerhofer drove to the town three or four times weekly, and returned home late at night dead drunk. Sometimes he stayed away for the whole night.
Frau Elsbeth meanwhile sat upright in her bed and stared into the darkness. Paul often woke when he heard her low sobs; then for a while he would lie as quiet as a mouse, because he did not want her to know that he was awake, but at last he would begin to cry, too.
Then his mother became quiet; and if he could not stop crying she got up, kissed him, and stroked his cheek; or she said,
“Come to me, my boy.”
Then he sprang up, slipped into her bed, and went to sleep on her shoulder again.
His father often beat him—he seldom knew why; but he took the blows for granted.
One day he heard his father scolding his mother.
“Do not cry, you blubbering fool,” he said; “you are only here to make my misery worse.”
“But, Max,” she answered, softly, “will you prevent your family from bearing your misfortune with you? Must we not keep closer together when we are so unhappy?”
Then he was moved, said she was his brave wife, and called himself bad names.
Frau Elsbeth tried to pacify him, bade him confide in her, and be brave.
“Yes, be brave—be brave!” he cried, getting angry again. “It is all very fine for you women to speak so; you sit at home, and spread your apron out, waiting humbly for fortune or misfortune to fall into your laps, just as kind Fate may send it. But we men must go forth into hostile life; we must struggle and strive and fight with all sorts of rogues. Away with your warnings! Be brave; yes, indeed, be brave!”
Then he walked out of the room with heavy steps, and ordered the trap to be got ready, in order to set off on his usual pilgrimage.
When he came back, and had slept off his intoxication, he said:
“There, now my last hope is gone. The d—d Jew, who wanted to advance the money at twenty-five per cent., declares he will have nothing more to do with me. Well, let him do the other thing. I don’t care a straw for him. And at Michaelmas we may really go a-begging, for this time nothing remains to us but what we stand up in. But this I tell you: this time I shall not survive the blow. An honorable man must set some value on himself, and if one fine morning you see me swinging from the rafters, don’t be astonished.”
The mother uttered a piercing cry, and clung with both arms round his neck.
“Well, well, well!” he calmed her; “it was not meant so seriously. You women-folk are all the same deplorable creatures, a mere word upsets you.”
The mother started and stepped back from him, but when he had gone out she seated herself at the window, and looked after him anxiously, as if she feared he might already be thinking of doing himself a mischief. From time to time a shudder ran through her frame, as if she were cold.
In the following night, Paul, waking, observed that she got up, put on a petticoat, and went to the window from which the White House could be seen. It was bright moonlight—perhaps she really gazed at it. For wellnigh two hours she sat there, looking out fixedly. Paul did not stir, and when, with the approach of dawn, she came back from the window and stepped to her children’s bedsides, he closed his eyes firmly and feigned to sleep. She first kissed the twins, who were sleeping with their arms entwined; then she came to him, and as she bent down over him he heard her whisper, “God give me strength. It must be.” Then he guessed that something extraordinary was in preparation.
When, the following afternoon, he came home from school, he saw his mother sitting in the arbor in her hat and cloak and Sunday clothes; her cheeks were paler than usual; her hands, which lay in her lap, trembled.
She seemed to have been waiting for him, for when she saw him she breathed more freely.
“Are you going out, mamma?” he asked, wonderingly.
“Yes, my boy,” she answered, “and you shall go with me.”
“To the village, mamma?”
“No, my boy”—her voice quivered—“not to the village. You must put on your Sunday clothes; the velvet coat, of course, is spoiled, but I have taken the stains out of your gray jacket—it will still do; and you must polish your boots quickly.”
“Where are we going, then, mamma?”
Then she laid her arms round him, and said, softly,
“To the White House.”
He felt a sudden fever of excitement. The exultant joy which welled up from his heart nearly choked him; he jumped on his mother’s lap and kissed her impetuously.
“But you must tell nobody,” she whispered—“nobody; do you understand?”
