the three young heads in that room; but she saw them, and felt herself
spellbound. She looked at all three, and then said in her soft, deep
tones--
"I have just come from a house where since yesterday no one has eaten,
where this night a child has died, and a girl lies sick in bed; two
other children I found out in the snowstorm as they were admiring a
Christmas tree. Can you not help?"
"Yes, yes, at once," cried the one with the gold brown locks. "Albert,
be so good as to order the sledge. Cara, do you run to mother and ask
her for money. I will get food and clothes."
With all imaginable speed every thing was got ready. After a brief
half-hour the sledge stood before the door laden with wood and baskets,
and one of the Christmas trees. There was barely room for the three
young people to squeeze in. The mother, a stately, elegant woman, with
wise eyes, restrained the eldest girl, Doris, for a second, to say
something to her very earnestly, upon which she kissed both her hands.
Then she, too, flew downstairs after the others, and as fast as the
wind they trotted to the house of the poor people.
"Mother, the angels have come," cried the children.
They got out and brought in the tree. Cara knelt down by the hearth and
made a fire, and Doris placed the tree by the bedside of the sufferer,
darkened the room and lighted it. She gave the children bread and cake,
and then the two lovely girls stood by the sick girl's bedside and sang
a Christmas carol. The little boy, with folded hands, looked now at the
lights, now at the angels, and large tears rolled over his pale face.
Albert did not quite know what to do with himself; but now that the
two girls helped the mother to warm some soup and cut up meat for the
children, he neared the bed, and looked with scrutiny into the black
eyes that glowed and reflected with uncanny fire the lights of the
Christmas tree.
"What is your name?" he asked kindly with his pleasant voice.
The girl looked at him long and earnestly; she felt the gaze of his
beautiful blue eyes burn into her heart. Then she grew red, cast down
her eyes, and said: "Lotty."
Soon an animated conversation sprang up between the two. Albert took
out his pocket-book, wrote a few lines, and sent off the servant with
orders to bring the doctor back in the sledge. They would wait till he
came. Doris's eyes rested for an instant on her cousin, who had seated
himself on the edge of the bed and talked eagerly to Lotty. Scarcely
was the sledge gone than she said--
"There, that will do for to-day; I will walk home. We will come again
in a few days, till then you have provision."
And so speaking she walked out of the house, regardless of her cousin's
remonstrances.
Next day all looked bright and cheerful in the little room, but grief
and pain had entered the palace. Cara had fallen on the ice while
skating, and lay in bed maimed in all her limbs, and suffering keenly.
Her snow-white hands lay quiescent beside her plaits upon the coverlet.
Her father patted them, and the tears ran down his cheeks. Then Cara
smiled, but her eyes looked out dim and deep from their hollows, and
round her lips there quivered a suppressed sigh. Wearily she dragged on
her life for weeks and weeks; but if any one asked Cara how she was,
she would always answer kindly--
"I think I am much better."
But pain had pinched her face and emaciated her body, and her hands
and feet remained paralyzed. Her only recreation were Albert's visits.
He told her all manner of things, and sang her merry songs. Doris grew
pale and thin with continued nursing, so that at last her mother had to
force her to go out. She bethought her of Lotty, and went to call on
her. How amazed was she to find the little house transformed, and Lotty
changed more than all! Graceful, rounded in all her limbs, she stepped
towards her, and the slight limp that remained from her illness only
gave her an added grace. Her eyes had learned to laugh, and her whole
being had gained something attractive and bright.
"But, Lotty, how well you look! I was afraid you would think we had
forgotten you."
"How could I think that," said Lotty, "when your brother always came to
see us!"
"He is not my brother," Doris said shortly, and grew scarlet.
Then ensued an awkward silence, interrupted by Doris, who asked to
see the children's school-books, which, superintended by Lotty, bore
inspection well. They had gained good instruction in the time that had
passed.
A few days after Albert went away on a journey. It was a hard parting
for the two girls. At the last he kissed Doris's hand, and looked at
her earnestly, deep down into her eyes. They filled with large tears.
She wanted to say something more, but could not bring forth a sound.
"I shall come back in the summer," he said, and was gone.
Lotty was soon so well that she could walk and call on Cara, who was
so pleased to see her that she did not want to let her go. So she was
engaged as companion and nurse for Cara, and soon grew indispensable to
her.
