Unspeakable misery had descended on the Haidehof. The father lay in the parlor, on his sickbed, and groaned and complained and cursed the hour of his birth. In milder moments he seized his wife’s hand with tearful eyes, and asked her forgiveness for having united her fate to his ruined life, and promised to make her rich and happy in future. Rich—above all things, rich.
It was too late. Mild words from him now made no impression on her. In her tormented heart she already heard the abuse which would inevitably follow them. With withered cheeks and lustreless eyes she walked about, never uttering a sound of complaint, doubly pitiful in her silence.
But no one had pity on her—not even God and eternal fate. She grew more tired from day to day; on her pale, blue-veined forehead the stamp of death seemed already to burn, and the happiness she had longed for through all her life was farther away than ever.
The only one who would have been able to give her some relief was Paul, and he avoided her like a criminal. He scarcely dared to shake hands with her in the morning, and when she looked at him he looked down. If she had been less torpid and less grief-laden she might have had some suspicion, but all she felt in her misery was that she lacked consolation.
Once at twilight, when he was rummaging about as usual after work in the ruins of the spot where the fire had been, she went after him, sat down near him on the crumbling foundation, and tried to enter into conversation, but he avoided her, as he had done before.
“Paul, don’t be so hard to me,” she pleaded, and her eyes filled with tears.
“I am not doing anything to you, mother,” he said, setting his teeth.
“Paul, you have something against me?”
“No, mother.”
“Do you think that the fire was caused by my fault?”
Then he cried out loud, clasped her knees, and wept like a child; but when she wanted to stroke his hair—the only caress which had been usual between them—he sprang up, pushed her back, and cried,
“Do not touch me, mother; I am not worthy of it.”
Then he turned his back on her, and walked out onto the heath.
Since the moment of his first waking after the fire a fixed idea possessed him which would not leave go of him; the fixed idea that he alone had been guilty of it all.
“If I had not been roaming about,” he said to himself—“if I had watched the house, as was my duty, this misfortune could never have happened.” All his secret yearnings appeared to him now like a crime committed against his father’s house.
Like Jesus in Gethsemane, he struggled with his own heart, seeking expiation and forgiveness. But his self-torment did not let him rest anywhere. At all hours the flames were dancing before his eyes, and when he went to bed at night and stared into the darkness, it seemed as if from every chink fiery tongues were jutting forth, as if clouds of black smoke surrounded him instead of the shadows of the night.
He had not been able yet to think about the cause of the fire; the cares which were overwhelming him again were too great to leave any room for thoughts of revenge. The very necessities of life failed them; money for the chemist could scarcely be scraped together. He meditated and calculated day and night, and formed great plans of campaign to collect the most absolutely necessary cash. He also wrote to his brothers, to know whether they could not procure him by their influence a few hundred thalers at moderate interest. They answered, deeply grieved, that they themselves were so overrun with debts that it was impossible for them to reckon on any further credit. Gottfried, the teacher had, indeed, engaged himself a short time ago to a wealthy young lady, and Paul was convinced that it could not have been difficult for him to induce her family to lend him a small sum, but he was of opinion that the dignity of his position would suffer by such a request; he said he should be afraid of compromising himself with his father-in-law if he disclosed his real circumstances too early.
With all this it was a blessing that the ripe harvest had already been sold and delivered, and that the potatoes, for the greater part, were still in the ground; so he could get some ready money, which would be sufficient to cover the most necessary expenses; but how, indeed, was the rebuilding of the barn ever to be contemplated?
In the middle of the ruins—melancholy ruins of charred beams and charred walls—“Black Susy” stood erect with her sooty body and slender neck, the only thing which, except for a few miserable carts, had been saved from destruction.
The twins, who during this sad time had lost much of their merriment, and only in quiet corners still prattled and giggled, went about timidly; and his father, when he for the first time sat upright in his bed and saw the black monster glaring through the window, clinched his fist, and cried,
“Why did they not let that beast be burned?”
But Paul loved her in his heart only the more tenderly. “Now would be the time for you to come to life again,” he said, and pulled out the wheel and looked into the boiler. He began to cut little models of lime-wood in the evenings, and one day he wrote to Gottfried:
“Send me a few books out of the school-library on the working of steam-engines. I feel as if much depended on them for our home.”
Gottfried was solicited in vain. In the first place, it went against his principles to take books from the library which he did not use himself; and, secondly, they would not be of any good to Paul, as he was not up in the theory of physics. Then he wrote to Max. The latter immediately sent him a packet, weighing ten pounds, of brand-new volumes, enclosing a bill for fifty marks. He decided to keep the books and slowly to save up the fifty marks. “Nothing is too dear for ‘Black Susy,’” he said.