He nodded, full of importance. He was such a clever fellow. He knew what it was all about.
“And now dress yourself quickly.”
Paul flew up-stairs to the room where his clothes were kept, and suddenly—he never clearly knew on which step it was—a long-drawn shrill sound escaped his mouth; there was no doubt any more—he could whistle! he tried for the second, the third time—it went splendidly.
When he came back to his mother in all his finery he shouted, jubilantly, “Mamma, I can whistle!” and was astonished that she showed so little interest in his art. She only pulled his collar straight and said, “You happy children!”
Then she took his hand, and their pilgrimage began. When they reached the dark fir-wood in which the wolves and goblins lived he had just finished his studies for “Kommt in Vogel geflogen” (A Bird Comes A-flying), and when they came out again into the open field he could be sure that “Heil Dir im Siegerkranz” (God Save the Queen) went without a flaw.
His mother looked down at him with a sad smile; each shrill note made her start, but she said nothing. The White House now stood close before them. He no longer thought of his new art. All his faculties were absorbed in what he saw.
First there came a high red-brick wall with a gate in it, on the posts of which stood two stone heads; then farther on a large grass-grown court; whole rows of wagons stood in it, and it was flanked by low gray farm buildings, forming a big square. In the middle lay a sort of pool, surrounded by a low hedge of may, in which a troop of quacking ducks were making merry.
“And where is the White House, mamma?” asked Paul, whom this did not please at all.
“Behind the garden,” replied his mother. Her voice had a strange, husky sound, and her hand clasped his so firmly that he almost screamed with pain.
Now they turned the corner of the garden fence, and before Paul’s eyes lay a simple two-storied house, closely shaded by lime-trees, and having little or nothing remarkable about it. It did not look nearly as white, either, as from the distance.
“Is this it?” asked Paul, drawling out the words.
“Yes; this is it,” answered his mother.
“And where are the glass balls and the sundial?” he asked.
A desire to cry came over him suddenly. He had imagined everything a thousand times more beautiful; if they had cheated him regarding the glass balls and the sundial as well, he would not have been surprised.
At this moment two Newfoundland dogs, as black as coal, came rushing up to them with suppressed barks. He took refuge behind his mother’s dress and began to scream.
“Caro! Nero!” called a sweet childish voice from the house door, and the two monsters, howling joyfully, rushed off in the direction whence the voice came.
A little girl, smaller still than Paul, in a pink-flowered frock, round which a kind of Scotch sash was tied, appeared before the house. She had long, golden curls, which were drawn back from her forehead by a round comb, and a small, delicate little nose, which she carried rather high.
“Do you wish to speak to mamma?” she asked in her gentle, soft voice, and smiled at the same time.
“Are you called Elsbeth, my child?” inquired his mother, in return.
“Yes; I am called Elsbeth.”
His mother made a movement as if she wanted to clasp the strange child in her arms, but she mastered herself, and said,
“Will you lead us to your mother?”
“Mamma is in the garden; she is just drinking coffee,” said the little girl, with much importance. “I would rather lead you round the front of the house, because if we open the door on the sunny side so many flies come in directly.”
His mother smiled. Paul wondered that this had never struck him at home.
“She is much cleverer than you are,” he thought.
Now they entered the garden. It was much larger and more beautiful than the one at Mussainen, but there was nothing to be seen of a sundial. Paul had formed a vague idea of it as a great golden tower, on which a round, sparkling disk of the sun formed the dial-plate.
“Where is the sundial, mamma?” he asked.
“I will show it to you afterwards,” said the little girl, eagerly.
From the arbor came a tall, slender lady, with a pale, delicate face, on which shone an inexpressibly sweet smile.
His mother gave a cry, and threw herself on her breast, sobbing loudly.
“Thank God that I have you with me once again!” said the stranger, and kissed his mother on her brow and cheeks.
