A very picture of perfect serenity and peace of mind the couple Hellinger senr. made, as they sat at the breakfast-table. Out of the spout of the brass coffee-machine on the brightly-polished body of which the fire-flames produced a purple reflection, there rose up thin, bluish steam which sank down towards the table in little clouds, cast a film over the silver sugar-basin and wreathed the coffee-cups with delicate, tiny dewdrops.
Mr. Hellinger, with his snow-white, carefully trimmed beard, and handsome, rosy, boyish face beaming with good nature and the pleasure of living, was leaning back comfortably in the blue chintz armchair, his Turkish dressing-gown pulled over his knees, and apparently awaiting with calmest resignation whatever fate, in the shape of his wife, might be about to bestow upon him.
She (his wife) was just throwing a pinch of soda into the little coffee-pot, whereupon she circumstantially wiped her powdery fingers on her white damask apron, which was edged in Russian fashion with broad red and many coloured stripes. Her white matron's cap, the ribbons of which were tightly knotted together like a chin strap under her fleshy chin, had shifted somewhat towards the left ear, and from out its frilly frame there shone, full of energy and enterprise, her coarse, comfortable, sergeant-like face, whose features were rather puffed out, as is often observable in old women who like to share their husband's glass of brandy.
One could see that she was accustomed to rule and to subdue, and even the smile of constant injured feeling that played about her broad mouth went to prove how inconsiderately she was wont to carry through her plans.
So that she might not sit unoccupied while waiting for the coffee to draw, she took up her coarse woollen knitting, which, in her capacity of president of the ladies' society and directress of the charity organisation, was never allowed to leave her hands, and the needles ran with remarkable rapidity through her bony, work-used fingers.
"Have you heard nothing from Robert, Adalbert?" she asked, with a hard metallic voice, which must have penetrated the house to its last corner.
The question appeared to be unpleasant to the old man. He shook his head as if he would shake it off; it disturbed his morning tranquillity.
"An affectionate son, one must say," she continued, and the injured smile grew in intensity. "Since a week we have neither heard nor seen anything of him; if he lived in the moon he could not come more rarely."
Mr. Hellinger muttered something to himself, and busied himself with his long pipe.
"It looks as if something were brewing again in that quarter," she began anew; "he has altogether been so peculiar lately; come slinking round me without a word to say for himself. It seems to me there is some debt hanging over him again that he can't satisfy."
"Poor fellow," said the old man, and smacked his lips, perhaps to get rid of the unpleasant idea by this means.
"Poor fellow, indeed!" she mocked him; "I suppose you pity him into the bargain; perhaps even you have been helping him on the sly?"
He raised up his white, well-kept hands in protest and defence of himself, but he had not the courage to look her in the face.
"Adalbert," she said, threateningly, "I make it a condition that such a thing does not happen again. Whatever you give him, you take from us and from our other children. And if at least he deserved it! but he that will not hear advice must suffer. If he is ruined, with his obstinacy and stubbornness----"
"Allow me, Henrietta," he interrupted her timidly.
"I allow nothing, Adalbert, my dear," replied she. "'He that will not hearken to advice must suffer!' say I; and if through his abominable ingratitude his poor mother, who is only anxious for his welfare, and who bothers and worries herself whole nights through, thinking----"
With the many-coloured border of her apron she rubbed her eyes as if there were tears there to be wiped away.
"But, Henrietta," he began again.
"Adalbert, do not contradict me! You know I close an eye to all your follies. I allow you to sit as long as ever you like at the 'Black Eagle'; I let you drink as much as ever you can do with of that bad, expensive claret. I even put your supper ready for you when you come home late though it is hardly necessary that you should on such occasions upset three chairs, as you did yesterday. I consider altogether that you have very little regard for the feelings of your old and faithful wife. But--yes, what I was going to say is--that, once for all, I will not have you meddle with my plans: as it is you understand nothing of such matters. Have you, altogether, any idea of all I have done already for that good-for-nothing Robert? I have run about, and driven about, made calls, and written letters, and Heaven knows what else. Five or six well-to-do--nay, very wealthy girls I have, so to say, brought ready to his hand, any of whom he could have had for the taking. But what did he do? Well, I should think you still remember how I was seized with convulsions when, four years ago, he arrived with that miserable, delicate creature, Martha? My whole illness dates from then."
