DORRIS RITTER.
When the king had left the balcony, a poor young woman, who had been
sitting on the steps of the cathedral, arose and looked fearfully
around her. The sight of the king had carried her far away, she had
been dreaming of the blissful days of the past. His disappearance
brought her back to the present--the sad, comfortless present. The king
had left the balcony. What had she to do in this mob, that might again
mock, insult, or commiserate her! she could stand neither their sneers
nor their pity, she must flee from both.
With a hasty movement she drew her shawl tighter around her poor
slender figure, and hurried through the crowd. She came at last to a
miserable small house. The low narrow door seemed unfriendly,
inhospitable, as if it would permit no one to pass its threshold and
enter its dreary, deserted rooms, from which no sound of life
proceeded. But this small, quiet dwelling ought to have been a house of
labor and occupation, and would not have been so poor and pitiful
looking if the large iron bell hanging over the door had been oftener
in motion, and filled the silent space with its cheerful sound.
Behind this door there was a shop, but the bell was generally silent,
and purchasers rarely came to buy in this miserable little store the
articles which could be purchased more reasonably in one of the large
shops belonging to wealthy merchants. The house seemed to have seen
better days. It had some claims to comfort and respectability. In the
windows were placed bright shells and cocoanuts; there were the large
blue china pots, in which the costly ginger is brought; there were
quantities of almonds, raisons, citron, and lemons in glass shells;
neat paper bags for coffee, and small Chinese chests that had held real
Chinese tea. But these bags and chests were empty; the lemons and
fruits were dried and hard; the ginger-pots held no more of their
strengthening contents; even the dusty, faded sign over the door, which
presented a wonderfully-ornamented negro engaged in unrolling dried
tobacco leaves, was but a reminiscence of the past, for the tobacco had
long since disappeared from the chests, and the little that was left
had fallen to dust. The store contained but a few unimportant things:
chicory for the poor, who could not pay for coffee; matches, and small
home-made penny lights, with which poverty illuminated her misery and
want; on the table, in glass cans, a few hardened, broken bits of
candy; a large cask of old herring, and a smaller one of syrup. This
was the inventory of the shop, these the possessions of this family,
who alone occupied this house with their misery, their want, and their
despair; whose head and only stay was the poor young woman now leaning
wearily against the steps, dreading to enter her house of woe and
wretchedness. She arose at length and hastily entered. The bells'
hoarse creaking ring was heard, and a poor, pale boy hastened forward
to inquire the comer's wants. He stopped and looked angrily at the poor
woman who had entered.
"Ah, it is you, mother," said he, peevishly. "I hoped it was some one
wishing to buy, then I could have bought some bread."
"Bread!" said the mother anxiously; "did I not, before I went out, give
you the money to buy bread for you and your little sister?"
"Yes, but when father came home he threatened to beat me if I did not
give up the money at once; I was frightened, and gave it; then he left,
and Anna and I have been crying for bread, while our father is amusing
himself at the alehouse and our mother has taken a holiday, and has
been looking at the festivities which I also would have been glad to
see, but could not, because I must stay at home and watch the shop into
which no one has entered, and take care of my little sister, who cries
for bread, which I cannot give her." As he finished he threw an angry
look at his mother, who, deeply grieved, had fallen back on a wooden
bench. She looked lovingly at her son, and holding out her arms to him,
said:
"Come, give me a kiss, and reward me for all my pain and suffering."
"Give us bread, then perhaps I will kiss you," said he, harshly.
She looked terrified into his hard, cold face. She pressed her hand to
her high, pale forehead, as if she would force back the madness that
threatened her; she held the other hand to her heart, whose wild,
feverish throbbings were almost choking her.
"My God! my God!" murmured she, "am I then already mad? Am I dreaming?
Is this my son, my Karl, who loved me so dearly--my boy, who was the
only comfort in my misery, the confidant of my tears and wretchedness?