“Believe me, all will now be well; you will tell me what weighs upon your mind, and it will be strange if I cannot help you.”
His mother dried her eyes and smiled.
“Oh, this is pure joy,” she said; “I feel already so relieved and happy because I am near you. I have longed for you so much.”
“And could you really not come?”
His mother shook her head sadly.
“Poor woman!” said the lady, and both looked for a long time into each other’s eyes.
“And this, I suppose, is my godchild?” the lady exclaimed, pointing towards Paul, who clung to his mother’s dress and sucked his thumb.
“Oh, fie! take your finger from your mouth,” said his mother. And the beautiful, kind lady took him on her lap, gave him a teaspoonful of honey—“as a sort of foretaste,” she said—and asked him after his little sisters, about school, and all sorts of other things which it was not at all difficult to answer, so that at last he almost felt comfortable on her lap.
“And what things do you know already, you little man?” she asked him at last.
“I can whistle,” he answered, proudly.
The kind woman laughed heartily, and said, “Well, then, whistle us something.”
He pointed his lips and tried to whistle, but the sound would not come; he had forgotten it again.
Then they laughed—the kind lady, the little girl, and even his mother; but tears rose to his eyes with shame; he struggled and kicked, so that the lady had to let him glide down from her lap, and his mother said, reproachfully,
“You are naughty, Paul.”
But he went behind the arbor and cried, until the little girl came to him and said:
“Oh dear, you must not cry. God does not like naughty children.” Then he was ashamed again, and rubbed his eyes with his hands till they were dry.
“And now I will show you the sundial,” continued the child.
“Oh yes, and the glass balls,” he said.
“They were broken a long time ago,” she replied; “a stone I threw flew by accident into one of them, and the other was blown down by a storm.” And then she showed him the spots where they had stood.
“And this is the sundial,” she went on.
“Where?” he asked, looking round, wonderingly.
They were standing before a gray, unpretending post, on which was fastened a sort of wooden plate. The child laughed, and said that this was the sundial.
“Oh, fie!” he retorted, angrily; “you are mocking me.”
“Why should I want to mock you?” she asked; “you have never done me any harm.” And then she repeated her assertion that this was the sundial, and nothing else, and she also pointed out to him the hand, a miserable rusty piece of metal, which stuck out from the middle of the dial and threw its shadow just on number six, which was written there among other figures.
“Oh, this is too stupid,” he said, and turned away. The sundial in the garden of the White House was the first great disappointment of his life.
When he returned to the arbor with his new friend, he found a tall, broad-shouldered gentleman with bushy whiskers there, who wore a gray shooting-coat, and whose eyes seemed to twinkle merrily.
“Who is that?” asked Paul, timidly, hiding behind his friend.
She laughed and said, “That is my papa; you need not be afraid of him.”
And, shouting with joy, she jumped on the strange man’s knee.
Then he thought to himself, would he ever dare to jump onhispapa’s knee, and from this he concluded that all fathers were not alike.
But the man in the shooting-coat caressed his child, kissed her on both cheeks, and let her ride on his knees.
“See! Elsbeth has got a playfellow,” said the kind, strange lady, pointing towards Paul, who, hidden by the foliage, glanced shyly towards the arbor.
“Just come here, my boy,” the man called out merrily and snapped his fingers.
“Come—here, on the other knee; there is room enough for you,” called out the child; and when, with a questioning glance at his mother, he crept timidly nearer, the strange man seized him, put him on his other knee, and then they had a merry race.
He had lost all fear, and when freshly-baked cakes were put on the table, he fell to bravely. His mother stroked his hair and warned him not to eat too much. She spoke very softly, and kept looking down upon the ground before her. And then the children were allowed to go to the bushes and pick gooseberries for themselves.
“Are you really called Elsbeth?” he asked his friend, and as she said “Yes,” he expressed his astonishment that she had the same name as his mother.
“But I have been christened after her,” said the child; “she is my godmother.”