"But, Henrietta!"
"My dear Adalbert, I beg of you, do not again harp upon the same old string about her being my own flesh and blood! If she wished to be a loving and grateful niece to me, why did she not bring the necessary dowry with her? She had nothing--of course she had nothing! My departed brother died as poor as a church mouse. Is that fitting for one of my family? But after all--he had a right to do as he liked with his own--what business is it of mine? Only he need not have saddled us with his daughter."
"Well, but she is dead now," remarked Herr Hellinger.
"Yes, she is dead," replied she, and folded her hands. "It were a sin to say, thank God for that. But as our Lord has so ordained it, I will at least profit by the circumstance, and endeavour to rectify his folly of then. While you were sitting in the 'Black Eagle,' drinking your claret, I was once more toiling and moiling and inquiring round, so that he has but to pick and choose. There is Gertrude Leuzmann; will get fifty thousand cash down and as much more when the old man dies. There is that little von Versen; very young yet certainly--only just confirmed--but she will get even more! And besides these, at least three or four others! But what do you imagine he will say to it all? 'Mother,' he will say, 'if you start that theme again, you will never more set sight on me.' Was ever such a thing heard of? He has only to marry the second sister now in place of the other one, to bring his good old mother to her grave! By the by where can the young lady be to-day? It is nearly nine o'clock, and she has not yet appeared. In my brother's Bohemian home it may very probably have been the fashion to lie a-bed till noon; but in my well-ordered household, I beg to say, most emphatically and politely, I will not have it, Adalbert."
"I cannot conceive, dear Henrietta," he said, "why you heap reproaches upon me which are meant for your niece!"
"If only for once you would not take her part, Adalbert. But, of course, there is nothing left for me to say. I am duped and betrayed in my own house! However, I shall very soon put an end to the matter. I have kept her here now for a whole year; now she begins to be very muchde trop."
"But does she not toll and moil in Robert's household from early morn till late at night? Does a day pass on which she does not betake herself to the manor farm? Do not be unjust towards her, Henrietta."
She gave him a pitying look. "If you had not remained such a child, Adalbert, one might talk reason to you. Don't you see that that is just where the danger lies? Don't you imagine that she has her reasons for flaunting about every day at the manor and for behaving herself as mistress there before him and the servants? Ah--she--she is a deep one--is my niece Olga. Be sure she has done her part towards getting him accustomed to the idea that she--and she alone--has a right to the place of her dead sister. What else should she be looking for, day after day, at the manor, if it is not that?"
"I should think Martha's child is sufficient explanation."
"Of course, of course! Any nursery tale is good enough to impose upon you! She knows exactly why she behaves as she does, and why she is almost ready to eat up the poor little mite for very love. She knows exactly how to find the way to its father's heart!"
"But perhaps she does not love him at all," old Hellinger interposed.
She laughed out loud.
"My dear Adalbert, a man who owns an estate just outside the town-gates is always loved by a poor girl, and if I do not make an end now and send her about her business, it may very possibly come to pass that our dear Robert will take her by the hand one fine day and say to us, 'Here, papa and mamma, now be good enough to give us your blessing.' And rather than live to see that, Adalbert----"
At this moment the sound of lumbering male steps was audible in the entrance-hall; directly after these came a loud and violent knock at the door.
"Well!" said Mrs. Hellinger, "some one is making a noise as if the bailiffs were outside--we have not got as far as that yet." And very slowly and deliberately she said, "Come in."
The old doctor stepped into the room. His hat sat awry at the back of his head, his necktie hung loose over his shoulders, and his chest heaved as with breathless running. He forgot his "Good-morning" greeting, and only gave a wild, searching glance around.
"Good heavens, doctor!" cried Mr. Hellinger, senr., hastening towards him, "why, you burst in upon us like a bull into a china-shop."
Mrs. Hellinger once more assumed her injured air, and muttered something about pot-house manners.
