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 discover _what_ was 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:
A coffin ....... 15 thalers.
The place in the church-yard 10 thalers.
For the verger ..... 5 thalers.
Linen for the shroud ... 2 thalers.
Then the expenses of the funeral, which his father undoubtedly would
wish to have conducted as grandly as possible:
10 bottles of port-wine .. 10 thalers.
1 box of cigars ..... 2 thalers.
2 small casks of beer ... 2 thalers.
Ingredients for the cake: the flour they had in the house, but sugar,
raisins, almonds, rose-water, etc., had to be purchased. How much would
these amount to? He calculated busily, but his additions would not
agree. “Mother will know very well,” he thought, and was just about to
ask her advice when he saw that she was dead.
He was horrified. Only now, when his imagination had brought her back
to life again, he understood that he had lost her. He wanted to cry out,
but mastered himself, for he had to go on with his calculations.
“Forgive me, darling mother,” he said, stroking her cold cheeks with his
right hand. “I cannot yet mourn for you; I must first lay you under the
earth.”
* * * * *
The funeral was to take place three days later.
As Paul had foreseen, his father could not be prevented from arranging a
great festivity. He had sent invitations to all his friends in town, on
beautiful glazed paper with a black edge as wide as your finger. Therein
he had given expression to his grief in well-chosen, elegant phrases,
and had nowhere forgotten to provide his signature with an elaborate
flourish.
In the evening, just when the remains were being laid in the coffin, his
two brothers arrived. They had not been at home for many years, and Paul
almost failed to recognize them. Gottfried, the tutor, a dignified man
with a severe expression of countenance and somewhat portly appearance,
had on his arm a young lady veiled in black--his betrothed, who with a
wondering glance took stock of the low, miserable rooms, and endeavored
to show a face at once friendly and full of grief as the situation
demanded. Max, the merchant, came behind them. He looked rather
dissolute; his smart-looking mustache gave him an air ill-befitting the
feelings of a newly-orphaned son, and his mourning was more evident in
discomfort than in grief.
Both brothers solemnly embraced their father, and the young lady visitor
bent down and kissed first his hand and then his forehead. Then they
greeted the twins, who in their black dresses were looking fresher and
sweeter than ever. They had overlooked Paul, who stood at the door and
fingered his cap in confusion.
At last Gottfried asked, “Where is our brother?”
Then he stepped shyly forward and stretched out his hand.
Three pairs of eyes rested on him searchingly.
“If I were but once outside!” he thought, and as soon as he could get
away he went out to work in the stables.
Gottfried followed him thither. Paul was alarmed when he saw him come,
for he did not know what he should talk about to this aristocratic man.
“Dear brother,” the latter said, “I have a favor to ask you. Could you
not provide a brighter room for my betrothed? She feels herself rather
crowded in the girls’ room.”
“I will give her my attic,” said Paul.
“You would oblige me if you would do that.”
Then he addressed a few more questions to him about their mother’s
illness, about the cattle, and about the mortgage which lay on the
estate.
“You poor creatures,” he said; “you have evidently had many a care. But
did you endeavor to make the last days of our sainted mother as easy as
possible?”
Paul assured him he had done all that was in his power.
“I am glad of that,” his brother replied, in a severe tone; “it would
have been a sad neglect of your duty if you had not done so. And now
come, let us go together to visit the remains of our sainted mother,
that she, looking down from heaven, may see us all united.”
He took Paul’s hand and drew him into the room in which his mother
rested peacefully among flowers and burning candles, and where the
others were already assembled.
Paul remained standing at the door timidly. He would have given much to
be alone with his dead mother for one moment, but as that was impossible
he softly crept out and looked through the window from outside, as if he
were one of the lookers-on from the village who were standing there.
A little later Max came to him and led him confidentially aside. “I have
a favor to ask you, dear boy,” he said; “my throat is quite parched with
the dust of the journey and with crying. Could you procure me a drop of
beer?”
Paul answered that there were two full casks, but that they were only to
be tapped next morning for the funeral.