“Why didn’t she kiss you, then?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” said Elsbeth, sadly, “perhaps she does not like me.”
But that she had not had the courage to do it never occurred to either of them.
It already began to grow dark when the children were called back.
“We must go home,” said his mother.
He was very sorry, because he had just now begun to like it. His mother pulled his collar straight, and said: “There, now kiss the lady’s hand and thank her.”
He did as he was ordered, the kind lady kissed his forehead, and the man in the shooting-coat lifted him high up into the air, so that he thought he could fly.
And now his mother took Elsbeth in her arms, and kissed her several times on her mouth and cheeks, and said: “May Heaven some day reward you, my child, for what your parents have done for your godmother.”
A heavy burden seemed to be taken from her soul; she breathed more freely and her eyes shone.
Elsbeth and her parents went with the two as far as the gate, when his mother took leave of them there over again, and stammered all sorts of things about compensation and divine blessings. The man interrupted her laughingly, and said the whole affair was not worth mentioning and did not require any thanks at all. And the kind woman kissed her warmly, and asked her to come again very soon, or at least to send the children.
The mother smiled sadly and was silent. Elsbeth was allowed to go a few steps farther; then she took leave with a little courtesy. Paul’s heart was heavy; he felt there was still something he had to tell her, so he ran after her, and, when he had caught up to her, whispered into her ear,
“You know—Icanwhistle all the same!”
When, mother and son entered the wood, night was closing in. It was pitch-dark all round, but he was not afraid in the least. If a wolf had come in their way now he would soon have shown him who had the best of it.
His mother did not speak; the hand which clasped his so firmly burned feverishly, and her breath came from her breast like a sigh.
And when they both stepped out onto the heath the moon rose pale and majestic on the horizon. A blue veil spread over the distance. Thyme and juniper sent forth their perfume, here and there a little bird twittered on the ground.
The mother sat down at the edge of the ditch, and looked across at their sad home to which all her care was devoted. The outlines of the buildings stood out clearly against the evening sky. One lonely light twinkled from the kitchen.
Suddenly she spread out her arms, and called out over the silent heath, “Oh, I am happy!”
Paul clung to her side almost anxiously, for never yet had he heard a similar cry from her. He was so much accustomed to her tears and her sorrow that this exultant joy seemed to him quite uncanny.
And then it occurred to him: “What will father say when he hears of this walk? Will he not scold mother and be even more angry with her than usual?” A sullen defiance took possession of him; he set his teeth, then he stroked his mother’s hand consolingly, kissed her, and whispered,
“He shall not harm you!”
“Who?” she asked, with a shudder.
“Father,” he said, softly and hesitatingly.
She sighed deeply but answered nothing, and silently and sadly they went on.
The gray woman had flitted across their path and spoiled the moment of joy, and it was the only one that Fate had still in store for Frau Elsbeth.
Next day there was a bad hour between herself and her husband. He called her undutiful and dishonorable. By her begging she had added disgrace to poverty.
However, he took the money.
Years passed away. Paul grew up a quiet, unpretending boy, with a shy look and awkward behavior.
Generally he kept apart, and, while he took care of the twins, would sit for hours working at some wood-carving without saying a single word. He was what one calls in his part of the country “fussy:” a nature inclined to worry about details and brooding anxiously by himself.
He had no intercourse with any boys of his age, not even in school. Not that he avoided them on purpose; on the contrary, he liked to help them, and more than one used to copy, in the morning before prayers, his arithmetic problems or his German composition; but their interests were not his, and therefore he could not befriend them.
He also got an abundance of thrashings; especially from the brothers Erdmann—two saucy, wild-eyed fellows, loved and feared as the strongest and most daring—he had much to suffer. They were inexhaustible in the invention of new tricks which imbittered his life: they threw his copy-books on the top of the stove, filled his satchel with sand, and let his cap, in which they put a stick for a mast, float down the river like a boat. Most of these injuries he bore patiently; only once or twice a blind fury came over him. Then he bit and scratched like a madman, so that even those companions who were much stronger than he wisely took to flight. The first time one of the boys had called his father a drunkard, and another time they wanted to lock him up in a dark cow-shed with a little girl.