When the old doctor saw the undisturbed breakfast-table and the astonished, every-day faces of his friends, he let himself drop into an armchair with a sigh of relief. Then it had not taken place after all--this terrible thing! But next moment his fears took possession of him anew.
"Where is Olga?" he faltered, and fixed his gaze on the door as if he might see her enter there any moment.
"Olga?" said Mrs. Hellinger, shrugging her shoulders. "My goodness, she probably will be here shortly. Are you in such a hurry?"
"God be praised!" cried he, folding his hands. "Then she has been down already?"
"No--not so," remarked Mrs. Hellinger, "her ladyship thinks well to sleep somewhat long this morning."
"For God's sake," he cried, "has no one looked after her? Does no one know anything of her?"
"Doctor, what ails you?" cried old Hellinger, who was now beginning to be alarmed.
The physician may at this moment have recollected the request with which Olga's letter of farewell had closed. He felt that in this way his desire to comply with her request would, from the very first, become impossible, and made a last wretched attempt to preserve the secret.
"What ails me?" he faltered, with a miserable laugh. "Nothing ails me!--What should ail me? Confound it all!" And then, casting aside all dissimulation, he cried out: "My God! my God! Thou hast permitted this terrible thing! Thou hast withdrawn Thy hand from her." And he was about to sink down weeping, but he once more gathered up all the energy still remaining in his rickety old body, raised himself bolt upright, and--"Come to Olga," he said, "and do not be terrified--however--you may--find her."
Old Hellinger grew pale, and his wife commenced to scream and sob; she clung to the doctor's arm, and wished to know what had happened; but he spoke no further word.
So they all three climbed up the stairs leading to Olga's gable-room, and in the entrance-hall the servants collected and stared after them with great, inquisitive eyes.
Before Olga's door Mrs. Hellinger was seized with a paroxysm of despair.
"You knock, doctor," she sobbed, "I cannot."
The old man knocked.
All remained quiet.
He knocked again, and put his ear to the keyhole.
As before.
Then Mrs. Hellinger began to scream:
"Olga, my beloved, my dear child, do open--we are here--your uncle and aunt and old uncle doctor are here. You may open without fear, my love."
The physician pressed the latch; the door was locked. He looked through the key-hole; it was stopped up.
"Have the locksmith fetched, Adalbert," he said.
"No," cried Mrs. Hellinger, suddenly casting all sorrow to the winds, "that I shall not permit--that will on no account be done. The disgrace would be too great: I could never survive it--such a disgrace--such a disgrace!"
The doctor gave her a look of unmistakable loathing and contempt. She took little notice of it.
"You are strong, Hellinger," she said, "bear up against the door; perhaps you may succeed in breaking the lock."
Mr. Hellinger was a giant. He set one of his powerful shoulders against the woodwork, which at the first pressure began to crack in its joints.
"But softly," his wife admonished, "the servants are standing in the entrance-hall. Be off with you into the kitchen, you lazy beggars!" she shouted scolding down the stairs.
Down below doors banged. A second push----one of the boards broke right through the middle. Through the splintry chink a bright ray of daylight broke through into the semi-dark corridor.
"Let me look through," said the doctor, who now, in anticipation of the worst, was calm and collected.
Hellinger broke off a few splinters, so that through the aperture the whole room could be overlooked.
Opposite the door, a few paces removed from the window, stood the bed. The coverlet was dragged up, and formed a white hillock behind which a strip of Olga's light brown hair shone forth. A small portion of the forehead was also visible--white as the bed-clothes it gleamed. The feet were uncovered; they seemed to have been firmly set against the foot end of the bed and then to have relaxed.
By the pillow, on a chair, lay her clothes neatly folded. Her skirts, her stockings, were laid one upon the other in perfect symmetry, and on the carpet stood her slippers, with their heels turned towards the bed, so as to be quite ready for slipping into on rising.
On the marble slab of the pedestal, half leaning against the lamp, lay a book, still open, as if it had been placed there before extinguishing the light. Over everything there seemed to rest a shimmer of that serene, unconscious peace which irradiates a pure maiden's soul. She who dwelt here had fallen asleep yesterday with a prayer on her lips, to awaken to-day with a smile.
