Five years passed away; five years full of care and trouble. Paul toiled and moiled; he worked from early morning till late at night; his busy hands were occupied with every sort of labor, and whatever he touched throve. But he scarcely noticed this, for his mind was always taken up with the future.
The same lines of care were on his brow at all times; his eyes were cast down with the same thoughtful brooding expression as if he were looking into his own soul, and often days would pass without his having spoken a single word either at his work or at table.
He went about with the conviction that in reality all his labor was hopeless. He never could reckon on his father’s gratitude, and he soon learned to do without it; but it was more difficult to have patience when a whim of his father’s spoiled in one hour what he had been working at with great trouble for many weeks.
When his father came home from his journeys it was not seldom that he called him a simpleton and a blockhead in the hearing of the servants, and would complain bitterly at being obliged to leave his farm in hands as incapable as his, when his duty—nobody knew what that duty was—called him away.
Paul was silent at such times, for deep in his heart he kept the commandment: “HONOR thy father and thy mother”—“his father for his mother’s sake;” so he had reconstructed it. But his eyes passed with a sombre, searching gaze from one servant to the other, and whomever he caught smiling or nudging his neighbor in secret malice he dismissed next morning.
There was one of the farm-servants who had been working almost the whole time at the Howdahs. His name was Michel Raudszus, and he came from Littau. He lived in a miserable hovel not far from Helenenthal, the walls of which were surrounded by piles of turf, so that the storms should not blow it down. He had a slatternly wife who had already been in prison twice, and who sent her children out to beg.
He was a silent, surly fellow, who did his work faultlessly and went off without grumbling when he was not wanted any more, but appeared again punctually as soon as there was fresh work. Paul did not like him at first, he was so laconic and reserved, and his sullen behavior had made an uncomfortable impression upon him; but then it suddenly occurred to him that he behaved in much the same way himself, and from that hour he had begun to like him heartily.
Even his father seemed to have a certain amount of respect for him, for though, when drunk, he used to beat the servants, he had never attempted to touch him. It seemed as if the look which the man cast at him from underneath his bushy brows kept him at bay.
This servant was Paul’s most faithful helper. He could even trust him to sell the grain in the market, for he always knew how to get the highest prices.
Imperceptibly a great change had come over the silent Howdahs in these five years. The traces of poverty became more and more rare, and want was less often their guest at table. In the garden, where were pretty flower-beds, the pease and asparagus stood in long rows, and the defective fence had long since been replaced by a new one. The cattle were augmented every year by two or three valuable milking cows, and the milk-cart which drove into the town every morning brought home many a groschen on the first of the month.
That there was no sign of any comfort yet in spite of all this was entirely the fault of his father, who speculated with the greater part of their earnings when he did not spend it in drink.
Paul had secretly contrived that a few thalers at least were saved for his brothers and sisters every month.
His brothers needed money more than ever. Max had passed his last examination, and was now beginning his first year’s tutorship at college without salary; and Gottfried, the clerk, was out of situation for several months every year. The two wrote begging letters in every possible key, from the jovial “Fork me out thirty thalers immediately,” to the heartrending supplication, “If you don’t want me to be ruined, have mercy,” etc.
Paul passed many a sleepless night thinking how to help them, and it frequently happened that he deprived himself of something necessary so as to be able to send them the money.
Once Gottfried had written that he had no decent clothes and urgently needed a summer suit. Paul just wanted a summer suit himself, for he had outgrown his old one; sighing, he put the money which he had saved up for himself into an envelope and sent it to his brother; but in the letter accompanying it he mentioned that he was not less reduced in his wardrobe than himself. His brother showed himself magnanimous, and a fortnight later sent him a parcel of clothes and a letter, in which he said: “I enclose an old suit of mine. You, in your humble position, will probably be able to use it still.”
Paul had also enabled the twins to have a better education than was to be expected from the very reduced circumstances of his home. He had urged the vicar’s wife, who had formerly been a governess, to take them into the private school which she had established for the daughters of well-to-do landowners from the neighboring villages.
The money for the schooling was not the worst of it, and he could manage also to procure their books and copy-books; but it was difficult, very difficult, to keep them nicely dressed, for his pride would not allow his sisters to be behind their friends, and perhaps to be considered as beggar children.
He himself knew too well the feeling of being looked down upon to let his sisters experience the same.