But fresh cause for uneasiness was to befall him.
One morning a carriage came driving up to the farm, in which two unknown gentlemen were sitting with a gendarme, one of whom, a comfortable-looking man, of about forty years old, wearing golden spectacles on his nose, introduced himself as a police-magistrate.
Paul was terrified, for he felt very well that he had been concealing many things.
The magistrate first examined the scene of the fire, took a sketch of the foundations, and asked where the doors and windows had been; then he had all the servants called out, whom he questioned most closely as to what they had done on the day before, and up to the moment when the fire had broken out.
Paul stood near him, pale and trembling, and when the magistrate dismissed the servants to examine Paul himself, he felt as if the end of the world had come.
“Were you in the barn the day before the fire?” the magistrate asked.
“Yes.”
“Do you smoke?”
“No.”
“Do you remember whether in any way you had anything to do with fire, matches, or such things?”
“Oh no, I am much too careful for that.”
“When were you last in the barn?”
“At eight o’clock in the evening.”
“What were you doing there?”
“I made my usual evening round before I locked the gates.”
“Do you always lock the gates yourself?”
“Yes, always.”
“Did you notice anything on that particular evening?”
“No.”
“Did you see any one lurking in the neighborhood?”
It flashed like lightning upon him. He only remembered at this moment the shadow which he had seen disappearing into the wood at the beginning of the fire. But that was not in the neighborhood, and, drawing a long breath, he answered,
“No.”
“Well, now it will come out,” he thought; the very next question would bring his night wanderings to the light of day—would betray the secret that hitherto he had kept in his inmost heart.
But no. The magistrate broke off suddenly, and said, after a little pause,
“Was not a servant called Raudszus in your service till a short time ago?”
“Yes.” he answered, and stared at the magistrate with astonished eyes. So it was on Raudszus, then, that suspicion fell.
“Why did you dismiss him?”
He related the dreadful occurrence minutely, but took great care that the scene with Douglas, which had preceded, should remain as much as possible in the dark. Now, as the first danger was averted, he had found his tranquillity again.
The clerk took notes eagerly, and the magistrate raised his eyebrows, as if all were already clear to him. When Paul had ended, he made a sign to the gendarme, who turned round silently, and walked off on the way to Helenenthal.
“Now for your father,” said the magistrate; “is he in a state to be examined?”
“Let me see,” answered Paul, and he went into the sick-room.
He found his father sitting erect in his bed; his eyes sparkled, and on his features there were signs of ill-suppressed fury.
“Let them come,” he called out to Paul; “it is all nothing but fiddlesticks—they do not dare to accuse the real one—but let them come in.”
He, too, related the scene of the struggle; but just what Paul had concealed, from shame—the quarrel with Douglas, and the setting-on of the dog—he dwelt on before the strangers with boastful loquacity.
The magistrate scratched his head, thoughtfully, and his clerk noted everything down eagerly.
When Meyerhofer came to the moment in which he ought to have spoken of his son’s interference, he was silent. He shot a glance at him, in which a world of defiance and anger flamed.
“And what more?” asked the magistrate.
“I am an old man,” he muttered between his teeth; “do not force me to confess my own ignominy.”
The magistrate was satisfied. When he asked the old man whether his suspicion had not already fallen on Michel Raudszus, he chuckled mysteriously to himself and murmured,
“He may have furnished the hand, the miserable hand, but—” he stopped.
“But?”
“It is a pity, sir, that justice wears a bandage over her eyes,” he answered, with a sneering laugh. “I have nothing more to add.”
Magistrate and clerk looked at each other, shaking their heads; then the examination was closed.
“Will Michel Raudszus be arrested?” Paul asked the gentlemen before they got into their carriage.
“Let us hope that has been done already,” the magistrate answered. “He has made all sorts of suspicious allusions when drunk, and what we have learned from you is more than enough evidence to begin a trial against him. Of course many things will still have to be cleared up.”
Then they drove away.
Paul stared after the carriage for a long time.
The last words of the magistrate had awakened his anxiety anew, and while weeks were passing and the first steps towards the trial were taken, he sat trembling nervously at home, just as if the verdict would crush him and him only.