After the physician had held silent survey, he stepped back from the aperture.
"Put your arm through, Adalbert," he said, "and try to reach the lock. She has bolted the door from the inside."
But Mrs. Hellinger squeezed herself up against the door, and with loud cries implored her sweet one to wake up and draw the bolt herself. At last it was possible to push her on one side, and the door was opened. The three stepped up to the bedside.
A marble-white countenance, with lustreless, half-open eyes, and an ecstatic smile on its lips, met their gaze. The beautiful head, with its classic, refined features, was slightly bowed towards the left shoulder, and the unbound hair fell down in great shining waves upon the regal bust, over which the nightdress was torn. A white button with a shred of linen attached, which hung in the buttonhole, was the only sign that a state of excitement must have preceded slumber.
"My sweet one, you are sleeping, are you not?" sobbed Mrs. Hellingen "Say that you are sleeping! You cannot have brought such disgrace upon your aunt, your dear aunt, who cared for you and watched over you like her own child." With that she seized the unconscious girl's pale, pendant, white hand, and endeavoured to drag her up by it.
Her tender-hearted husband had covered his face with his hands, and was weeping. The physician gave himself no time for emotion. He had pulled out his instruments, pushed Mrs. Hellinger aside with scant politeness, and was bending over the bosom, which with one rapid touch he entirely freed of its covering.
When he rose up, every drop of blood had left his face.
"One last attempt," he said, and made a quick incision straight across the upper arm, where an artery wound itself in a bluish line through the white, gleaming flesh. The edges of the wound gaped open without filling with blood; only after some seconds a few sluggish, dark drops oozed forth.
Then the old man threw the shining little knife far from him, folded his hands and--struggling with his tears--uttered a prayer.
On the afternoon of the same day, a light one-horse cabriolet sped over the common which extends across country for several miles northwards of Gromowo, and in the direction of the little town.
Dark and lowering, as if within reach of one's hand, the clouds lay over the level plain. Here and there a willow stump stretched its gnarled excrescences into the fog-laden air, all saturated with moisture and glistening with the drops which hung in long rows on its bare branches. The wheels sank deep into the boggy road, winding along between withered reed-grass, and often the water splashed up as high as the box-seat.
The man who held the reins took little heed of the surrounding landscape; quite lost in thought he sat huddled up, only occasionally starting up when the reins threatened to slip from his careless fingers. Then the herculean build of his limbs became apparent, and his broad, high-arched chest expanded as if it would burst the coarse grey cloak which stretched across it in scanty folds.
The man's stature was similar to that of old Hellinger, perhaps even superior, and the face, too, bore an undeniable family resemblance; but what had there remained pleasing and soft and undefined even in old age, had here developed into harsh, impressive lines, testifying to defiance and gloomy brooding. A curly, terribly-neglected beard in dark disorder encompassed the firm-set jaw, assumed a lighter dye near the corners of the mouth, and fell upon the breast in two fair points.
This was Robert Hellinger, the owner of Gromowo manor, Olga's betrothed. Of the happiness that had come to him yesterday there was little written in his face. His grey, half-veiled eyes stared moodily into the distance, and the wrinkles between his eyebrows never for one moment disappeared. He well knew that hard work was in store for him before he could lead home his bride--hours of bitterest struggle were imminent, and even victory would bring him nothing but care and anxiety. His thoughts travelled back over the dark times that lay in the past, and that had hardly ever been illumined by a ray of light.
It was now six years since his father had solemnly made over to him, as eldest son, the old family inheritance, the manor, and had himself retired to a comfortable quiet life in the little town. On this day his period of suffering had commenced, for he was burdened with a yoke so heavy that even his herculean shoulders threatened to break under its weight; everything he gained by the work of his sinewy hands--everything of which he positively pinched himself--melted away and was swallowed up by the claims which his family laid upon him. He had no right to complain. Was it not all according to strict law? The inheritance had been exactly divided to the very last farthing among him and his six brothers and sisters, not counting the reserve which his parents claimed for themselves.