In the spring the family moved to their castle in the country, where
the poor invalid could lie all day under tall trees. Albert soon came
there too, and Doris took long rides with him through the park, or
they sat for hours chatting with Cara. Yet he always found time and
opportunity to see Lotty alone. At first she was distant with him, but
with his heart-winning ways he soon recovered the empire he had had in
the little house in the town; and she was happy when he said that the
parents insisted on marrying Doris to him, but that he did not think
of it for she did not please him at all. Cara noticed that there was
something amiss with her Lotty, but she never dreamed what a fight
the girl was fighting with her heart, that impetuously demanded love
and happiness, and her conscience that recalled to her her duties and
strove to calm her.
Doris guessed nothing. She was entirely absorbed in the joy of having
her adored Albert beside her.
Albert really loved Lotty, but he did not want to lose the rich
marriage with Doris; so he was full of little delicate attentions to
her, which in quiet hours were counted up and talked over with Cara.
Lotty knew herself to be beloved, therefore her jealousy of Doris knew
no bounds. Every kind look, every unconscious little joke of Doris's
was gall and wormwood to her. She had to help Doris adorn herself,
and see how she looked into the glass with beaming eyes, certain of
victory, full of hope. She had to suffer that her adored Cara did all
to make her sister appear in the best light to Albert. Many an evening
in the park there ensued angry scenes in which Lotty broke forth into
wild reproaches, and Albert made passionate love protestations. Lotty
was proud; she would be his wife, and at last he promised her that he
would marry her as soon as he had found a post that insured enough for
them both. He was soon to go abroad to join an embassy.
Lotty demanded that he should say openly at the house that he meant to
marry her, but this she could not attain.
Once more Lotty thought--
"If only I were rich, like the others."
Many a long night she tossed about her black locks on the pillow,
and next day her eyes glowed like coals, so that Albert grew almost
afraid, and feared she might make things uncomfortable for him. He
hurried forward his parting preparations. On the last evening he was
in the park with Doris, and began to speak to her of his future, and
that he should come back a made man. Then he would woo her, and he
hoped he should not be refused. At the last he put a bracelet round
her wrist, encircled her with his arm and pressed a kiss on her lips.
Doris flushed all over, ran off to Cara, fell on her knees beside the
bed, kissed her hands, her hair, her eyes, and was so wildly happy that
it grew almost too much for the poor invalid. When Albert wanted to
leave the park Lotty stood before him and looked at him so sphinx-like
that he grew afraid. He hoped she had heard nothing, and took a
step forward. But she struck him in the face with her fist. Then she
vanished. She ran as fast as she could into her room, and raved all
night long, bit her pillow, and thought to die of rage and despair.
Albert, who slept little, could not see Lotty again and extort from her
a promise of silence. Twice he knocked at her door, but she kept quiet
till he had gone and then she muttered curses after him. Next morning
he departed without having seen her. Doris waved her hand after him
long, long after he was out of sight, and wept blissful tears. But Cara
was alarmed when she saw Lotty. A complete alteration had come to her
face; it was as though something had snapped. She had to endure hearing
Albert talked of incessantly. Towards Doris she felt a veritable
hatred.
At first there came letters from Albert, but they grew rarer and
briefer. After a year there came none. Doris had been radiantly
happy some time and developed to rare beauty. At her side Hope stood
shimmering, rosy, like peach blossoms. By Cara's bed sat Mother
Patience, invisible to all, and transfigured the pale face with her
calm presence. Beside Lotty strode Envy and Hate, and tugged at her
with all their might night and day. In the second year Hope vanished
from beside Doris; in the third, the girl crept wearily through the
house as though each step were leaden. Lotty revived; yes, Doris even
noted that when Lotty combed her hair she could see in the glass how
her black eyes sparkled maliciously, and seemed to search her weary
face. Doris's parents grew old and gray during these years of waiting.
Albert's name was never breathed, it was as though he was blotted out
of all their memories, and yet all thought only of him.
One morning Doris was sitting at breakfast with her parents. Cara was
still in bed, she was never carried down till later in the day. The
father read out of his paper, his wife rested her chin on her slender
fingers. Countless fine lines had become graven into her face, Care was
her daily guest; yet she looked kindly from under her gray hairs and
her elegant cap. Secretly her glance sought the face of her daughter,
who had leaned back wearily in her chair, toying with a flower and
gazing out vacantly into space.
Sometimes she would look out of the window, and watch with heavy
eyelids the falling of the faded autumn leaves, which sank to earth
in the thick mist. A fire burnt in the chimney; it was the only lively
thing in the room. Then a letter was brought in and given to Doris's
father. He twirled it between his fingers and looked at the address and
seal. Doris had glanced up indifferently. Suddenly every muscle of her
face trembled, and she rested large, flashing eyes upon her father, her
nostrils quivered, and her breath came short and fast.
"Oh, father, read, read quickly!"
