Just when Meyerhofer’s estate was to be sold by auction, his third son
Paul was born.
That was a hard time indeed.
Frau Elsbeth, with her haggard face and melancholy smile, lay in her
big four-post bed, with the cradle of the new-born child near her, and
listened to every noise that reached her in her sad sickroom from the
yard and the house.
At each suspicious sound she started up, and each time, when a strange
man’s voice was heard, or a vehicle came driving along with a rolling
sound, she asked, clinging with great anxiety to the bedposts:
“Has it come to the worst? Has it come to the worst?”
Nobody answered her. The doctor had given strict orders to keep every
excitement from her, but little he thought, good man, that this constant
suspense would torment her a thousand times more than the most terrible
certainty.
One morning, the fifth day after her child’s birth, she heard her
husband, whom she had scarcely seen during this trying time, pacing
up and down in the next room, swearing and sighing. She could only
understand one word, only one; that he repeated over and over again: the
word “Homeless.”
Then she knew. It had come to the worst.
She put her feeble hand on the little head of the new-born child, who
with his little serious face was quietly dozing, hid her face in her
pillow and wept.
After a while she said to the servant who attended the little one,
“Tell your master I want to speak to him.”
And he came. With loud steps he approached the bed of the sick woman,
and looked at her with a face that seemed doubly distorted and desperate
in his endeavor to look unconcerned.
“Max,” she said, timidly, for she always feared him--“Max, don’t hide
anything from me; I am prepared for the worst, anyhow.”
“Are you?” he asked, distrustfully, for he remembered the doctor’s
warning.
“When have we to go?”
As he saw that she took their misfortune so calmly, he thought it no
longer necessary to be careful, and broke out, with an oath:
“To-day--to-morrow--just as it pleases the new owner. By his charity
only we are still here, and, if it pleased him, we might have to lodge
in the streets this very night.”
“It won’t be as bad as that, Max,” she said, painfully striving to keep
her composure, “if he hears that, only a few days ago, a little one
arrived--”
“Oh, I suppose I shall have to beg of him--shall I?”
“Oh no; he will do it without that. Who is it?”
“Douglas, he is called. He comes from Insterburg. He seemed to swagger
very much, this gentleman--very much. I should have liked to have driven
him from the premises.”
“Is anything left us?” she asked, softly, looking hesitatingly down on
the new-born child, for his young, tender life might be depending on the
answer.
He broke out into a hard laugh. “Yes; a wretched pittance: full two
thousand thalers.”
She sighed with relief, for she almost felt as if she had already heard
that terrible “Nothing” hissed from his lips.
“What good are two thousand thalers to us?” he continued, “after we
have thrown fifty thousand into the swamp? Perhaps I shall open a
public-house in the town, or trade in buttons and ribbons. Perhaps you
might help me, if you were to do the sewing in some aristocratic houses;
and the children might sell matches in the streets. Ha, ha, ha!”
He thrust his hand through his gray and bushyhair, and inadvertently
kicked the cradle with his foot, so that it swayed to and fro violently.
“Why has this brat been born?” he murmured, gloomily. He knelt down near
the cradle and buried the tiny little fists in his big red hands, and
talked to his child: “If you had known, my boy, how bad and vile this
world is, how impudence triumphs, and honesty goes to ruin in it, you
would really have stayed where you were. What fate will yours be? Your
father is a sort of vagabond, a ruined man, who has to roam about the
streets with his wife and his three children till he has found a place
where he can completely ruin himself and his family.”
“Max, do not speak thus; you break my heart!” called out Frau Elsbeth,
crying, and stretching out her hand to lay it round her husband’s
neck; but her hand sank down without strength ere it had reached its
destination.
He sprang up. “You are right; enough of these lamentations. Yes; if I
were alone now--a bachelor, as in former days--I should go to America,
or the Russian Steppes--there one can get rich; or I should speculate on
the Exchange--to-day up, to-morrow down. Oh, there one could earn money;
but so tied as one is!” He threw a lamentable glance at his wife and
child; then he pointed with his hand towards the yard, from whence
resounded the laughing voices of the two elder children.
“Yes; I know we must be a burden to you now,” said the woman, meekly.
“Don’t talk to me of burdens,” he answered, gruffly; “what I said was
not meant angrily. I love you, and that’s enough. Now the question only
is, Where to go? If at least this baby had not come, the chance of an
uncertain existence might be borne for some time. But now, you ill, the
child requiring careful nursing, the end of it is there is nothing
for it but to buy a farm, and to give the two thousand thalers for a
premium. Hurrah! that will be a nice sort of life: I with the
beggar’s wallet, you with the knapsack; I with the spade, you with the
milk-pail.”
“That would not be the worst, after all,” said the woman, softly.
“No?” he laughed, bitterly. “Well, that I can get for you. There is
Mussainen, for instance, which is to be sold--the wretched moorland on
the heath yonder.”
“Oh, why that of all places?” she asked, shuddering.
He immediately fell in love with the idea.
“Yes; that would be emptying the cup to the dregs. The lost magnificence
always in view--for, you must know, the manor-house of Helenenthal
exactly overlooks it. It is surrounded by moor and fen--wellnigh two
hundred acres. Perhaps one could cultivate some of it--one might be the
pioneer of progress. What could people say?