Every brick of his house, every clod of his land, was encumbered--on every ear of corn ripening in his fields his mother's suspicious gaze was fixed, for she kept strict watch lest the interests should come in a minute late. And was she not justified in so doing? Had he a right to claim more love from her than she gave to her other children? There were brothers who wanted to make their way in the world; sisters who had only been married for the sake of their dowry: they all looked anxiously and eagerly towards him as the promoter and preserver of their happiness.
The interests! That was the dreadful word that henceforth hour by hour droned in his ears, that by night startled him from his sleep and filled his dreams with wild visions. The interests! How often on their account he had beaten his brow with clenched fists! How often he had run without sense or feeling through the loamy fields, to escape from this host of glinting, gleaming devils! How often in a blind fit of rage he had smashed to pieces some tool, a ploughshare, a waggon-pole, with his fist, as if he did not mind with what weapon he fought them! But they did not leave him. All the more tenaciously did they fasten themselves on to his heels; all the more thirstily did they suck the marrow from his young bones.
What good was it that he sometimes succeeded in mastering them? This hydra everlastingly brought forth new heads; from quarter to quarter it stood there before his terrified gaze, more and more monstrous, more and more gigantic, growing and swelling, ready to pounce upon him and crush him with the weight of its body. Thus from one reprieve to the next his life had dragged along since that day which was so merrily celebrated at the "Black Eagle" with drinking of claret and champagne.
If only his mother had exercised some leniency! But she did not even exempt him from the stipulated asparagus in spring, nor even from the loan of the carriage for drives during harvest-time when the horses were so badly wanted in the fields.
"He that will not hearken to advice must suffer," she was wont to say, and he would not hearken; no, indeed not! With one short, simple "yes" he might have put a stop to all his misery, might have lived in the lap of luxury to the end of his days; and because he would not do it, out of sheer, inconceivable stubbornness, because all her wife-hunting had been to no purpose--that was why his mother could not forgive him.
Thus two years passed away. Then he began to feel that such a life must sooner or later make a wreck of him. This anxiety and worry was exhausting him more and more; he decided to put an end to it all and to demand of fate that modest share of happiness which was pledged and promised to him by a pair of faithful blue eyes, and a pale, gentle mouth. Then came a day when he brought home, as wife to his hearth, the love of his youth, who had shortly become orphaned and homeless.
It was a dreary, sad November day, and dark clouds sped like birds of ill omen across the sky. Trembling and pale, in her black mourning dress, the frail, delicate creature hung on his arm and quaked beneath every half-compassionate, half-contemptuous glance with which the strange people examined her.
As for his mother, she had received her with reproaches and maledictions, and a year had elapsed before tolerable relations were established between the two.
Martha had kept up bravely, and in spite of her delicate health, had worked from morn to night in order to set to rights what had all gone topsy-turvy during the master's long bachelorhood.
And when, after three years of quiet, cheering companionship. Heaven was about to bless their union, she had--even when her condition already required the greatest care--always been up and doing, working and ordering in kitchen, attic, and cellar.
It almost seemed as if thus by labour she wanted to give an equivalent for her missing dowry.
Then--two days after the birth of a child--Olga had suddenly arrived in Gromowo. He had not seen her since his marriage. At first sight of her he was almost startled. She came towards him with an expression of such proud reserve and bitterness; she had blossomed forth to such regal beauty.
And this woman he was to-day to call his own! Yet what a world of suffering, how many days of gloomiest brooding and despair, how many nights full of horrible visions lay between now and then!
He shuddered; he did not like to recall it any more. To-day everything seemed to have turned out well; Martha's glorified image smiled down in peace and benediction, and, like a flower sprung from her grave, happiness was blooming anew for him.
Nearer and nearer came the turrets of the little town; higher and higher they stretched up behind the alder thickets. And a quarter of an hour later the carriage drove into the roughly-paved street.
Soon after entering the gates Robert made the discovery that people who met him to-day behaved towards him in the most peculiar manner. Some avoided him, others in evident confusion doffed their caps and then as quickly as possible fled from his presence. On the other hand, the windows of every house past which the carriage drove, filled with heads that stared at him gravely and disappeared hurriedly behind the curtains at his greeting.