Paul, with his mother and sisters, received a summons to the assizes; it was only to his father that the choice was left whether he would be examined on oath at home for the last time, but he declared he would prefer to fall down dead in the court than to sit at home while the destroyer of his property was allowed to escaped scot-free. Whom he meant by this phrase he left unexplained—only that it was not the accused servant, he gave one plainly enough to understand.
The day of the trial came. Paul had made a portable chair for his father, which saved him walking a step. In this he was lifted into the cart and softly put down on a layer of hay.
It was a miserable rickety cart which brought the Meyerhofer family to the town, for the better vehicles had all been burned. Paul had made it as comfortable as he could. Over the truss of straw, which served for a seat, he had spread an old horse-cloth, which in the course of years had become torn and discolored.
With poverty all around him, the master of the house lay in the cart, groaning and scolding; his wife was enthroned above him, pale and wretched and harassed, as if she were the genius of this ruin. The ever-blooming youth, which even thrives on rubbish, laughed from two roguish pairs of eyes in between, and in front, as driver of this wretched vehicle, sat Paul, and looked sadly before him, for he was ashamed that he could offer no better conveyance to his dear ones, whom for the first time he took out for a long drive all together.
The faint beams of the November sun were lying on the yellow heath; the heather extended among thin yellow grass; here and there glistened pools of rain-water; and single leaves were hanging down from the crippled willows at the road-side like dead summer birds.
“Do you remember how, twenty-one years ago, we were driving along this same road?” Frau Elsbeth asked her husband, and threw a glance at Paul, whom she had at that time clasped to her breast.
Meyerhofer muttered something to himself, for he was no friend to memories—to such memories. But Frau Elsbeth folded her hands and thought of many things: it could be of nothing sad, for she smiled.
The nearer the cart approached the end of the journey, the more depressed Paul felt. He stretched himself on his seat and a shiver kept passing through his frame.
That wild night of the fire stood before his eyes with awful clearness, and in the midst of his fear at having to stand and speak before strange people he was overcome with a feeling of happiness when he remembered how he had stood high on the steep roof, surrounded by smoke and flames, acting and ruling as the leading spirit whom all obeyed—the only one who in all the tumult had kept his head clear. “Perhaps I could still be as courageous as any man if it should be necessary,” he said to himself, consolingly; but he afterwards sank into still deeper despondency as he contemplated his sad, oppressed, worthless existence. “It will never be otherwise; it can only become worse from year to year,” he said. Then he heard his mother sighing behind him, and what he had just been thinking appeared to him as base, heartless selfishness.
“It is no question of myself,” he murmured, and the cart passed through the gate of the town.
Before the red brick law-courts with the high stone staircase and arched windows the vehicle stopped. Not far from it stood a well-known carriage, and the coachman on the box still wore the same tassel which had made such an impression on Paul at the time when he was to be confirmed.
When his father was raised up it caught his eye also.
“Ah, so the vagabond is there, too!” he cried. “I’ll just see if he can stand a look from me.”
Then Paul, with the help of a policeman, carried him up the steps to the room for the witnesses. His mother and sisters came after them, and the people stopped and looked at the melancholy procession.
The waiting-room for the witnesses was full of people, mostly inmates from Helenenthal. In one corner stood a small party of beggars, a woman with a bloated face, a gay red shawl tied round her waist, in which a little baby slept. A little troop of ragged children were clinging to the folds of her dress. They scratched their heads or secretly pinched each other. This was the family of the accused, who wished to state that their father had been at home that night.
Meyerhofer stretched himself out in his chair and threw defiant glances all around. He thought himself a greater man than ever to-day—a hero and a martyr at the same time.
The door opened, and Douglas appeared with Elsbeth on the threshold. Meyerhofer cast a poisonous glance at him and laughed scornfully to himself. Douglas did not heed him, but sat down in the opposite corner, drawing Elsbeth to him. She looked pale and worn, and had a shy, timid manner, that might arise from her strange, unaccustomed surroundings.
She nodded with a slight smile to Paul’s mother and sisters, and looked at him with a meditative glance, which seemed to ask something.
He lowered his eyes, for he could not bear her gaze. His mother made a movement as if to cross over to her, but Meyerhofer seized her skirt, and said, louder than necessary, “If you dare!”
Paul felt as if paralyzed. His knees shook under him; a dull weight pressed upon his forehead which rendered him incapable of thought.
“You will bring shame on her,” he murmured incessantly, but without knowing what he was saying.
Inside the court the examination of witnesses began. One after the other was called.