Can I, whom he looks at with such dark glances, be his mother--his
mother, who joyfully bears for him the scorn of the world, who has
suffered and hungered for him, worked for him during the long, cold
winter nights--his mother, whose love for him was so great that she was
willing not to die, but for his sake to live on in her woe? Karl, my
son, come to your mother, for you well know how tenderly she loves you,
and that she will die if you do not love her."
"No, mother," said he, not moving, "you do not love me, nor my little
sister Anna; for if you loved us, you would not have left us to-day,
and joined the gay people who were making merry while your poor
children were at home groaning and crying."
"Oh, my child! my child! I did not go, out of idle curiosity," said
she, sadly. "I went to consult the oracle of your future, and to see if
there was not to be some hope, some comfort for my children; if this
would not be the beginning of brighter days. I wished to read all this
in a man's face; I wished to see if he still had a heart, or if, like
all princes, he had become hard and pitiless."
She had forgotten that she was speaking to her son; she was addressing
herself, and had entirely forgotten that he was present.
"Ah," said he, sneeringly, "you thought he would now give you money for
your shame; but father told me that all the gold in the world would not
wipe out this shame, and that brandy was the only way besides death
that could make us forget that we are despised and accursed. Father
told me--"
The boy stopped and retreated a few steps; his mother had risen from
her seat and stood before him, deadly pale, with widely-opened,
flashing eyes, with trembling lips; every muscle of her face in play;
her whole form trembling in a paroxysm of rage and frightful torture.
It was not the head of a woman, but a Medusa; not the look of a tender,
loving mother, but of a wild, angry, threatening mad woman.
"What did your father tell you?" cried she, wildly, to the trembling
boy before her. "What did he say? I will, I must know! You are silent;
speak, or I dash my brains out against the wall, and you will be guilty
of your mother's death."
"You will beat me if I tell you," said he insolently.
"No, no, I will not beat you," said she, breathlessly; and folding her
hands as if to pray, she continued: "My child, my child, have mercy on
your mother. Tell me what he said; with what words he poisoned your
heart, and made the love for your poor mother die so quickly. Tell me
all, my son; I will not beat but bless you, though your words should
cut my heart like a knife."
She wished to press him to her heart, but he resisted passionately.
"No," said he, "you shall not kiss me; father said you made all you
touched unhappy and despised, and that we would be well, happy, and
rich if you were not our mother."
She shuddered; her arm fell powerless to her side, a hollow groan
escaped her, her eyes were fixed and tearless.
"What more did he tell you?" murmured she; "with what other tales did
he amuse my child?" She looked at him with such a sad, painful smile,
that he trembled and glanced timidly down; he now saw what torture he
was preparing for her.
"Father was drunk," said he; "when he heard that you had gone out, he
was furious; he cursed you so dreadfully that Anna and I both cried,
and I begged him not insult you so, for it hurt me, for then I still
loved you."
"Then he still loved me!" said his mother, wringing her hands.
"But he laughed at me, and said you did not deserve our love; that you
were the cause of all our misery and want; he had become poor and
wretched because he had married you, and taken to drink so as not to
hear or see men pointing and laughing at you when you passed. But,
mother, you look so pale, you tremble so! I will say no more; I will
forget all father said; I will love you, mother; but do not look at me
so dreadfully, and do not tremble in that way."
The boy wept from grief and terror. His old love had awakened; he
approached his mother to kiss her, but now she pushed him back.
"I do not tremble," said she, though her teeth were chattering. "I do
not tremble, and you must not forget what your father said; you must
tell me all again. Speak on, speak! I must hear all, know all. What
more did he say?"
The boy looked at her sadly. His voice, which before had been insolent
and rude, was now quiet and gentle, and his eyes were full of tears.