He shook his head doubtfully. But as his mind was so full of the approaching struggle, he took not much notice, and henceforth looked neither to the right nor to the left. At the corner of the marketplace, where there used to be the little excise-office, stood his uncle's, the doctor's, old housekeeper, holding her hands hidden under her blue apron, and with an expression on her face like that of an undertaker.
As the carriage approached, she signed to him to stop.
"Well, Mrs. Liebetreu," he said, amused, "you at least do not take to your heels at my approach to-day."
The old woman gazed up at the sky, so that she might not have to look him in the face.
"Oh! young master," said she--he was always called "young master," to distinguish him from his father, though he was long past thirty--"the doctor wishes me to ask if you will kindly just step round there first; he has something to say to you."
"Is what he has to say to me very pressing?"
The woman was very much terrified, for she thought the unhappy intelligence would now fall to her lot to tell.
"Oh, gracious me!" she said; "he only put it like that."
"Well, then, give my kindest regards to my uncle the doctor, and the message, that I only just wanted first to have a little talk with my parents--he knows what about--and will then come round to him at once."
The old woman muttered something, but the words stuck in her throat. The carriage rolled on in the direction of old Hellinger's villa, that lay there under mighty old lime-trees, as if resting beneath a canopy. The bright plate-glass windows greeted him cheerily, the shining tiled roof gleamed in the light, the tranquillity of a well-provisioned old age rested, as usual, over all. He tied his horse to the garden-railings, and strode with heavy, noisy tread up the small flight of steps, on the parapet of which, in wide-bellied urns, half-faded aster plants mournfully drooped their heads.
The hall-bell sounded in shrill tones through the house, but no one put in an appearance to receive him. He threw down his rain-soaked cloak on one of the oak chests in which his mother's linen treasures were hidden away. Then he stepped into the sitting-room--it was empty.
"The old people are probably taking their afternoon nap," he muttered; "and I think it will be advisable to let them have their sleep out to-day."
He flung himself into a corner of the sofa, and gazed towards the door; for he privately hoped that Olga might have noticed his conveyance in front of the house, and would come down to shake hands with him.
He began to get impatient. "Can she have gone out to the manor?" he asked himself But, no--she would not do that; for she knew he would come to speak to his parents.
"I will knock at her door," he decided, and got up.
He smiled anxiously, and stretched his mighty limbs. After having longed for her incessantly since yesterday evening, now, at the moment of beholding her again, he was filled with a peculiar fear of facing her. The feeling of humble reverence, which always took possession of him in her presence, now again made itself evident. Was it possible that this woman had yesterday hung upon his neck? And what if she regretted it to-day--if she went back from her word?
But at this moment all his defiance awoke within him. He opened his arms wide, and with a smile which reflected the memory of happy hours recently lived through, he cried:
"Let her but dare such a thing! With these hands of mine I will lift her up and carry her to my home! If Martha gives her consent, I wonder who should object."
On tip-toe, so as not to wake his parents, he climbed up the stairs, which nevertheless creaked and groaned under the weight of his body.
Before Olga's door he started back, for he saw the gleam of light which fell through the broken panel on to the corridor.
No one answered to his knocking. Nevertheless, he entered.
* * * * *
A moment later the whole house trembled in its foundations, as if the roof had fallen in.
The two old people, who had retired to their bedroom to recuperate their strength after those trying hours of the forenoon, started up in terror. They called the maids. But these had run off, so that the town should no longer be kept in ignorance of the newest details about the sad occurrence.
"You go up," said the energetic woman to her husband, and tremblingly put out her hand for the little bottle of sulphuric ether which she always kept at hand. It was the first time in her life that she felt frightened.
When old Hellinger entered the gable-room, he saw a sight which froze the blood in his veins.
His son's body lay stretched on the ground. As he fell he must have clutched the supports of the bier on which the dead girl had been placed, and dragged down the whole erection with him; for on the top of him, between the broken planks, lay the corpse, in its long white shroud, its motionless face upon his face, its bared arms thrown over his head.
At this moment he regained consciousness, and started up. The dead girl's head sank down from his, and bumped on to the floor.
"Robert, my boy!" cried the old man, and rushed towards him.