Afterwards he was ashamed, and came of his own accord to beg pardon. Then they only laughed at him the more, and the hardly-won respect was lost again.
Learning went on with great difficulty. The task for which his comrades hardly needed fifteen minutes he required an hour or two to finish. On the other hand, his handwriting was like copper-plate and there never was a mistake in his sums.
All the same, no work seemed done well enough to satisfy himself, and often his mother surprised him as he got up at night on the sly, because he was afraid that what he had learned by heart had escaped his memory.
That he should go to a better school, like his brothers, was not to be thought of. His mother had for some time cherished the plan of letting him follow the two elder ones as soon as they had passed their examination, for it pained her mother’s heart that he should be behind the others; but in the end she gave in, and that was certainly for the best.
Paul himself had never expected anything else. He considered himself as a creature totally subordinate compared to his brothers, and had long since given up trying ever to be like them. When they came home for their holidays—velvet caps on their wavy hair, many-colored ribbons on their breasts, for they belonged to some forbidden school corporation—he looked up to them as to beings from a higher world. Eagerly he listened when they began to talk to each other about Sallust and Cicero, and the tragedies of Aeschylus—and they liked to speak about them a great deal, if only to impress him. But the object of his highest admiration was the thick book, on the first page of which was written “Table of Logarithms,” and which from the first page to the last contained nothing but figures—figures in long, close rows, the mere sight of which made him giddy. “How learned he must be, to have all that in his head,” he said to himself, caressing the cover of the book, for he imagined that they had to do no less than learn all those figures by heart.
The brothers were unusually affable and condescending to him; when they wished to have anything in the house, when they desired a saddled horse or an extra stiff glass of grog, they always addressed him confidentially, and he felt highly honored to be allowed to help them.
As regards farming matters, he was as well acquainted with them as if he were the master of the house himself; to them were devoted all his efforts and his care.
What was it that had made him so prematurely serious?
Was it the helplessness of his lonely mother, who had initiated him so early into all her cares? Was it the brooding, striving spirit, ever looking to the future, which was peculiar to him?
Very often when he sat musing, his elbows leaning on the table—in his manners, too, he was quite like a grown-up person—his mother stroked his hair, and said,
“Let us see a bright face, my boy; be glad that you have no cares yet.” Oh, he had cares enough! Care cleaved to him like his own flesh and blood: whether the hen which had strayed to-day would be found again to-morrow; whether the ointment which his father had brought from the town yesterday would agree with a dun-colored horse; whether the hay had been dry enough before it was turned; and how the starlings in the gutter on the roof would bring up their little ones without the cat getting at them.
And he had to care about everything. Care had been born with him; only for himself he never took any care.
The older and more reasonable he grew, the deeper, too, grew his understanding of the mismanagement which his father had allowed to prevail, and often a deep sigh came from his breast: “Oh, if I were only big already!” The fear of his father’s wrath did not let him express his anxieties, and if ever he dared to speak his mind to his mother, she looked with fearful eyes all around the room, and said, anxiously, “Be quiet.”
And yet his father saw very well whither his son’s thoughts tended. He had given him the nickname of “Cotquean,” and jeered at him whenever he saw him. That naturally was in his good moments; in his bad ones he thrashed him with the yard measure, with the handle of the whip, with the straps of the harness—with whatever was nearest his hand. Paul feared his hand itself most of all, the blows of which hurt more than all the sticks in the world. His father had a strange manner of boxing his ears. He flung his hand into his face with the knuckles outward, so that the nails and joints left bruises on his cheeks. This kind of blow he called his “cheek-comforter,” and when he intended beating Paul he called out to him in the most affable tone, “Come here, my son, I want to comfort you.”