First the workmen; then the public-house keeper in whose house Michel Raudszus had made the suspicious allusions; then the ragged little group in the corner. The room began to empty. Then the name of Douglas was called out. He whispered a few words in his daughter’s ear, which probably had reference to the Meyerhofers, and then walked off with long strides.
Her hands folded in her lap, she now sat alone by the wall. A deep blush of excitement burned on her cheeks. She looked very sweet and timid, and her simple, truthful nature was impressed on all her features.
His mother did not take her eyes from her, and at times she looked across at Paul and smiled as if in a dream.
A quarter of an hour elapsed; then Elsbeth’s name also was called. She threw one friendly glance at his mother and disappeared through the door. Her examination was not long.
“Mr. Meyerhofer, senior!” the clerk called from the court, and sprang towards them to help Paul in carrying the chair.
The old man panted and puffed out his cheeks; then again he leaned back, moaning low—inwardly rejoicing greatly to be able to play a part so full of effect.
The wide assize court swam before Paul’s eyes in a red mist; he indistinctly saw closely-packed faces gazing down on himself or on his father; then he had to leave the court again.
The sisters, who up to now had looked around full of curiosity, began to be afraid. To deaden their fear they ate the sandwiches they had brought. Paul encouraged them, and refused the sausage which they generously offered him.
His mother had retired to a corner, was trembling, and said, from time to time, “What may they be wanting with me?”
“Mr. Meyerhofer, junior!” sounded from the door.
The next moment he stood in the lofty room filled with people before an elevated table, at which sat several men with severe and serious faces; only one, who sat a little on one side, smiled constantly; that was the chief-justice, who was feared by all the world. On the right side of the court, too, on raised seats, sat a little knot of dignified citizens, who looked very much bored, and tried to pass the time with penknives, bits of paper, etc. These were the jury. On the left side, locked up in the dock, sat the accused. He was making eyes at the audience, and his face looked as if the whole affair concerned anybody but him. Paul had never seen the sinister fellow look so cheerful.
“Your name is Paul Meyerhofer, you were born at such and such a time, Protestant, etc.?” asked the judge who sat in the middle, a man with a closely-shorn head and a large, sharply-cut nose reading the dates from a big book. He spoke in a pleasant murmuring tone, but suddenly his voice grew harsh and cutting as a knife, and his eyes shot lightning at Paul.
“Before your examination, Mr. Paul Meyerhofer, I call your attention to the fact that you will have to confirm your statement by oath.”
Paul shuddered. The word oath passed through his soul like a dagger. He felt as if he must throw himself down and hide his face from all those spying eyes which were staring at him.
And then he gradually felt a strange change come over him. The staring eyes disappeared, the court vanished in mist, and the longer the clear, sharp voice of the judge was speaking to him, the more impressively he heard himself threatened with heavenly and earthly punishment, the more he felt as if he were quite alone in the big room with that man, and all his senses tended so to answer him that Elsbeth should be entirely left out of the question.
“Now is the moment—now show yourself a man!” cried a voice within him. It was a feeling very like the one he had had while sitting on the roof: his wits were sharpened, and the dull weight which pressed on him constantly sank away as if the chains with which he had been fettered were taken off.
He related in quiet words what he knew about the accused, and described his character; he also mentioned that he had felt a sort of inner resemblance between them.
When he said that, a murmur went through the court, the jury let the bits of paper fall, and two or three penknives were shut noisily.
“What happened when Mr. Douglas and your father fell out?” asked the president.
“I cannot tell you that,” he answered, in a firm voice.
“Why not?”
“I should have to speak ill of my father,” he answered.
“What does ill mean?” asked the president. “Do you mean to imply that you fear to expose your father to punishment by law?”
“Yes,” he answered, softly.
Again the same murmur went through the court, and behind his back he heard the voice of his father hissing, “The degenerate rascal!” But he did not allow himself to be confused by that.
“The law permits you in such cases to refuse to make a statement,” the president continued. “But what happened that made your father turn against Raudszus?”
Without hesitation he related the scene; only when he had to confess how he had carried his father into the house his voice shook, and he turned around as if wishing to implore pardon from him.
The old man had clinched his fists and gnashed his teeth. He had to live to see his own son tear the halo of glory from his head.
“And after you had dismissed the servant, did you see or hear nothing of him any more?” asked the president.
“No.”
“When you awoke in the night of the fire, what did you see first?” he continued his questioning.
A long silence. Paul put his hands to his forehead and staggered back two steps.
A thrill of pity ran through the hall. No one thought otherwise but that the remembrance of that terrible sight overpowered him.