With wide-open, glassy eyes, Robert stared about him. He seemed not yet to have recovered his senses. Then he perceived one of the arms, which, as the body dropped sidewards, had fallen right across his chest. His gaze travelled along it up to the shoulder, as far as the neck--as far as the white rigidly-smiling face.
Supported by the old man's two arms, he raised himself up. He tottered on his legs like a bull that has received a blow from an axe.
"Good God, boy, do come to your senses!" cried his father, taking him by his shoulders. "The misfortune has taken place; we are men, we must keep our composure."
His son looked at him vacantly, helplessly as a child. Then he bent over the dead body, lifted it up, and laid it across the bed, pushing the fragments of the bier to one side with his foot.
Then he seated himself close to her on the pillow, and mechanically wound a coil of her flowing hair round his finger.
The old man began to entertain fears of his son's sanity.
"Robert," he said, coming close up to him again, "pull yourself together. Come away from here; you cannot bring her back to life again."
Then he broke into a laugh so shrill and horrible, that it froze the very marrow in his father's bones.
All of a sudden his stupor left him; he jumped up, his eyes glowed, and on his temples the veins swelled up.
"Where is mother?" he screamed, advancing towards the old man.
He sought to pacify him.
"Good heavens! do have patience! We will tell you all."
The old lady, who had already been standing for a long time listening on the stairs, at this moment put in her head at the door.
He rushed past his father and at her as if about to strangle her; but he had at least so much reason left as to be sensible of the monstrousness of his proceeding. His arms fell down limp at his sides--he set his teeth as if to choke down his pent-up rage. "Mother," said he, "you shall account to me for this. I demand an explanation of you. Why did she die?"
The old woman came towards him with tender compassion, and made as if she would burst into tears upon his neck.
With a rough movement he shook her off.
"Leave that, mother," he said, "I claim her from you!"
"But, Robert," whined the old woman, "is this the way for a son to treat his mother? Adalbert, just tell him how he ought to treat his mother!"
He took hold of the old man's hands. "You keep out of the game, father," he said. "The account which I have to settle to-day with my mother concerns us two alone. Mother, I ask you once more: why did she die?" He was leaning against the wall and stared at her with half-closed, blood-shot eyes.
Mrs. Hellinger had meanwhile commenced to cry.
"Do you suppose I know?" she sobbed; "do you suppose anybody at all knows? We found her in her bed, that is all. She has brought disgrace upon our house, the miserable creature, in return for----"
"Do not abuse her, mother," he said, wildly, speaking in an angry undertone; "you know very well that she was my bride!"
His mother gave vent to a cry of astonishment, and her husband too made a movement of surprise.
"What! you do not know that? Mother," he cried, and pressed both his fists to his temples, "did she say nothing to you? Did she not come to you last night, and tell you what had taken place between her and me during the day?"
"Heaven forbid!" groaned the old woman. "Scarce a syllable did she speak to me, but went and locked herself up in her room."
"Mother," he said, and stepped close up to her. "When she had confessed all to you, did you not work upon her conscience? Did you not impress it upon her that if she truly loved me she must give me up, that she would bring misfortune upon me, and Heaven knows what besides! Mother, did you not do this?"
"My own son does not believe me! My own son gives me the lie," whimpered the old woman. "These are the thanks that I get from my children to-day."
He grasped her right hand. "Mother," he said, "you have done me many a wrong in all these years. The worst and bitterest I ever experienced came to me through you."
"Merciful Heavens," shrieked the old woman, "these are the thanks--these are the thanks!"
"But all the evil you did to me and Martha I will forgive you, mother," he continued, "nay, more even! On my bended knees I will ask your forgiveness for ever having harboured a bitter thought against you; but one thing you must do for me--here by her dead body you must swear that you knew of nothing, that in all things you were speaking the truth." And he dragged her to the corpse that stared up at him with its ecstatic smile--a bride's smile to her bridegroom.
"That such a thing should be necessary between us," complained the old woman, and cast a glance of bitter hatred at him out of her swollen eyes. But she suffered him to lay her right hand on the dead girl's forehead; she stroked it and sobbed, "I swear it, my sweet one, you know best that I knew nothing and never required anything wrong of you." Thereupon she gave a sigh of relief, as if she had suddenly come to understand what a gain this tragic deed would mean for her and her family. Sincere gratitude lay in the tender caress with which she fondled the dead face.