When he had received his beating he used to run out trembling onto the heath in shame and pain, and while he made faces and drummed with his fists, to choke down his tears, he whistled.
In whistling he manifested not only all his longings, his childish dreams, but also his anger and indignation. The feelings for which his uncouth mind did not find any expression, for which he lacked words or even thoughts, he dared in this loneliness to pour forth unchecked by means of whistling. So his depressed, timid soul found an outlet. Whole symphonies he executed, shrill and harsh at the beginning, growing softer and softer, and at last melting away in sadness and resignation.
Nobody guessed the art he practised by himself, and how much consolation and exultation he owed to that same art—not even his mother.
Since he had seen her break into tears, one winter’s night, as he, without heeding her, had softly whistled to himself—since that time he left off as soon as she came near him; he thought it hurt her. What power was given him in those sounds he little knew.
Only at times he was proud—looking towards the White House—that he had after all learned to whistle; and when some melody seemed to him especially good, he thought within himself, “Who knows if you would laugh at me if you were to hear this?”
But never had he met any of them again.
For some time past Mr. Meyerhofer had gone about with great plans in his head. He had discovered that the turf moor which surrounded the farm in a wide circle was in a condition to afford a sure profit. Already, twice or thrice, when need had been sorest, he had, to make shift, ordered peat to be cut, and sent five cart-loads to the town.
Secretly, quite secretly—for he was too proud to be considered as nothing better than a common peat-cutting farmer. His people had each time brought home twenty to twenty-five marks clear gain, and said that there was far more to be gained still in this way, because black, firm peat was an article much in demand in the market.
But Meyerhofer was not to be induced to utilize the moor in this manner. “I have never bothered about such trifles,” he said; “I’d rather be ruined wholesale than earn in detail,” and then he drew himself up like a hero.
But the moor did not let him rest. It was in September, after an unusually favorable harvest, when Lob Levy, the complaisant friend of all farmers in debt, appeared on the farm twice or thrice weekly, and had much to negotiate with the master. Frau Elsbeth trembled with fear as soon as the Jew, in his dirty caftan, appeared at the gate. She seated herself at the window and followed untiringly every movement of the negotiators. If her husband assumed a thoughtful air she felt a cold shiver, and only when he smiled again she dared to breathe freely, too.
She anticipated no good, but did not venture to ask what kind of business her husband had to transact with this usurer.
She was soon to be enlightened. One afternoon Paul saw how a strange vehicle came rumbling along on the road from the town, which looked in the distance like an immense black copper on wheels. Something that appeared to be a chimney stuck out beyond it, and when the wheels staggered on the uneven ground bent to the right and the left like a man politely bowing. He gazed at the wonder for a while, then ran to his mother, whom he eagerly pulled to the door by her dress.
She shaded her eyes with her hand and looked down the road. “That is a locomobile,” she said at last.
Paul knew as much as before. “What is a locomobile?” he asked.
“A steam-engine which can be moved anywhere, and which great land-owners use to turn their thrashing-machines; one can also harrow and plough with it, for such a thing has more strength than ten horses.”
“But why is it drawn by horses, then?” he asked.
“Because by itself it cannot move anywhere,” was the answer.
He did not understand that. “Anyhow,” he thought, “it must be a great happiness to possess such a thing with that strange name, and if we ever become rich—”
At this moment his father came rushing out of the house in great excitement; he had a slipper on one foot, a boot on the other, and his necktie had turned to the back of his neck.
“They are coming! they are coming!” he cried, clapping his hands; then he caught his wife round the waist and danced with her into the middle of the road.
She looked at him with great anxious eyes, as if she wanted to say, “What fresh nonsense have you contrived now?” But he would not let her go, and when the twins in their pink cotton frocks and dark little pigtails came running out of the garden, he made for them, took them in his arms, let them dance on his shoulders, and pretended to throw them over the ditch, so that the mother could only stop this nonsense by most ardent pleading.