The silence continued.
“Please answer.”
“I did—not—sleep.”
“So you were awake.... Were you in your bedroom when you first perceived the glow of the fire?”
“No.”
“Where were you?”
A long pause. One could have heard a leaf falling to the ground it was so still in the court.
“You were not at home?”
“No.”
“Where then?”
“In—the garden—of—Helenenthal.”
A surpressed murmur arose, which grew into a tumult when old Douglas, who had sprung up from his chair, cried out in a voice that penetrated through the court, “What were you doing there?” Old Meyerhofer uttered a curse. Elsbeth turned pale, and her head sank heavily against the back of the bench.
The president seized the bell.
“I must beg silence there,” he said; “it is I who put the questions. On a repeated interruption I shall have you taken out of court. So, Mr. Paul Meyerhofer, what were you going to do in the garden of Helenenthal?”
At the same moment there arose a fresh murmur in the background, and in the witness-box a circle formed itself around Elsbeth.
“What is the matter over there?” asked the president.
The chief-justice, whose eyes no speck of dust in the court escaped, bent forward and whispered to him, with a meaning smile,
“The witness has fainted.”
Then the president, too, smiled, and the whole assembly of judges smiled.
Elsbeth, leaning on her father’s arm, left the court.
Now the little man with the sharply-cut features rose—he sat before the accused, and had been playing during the whole time with a bunch of keys—and said,
“I ask the president to adjourn the case for five minutes, as the presence of the witness concerned in this matter is of importance.”
Paul sent a shy glance at this man.
The court adjourned.
The five minutes were an eternity. Paul was allowed to sit down in the witness-box. His father continued staring at him with fury in his eyes, but he made no sign that he wished to speak to him.
Elsbeth was brought back into the court, pale as death, and Paul stepped forward again.
“I warn you again,” the president began, “to be in all things strictly truthful, for you know that each word of your statement is uttered under oath.”
“I know it,” said Paul.
“But you have the right, as you know, to refuse any statement if you fear that the same would bring down any punishment upon yourself or your family. Will and can you make use of this right now, as you did before?”
“No.”
He spoke in a firm, clear voice, for he had the certainty that Elsbeth’s honor would be irremediably lost if he were silent now.
“But if my oath is perjury?” he heard his conscience whisper immediately after; but it was too late.
“Oh! what did you want to do in the garden?” the president asked.
“I wanted—to make amends for the sin committed against Douglas in my father’s house.”
A murmur of disappointment and unbelief went through the court.
“And for that reason you roamed about in the strange garden?”
“I had a longing to meet somebody, of whom I might have asked pardon.”
“And for that you chose the night?”
“I could not sleep.”
“And you were driven there by your restlessness?”
“Yes.”
“Did you meet anybody in the garden?”
“No.”
“Have you been there on any former occasion at the same hour?”
A long pause, then another “no” came from his mouth, this time softly and hesitatingly, as if wrung from his conscience.
The constraint which weighed on every one began to lessen, the president turned over his papers, and Elsbeth gazed across at him with big lustreless eyes.
“Where were you when you first saw the glow of the flames?”
“About twenty steps away from the manor-house of Helenenthal.”
“And what did you do then?”
“I was much frightened, and hastened back immediately to my father’s farm.”
“In what manner did you leave the garden?”
“I climbed over the garden fence.”
“So you did NOT open the door which leads from the garden to the yard?”
“No.”
“And didn’t you pass the front of the house?”
“No.”
A new tumult arose in court. The little man with the bunch of keys rose and said,
“I must ask the president to question Miss Douglas again—regarding what she says she heard that night.”
“If you please, Miss Douglas,” said the president.
With a long look at Paul she rose. They now stood close together in the wide, crowded court, as if they belonged to each other.
“Where did the steps vanish to which you heard when the glow of the fire woke you?”
“Towards the yard,” she replied, softly—hardly audible.
“And did you distinctly hear the handle of the garden gate rattle?”
“Yes.”
“Consider well if you may not have been mistaken.”
“I was not mistaken,” she answered, softly but firmly.
“Thank you. You may sit down.”
She went back to her seat with uncertain steps. Since that fatal “no” her eye was riveted on Paul. She seemed to have forgotten by that time all around her.
“When you got over the garden fence, which way did you take?” the president continued, turning to Paul.
“Across the heath.”
“Did you pass the wood?”
“No; I ran two or three hundred steps away from it.”
“Did you meet any one on your way?”
“I saw a shadow which moved towards the wood, and at my approach disappeared suddenly.”