He read long, long, without speaking one word. At last he folded up the
letter. Doris's torture was at an end, she was near to faint.
"Albert is coming," he said gravely, and would have gone on speaking,
but from Doris's breast there came a cry of mingled joy and sobbing.
She sprang up, embraced her mother and rushed out of the room and up
the stairs to Cara.
"Cara, he is coming, is coming," she cried, and covered her sister with
kisses.
Lotty rushed to the bedside; it was as though a fallen angel looked at
the happy girl. At last harshly and roughly she muttered--
"Who knows what he has become."
Doris felt the poisoned dart, but before she could answer her mother
called her down. As she entered the room she saw her father pacing up
and down restlessly. He did not notice her. Her mother sat in a little
armchair beside the fire, staring into the embers. Doris noticed every
thing at a glance. It was as though something heavy and cold fell upon
her heart.
"Come here, dear child," said her mother; "kneel down here, I have
something to say to you. You have always trusted us, have you not, my
child? You always believed that we have felt your sufferings too, and
have felt them the more that we could not help you?"
Doris could not speak, she kissed her mother's hand and looked at her
again with large, glowing eyes.
"If, then, I tell you that Albert is not worthy of you, my child will
believe it, will she not? He has not kept good; it is said he has
gambled away his fortune, and we should not like him to ask the hand of
our daughter merely in order to pay his debts. I know you will be proud
and meet him as it becomes your maidenly dignity. You will let him see
nothing of your soul's combat and woe, but meet him as he deserves."
"When will he come?" said Doris, curtly. Her voice was hard.
"In a few days; we cannot forbid him the house for his mother's sake.
I count on you, my child."
Doris's eyes flashed. She raised herself and stood her full height;
she seemed to have grown, and looked defiant, ready for fight. Without
a word she went outside into the mist. She paced the park for hours,
heedless of the paths and ways; she painted to her mind that meeting,
how cold and proud she would be. She snapped off the twigs as she
passed, and crunched them with her white teeth. It seemed to her as
though she never could go home, as though she must thus rove the wood
for ever. When she came back to the house at last, her hair, dress, and
eyebrows were covered with glistening drops. She looked into the glass
that reflected her hard-drawn face.
"The wood," she said, "has had pity on me; those are its tears."
She could not make up her mind to go in to Cara; she felt as though she
could not bear her affection. Cara wept in her father's arms. He dried
the tears she was shedding for her sister, and spoke to her tenderly.
Lotty clenched her fists.
"She shall not have him as long as I live."
Henceforward Doris went often into the wood, especially along the path
beside the old willow-trees. The sun still shone warmly there, and that
did good to Doris, who could not get rid of a feeling of cold. Once she
leaned exhausted against a mighty trunk; she had laid her hand upon her
aching heart, and closed her eyes. Suddenly she heard a voice close by
her, whose tone made her shrink together as a flower does in spring
rain--
"Doris."
And there stood Albert, with the same lovely eyes, the same charm of
movement, and yet how changed. He held out his hand towards her. She
laid her icy fingertips into his; but when she wanted to draw back her
hand he retained it.
"Am I to be condemned unheard?" he asked gently, and smiled so sweetly
that Doris could not be as distant and cold as she had resolved.
He did not wait for an answer, but spoke eagerly and earnestly, accused
and defended himself at the same time, reminded her of their sweet love
that could not possibly be vanished and fled; ay, he read it in her
face that she had thought of him, while poor Doris, now red, now pale,
could merely look at him. When he turned to go to the house and greet
his aunt, she remained outside, for an awkward friend, Conscience, told
her that she had not been all that her parents expected.
They did not repeat their injunction, and the meetings in the park grew
more and more frequent; a correspondence even ensued that was intrusted
to a hollow willow. Doris's mother noticed a strange, wild look in
the girl's eyes, but she put this down to the struggle her child was
undergoing.
Often Doris would have opened her lips to confess, but always closed
them again. Daily she grew more irritable, spoke in hollow tones, and
laughed at every thing. Lotty knew exactly all that went on. She bided
her time, ready to spring like a cat whenever the hour should be ripe.
One day Doris could not get out, and so begged Lotty, in a seemingly
indifferent tone, to carry a letter to the tree. Lotty held the letter
between her fingers and looked now at it, now at Doris.
"Well," said Doris, sharply, but without looking up, "is it
inconvenient to you?"
"No," said Lotty, carelessly, went towards the door, and then came back
beside Doris.
"I shall only carry that letter," she said, "after I have told you what
manner of man your lover is."
Lotty looked so fierce that Doris shuddered.