“There, you little rogues,” he cried, “rejoice and dance. All poverty is ended now; next spring we shall measure our money by the bushel.” The mother looked at him askance, but said nothing.
The monster came nearer and nearer. Paul stood there motionless—all eyes. Then he looked up at his mother, whose face was care-worn, and a certain fear came over him as if now the devil had come into the house; but then he remembered how his wish of a moment ago was fulfilled, and he resolved to meet the black guest with full confidence.
Meanwhile all the farm-servants and maids came hurrying from the stables and kitchen. All the inmates of the Howdahs stood in a row by the fence and gazed at the approaching wonder.
“But tell me, what do you want to do with it?” Frau Elsbeth at last asked her husband.
He threw a pitying glance at her; then he laughed shortly, and said, “Drive about in it.”
Frau Elsbeth asked no more. Her husband, turning to the upper farm-servant, expounded his plans: how he would begin peat-cutting on a large scale; cutting and pressing machines were also on the way, and to-morrow, early, work could begin. Then he gave him orders to go to the village to engage the necessary workmen. Ten men would suffice for the beginning, but he hoped soon to need as many as twenty or thirty.
Frau Elsbeth mutely shook her head, and went into the house just as the locomobile arrived before the gate. Paul never tired of looking and admiring. Behind the yellow screws and crooked handles there seemed to lie a world of mystery; the place for the fire, with the grate and ash-box beneath, seemed to him like the entrance to that fiery furnace, in which the well-known three holy men had once intoned their song of praise; and the chimney above all, standing threateningly upright, with its wreath of pine soot at its mouth, which seemed to lead down into blackness and fathomless depths!
Paul did not heed the little basket-carriage that drove behind the monster, in which sat Lob Levy, with his shaggy, reddish beard, and his merry, twinkling eyes; he did not heed the screaming of the carmen, and the exultation of his two little sisters, who danced like mad round the wheels. He stood there dazed with wonder, as if he could not understand yet what was happening around him.
When, later on, he entered the big room, he found his mother crouching in the corner of the sofa, crying.
He put his arm round her neck; but she kept him gently off, and said, “Go and look after the little ones, so that they do not get under the wheels.”
“But why do you cry, mamma?”
“You will see in time, my boy,” she said, stroking his hair. “Lob Levy is in it—you will see in time.”
Then he felt angry with his mother! When all were joyful why should she sit moping in a corner and cry? But the joy was now over for him; and when he saw Lob Levy loiter about the yard, in his long black “heel-warmer,” he would have liked most to favor Caro with a hint towards his calves.
The twins were quite beside themselves with joy. They took a cord, and crying “gee” and “whoa,” raced wildly through the garden. One of them was the locomobile, the other the horse, but each wanted to be the locomobile, because then she got father’s black hat put on for the chimney.
Before going to sleep they had already given a name to the new monster.
They maintained that it resembled the fat servant-girl with a long neck, who a short time ago had been dismissed on account of her slatternliness, and they called it, after her, “Black Susy.”
The locomobile kept this name forever after in Meyerhofer’s house.
Next morning the noise began afresh. The ten hired workmen stood in the yard and did not know what to do. Meyerhofer wanted to have the engine heated, but Lob Levy, who had passed the night in a shed in order to be at hand the first thing in the morning, wanted first to receive his price, as it had been settled in the agreement, because the grain had to be delivered in town by noon.
“What grain?” the mother asked, turning pale.
Well, it could not be denied any longer: Meyerhofer had sold almost the whole harvest—the thrashed corn as well as the amount still to be thrashed—to the Jew for the old worn-out engine. Triumphantly the latter drove away with the beautiful full sacks. And this was only a sort of premium; towards Christmas he would come and fetch the rest.
A feeling of discouragement overcame for a moment even the light-minded Meyerhofer himself when he saw the high-piled carts disappear behind the woods; but in the next he put his hands defiantly into his trousers-pockets, and ordered that the machine should be got ready without delay.
At the same time as the monster a man in a blue blouse and with a brandy-nose had come to the farm; he called himself “stoker,” and distinguished himself by constantly eating onions; he said that this was good for the digestion. This man fancied himself the hero of the day. Puffed up with pride, he stood near the engine, called it his foster-child, and stroked the rusty iron walls with his black, knotty hand, that sounded as if two graters were rubbed together. With a great show of foreign words he explained to every one who came near him the inner arrangement of the “lookmanbile,” as he called his foster-child, only he had to have some drink; otherwise he was abusive. But if he got the amount of brandy which he wanted, he was deeply moved, and swore he would rather have his hands and feet cut off than ever separate himself from his foster-child. He had got to love it like his own flesh and blood, and thought a thousand times more of it than of any human being in the world. Meyerhofer walked proudly round him, for this pearl was now his property, too, and he declared over and over again that here one could see what German faithfulness meant.
But when the engine was to be heated, the very faithful man could nowhere be found. At last he was discovered on a hay-stack asleep. When he was awakened, he called this proceeding ill-treatment of human beings, and could only with great trouble be induced to come out of his corner.
The heating of the engine was a new festival. Paul stood before the fire, and stared with dreamy eyes into the glowing depths which opened yawning, as if it wished to swallow something alive. He thought of the old heathenish idol Moloch, about whom he had heard in his biblical history, and every moment he expected to see a pair of red, glowing arms stretch themselves forth. And then in the body of the monster there arose a mysterious singing, at times hollow, like the distant roar of a forest, then again delicate and high, like soft angels’ voices. Then it began to hiss in the valves—steam clouds rose, the iron shovel clattered, and fresh heaps of coal sank rattling into the furnace. There was such a noise all round that one could hardly hear one’s own voice. The stoker with the red nose stood there like a king; he drank from a flat-bodied flask, and from time to time he handled the valves, sending forth a loud, imperious bellowing like a tamer of wild beasts. And then the big wheel began to turn—surr, surr, surr—always quicker and quicker. One became quite giddy by merely looking on, and then there was a crack—a clatter—a hissing—the great wheel stood still forever.
At first the stoker gave himself great airs, and declared in half an hour the whole damage would be repaired, but when Meyerhofer, after two days’ work, urged him to have done with his repairs, he became abusive, and declared that this old heap of rubbish could not be repaired any more, and that it was just good enough to be sold to the dealer for old iron.
“Foster-child?” he thanked you for such a foster-child; he was still a little too good to look after such a heap of rubbish. And then it came out: Lob Levy had picked him up three days ago in some low den, and had asked him whether he would like to live like a king for a week—longer the joke would not last, anyhow. And only on this assurance he had gone with him, for to stay in one place longer than eight days was against his principles.
Hereupon he was driven from the farm.
Next day Meyerhofer sent for the village blacksmith, that he might look at the damage. He again fumbled about the engine for a few days, ate and drank for two, and declared in the end that if it was not all right now the devil was in it.
The heating was repeated; but “Black Susy” was not to be brought to life again.
When, towards Christmas, Lob Levy came to the farm to fetch the rest of the grain, Myerhofer thrashed him with the handle of his own whip. The Jew screamed “Murder!” and drove away hastily. But soon a lawyer’s messenger with a big red-sealed letter appeared. Myerhofer swore and drank more than ever, and the end of it all was that he was sentenced to pay all costs of the case and compensation money as well. Only with great difficulty he escaped the punishment of imprisonment.
Since that day he would not see “Black Susy” any longer. She was put into the farthest shed, and stood there in concealment many a year without anybody ever looking at her.
Only Paul from time to time secretly took the key of the shed and crept in to the black monster that he loved more and more, and which at last appeared to him like a dumb, ill-treated friend.