“Just give me the tap,” Max answered; “I am an expert. The beer in the
casks will be just as fresh to-morrow as it is to-day.”
And when Paul had done his bidding, he turned his back on him and went
away.
At eleven o’clock the candles round the coffin were blown out--every one
retired to rest.
Paul found that there was no bed left for him, and climbed into the
hay-loft, where he sat upright all night buried in thought.
At ten o’clock in the morning the first guests arrived, and, indeed,
such guests as had neither accepted the invitation nor been expected at
all. When Paul saw them coming his first thought was, “Have I provided
enough food and drink?” and the more the carriages came rolling into the
yard, and entire strangers kept stretching out their black-gloved hands
to his family, the more a voice seemed to say to him, “There won’t be
enough.”
His father had again one of his days of grandeur. He sat in his portable
chair as if on a throne, his two eldest sons like vassals near him, and
allowed himself to be admired in his grief.
Whenever a new guest came up to him he pressed the proffered right
hand in both of his, as if _he_ were the one to console, bent his
grief-stricken head, and spoke broken words in a voice stifled with
sobs, such as: “Yes, she has gone! gone! she’s gone! There is no balm
for the wounds of the heart! May heaven make amends to her for the grief
earth has caused her!” and so forth.
In between he called out to Paul, “My son, you do not provide any wine!
My son, remember to offer our guests some refreshment.”
Paul ran from one to the other like a waiter, anxiously counting the
bottles, which diminished rapidly, and envying his sisters, who, in
their fine black dresses, could quietly sit in a corner and cry to their
hearts’ content, while the strange sister-in-law consoled them. He had
not thought of the mourning-dresses in his calculation at all, and it
was great good-luck that the merchant sent them on credit, otherwise his
sisters could not have appeared at all.
He himself did not look like a mourner in his simple gray suit, and
most of the guests who did not know him went quietly past him, and only
noticed his existence when he offered them wine and cigars.
In the yard a number of women assembled who had loved his mother on
account of her quiet, simple manners, and who now wanted to follow the
cortege without really belonging to the mourners.
The sharp eye of his father soon discovered them.
“Paul, my son,” he cried, “go out and urge the ladies to enter the house
of mourning.”
Paul obeyed this order with hesitation, for he did not know how to word
the invitation. When he stepped out onto the threshold his first glance
fell on Elsbeth, who, in a mourning-dress, stood among the village
women and carried a wreath of white roses. And when she saw him her eyes
filled with tears.
For a moment he felt as if he would like to press his head against the
folds of her dress and cry there; but others stood near her, staring at
him. He made an awkward bow, and said, “My father begs you--would you
like to see the dead?”
The women slowly went into the house; only Elsbeth lingered.
“Won’t you come in, too?” he asked.
“My poor dear Paul,” she said, and seized his hand.
He shut his eyes and staggered back two steps.
“Do come,” he said, mastering himself again; “look at her, she has
always loved you so much.”
“Paul, my son, where are you?” sounded his father’s voice from the
interior of the house.
“Paul,” she said, hesitating, with rising tears, “you must not despair;
there are still others who--love you.”
“Oh yes,” he said, “I know--but come, I must pour out the wine.”
She sighed deeply; then she timidly went in after him, and mixed again
with the other women.
“Paul, come here!” beckoned his father, who today seemed to fancy
himself the master again; and when Paul bent his head to him, he
whispered in his ear, “I hear the wine is finished. What does that mean?
Will you shame us all?”
“I think there are a few more bottles,” Paul answered.
“Make them last till the vicar comes; but you must also offer a glass to
the women. Do you hear?”
“Oh, if only the vicar would come soon,” sighed Paul, and tried hard to
fill the glasses only half.
And at last the vicar came. The whole assembly pressed into the
room where the dead woman lay in her coffin. The place was bathed in
sunshine, and checkered lights which had found their way through the
waving linden branches played merrily on the marble-white face.