"He said he married you out of pity, and because you brought him a few
thousand dollars. But this gold brought no blessing with it, but a
curse; and that since then it had gone worse with him than with the
executioner, whom all despise, and who dares not enter an honest man's
house. But that you were more despised and disgraced than the miserable
man who had stripped you in the open market and whipped you through the
streets; that the boys had pelted you with mud, and that the streets
became red with the blood that flowed down your back."
The poor woman gave a piercing shriek, and fell as if struck by
lightning to the floor. The boy threw himself weeping by her side; and
the little girl, who had been sleeping in another corner of the room,
awakened by the scream, came running toward them crying for bread.
But the mother moved not; she lay there pale, with closed eyes; she was
cold and lifeless; she did not hear her poor little girl cry; she did
not feel the hot kisses and tears of her son, who was imploring her in
anxious, tender, loving words, to open her eyes, to tell him that she
was not angry, that she had forgiven him. But he suddenly stopped and
listened eagerly; he thought he heard the well-known sound of the bell.
"There it was again; if it is father, he will beat me to death,"
murmured he, as he went toward the shop door. "He forbade me to repeat
a word of all that to mother."
He opened the door, and there stood not his father but a richly-dressed
gentleman, who, with a friendly gesture, pushed the boy aside and
entered the shop.
"I want some tobacco, my little fellow," said he; "therefore call Mr.
Schommer to give me some from his best canister."
"My father is not at home," said the boy, staring at the handsome,
friendly gentleman.
"Well, I did not come precisely on his account," said the gentleman,
with a strange laugh. "Call your mother, Madame Schommer, and tell her
I wish to make a purchase."
"Mother is lying in the back room on the floor, and I believe she is
dead!" said Karl, sobbing.
The gentleman looked at him with amazement. "Did you say dead? That
would be very inconvenient, for I have greatly counted on her life.
What did she die of? Is a physician with her?"
"No one is with her but my little sister; you can hear her crying!"
"Yes, I can hear her; and it is in truth no edifying music. No one
else, did you say? Where, then, are your friends? where is your father?"
"Father is at the ale-house, and friends we have none; we live all
alone, for no one will live with us."
"Well, if you are alone, I may go to your mother," said he, with a
careless laugh. "It is likely your mother has fainted; and as I am
learned in these feminine swoons, it is very possible I may call her
back to life. Show the way, little Cupid, and lead me to your mother,
the fainting Venus." And laughing, he followed the astonished boy into
the back room.
She still lay without movement on the floor, and little Anna, kneeling
by her side, was praying for bread.
"That is your mother, Madame Schommer?" asked the strange gentleman,
looking curiously at the pale woman.
"Yes, that is my mother," said the boy. "Mother, mother, wake up!" said
he, covering her face with kisses. "Wake up, I do not believe what
father said. I will love you! He was drunk! Ah, my dear, dear mother,
only wake up!"
"She will awake," said the stranger, who was bending over her, laying
his hand on her heart and temples, "she is, as I thought, not dead but
in a swoon."
The boy laughed aloud with glee. "My mother is not dead," said he,
crying and laughing at once. "She will wake up and love me; we will all
be so happy!"
"Mother, mother, give me some bread!" whimpered poor little Anna.
"Are you then so hungry?" said the stranger, who was getting tired of
this scene.
"Yes," said the boy, "she is hungry; we are both hungry. We have had
nothing to eat all day. Mother gave us money before she went out to buy
bread and milk, but father came and took it to buy brandy for himself."
"A worthy father," said the stranger, handing him something. "Here, my
son, is some money. Take your sister, go to the baker's, and get
something to eat, then seat yourselves and eat; and do not come back
here until I call you. But if you see your father coming, then come and
tell me."
The children joyfully hurried to the door; they were not now thinking
of their poor, fainting mother, but of the bread they would buy to
satisfy their hunger.
"But who," said the boy, turning around, "will watch the shop?"
"Well, I will," said the stranger; "I will watch your mother and your
shop; go!"
The children hurried away, and the stranger was alone with the fainting
woman.