RETRIBUTION.
In course of time, when arrangements had been made for their reception,
a carriage was sent from Eichbourg to bring away the old farmer and his
wife. Their son was grieved to the heart when the time came for them to
go, but their daughter-in-law had counted the days and hours until the
time of their departure, and felt nothing but vindictive pleasure at
being rid of them. Her joy, however, received a severe check from a
note which the coachman presented to her, in which the Count informed
her that she and her husband should pay all that had been stipulated
for the support of her father and mother-in-law; and that the price of
their living valued in money, according to the current market price,
should be paid to them every quarter. Realising her helplessness, she
became violently angry and turned round to her husband, saying, "We are
over-reached. If they had stayed here, it would not have cost us half
as much." Her husband was secretly pleased to think that he was still
permitted to help his parents in their old age, but he took good care
not to show his joy before his wife.
The old people set off in the carriage the next morning, followed by
the blessings of their son and the secret ill-wishes of their
daughter-in-law.
But the unnatural conduct of this wicked woman was visited with the
trouble which is always the lot of avarice and inhumanity. Her
secretly-cherished god was gold, and she had lent the bulk of her money
to a merchant to use in his business, on his promise to pay her a large
interest for the loan. Her greatest pleasure was in making
calculations, as to how much her money would amount to after a certain
number of years, with all the interest and compound interest added.
Suddenly, however, these golden dreams received a rude awakening. The
manufacturer's speculations proved unfortunate, and he shortly
afterwards failed in business, and his goods were sold by order of the
sheriff.
The news came as a thunder-stroke for the farmer's wife, and from the
moment that she heard of the catastrophe she had no repose. Every day
she kept running to the lawyers, or to her neighbours to complain of
her hard lot, and the nights she spent in weeping and scolding her
husband. From the wreck of her fortune of ten thousand florins she
received only a paltry hundred or two, and so deeply did she feel the
loss of her money that she openly declared her wish to die. The result
of the continual worrying induced a fever which never left her. When
her husband wished to send for a physician she would not consent to it,
and when, in spite of her objections, he at last sent for one, his wife
in a passion threw the medicine he prescribed out of the window.
At last her husband saw that she was seriously ill, and he requested
the minister of Erlenbrunn to come and see her. The good old man
visited her frequently and talked to her affectionately, in order to
induce her to repent of her sins, and to detach her heart from the
things of this earth, that she might turn to God.
But this advice made her very angry. She looked at the good man with
utter astonishment. "I do not know," she said, "for what purpose the
minister comes to preach repentance to me. He should have delivered
such a sermon to the merchant who stole our money. Yes, there would
have been some sense in that. As for me, I do not see that I have any
reason for repentance. As long as I was able to go out I always went to
church, and I have never failed to say my prayers. I have not ceased
all my life to do my duty and to behave myself like a virtuous
housewife. I defy any living soul to slander me. And of all the poor
people who have come to my door, not one can complain that I sent them
away without giving them something. Now, I should like to know how any
one can behave better!"
The venerable pastor saw that she was justifying herself before God,
and he tried by adopting a more direct tone to lead her to contrition.
He showed to her that she loved money more than anything else in the
world, and that the love of money was idolatry. He showed her that the
bursts of anger in which she had indulged were heinous sins before God,
that she had totally failed in the most beautiful of all Christian
virtues--filial affection; that by her greed of money she had made her
husband unhappy, cruelly driven away the poor orphan Mary, and even
turned away her husband's parents, those whom she ought to have
cherished as if they were her own.
He showed her also that, with a fortune like hers, a little piece of
bread given to a poor man to get rid of him did not fulfil the duties
which God expected of her, that in spite of all her boasting of going
to church she was none the better of it, for her prayers had come from
a heart unwarmed by love, and could not ascend to the throne of God. In
this faithful way did he talk to her, but only with the result of
making her burst into a fit of passionate sobbing.
The illness from which she suffered was a long and trying one. She
spent whole nights in coughing, and yet the ruling passion of avarice
was so strong that she would scarcely take sufficient nourishment to
sustain her. No consoling thought came to her to mitigate her
suffering. She was utterly unwilling to resign herself to God and to
submit to His will.
The good minister tried in every imaginable way to bring her to a
better frame of mind. During the last days of her life she was
occasionally a little softened in her manners, but she never evinced
any true repentance. In the flower of her age she died, a sad instance
of the effects of avarice, passion, and love of the world.