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.