His mother did not offer him any help even in these little feminine cares. She was so much cowed by her husband’s abuse that she lacked the courage to buy the smallest trifle on her own responsibility.
“What you do, my son, is sure to be right,” she said, and Paul drove to town and was cheated, both by the draper and the dress-maker.
The twins grew up blooming, careless, and saucily merry, without the faintest idea what a tragedy was being enacted in their immediate neighborhood. At ten years old they romped and fought with the village boys, at twelve they went with them to steal pears, and at fifteen graciously accepted bunches of violets from them.
They were known far and wide as the most beautiful girls of the neighborhood. Paul knew this well, and was not a little proud of it; but what he did not know was that they had rendezvous behind the garden fence, and that half the boys who were to be confirmed with them could boast of having kissed their sweet red lips.
It was in the month of June on a sunny Sunday afternoon. Trumpet music sounded softly out of the wood. A great festival was to be held there to-day. A wandering band had consented to be hired to give a concert. The country people had come from far and wide, and even the squires had not refused to participate in it, for such a thing did not often happen in this quiet part of the world.
Since the middle of the day a long row of carriages had passed the Haidehof, and old Meyerhofer, who did not like staying at home when anything was going on, had suddenly been overcome by a fit of kindness, and called out to his womenfolk to get ready as quickly as possible; he would sacrifice himself and take them to the festivity.
The twins, who had already for a long time been standing at the window, looking out with eager sparkling eyes, broke out into a loud demonstration of joy. Frau Elsbeth gave them a quiet smile and turned to Paul, who sat silently in his corner and went on cutting little sticks to tie up the flowers, as if all this did not concern him at all. “Will you not come, too?” she asked.
“Paul can drive,” cried Meyerhofer, carelessly.
He thanked them and said that his coat was too shabby, and also he wanted to look after the workmen, who were to come at sunset. The next morning haymaking was to begin.
The twins looked at him, laid their heads together, and giggled; then, when he went towards the door, they hung round him, and Katie whispered,
“Listen; we know something.”
“Well, what is it?”
“Something nice,” said Greta, mysteriously.
“Out with it.”
“Elsbeth Douglas has come home again.”
And breaking out into merry laughter they ran away.
Paul at first felt very angry that they dared to mock him; then he sighed and smiled, and wondered why his heart had suddenly begun to beat so loudly.
Half an hour later his family drove away.
“Do join us soon,” his mother called down to him from the carriage, and Katie getting into it whispered into his ear,
“I believe they will be there, too.”
Now he stood quite alone in the deserted courtyard. The servants had gone to the fields to milk—no human being was to be seen far and wide. The ducks in their pool had put their heads under their wings, and the kennel-dog snapped sleepily at the flies.
Paul seated himself on the garden fence and gazed towards the wood, at the edge of which gay light dresses flitted to and fro, while now and then there was a bright glitter, when the sunbeams were reflected in the harness of the waiting carriage-horses.
The evening came; he was still undecided whether he should venture to follow his family.
A thousand reasons occurred to him which made his staying at home absolutely necessary, and when it was quite clear to him that he ought to remain at home and not go anywhere else he put on his Sunday coat and went to the festival.
It began already to grow dusk as he walked across the sweet-scented heather. His heart was weighed down with secret fear. He did not dare to think out the cause, but as he walked past the juniper-bush, beneath which he once had whistled his most beautiful song to Elsbeth, a pain shot through his breast as if he had been stabbed.
He stopped and reconsidered whether it would not be better to turn back. “My coat is much too shabby,” he said to himself; “I can’t show myself in any decent society.” He took it off and looked at it on all sides. The back was getting shiny at the seams; at the elbows there was a dull silver gloss, and the border on the flaps of the breast even showed a little fringe.
“It won’t do with the best will in the world,” he said, and then he sat down beneath the juniper-bush and dreamed how smart and elegant he would look if only he could afford a new coat. “But that won’t be yet a while,” he continued; “first Max and Gottfried must have permanent places, and Greta and Katie must have the ball-dresses they wish for, and mother’s arm-chair must be newly done up—” and the more he thought the more other things came to his mind which had a prior claim.
Then again he saw himself in a brand-new black suit, patent-leather shoes on his feet, a fashionable tie round his neck, entering the dancing-room with a careless, distinguished air, while Elsbeth smiled at him very respectfully.
