Spring had come again. Two years had passed since that evening. In Buetze
Manor-house there was a vaulted, out-of-the-way room, which was entered
by a low, small door at the end of a dark passage; the windows looked
out upon the garden. Tall trees forbade entrance to the light, which had
to seek admission through an artistic old lattice-work as well. This had
been the lumber-room from time immemorial. All sorts of things lay,
hung, and stood there, in perfect confusion. Old presses and chests, old
spinning-wheels with yellowed ivory decorations, and dark oil portraits
on which one could hardly detect the trace of a face; a huge bedstead
with heavy gilt knobs--a French general had slept on it in the year
nine, and the late Herr von Hegewitz had banished the bed to the
lumber-room as a desecrated object after that, for it had originally
been made to shelter a prince of the royal family for a night. The wings
of the gilded eagle who sat so proudly at the top were broken off, and
his beak held now only a shred of the crimson curtain, as the last
remnant of former splendor. Fine cobwebs reached from one piece of
furniture to another, and yellowish dust lay on the floor, a sign that
the wood-worm was undisturbed here.
Here Anna Maria stood and looked about her, as if in search of
something. She scarcely knew herself just why she had come in here; she
had happened to go by, and then it had flashed across her mind that it
might be well to give the old lumber-room a breath of fresh spring air,
and she had taken the bunch of keys from her belt and come in. The young
linden leaves outside let one or two inquisitive sunbeams through the
window, and myriads of grains of dust floated up and down in them. It
was so quiet in the room, among the antique furniture. Anna Maria was
just in the mood for it; she sat down in an arm-chair and leaned her
head against the moth-eaten cushion, her eyes half-closed, her hands
folded in her lap.
She felt so peaceful; the old furniture seemed to preach to her of the
perishable nature of man. Where were all the hands that had made it? the
eyes that had delighted in it? She thought how some time her
spinning-wheel, too, would stand here, and how many days and hours must
pass before strange hands would bring it here, as superfluous rubbish.
Strange hands! She felt a sudden fear. Strange hands! For centuries
Buetze had descended in direct line from father to son--and now?
Anna Maria rose quickly and went to the window, as if to frighten away
unpleasant thoughts; the soft, mild spring air blew toward her and
reminded her of the most unhappy hour of her life, and again she turned
and walked quickly through the room. Then her foot struck against
something, and she saw the cradle, lightly rocking in front of her--the
heavy, gayly painted old cradle in which the Hegewitzes had had their
first slumber for more than two hundred years--Klaus too, and she too.
And Anna Maria knelt down and threw her arms about the little rocking
cradle, and kissed the glaring painted roses and cherubs, and a few
bitter tears flowed from under her lashes, the first that she had shed
since that day.
"Why did I, too, have to lie there in the cradle? It might have been so
different, so much better," she thought. "Poor thing, you must decay and
fall to dust here, and at last irreverent hands will take you and throw
you into the fire. Poor Klaus! For my sake!" And almost tenderly she
wiped the dust from the arabesques on the back, and shook up the little
yellow pillows.
Just then came the sound of a quick, manly step in the passage, and
before Anna Maria had time to rise, Klaus stood in the open door.
"Do I find you here?" he asked in astonishment, and at first laughing,
then more serious, he looked at Anna Maria, who rose and came toward
him.
"I wanted to let some fresh air in here, and found our old cradle,
Klaus," she said quietly.
"Yes, Anna Maria--but you have been crying," he rejoined.
"Oh, I was only thinking that it was quite unnecessary that the poor
thing should have been hunted up again for me!" The bitterness of her
heart pressed unconsciously to her lips to-day.
"Anna Maria! What puts such thoughts into your head?" asked Klaus von
Hegewitz, in amazement. And drawing his sister to him, he stroked her
hair lovingly. "What should I do without you?"
She made a slight convulsive movement, and freed herself from his arms.
"But, listen, sister," he continued, "I know whence such feelings come.
You must become low-spirited in this old nest; you have no companions of
your own age, you withdraw more and more from every youthful pleasure,
and, although you think you can do without these things, you will have
to pay for it some day."
Anna Maria shook her head.
"Yes, yes!" he continued, stepping in front of the window, and his tall
figure obstructed the sunlight so that the room grew dark all at once.
"I have seen more of life, I know it. What should you think, Anna Maria,
if you--" He paused and drew a letter from his pocket. "I had better
read the letter to you. I was just looking for you, to talk with you
about it. Professor Mattoni is dead!"
Anna Maria looked over to him sympathetically. Klaus had turned around
and was looking out of the window; the paper in his hand shook slightly.
She knew how deeply the news of this death touched him. Professor
Mattoni had been his tutor, had lived in Buetze for years, and the
pleasantest memories of his boyhood were connected with this man. As a
youth he had had in him a truly fatherly friend and adviser, and had
since visited him every year, in Berlin, where he held a position as
professor in the E---- Institute.
Anna Maria took her brother's hand and pressed it silently. "Yet one
true friend less," she then said; "we shall soon be quite alone, Klaus!"
"He was more than a friend to me, Anna Maria," he replied gently, "he
was a father to me."
She nodded; she knew it well. "And the letter?" she asked.
"A last request, almost illegible; he wishes that I should take charge
of his little daughter, till she--so he writes--till she is independent
enough to take up the battle of life."
"His little daughter?" asked Anna Maria. "Had he still so young a
child?"
"I am sorry to say," said Klaus, "that I know nothing at all of his
family affairs. He married late in life, and probably had every reason
for not presenting his better half: some said he picked her up somewhere
in Hungary; others, that she had been a chorus singer in one of the
inferior theatres in Berlin. I never spoke to him about it, and when I
went to his house I saw in his study no indications that any female
being presided there. I have never noticed anything on my frequent
visits to show that such a person lived with Mattoni, and remember just
once that while we were having a pleasant hour's chat, a child's cry
came from the next room, whereupon he got up and knocked emphatically on
the door. The screaming child was probably carried to a back room, for
it grew still next door, and we talked on. Then I once heard that his
wife was dead; I have never seen any outward tokens of affliction on
him, but the child seems to be alive."
"And now, Klaus?"
The tall man had turned, and was looking absently at the little wooden
cradle.
"And now, Anna Maria? I owe him so much"--he spoke almost
imploringly--"may I impose such a burden upon you?"
"Klaus, what a question! Of course! Please take the necessary steps at
once, and have the child come."
"The child, Anna Maria? Why, I think she must have reached the limits of
childhood now!"
"That doesn't matter, Klaus. Then I will instruct her in housekeeping,
and all sorts of things which she may find useful in her life."
"I thank you sincerely, Anna Maria," he replied; "I hope you will take
pleasure in the girl." He said this with a sigh of relief, which did not
escape Anna Maria's ear.
"You act exactly as if you had been afraid of me, Klaus," she remarked,
with a passing smile; "as if I should not always wish anything that
seemed desirable to you."
"Just because I know that, Anna Maria," he said, grasping her hands
affectionately, "I wish, too, that you might do it gladly, that it might
be no sacrifice to you----"
"I am really and truly glad the child is coming," she said honestly. And
so they stood opposite each other in the forsaken lumber-room; it was
now flooded with sunshine, and the two strong figures stood out from a
golden background. The shadows of the young leaves about the window
played lightly over them, and the call of the thrush echoed from the
woods far away without.
"A sacrifice!" he had said, and yet they had each already made the
greatest sacrifice of which a human heart is capable, and each thought
it unknown to the other. And at their feet rocked the heavy cradle,
moved by Anna Maria's dress, and it rocked on, long after the two had
left the room.