“‘Meyerhofer is a brave fellow,’ they would say; ‘he is not ashamed of
his misfortune; he looks at it with a certain irony.’ Pah, really one
_should_ look at it with irony; that is the only sublime view of the
world--one should whistle at it!” and he uttered a shrill whistle, so
that the sick woman started up in her bed.
“Forgive me, my darling,” he pleaded, caressing her hand suddenly in
the rosiest of humors; “but am I not right? One should whistle at it. As
long as one has the consciousness of being an honest man, one can bear
all adversity with a certain relish. Relish is the right word. The
ground is to be sold any day, for the owner has lately gained a rich
estate by marriage, and leaves this rubbish entirely uncultivated.”
“Think well over it first, Max,” the woman pleaded, in great anxiety.
“What is the good of hesitating?” he replied, violently. “We must not be
a burden to this Mr. Douglas, and we cannot lay claim to anything better
with our miserable two thousand thalers; therefore, let us seize upon it
promptly.” And without taking time to say good-bye to the sick woman, he
strode away.
A few minutes later she heard his dog-cart driving away through the
gate.
In the afternoon of the same day a strange visitor was announced. A
beautiful, distinguished lady was said to have driven into the yard in
a smart carriage, who wished to pay a visit to the mistress in her
sick-room.
“Who was it?” She had refused to give her name.
“How strange!” thought Frau Elsbeth; but as in her grief she was
beginning to believe in special providences, she did not say no.
The door opened. A slender, delicate figure, with gentle, refined
features, approached the bed of the sick woman with gliding steps.
Without speaking a word she seized her hand and said, in a soft,
slightly veiled voice:
“I have concealed my name, dear Mrs. Meyerhofer, for I feared you would
refuse to see me if I had given it beforehand. And I should like best
even now to remain unknown. Unfortunately, I fear that you will not look
at me with kindness any longer when you know who I am.”
“I hate no one in the world,” replied Frau Elsbeth, “least of all a
name.”
“I am called Helene Douglas,” said the lady, gently, and she pressed the
invalid’s hand closer.
Frau Elsbeth began at once to cry, while the visitor, as if she had been
an old friend, put her arm round her neck, kissed her on the brow, and
said, with a soft, comforting voice:
“Do not be angry with me. Fate has ordained that I should drive you from
this house; but it is no fault of mine. My husband wanted to give me
a pleasant surprise, for the name of this estate is identical with
my Christian-name. My joy vanished directly when I heard under what
circumstances he had acquired it, and how you, especially, dear Mrs.
Meyerhofer, must have suffered in this doubly trying time. Then I felt
compelled to unburden my heart by asking your pardon personally for the
sorrow which I have caused you, and shall still have to cause you, for
your time of suffering is not over yet.”
Frau Elsbeth had bent her head on the stranger’s shoulder, as if that
was the most natural thing in the world, and went on softly crying to
herself.
“And perhaps I can also be of use to you,” she continued; “at least,
so far as I can take part of the bitterness from your soul. We women
understand each other better than those hard, passionate men. The common
sufferings that weigh on all of us bring us nearer to each other. And,
above all, one thing: I have spoken to my husband, and beg you, in my
name and his, to look on this house as your property for as long as
ever it pleases you. We generally pass the winter in town, and we have
another estate besides which we intend to let an inspector manage.
You see, therefore, that you do not in any way disturb us, but, on the
contrary, do us a favor if you will stay on here as before for another
half year or longer.”
Frau Elsbeth did not thank her, but the tearful glance she gave the
stranger was thanks enough.
“Now be cheerful again, dearest Mrs. Meyerhofer,” she continued, “and
if in future you need advice or help, always remember that there is
some one who has to make amends to you for much--And what a splendid
baby!”--she turned towards the cradle--“a boy or a little girl?”
“A boy,” said Frau Elsbeth, with a feeble smile.
“Has he found any brothers or sisters already? But why do I ask? The two
little stalwart fellows outside, who received my carriage--may I hope
to know them better? No, not here,” she interposed, quickly; “it might
excite you still more. Later on, later on. This little citizen of the
world interests us most for the moment.”
She bent over the cradle and arranged the baby-clothes.
“He has quite a knowing little face,” she said, jestingly.
“Care stood at his cradle,” answered Frau Elsbeth, gently and sadly;
“that’s why he has that old face.”
“Oh, you must not be superstitious, dear friend,” answered the visitor.
“I have been told that newborn babes often have something old in their
features; they soon lose that.”
“Surely you, too, have children?” asked Frau Elsbeth.
“Oh, I am still such a young wife,” answered her visitor, blushing.
“Scarcely six months married. But--” and she blushed still more.
“God be with you in your time of trouble,” said Frau Elsbeth; “I will
pray for you.”
The stranger’s eyes grew moist. “Thanks, a thousand thanks,” she said.
“And let us be friends, I entreat you, with all my heart. Shall I
propose something? Take me as godmother for your youngest child, and do
me the same favor when Heaven blesses me.”
The two women pressed each other’s hands silently. The bond of
friendship was sealed.
When the visitor had left her, Frau Elsbeth looked round with a shy,
sad look. “Just now everything here was bright and sunny,” she murmured,
“and now it has become so dark again.”
After a short time, in spite of the nurse’s opposition, the two eldest
boys rushed into the sickroom with joyful clamor. Each had a bag with
sweets in his hand.
“The strange lady has given us this,” they shouted.
Frau Elsbeth smiled. “Hush, children,” she said, “an angel has been with
us.”
The two little boys opened anxious eyes, and asked,
“Mamma, an angel?”