Suddenly he started from his dreams. “Oh, fie! what a fop I am growing!” he scolded himself. “What have I to do with patent-leather shoes and fashionable ties? And now I will just go in my old coat to the wood. Besides, it has almost grown dark,” he added, prudently.
Louder sounded the trumpets, and through the branches of the fir-trees joyful laughter met his ears.
A turfy spot in the wood had been selected for the principal scene of the festival. In the middle of it stood the platform for the musicians, on the right the tent of the village innkeeper, who sold sour beer and sweet cake, and on the left a place for dancing was fenced off, the entrance to which cost a groschen more, as one might read on a white board.
Round about in a big circle tables and benches had been placed where the different families enjoyed the supper they had brought with them, and through it all a jubilant, giggling, staring crowd was pressing, eager for either love or a good hand-to-hand fight.
The concert was already finished, the dancing had begun; on the firm, trodden-down moss the couples circled round breathless and stumbling.
The glow of the sunset lay on the open space, while the wood bordering it was already buried in darkness. Here were the farm-servants and maids from the neighboring hamlets; even the coachmen had left their carriages, because it would have broken their hearts to have looked on at these love-makings from the distance. Every bush, every small tree seemed alive, and out of the darkness came low, amorous tittering.
Shyly, like a criminal, Paul slunk round the festive scene. A fear of strangers had always been his peculiarity, but never yet had his heart fluttered so anxiously as at this moment.
“Is Elsbeth there?” Nowhere in all the crowd were there any traces of the inmates of the White House, but then his family also seemed to have disappeared without leaving any trace. Once he thought the cooing laughter of the twins caught his ear, but the next moment the noise had drowned it.
Twice he had already made the round; then suddenly—his heart threatened to stop from surprise and rapture—he saw, quite close before him, his mother and father sitting in peaceful intercourse at the same table with the Douglas family.
His father rested his elbows on the table, and, red with excitement, talked eagerly to Mr. Douglas. The broad-shouldered giant with the bushy gray beard listened to him silently, at times nodding and smiling to himself. The slender, delicate figure with the sunken cheeks and the blue rings round her eyes, who leaned wearily against the trunk of a tree and clasped his mother’s hand with her thin white fingers, that was his godmother, who had always seemed to him like an angel from the other world. But next to her—next to her, the lady in the modest gray dress, her fair hair simply combed back—
“Elsbeth! Elsbeth!” cried a voice within him; and then suddenly a wall of clouds sank down between him and her, and froze his innermost soul, and veiled his eyes with a damp mist.
Opposite to her sat a gentleman with a saucy-looking fair mustache, and still more saucy blue eyes, who bent towards her familiarly, while a smile flitted over her quiet face.
“She will marry that man,” he said to himself, with a conviction which seemed to be more than a jealous foreboding. With the clear-sightedness of love he had understood that these two natures harmonized and must seek each other. And perhaps they had already found one another while he himself wasted his days in idle dreams.
He stood there as if stunned, and scrutinized the man who suddenly had rendered it clear to him what he had lost—lost, indeed, without ever having possessed it.
How could he ever have dared to compare himself to this man that, to a hair, was the ideal man of whom he had always dreamed?
Bold and energetic and triumphant (that’s what he had meant to be one day), exactly like the strange young man who looked at Elsbeth with his frivolous smile. He also wore patent-leather boots and a fashionable colored necktie, and his suit was made of the finest shining black cloth.
Almost for an hour Paul stood there without daring to move from his position, devouring Elsbeth and her vis-à-vis with his eyes.
The night came. He scarcely perceived it. Long rows of lanterns were lighted, and shed forth an uncertain light on the gay crowd.
“How well I am hidden,” thought Paul, and was glad of the darkness into which he had crept. He did not see that two men came walking towards him and were occupying themselves close to him with something on the ground. Then suddenly, not ten steps away from him, a purple red flame flared up and flooded all around in a sea of dazzling light.
He wanted to take refuge quickly in the shade of a tree, but it was too late.
“Isn’t that Paul standing there?” called out his mother.
“Where?” asked Elsbeth, turning with curiosity.
“Boy, why are you hanging about in the dark?” shouted his father.
Then he had to come out, in spite of all; and burning with shame, his cap in his hand, he stood before Elsbeth, who leaned her head on her hand and looked up at him smilingly.