At this moment the old physician came rushing into the room. He had hoped to overtake Robert and prepare him for the worst, and saw in terror that he had come too late.
Old Hellinger hurried towards him and whispered in his ear: "Take him away, he is out of his senses! We can do nothing with him here!"
Robert stood there clutching at the bed-posts, his chest heaving, his face as if turned to stone with gloomy, tearless misery.
The old doctor rubbed his stubbly grey beard against his shoulder, and growled in that roughly compassionate way which goes quickest to the hearts of strong men.
"Come away, my boy; don't do anything foolish; do not disturb her rest."
Robert started and nodded several times.
Then suddenly--as if overpowered by his misery--he fell down in front of the bed and cried out, "Wherefore didst thou die?"
Wherefore had she died?
This question henceforth puzzled the whole town completely. In the streets--at the tea-table, on the alehouse benches--it was the one topic for discussion. People indulged in the most out-of-the-way surmises, the most hazardous conjectures were put forward, and still no one was one whit the wiser. Some spoke of an unhappy, others of an over-happy love affair, and others again declared that they had always predicted that she would not come to a good end.
During her life-time already, her proud, taciturn, reserved nature had been a riddle to the good homely townfolk; now her death was a still greater riddle to them.
Meanwhile it had got about that the physician had been the first to receive news of the suicide, and the only one to whom she herself had confided her intention. People crowded up to him; they almost stormed his house; but he persisted in his silence. With all the bluffness of which he was so particularly capable, he sent the importunate questioners about their business. Olga's letter he had on the very same day committed to the flames, for he feared that a court of law might require it of him. As for the rest, the cause of death was so evident that even a post-mortem examination could be dispensed with. As might have been expected, the dead girl had not succeeded in absolutely removing every trace of her deed. In the glass standing on her night-table were found, adhering to its sides, drops of a fluid whose flavour proved, even to a non-expert, that here a solution of morphia was in question. The chain of evidence became complete when in the garden, embedded under some hawthorn bushes, were found fragments of glass bottles, to the necks of which a portion of the poisonous solution still adhered in white crystallised streaks. They had evidently been thrown out of the window, and still bore labels giving the date of the prescription and directions for taking.
As matters stood, it would have been simple madness on the doctor's part if he had dared to attempt to hush up the suicidal intention; for even carelessness in taking the sleeping draught was quite out of the question.
Nevertheless, he was tormented by the idea that he had been unable to carry out the dying girl's last request, and he faithfully promised himself that he would all the more truly at least keep the secret which she had wrapped round her motives for the unhappy deed.
If only he himself could see his way clear at last! The days passed by, however, and still he could not succeed in taking possession of the legacy which Olga had left to him.
Mrs. Hellinger, senior, mistrusted him; she told him openly to his face that he had always had some secret understanding with the dead girl, and behind his back she added that if he had not prescribed such unreasonably strong solutions of morphia, Olga would have been alive and happy for a long time to come. She almost went so far as to ascribe the blame of her niece's death to their old family friend.
At any rate she did not permit him henceforth to remain for one second alone in the dead girl's room. She kept the door carefully locked, and declared she would not suffer the dead girl's belongings, which to her were sacred relics, to be defiled by the touch of strange hands, or by strange glances.
Thus from hour to hour there was increasing danger that the book, in which Olga had written down her confessions, might fall into the old woman's hands.
She need only take it into her head one day to rummage among the little collection of volumes which filled the book-shelf, and the mischief was done.
Added to this anxiety, which drove the old doctor daily to the Hellingers' house, came his growing uneasiness about Robert who, since that disastrous hour, had fallen a prey to blank, despairing lethargy. He seemed absolutely deprived of the power of speech, would endure no one near him, and even taciturnly shunned and avoided him, his old friend; by day he roamed about in the fields, by night he sat by his child's cot, and stared down upon it with burning, reddened eyes.
So said the servants, who three times had found him in the morning in this position.