Paul helped to carry his father’s chair to the head of the coffin, then
he withdrew to a quiet corner behind the mourning assembly where he
could rest a little, for he was tired with much running about.
But they would not let him rest. “Where is the youngest son?” asked the
vicar, who wanted to gather the whole family round him.
“Paul, my child, where are you?” called his father.
Then he had to come forward, and took his place close to the head of the
coffin, near his father’s chair.
A low murmur passed through the assembly, and some looked embarrassed,
as if they would say, “So that is a son, too? Then we have made a
mistake there.”
The dancing sunbeams caught the vicar’s attention, and he took them as
the text for his sermon. The earthly sun was indeed shining brightly and
full of joy; but that was nothing--that was utter darkness compared with
the heavenly sunshine. Then he praised the dead, and praised also those
left behind, especially the faithful husband and the two eldest sons as
the proud pillars of the house; there was also a spare morsel for Paul,
the servant, whom his master had found faithful unto death.
It was only a pity that he understood nothing of this honeyed praise.
Lost in thought, he stared before him. His look rested on the silk bow
which stood out from his mother’s cap, and which moved gently when the
draught, caused by the vicar’s waving arms, glided over it. It resembled
a white butterfly that moves its wings to rise into the air.
Then a hymn was sung and the lid placed on the coffin. At this moment
there sounded from the background a heart-rending cry, “Mother, mother!”
Startled and astonished, every one turned round. It was Elsbeth Douglas
who had uttered it. Now she lay fainting in the arms of her neighbor.
Paul understood her well. She had thought of the moment when the lid
would be laid over her own mother’s face. And he vowed to himself he
would then be at her side to comfort her. His father also looked up, and
on his features the question was clearly written: “Is she, too, here?”
Elsbeth was taken into the next room, and two women remained with her
until she recovered.
But the uplifted coffin was borne staggering out of the door till it
found rest on the hearse.
Paul seized his cap. Then Gottfried, pressing to his side, put something
soft and black into his hand.
“At least tie this crape round your arm,” he whispered to him.
“Why?”
“People might think you did not want to wear mourning.”
Paul started at this thought and did as he was told. Afterwards he was
grieved to have been thus shamed by his brother, and only much later it
became clear to him which of them had worn the deepest mourning.
The cemetery lay in the midst of the heath. Three solitary pine-trees
indicated it from afar, and along the edge of the wall surrounding it
thick thorn-hedges bloomed.
Thither the sad cortege went; the sons followed immediately behind the
coffin, the father, with the twins, behind them in a little carriage.
Paul stared straight before him; he thought of the sand through which he
was wading--of the wine--of Elsbeth--of his father’s portable chair--and
of the heather wreath, which had been half detached from the coffin and
was dragging behind.
He resolved to take care that it should not be lowered into the grave
with the coffin.
By the grave he felt nothing but a violent burning pain in his temples,
and while the vicar was giving the benediction it suddenly occurred to
him that instead of the wine he might very well have given beer. Then he
had to look after the twins, who in their grief did foolish things, and
wanted to spring into the grave after the coffin. He took them in his
arms kissed them, and made them lay their heads on his shoulder. They
did so, closed their eyes, and breathed as if asleep.
When the first handful of earth was rolling down on the coffin he had
a feeling of disgust, as if skittles were being played in his head, and
when the bare hillock began to arise, he thought, “To-morrow already
there must be some green turf put round it.”
The crowd dispersed, his father was carried back to his carriage, and
the three sons walked home. Max and Gottfried spoke in low, solemn tones
of their earliest recollections of the dead. But Paul was silent, and
thought, “Thank God, they have laid her under the sod!”
A feverish activity was still working in his brain--he had as yet
understood nothing, had not wanted to understand--but when he entered
the yard which, with its shingle-roofed stable, and with the recent
traces of the fire, lay gray and desolate before him, it suddenly came
upon him as with a lightning-flash, like a totally new idea, “Mother has
gone!”
He turned round, groped with his hands in the air, and, as if
thunder-struck, sank to the ground.