A prolonged stir went through the court; the accused man turned pale, and his eyes assumed a fixed look. The chief-justice did not take his eyes off him.
A few more unimportant questions, and then Paul was allowed to sit down.
His mother and sisters were called, but what they could tell was of no importance. The sisters looked round inquisitively, almost boldly. His mother wept when she had to speak about the moment of her waking.
Paul felt proud and happy that Elsbeth had not been compromised by him. He looked down smiling, and rejoiced at his courage. But when the witnesses were called for their oaths, and he had to lift up his hand, he felt as if a load of a hundred pounds were hanging on it, and as if a low, sad voice whispered in his ear, “Do not swear.”
And he swore.
When he sat down, the voice said again, “Have you, perhaps, committed perjury?” Instinctively he raised his head. Then he fancied that a gray shadow flitted past him and touched his forehead lightly.
He knitted his brows defiantly. “And supposing I should have sworn falsely, was it not for her?”
For a moment his soul was filled with wild joy at this thought, but in the next already a dull weight lay on his breast, stifling his breath and binding him hand and foot, so that he felt as if henceforth he would never be able to move any more.
He heard the monotonous voice of the counsel, who began his speech. But he did not heed it. Once he started, when the counsel for the defence pointed towards him with his bunch of keys, and cried out in his shrill, querulous voice: “And this witness, gentlemen of the jury, who roams about mysteriously at night in strange gardens, and finds out all sorts of psychological and artificial subterfuges to hide the tender motive of his nightly excursions, can you put any reliance upon him when he says he suddenly saw a shadow appear and disappear? Shadows which, to put it mildly, can only originate in his overheated brain? What did he want in the garden, gentlemen of the jury? I leave it to your penetration, to your experience of life, to answer this question; and as for the witness, it is his lookout to accommodate his oath to his conscience.”
Then he collapsed completely.
The jury returned a verdict of “Guilty.” Michel Raudszus was sentenced to five years penal servitude.
At the same moment, when the president pronounced the sentence of the law, a mocking laugh resounded through the court. It proceeded from Meyerhofer. He had got up in his chair and stretched out his maimed hand towards Douglas, as if he wanted to fly at his throat.
As he was carried out of court, he continually cried out,
“They hang the insignificant incendiaries, but the powerful ones are allowed to go scot-free.”
The uncanny laughter of the helpless man resounded through the wide passages.
Winter came and went.... The heath was covered with snow and became green again.... The ranunculus lifted up their golden heads.... The juniper sent forth its tender shoots, and the warble of the lark sounded from out the blue sky.
Only to the dismal Howdahs spring would not come. Paul had, indeed, made it possible to procure corn for sowing, and a wooden building already stood erected on the place of ruin, but the hope for better times had still not come. Dull and joylessly he did his duty, and deeper and deeper the lines became traced upon his forehead. He brooded over things by himself more than ever, and the fear that he had committed perjury weighed heavily upon him.
Months elapsed before it was clear to him that his grievance was nothing but idle trifling which originated in his over-anxious stickling at words. He reflected thoroughly on the question which the president had addressed to him, and came to the conclusion that he could not have answered otherwise. It was, indeed, the first time that he had penetrated into his neighbor’s garden; what had once taken place on a blissful moonlight night had happened on this side of the fence. What was that to the gentlemen of the law-courts?
“No; I am not a perjurer,” he said to himself; “I am only a coward, a simpleton, who is afraid of the mere shadow of a deed. Ought I not proudly and joyfully to have sworn a false oath for Elsbeth’s sake? Then I should be somebody; then I should have done something, while now I live on, torpid and discouraged, a farm laborer-nothing more.”
And in the brain of this “pattern boy” arose the fervent wish to be a great criminal, just because he felt compelled to prove his own individuality. The hours which he had passed on the roof and in the witness-box now seemed to him the ideal of all earthly bliss, and the harder he worked the idler and more useless he fancied himself.
His father was still kept to his chair, which to all appearances he would never again be able to leave, for his broken leg had healed badly. Idle and grumbling he sat in his corner, turning over an old almanac without interest, and abusing every one who came near him.
Only for Paul he cherished a sort of involuntary respect; he grumbled to himself as often as he saw him, but did not dare to contradict him openly.
And his mother?
She had grown a little more weary, a little quieter, otherwise there was hardly any change perceptible in her; but those who observed more attentively could hear a rustle in the air, as though a vulture were hovering over the Howdahs and drawing its circles ever closer and closer, and preparing to pounce down one day on its prey.