“Yes, that’s what he always is: a real sneaker,” said his father, giving him a clap on the shoulder, and the unknown young gentleman pushed his hair from his forehead and smiled half good-naturedly, half ironically.
Then old Douglas rose, went up to him, and seized both his hands. “Hold up your head, young friend,” he called out, with his lion’s voice. “You have no reason to lower your eyes—you, least of all the world. He who can at the age of twenty do what you do is a capital fellow and need not hide himself. I won’t make you conceited, but just ask who could bear comparison with you. You, perhaps, Leo?” He turned to the young fop, who answered, with a merry laugh,
“You must make the best of me as I am, dear uncle.”
“If only there was anything in you to make the best of, you good-for-nothing!” replied Douglas. “This, you must know, is my nephew, Leo Heller, a new edition of ‘Fritz Triddlefitz.’”
“Uncle, I’ll have my revenge.”
“Be quiet, you scoundrel.”
“Uncle, I’ll wager twenty glasses which of us lies under the table first.”
“That’s what he calls respect.”
“Uncle, you are pinching me.”
“Be quiet; just look at this young farmer, twenty years old, who keeps the whole farm going.”
“Well, Mr. Douglas,Icount for something, too,” cried Meyerhofer, with a somewhat lengthened face.
“No offence to you,” the former answered; “but you have so much to do with your company you naturally cannot bother about such trifles.”
Meyerhofer bowed, flattered, and Paul felt ashamed for him, for he well understood the irony of these words.
Mrs. Douglas, smiling, beckoned him to come to her. She seized his hand and stroked it. “You have grown tall and good-looking,” she said, in her weak, kind voice, “and you have a beautiful beard.”
“But do call him ‘Du,’” interrupted his mother, who seemed to be much easier in her mind than usual. “Paul, ask your godmother.”
“Yes—I entreat you,” said Paul, stammering and blushing anew.
“God bless you, my son,” said Mrs. Douglas; “you have deserved it,” and then her head again sank against the trunk of the tree.
Paul stood behind the bench and did not know what to do. For the first time since he was grown up he happened to find himself in strange society.
His glance met Elsbeth’s, who, resting her head on her hand, looked round at him.
“I suppose you won’t say ‘How do you do’ to me at all?” she added, mischievously.
The familiar “Du” gave him courage. He stretched his hand out to her, and asked how she had fared during all this long time.
A shade of sadness flitted across her face. “Not well,” she said, softly; “but more of that later on when we are alone.”
She made room at her side, and said, “Come.” And as he sat down near her his elbow touched her neck. Then a thrill went through his body, such as he had never felt in all his life.
Leo Heller shook hands with him across the table, and said, laughing, “To our good friendship, you pattern boy, you!”
“I am, unfortunately, not worthy to be taken for a pattern boy,” he answered, innocently.
“Then be glad; I am not one, either. Nothing is more disgusting to me than such a pattern boy.”
“Why, then, did you call me so?”
Leo looked at him quite surprised. “Oh, you seem to take everything literally,” he said.
“Pardon me, I am so little accustomed to joking,” he replied, and a blush of shame rose to his face. In turning towards Elsbeth he saw that she was gazing at him with a strangely earnest, searching look. Then a sudden feeling of bliss rose in his soul. He felt here was one who did not think him stupid or ridiculous, who understood his nature and the laws according to which it manifested itself.
While the three were silent his father, at the other end of the table, continued to expound the plans of his company to Mr. Douglas.
“And if you trust me, sir—but no, you need not even do that—I mean to say, if you will not frivolously forfeit your own chance—one must never stand in the way of one’s chance, sir—if you have only just a little spirit of enterprise—oh, then, yes, then, you know, there are hundreds and thousands to be earned; the moor is inexhaustible—why let others grow rich in your stead, sir? On through darkness to light; that’s my device. I will strive and fight to the last breath; it is not my own interest which is at stake. It seems to me to be a question for the welfare of humanity. The aim is to win this barren soil for cultivation, to give new life-blood to this whole district, to change the poverty of this country into prosperity—to be a benefactor to humanity, sir.”
And in this tone he swaggered on.
Then suddenly he came quite close to Douglas, as if he wanted to put a pistol to his head, crying,
“Then will you take shares in it sir?”
Douglas caught a glance from his wife, who quietly pointed towards Frau Elsbeth, and made him a beseeching sign; then he said, half amused, half angry, “I don’t mind.”
Paul was again ashamed, for he read in Douglas’s face that for him it was only a question of the fun of throwing a few hundred thalers out of the window. He himself knew, too well, that no sensible man could take his father’s plans in earnest.
“Have you not seen our girls, Paul?” asked his mother, who now seemed no less constrained than he.
No; he had not seen them anywhere.
“Do go and look about for them; they have gone to the dancing-ground. Tell them not to be too wild, or else they will catch cold.”
Paul rose.
“I will go with you,” said Elsbeth.
“May I not come too, little cousin?” asked cousin Leo.
“You had better remain here,” she answered, lightly, whereupon he declared he should be obliged to kill himself for grief.
“A merry bird,” said Paul, with a sigh of envy, as he walked at her side through the crowd.
“Yes; but nothing more,” she replied.
“Do you like him?”
“Certainly; very much.
“She will marry him, after all,” Paul meditated.
All around people screamed and shouted. A lantern had caught fire, and a troop of young fellows endeavored to tear it from the cord. Flaming pieces of paper were flying through the air, and the liquid was spirted in all directions.
Elsbeth put her arm in his and bent her head on his shoulder. Again that blissful thrill which he could not explain ran through him.
“There, now I am safe,” she said, in a whisper. “Come to the wood afterwards, Paul, I have so much to tell you; there we shall be undisturbed.”
And as she said this he felt quite anxious, out of pure joy.
They had come to the dancing-place. The trumpets resounded, and the dancers were spinning round and round.
“Shall we dance, too?” she asked, smiling.
“I cannot,” he answered.
“That does not matter,” she said; “for those sort of things Leo does well enough.”
His foolish dreams which he had had under the juniper-bush to-day occurred to him.
“So it is with everything that I fancy to myself,” he thought. “I have still one of your books, Elsbeth,” he said then.
“I know, I know,” she answered, looking up at him with a smile.
“Pardon me that I—”
“Oh, what a fidget you are,” she jested. “Leo meanwhile has ruined my whole library for me, and wants me now to replenish it for him, because he has nothing more to read.”
Leo, and still Leo over again.
“Have you read much that is beautiful in it?” she asked him.
“Once I knew everything by heart.”
“And now?”
“Now? Oh, good heavens, I have so much to think of in every-day life—they won’t fit into my head any longer.”
“Nor into mine, either, Paul. It is because we have seen too much of life; poetry is lost to us.”
“To you, too?”
She sighed. “My poor mother,” she said.
“What is it?”
“You see, for five years I have been sick-nurse; there are many sad hours, and when the night-light burns, and one’s eyes hurt with watching so much, and outside the storm rattles the shutters, many thoughts come to one about life and death, about love and loneliness—well, in short, one makes a book of poetry in one’s own head and does not read other people’s any more. But come away from this noise; I should like to ask you so much, and here one can hardly hear one’s own voice.”
“Directly,” he said; “I only wanted—”
His eyes wandered searchingly over the dancing-ground, then he heard a man’s voice behind him, saying:
“Just look at those two little minxes, mad after men.”
Instinctively he turned round, and saw the brothers Erdmann, whom he had not met for years. They had meanwhile been at an agricultural college and become grand gentlemen.
“We’ll have fun with them,” said the other.
Thereupon they laughingly mixed among the dancers.
Immediately after, Paul, too, saw his sisters. Their mass of brown curls hung loose about their faces, their cheeks were aflame, their bosoms heaved, and their eyes looked wild and eager for love.
“How happy they look—the sweet creatures,” said Elsbeth.
Paul gave them a little sermon. They scarcely heeded him, but looked over his shoulders, giggling. And when he turned round he saw the two Erdmanns, who had hidden behind the musicians’ platform and were making clandestine signs to them.
The twins by this time had escaped him, and the Erdmanns disappeared as well.
“Come away from here,” said Elsbeth.
He consented, but remained as if rooted to the ground.
“What is the matter?” she asked.
He passed his hand across his brow; he could not get those contemptuous words which he had overheard out of his head. The sisters were young, merry, inexperienced, nobody looked after them; if they should lower themselves in any way, if they—an icy shudder passed through him.
And he, who had vowed to be their faithful guardian, he was going after his own pleasure, he—
“Come to the wood,” Elsbeth pleaded again.
“I can’t,” he gasped.
She looked at him wonderingly.
“I must—my sisters—nobody is with them. Do not be angry.”
“Take me back to the table,” she said.
He did so. Neither spoke a word.
Five minutes later he came upon his sisters, who, arm in arm with the Erdmanns, were trying to slip off to the wood.
“Where are you going?” he asked, stepping between them.
They lowered their eyes in embarrassment, and Katie stammered, “We—wanted to go for a little walk.”
The brothers Erdmann took the tone of good-fellowship, shook hands with him heartily, and wished most ardently to renew the friendship of their youthful days. Behind his back they shook their fists at him.
“You will go at once to your mother,” he said to the twins, and as they began to sulk he took their arms and drew them away. The table was half deserted. The Douglas family had left the festival.
Then he went into the wood and reflected on what Elsbeth might have wished to tell him.
But it was not to be—something always came between them.
It was a midsummer night. The alder-tree sent forth its perfume. The moonlight lay in silver veils upon the earth. There was great rejoicing in the village. Tar-barrels were lighted, and the farm-servants and maids were dancing on the green. The flames sent their glare far over the heath, and the shrill sounds of the fiddle came sadly through the night.
Paul stood at the garden fence and looked out into the distance. The servants had gone to the midsummer-night’s fire, and his sisters had not come home yet, either.
They had asked permission to visit the vicar’s daughter Hedwig, their playmate, who was an unpretending, quiet girl, in whose company he gladly trusted them.
Now he thought he would wait till they had all come home.
The moonlight drew him out onto the heath. It lay there in midnight silence; only in the heather a linnet chirped from time to time, as if in its sleep. The wild-pinks bent their red heads, and the golden-rod shone as if it wanted to compete with the moonbeams. Slowly, with hesitating steps, he walked on, sometimes stumbling over a mole-hill or entangling himself in the tendrils of the plants. The dew sparkled before him in shining drops. Thus he came to the region of the juniper-bushes, which looked more elf-like than usual.
The wood stood silent like a black wall, and the moonbeams rested on it like freshly-fallen snow. He found the place where years ago the hammock had hung; in the weird twilight the open space showed through the dark branches. It drew him on and on. Like a palace of dazzling marble the White House, with its balconies and gables, rose before his eyes. Deep silence enshrouded the manor-house; only here and there a dog barked and relapsed into silence directly.
He stood before the trellised gate, not knowing how he had come there. He grasped the bars with both hands and looked in. The wide yard lay yonder before him, bathed in the light of the moon; the big farm-wagons, which were ranged in a row before the stables, stood there in black outline; a white cat crept along the garden fence; everything else lay in deep sleep.
He walked on along the fence. On the ash-heap behind the forge lay some fragments of glimmering coals, which looked in the darkness like burning eyes. Here the garden began. High elm-trees bent their branches over him, and an overpowering perfume of laburnums and early roses floated through the trellis-work towards him. The gravel-strewn paths shone like silver threads through the branches, and the sundial, which had been the dream of his childhood, stood out darkly behind them.
The White House came nearer and nearer. Now he could almost look into the windows. Here, too, all seemed asleep.
He had read here and there in the Liederbuch, too, that the lover used to sing serenades to the queen of his heart on moonlight nights, to the accompaniment of either the guitar or mandolin if this was at all feasible. It had been thus in the beautiful days of chivalry, and in Spain or Italy might still be so. That occurred to him now, and he pictured to himself how it would look if he, Paul the simpleton, were to play the lute here as a knight-errant, crowing longing love-songs at the same time.
At this thought he laughed out loud, and then he remembered that he carried his instrument about with him everywhere. He seated himself on the grass, his back leaning against a post of the fence, and began to whistle—shyly and softly at first, then ever bolder and louder, and as usual when he was entirely given up to his feelings, he at last forgot everything around him.
He awoke as out of a dream when he heard a rustling and creaking of branches at the other side of the fence. He looked round amazed. Yonder stood Elsbeth in her white dressing-gown with a dark ulster hastily thrown over it.
At the first moment he felt as if he must run away, but all his limbs seemed to be lamed.
“Elsbeth—what are you doing here?” he stammered.
“Ah! what areyoudoing here?” she retorted, smiling.
“I—I was whistling a little.”
“And you came here for that?”
“Why should I not?”
“You are right—I am not going to forbid you.”
She had pressed her forehead against the trellis-work and looked at him. Both were silent.
“Will you come in?” she asked then—probably not knowing what she said.
“Shall I climb the fence?” he retorted, quite innocently.
She smiled. “No,” she said, shaking her head; “they could see you from the window, and that would not do. But I must speak to you. Wait; I will come out and walk a little way with you.”
She pushed a loose bar aside and slipped out; then she gave him her hand, and said, “You were right to have come; I have often longed to speak to you, but you were never there.” And she sighed deeply, as if the remembrance of sad hours overpowered her.
His whole body trembled. The sight of the maidenly figure, who in her night-garb stood before him so chaste and unconscious, almost took away his breath. His temples hammered, he bent his eyes to the ground.
“Why do you not speak to me?” she asked.
A confused smile passed over his face.
“Do not be angry,” he gasped.
“Why should I be angry?” she asked. “I am so glad to have you for once quite to myself. But it is strange—quite like a fairy tale. I am standing at the window, looking at the moon. Mamma has just gone to sleep, and I consider whether I, too, might venture to go to bed, but my thoughts are so restless and my forehead burns—I feel so uneasy. Then suddenly I hear somebody whistling in the garden, so beautifully, so plaintively, as I have only once heard it in my life, and that a long time ago. ‘That can only be Paul,’ I say to myself, and the more I listen the clearer it is to me. ‘But how does he come here?’ I ask myself, and as I want above all things to make certain, I put on my cloak and creep down—so—here I am now, and now come, let us go into the wood; there no one can see us.”
She laid her arm in his. Silently they walked across the moonlit meadow. And then suddenly she put both her hands up to her face and began to cry bitterly.
“Elsbeth, what is the matter?” he asked, terrified.
She trembled; her soft figure shook with noiseless sobs.
“Elsbeth, can’t I help you?” he pleaded.
She shook her head hastily. “It’s all right,” she gasped; “it will soon be over.” She tried to walk on, but her strength failed her. Sighing, she sank down into the damp grass.
He remained standing before her, looking down at her. “Let tears have their course;” that was the rule which he had already often experienced in life. All his timidity had left him. Here was somebody to be consoled, and he was a master at consoling.
When she had grown a little quieter he sat near her, and said, gently, “Will you unburden your heart to me, Elsbeth?”
“Yes, I will,” she cried; “I have waited to do so these three long years. So long have I borne it, Paul, and I was almost choked with the burden, and have found no pitying soul in whom I could confide. Yonder in Italy and at beautiful Capri, where everything laughs and rejoices, I have often crept down to the sea in the middle of the night and cried out in my agony, and in the morning I have come back and laughed, even more than the others, for my mother—oh, mother, mother!” she cried, sobbing afresh.
“Be calm; you have me now, to whom you can tell it,” he whispered to her.
“Yes, I have you, I have you,” she gasped, and leaned her face on his shoulder. “You see I have always known that; but what good did that do me? You were far away, I was often nearly writing to you, but I feared you might have become a stranger to me and would misunderstand me. And since we are back I have only one thought: ‘I must confide in him, he is the only one who has known grief, he will understand me.’”
“Tell me what it is, Elsbeth,” he urged.
“She will die,” she cried out aloud.
“Your mother?”
“Yes.”
“Who told you so?”
“The professor in Vienna who examined her. He wore quite a cheerful face before her, and said, ‘If you are careful, you can live to a hundred years old,’ but afterwards he sent for me, and asked me, ‘Are you strong, young lady? Can you bear the truth?’ ‘I beg you to tell me all,’ I answered, ‘I must confide it to you,’ he said, ‘for you are the only one who nurses her.’ And then he told me that she might die any day—unless—and then he gave me a number of rules which she must observe about eating and drinking and climate and excitement, and much more. Since that day I tremble from morning to night, and tend her and watch and find no rest. Sometimes the feeling comes over me, and I say to myself, ‘You are young and want to enjoy life,’ and then I try to be merry and sing, but every note chokes me and I collapse again. Of course, I must show a cheerful face to mother, and to father as well.” “But why do you not confide in him?” he interrupted her.
“Shall his life be poisoned as well?” she replied. “No, I had rather bear it alone than see him suffer, too. He has a happy nature, and loves her with all his soul—otherwise he is sometimes hasty and excitable, but to her he has never said an angry word—let him hope as long as he can—I will not undeceive him.”
She leaned her head on her hands and stared straight before her.
He remembered his mother’s fairy tale.
“Dame Care—Dame Care,” he murmured to himself.
“What do you say?” she asked, and looked at him with great, eager eyes, hungry for consolation.
“Oh, nothing,” he replied, with a sad smile, “I wish I could help you.”
“Who could do that?”
“And yet perhaps I can,” he said, “you have only wanted somebody to confide in, you are not so badly off as you think—indeed, Dame Care has blessed you, too.”
“What does that mean?” she asked
And then he told her the beginning of that fairy tale which he had kept in his memory so well.
“And how can one be freed from her blessings?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” he replied, “mother never would tell me the end of the fairy tale. I don’t think, either, there is any deliverance. Such creatures as we are must renounce happiness of our own free will, and however near it may be to us we may not see it—something sad always comes between us and happiness. The only thing we can do is to watch over the happiness of others and to make them as happy as possible.”
“But I should like to be a little happy myself,” she said, raising her eyes to him trustfully.
“I wish I were as happy as you are,” he answered.
“If only this anxiety were not always with me,” she complained.
“Anxiety! you must let her be your friend, I have known her all my life, and when I did not know why I quickly found some reason. It is not so bad, either—if there were no anxiety, one would not know for what purpose one lives. But only think how contented you might be. You see nothing but merry faces surrounding you. Your mother feels happy in spite of all her sufferings, does she not?”
“Yes, thank God,” she replied, “she has no idea how ill she is.”
“There you see! and your father has no idea of it, either. No care weighs on them, they love each other, and love you as well. No angry word is spoken among you, and when your mother at last closes her eyes she will perhaps do so with a smile on her lips, and be able to say, ‘I have always been very happy.’ Do tell me—what more can you wish for?”
“But she shall not die,’ cried Elsbeth.
“Why not? he asked, ‘is death so terrible?”
“Not for her but for myself.
“There must not be any question of one’s self,” he replied, pressing his lips firmly together, “one must just try to bear it the best one can. Death is only terrible when one has waited for happiness all through life and it has not come. Then one must feel as if one had to get up hungry from a richly spread table, and I should like to save any one I love from that. You see I have a mother, too, she also wished to be happy once, and even yet would like far too much to be so. I am the only one who could take care from her shoulders, and I am not able to do so. What do you think I must feel in this case? I see how she grows old in sorrow and need, I can count the wrinkles on her forehead and cheeks. Her mouth falls in and her chin grows long. It is a long time since she spoke any loud word, from day to day she becomes quieter, and so, quietly, she will die one day, and I shall be standing by and shall say, ‘It is my fault, I have not been able to give her one single day of happiness.”
“Poor fellow,” she whispered, “can’t I help you at all?”
“No one can help me as long as my father—” he stopped, terrified at the course of his own thoughts.
Both were silent They sat there for a long time without moving, their twenty year old heads leaning on their hands bowed with care. The moonbeams lay like silver on their hair, which the soft wind of the heath ruffled gently.
Then the shadow of a cloud passed over them They both trembled. They felt as if the sad fairy whom they called Dame Care were spreading her sombre wings over them.
“I will go home,” Elsbeth said, rising.
“Go, with God’s blessing,” he answered, solemnly.
She seized both his hands “Thank you,” she said, softly, “you have done me much, much good.”
“And if you need me again—”
“Then I shall come and whistle for you,” she answered, smiling.
And then they parted.
As in a dream Paul walked through the dark wood. The fir trees rustled softly, the moonbeams were dancing on the moss.
“It is strange,” he thought, “that they all tell me their woes,” and he concluded from that that he was the happiest of them all. “Or the unhappiest,” he added, meditatively, but then he laughed mysteriously and threw his cap high in the air.
When he stepped out into the light on the heath he saw two shadows flitting before him which disappeared in the misty distance.
Immediately after he heard something rustle in the juniper bushes.
He turned quickly round and saw another shadowy couple, who seemed to sink into the ground behind a bush.
“The whole heath seems alive to-day,” he murmured, and added, smiling, “of course, it is mid summer night.”
Soon after him the twins came home with wild hair and flushed faces. They declared the vicar had told them their fortunes by cards till midnight. They would soon get husbands.
Giggling, they slipped away into their bedroom.