"He loved me, me, long before he loved you: me he has kissed many
hundred times in this very park ere ever he gave you the one that made
you so happy; me he promised to wed. It is me he called his dear heart,
his love, all the soft names he has called you; and on the evening you
were betrothed to him, I hit him in his face, and now he is so vile
that no decent girl would wish to have him; and you, you carry on a
secret love affair with him."
Doris grew giddy; but before she had taken in the full sense of these
words, Lotty had left the room and did not re-appear.
The following evening, when Lotty had just got into bed, Doris stood
before her like a ghost. She shook her arms and said--
"Come!"
She followed Doris into her room. The girl shut and locked the door,
and pocketed the key.
"Now tell it me all again," she said, speaking with effort.
Lotty no longer felt the satisfaction she had experienced that first
moment. She was ashamed of her weakness, and told her tale with
hesitation and with reserve. While she did so she had ever to look
at Doris, who grew momentarily more haggard, and who bent herself
twice, thrice; whether in physical or mental pain Lotty did not know.
Suppressing a low moan, she drew a small roll of paper from her pocket,
and smiled with trembling lips.
"You have avenged yourself on me; now is your turn with him; you owe
me this, for you should have spared me this agony. To-morrow morning
you go to town and give him this; you yourself must give it to him; I
demand it."
Scarcely had Doris uttered these words than she began to moan
piteously, and now followed a night during which Lotty was terrified by
the sufferings of her young mistress. Constantly she tried to get the
key and call the family; Doris would not let her.
"No," she said; "we two must pass this night alone together."
Only when consciousness began to leave her, Lotty succeeded in
wrenching the key from her clenched hands. She called up the parents,
who arrived but in time to receive their daughter's last breath.
She opened her eyes once again, knew her mother, kissed each of her
fingertips and whispered--
"Farewell, mother; farewell, forgive me."
Then a last terrible spasm shook her, and when the sun rose she was
a corpse. While the parents were with Cara, trying to break the news
gently to the poor invalid, Lotty slipped away into her own room. There
she unrolled the paper and read--
"Could I have believed in you, I should have lived.--DORIS."
Then she set out for the town and sought out Albert, who was still in
bed sleeping restlessly. Lotty looked at him long and severely. Her
gaze was so savage that a feeling of fear shot through him and woke
him. He started up.
"What is it?" he cried aghast.
Lotty handed him the paper without speaking a word, and before he had
unfolded it she had gone.
He threw on his clothes and hurried after her, but he could not find
her. He ran about all day: he hovered round the castle, he chased
through the park. He looked as though the Furies pursued him. At last
he went home, sat down to his desk, and began to turn over a pile of
dirty papers. Great drops stood on his brow. In the evening he went to
see a friend, and gambled the whole night. In a short time he had won
large sums, but then a few days after he lost them all again, those
and much more besides. One morning he tottered into his room, loaded a
pistol and shot himself.
Lotty got home unnoticed as she had gone out; but as she entered Sorrow
stood in front of her, and her eyes were so terrible that Lotty fell
down before her on the earth and covered her face with her hands. But
when Sorrow began to speak, Lotty was seized with trembling at the
stern words that fell upon her like hammer blows; she writhed on the
ground like a worm, but Sorrow was inexorable.
"You have done your work well," she said; "you have avenged yourself.
But on whom? On those who have done you kindness from the first hour
when they raised you out of misery and wretchedness, those to whom
you owe all--your life, your health--who have treated you as a child
and a sister. They were happy before I brought them to your house, and
what are they now? I know you want to throw yourself into the water,
but I will not suffer it, for you need a whole long life to make good
the thoughts that have poisoned your youth. You must give up your whole
strength to poor Cara, beside whose bed you will yet often see me, and
take care that you need not tremble before my face, as you must to-day.
Cara needs you, for her parents are broken down, and only through
boundless self-sacrifice may you dare to hope for forgiveness. As yet I
cannot accord it."
Once more it was Christmas Eve. A beautiful tree was alight in the
little house. Lotty had brought it there in Cara's name. The children
had red cheeks and shouted joyously. The mother too had grown to look
younger and smiled often. Only Lotty was pale as death and dark as
remorse.
"Here my mother looks at me," she thought; "and thinks Lotty has grown
bad; and there Doris's mother looks at me and thinks, 'Had you but
called me we could have saved the child.' Oh that I had starved to
death!"
In the castle a shaded lamp burnt beside Cara's bed. Her father was
reading to her with weary voice, the mother sat by, stroked the girl's
hands, and dried the heavy, slow-falling tears that rolled down her
child's face with a soft handkerchief. Cara had not spoken all the
evening. Only once she asked--
"Is not this Christmas Eve?"
_MEDUSA._
Medusa.