She herself heard the rustle very well; she knew, too, what it signified; but she remained silent, as she had been silent all her life.
And happiness had not come yet.
At the beginning of April she took to her bed. “General weakness,” the doctor said, and recommended a visit to a place where there were iron baths. She smiled, and begged him not to speak of a watering-place to any one, for she knew that Paul would work himself to death to make this course of treatment possible for her.
Such a course would not really help her. She knew very well what she needed; sunshine! Dame Care had shrouded her too closely with her sombre veil to allow a single ray of sun to penetrate into her soul.
It was now left to the twins to take care of the household. And the work was briskly done indeed; even Paul had to confess that. When they had broken anything, they laughed; when a walk was refused them, they cried; but the crying soon changed again to laughter, and the table was never so promptly served, the milk-pails had never been so bright.
His mother often observed that from her window, and thought, “It is a good thing that I should go away; I am no longer of any use in the world.”
About Whitsuntide her sleep began to fail; then fever set in.
“Oh, how expensive quinine is!” sighed Paul, when the servant rode off to the chemist’s; and he looked appealingly at “Black Susy,” but she did not move. Often the work in the fields had to come to a stand-still, in order that they might earn a few groschen for the household by cutting peat.
His mother began to suffer from palpitations, and desired most earnestly that somebody would sit up with her at night. But the twins, tired out with their day’s work, would fall asleep in the evening by the bedside of the invalid, and often sank down right across her bed, so that the feeble woman often had to bear upon her own body the weight of the two healthy girls.
Paul sent his sisters to rest, and took upon himself the office of watching.
“Go to sleep, my son,” said his mother; “you need rest more than any of them.”
But he remained; and in the May nights, when outside in the garden the flowers were whispering and the perfume of the lilac penetrated through every crack, the two would often sit hand in hand for hours looking at each other, as though they had wondrous things to impart. So it had always been between mother and son. The wealth of their love sought for expression in words, but care had robbed them of speech.
In the morning, when the sun rose, he dipped his head into icy cold water and went to work.
His presence brought peace to his mother, in so far that she could sleep at times when he was by. Then he used to go on tip-toe to his room and fetch down his books on physics, in which the construction of steam-engines was so learnedly and unintelligibly set forth. His head, tired with watching and unaccustomed to any mental work, with difficulty grasped the sense of the mysterious words; but he had time, and indefatigably he worked on, page by page, as a peasant ploughs a stony field.
If his mother opened her eyes, she would ask,
“How are you getting on, my son?”
And then he had to explain it to her, and she pretended to understand something about it.
But if she asked, “Why are you doing this?” he would put on a knowing look, and reply, “I am learning to make gold.”
“My poor boy,” she would answer, stroking his hand.
One night, immediately after the Whitsuntide holidays, she again could not sleep.
“Read me something from those learned books,” she said; “they bore one so nicely. Perhaps they will send me to sleep.”
And he did as she asked him; but when he had been reading almost an hour, he saw that she was gazing at him with big, feverish eyes, and was further than ever from sleep.
“So with that you want to make gold?” she asked.
“Yes, mother,” he answered, confusedly, for the return of fever made him anxious.
“How will you do it?”
“You will see in good time,” he answered, as usual.
But this time she would not be put off. “Tell me, my boy,” she pleaded, “tell me now.... Who knows what may happen?... I should like at least to have that little bit of comfort before I fall asleep forever.”
“Mother!” he cried, terrified.
“Be still, my boy,” she said; “what does it matter? But tell me, tell me!” she pleaded with growing anxiety, as if in the next moment it might already be too late.
With bated breath and confused words he spoke of the plans which he had in his head: how he wanted to reawaken “Black Susy” to life, so that the moor could be utilized to its innermost depths; but in the middle of his speech, anxiety overcame him; he fell sobbing on his knees before the bed with his face on her breast.
She bade him look up, and said: “It was not right of me to make you anxious. If God so wills it, all may turn out differently yet. What you tell me has given me great joy. I know that if you take anything in hand, you do not soon let it drop. I only wish I could live to see it.”
So, gently, imperceptibly, she restored his courage; as to herself, she had nothing left to hope for.
Another night when, overtired, he had fallen asleep in his chair, she called his name.
“What do you want, mother?” he asked, starting up.
“Nothing,” she said. “Forgive me, I ought to have let you sleep. But who knows how long we shall still be able to talk together? I should like to make the most of the time.”
This time he was too much overcome with sleep to understand the meaning of her words. He sat down closer to her and took her hand, but his eyes closed again directly.
She thought he was awake and began to speak.
“I was once a very merry young creature, not very different from your sisters.... My heart was nearly ready to burst with joy, and my eyes always gazed into the distance, as if from there something unspeakably beautiful would come—a prince, or something of that sort. Once, too, I began to love—with that other kind of love, that great heavenly love which comes upon one like fate. But he would not have me; he was fair and slender and had a blemish on his chin. I always longed to kiss the spot, but could never do it. He saw my love well enough, and, one day, when he was especially daring, he took me in his arms and fondled me, and then let me go again. But I was happy; it made me glad that he had once held me in his arms.”
She stopped, her eyes sparkled, a rosy, almost maidenly blush tinted her cheeks; she had grown wonderfully young again. Then she saw that he had fallen asleep, and sadly relapsed into silence.
When he awoke, Paul said, “It seems to me, mother, that you were telling me something.”
“You must have been dreaming,” she said, smiling; but her thoughts meanwhile had been wandering back through her whole life, seeking in every corner of her memory for the remnants of joy which lay concealed there.
“I don’t really know,” she said, “why I have been so sad all my life. When I come to think of it, a great misfortune has never really happened to ne. Of course it was not nice when we had to leave Helenenthal, and when I saw the room lit up blood-red by the burning barn, it gave me a bad enough fright, but, on the whole, life has treated me tolerably well. I have reared all you children, I have not lost one by death-we have always had food and drink, too. Father has sometimes grumbled, it is true, but that is always the case in married life; you will find it so yourself some day. You children have always loved me. You boys have grown up able men, and the girls will be able women, if God wills it, and you keep your eye upon them. What more do I want?”
And so this poor woman, who was gradually being harassed to death, worried herself to discoverwhatwas harassing her to death. Slowly Dame Care lifted the veil from her head that Death might breathe in her face.
And one evening she died.... Her eyes closed; she scarcely knew how herself. The doctor who was called in spoke of weakness, anæmia. It is only sentimental people who say in such cases, “She died of a broken heart.”
The twins knelt at her bedside, crying bitterly; their father, who had been carried in in his chair, sobbed aloud, and tried to bring her back forcibly to life.... Paul stood at the head of the bed biting his lips.
“I was right, after all,” he thought; “she died before luck came. She has had to get up hungry from the table of life, just as I said.”
He wondered that the pain he felt was not so great as he had fancied it would be. Only the confused thoughts about all sorts of stupid things flitting through his head like bats at dusk showed him the state of his mind.
It struck midnight; then his father said, “We will go to rest, children; let him sleep who can!... Hard days lie before us.”
He embraced the twins, shook hands with Paul, and had himself carried to his room.
“How good father is to-day!” thought Paul; “he was never like that while she was alive.” His sisters clung to his neck, sobbing, and implored him to watch near them, they were so afraid.
Paul spoke to them consolingly, took them to their room, and promised to come and look after them within an hour.
When at the end of this time he stepped to their bedside with a candle in his hand he found them fast asleep. They lay locked in a close embrace, and on their rosy cheeks the tears were still wet.
Then he went to his father’s door to listen, and when there, too, he heard no sound, he crept on tiptoe to the room where the dead slept. For the last time he would watch by her side.
His sisters, on going away, had spread a white handkerchief over her face; he took it off, folded his hands, and watched how the flickering light played on her waxen features. She was little changed; only the blue veins in her temples were more prominent, and her eyelashes threw deeper shadows on the haggard cheeks.
He lit the night-light, which during her illness had been burning at her bedside every night, seated himself on the chair in which he always used to sit, and thought he would say a quiet prayer for the dead.
But suddenly it flashed through his mind that he had forgotten to send to the joiner to come early and take the measure.
It was to be a simple pine-wood coffin, painted black, and round it a garland of heather, for she had loved the delicate, unpretending little plant above all others.
“What will the coffin cost?” he went on thinking, and was suddenly struck with terror, for he had nothing to bury the dead with. He began to count and calculate, but could come to no conclusion.
“It is the first time that she wants anything for herself,” he said, softly, and thought of the faded dress which she had worn from year’s end to year’s end.
He added up all that he could get together in a hurry from outstanding debts, but the sum was not sufficient by half to cover the expenses of the funeral.
The three cart-loads of peat, too, which he could send into town to-morrow and the day after, would make but little difference.
Then he took a piece of paper and began to calculate the expenses: