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Title: Dame Care

Author: Hermann Sudermann

Release Date: July, 2005 [EBook #8487]
[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
[This file was first posted on July 15, 2003]

Edition: 10

Language: English

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and the Distributed Proofreading Team




[Illustration: HERMANN SUDERMANN] DAME CARE

BY HERMANN SUDERMANN

TRANSLATED BY BERTHA OVERBECK



CHAPTER I.

Just when Meyerhofer's estate was to be sold by auction, his third son Paul
was born.

That was a hard time indeed.

Frau Elsbeth, with her haggard face and melancholy smile, lay in her big
four-post bed, with the cradle of the new-born child near her, and listened
to every noise that reached her in her sad sickroom from the yard and the
house.

At each suspicious sound she started up, and each time, when a strange
man's voice was heard, or a vehicle came driving along with a rolling
sound, she asked, clinging with great anxiety to the bedposts:

"Has it come to the worst? Has it come to the worst?"

Nobody answered her. The doctor had given strict orders to keep every
excitement from her, but little he thought, good man, that this constant
suspense would torment her a thousand times more than the most terrible
certainty.

One morning, the fifth day after her child's birth, she heard her husband,
whom she had scarcely seen during this trying time, pacing up and down in
the next room, swearing and sighing. She could only understand one word,
only one; that he repeated over and over again: the word "Homeless."

Then she knew. It had come to the worst.

She put her feeble hand on the little head of the new-born child, who with
his little serious face was quietly dozing, hid her face in her pillow and
wept.

After a while she said to the servant who attended the little one,

"Tell your master I want to speak to him."

And he came. With loud steps he approached the bed of the sick woman, and
looked at her with a face that seemed doubly distorted and desperate in his
endeavor to look unconcerned.

"Max," she said, timidly, for she always feared him--"Max, don't hide
anything from me; I am prepared for the worst, anyhow."

"Are you?" he asked, distrustfully, for he remembered the doctor's warning.

"When have we to go?"

As he saw that she took their misfortune so calmly, he thought it no longer
necessary to be careful, and broke out, with an oath:

"To-day--to-morrow--just as it pleases the new owner. By his charity only
we are still here, and, if it pleased him, we might have to lodge in the
streets this very night."

"It won't be as bad as that, Max," she said, painfully striving to keep her
composure, "if he hears that, only a few days ago, a little one arrived--"

"Oh, I suppose I shall have to beg of him--shall I?"

"Oh no; he will do it without that. Who is it?"

"Douglas, he is called. He comes from Insterburg. He seemed to swagger very
much, this gentleman--very much. I should have liked to have driven him
from the premises."

"Is anything left us?" she asked, softly, looking hesitatingly down on
the new-born child, for his young, tender life might be depending on the
answer.

He broke out into a hard laugh. "Yes; a wretched pittance: full two
thousand thalers."

She sighed with relief, for she almost felt as if she had already heard
that terrible "Nothing" hissed from his lips.

"What good are two thousand thalers to us?" he continued, "after we have
thrown fifty thousand into the swamp? Perhaps I shall open a public-house
in the town, or trade in buttons and ribbons. Perhaps you might help me,
if you were to do the sewing in some aristocratic houses; and the children
might sell matches in the streets. Ha, ha, ha!"

He thrust his hand through his gray and bushyhair, and inadvertently
kicked the cradle with his foot, so that it swayed to and fro violently.

"Why has this brat been born?" he murmured, gloomily. He knelt down near
the cradle and buried the tiny little fists in his big red hands, and
talked to his child: "If you had known, my boy, how bad and vile this world
is, how impudence triumphs, and honesty goes to ruin in it, you would
really have stayed where you were. What fate will yours be? Your father is
a sort of vagabond, a ruined man, who has to roam about the streets with
his wife and his three children till he has found a place where he can
completely ruin himself and his family."

"Max, do not speak thus; you break my heart!" called out Frau Elsbeth,
crying, and stretching out her hand to lay it round her husband's neck; but
her hand sank down without strength ere it had reached its destination.

He sprang up. "You are right; enough of these lamentations. Yes; if I were
alone now--a bachelor, as in former days--I should go to America, or the
Russian Steppes--there one can get rich; or I should speculate on the
Exchange--to-day up, to-morrow down. Oh, there one could earn money; but so
tied as one is!" He threw a lamentable glance at his wife and child; then
he pointed with his hand towards the yard, from whence resounded the
laughing voices of the two elder children.

"Yes; I know we must be a burden to you now," said the woman, meekly.

"Don't talk to me of burdens," he answered, gruffly; "what I said was not
meant angrily. I love you, and that's enough. Now the question only is,
Where to go? If at least this baby had not come, the chance of an uncertain
existence might be borne for some time. But now, you ill, the child
requiring careful nursing, the end of it is there is nothing for it but to
buy a farm, and to give the two thousand thalers for a premium. Hurrah!
that will be a nice sort of life: I with the beggar's wallet, you with the
knapsack; I with the spade, you with the milk-pail."

"That would not be the worst, after all," said the woman, softly.

"No?" he laughed, bitterly. "Well, that I can get for you. There is
Mussainen, for instance, which is to be sold--the wretched moorland on the
heath yonder."

"Oh, why that of all places?" she asked, shuddering.

He immediately fell in love with the idea.

"Yes; that would be emptying the cup to the dregs. The lost magnificence
always in view--for, you must know, the manor-house of Helenenthal exactly
overlooks it. It is surrounded by moor and fen--wellnigh two hundred
acres. Perhaps one could cultivate some of it--one might be the pioneer of
progress. What could people say?

"'Meyerhofer is a brave fellow,' they would say; 'he is not ashamed of his
misfortune; he looks at it with a certain irony.' Pah, really one _should_
look at it with irony; that is the only sublime view of the world--one
should whistle at it!" and he uttered a shrill whistle, so that the sick
woman started up in her bed.

"Forgive me, my darling," he pleaded, caressing her hand suddenly in the
rosiest of humors; "but am I not right? One should whistle at it. As long
as one has the consciousness of being an honest man, one can bear all
adversity with a certain relish. Relish is the right word. The ground is to
be sold any day, for the owner has lately gained a rich estate by marriage,
and leaves this rubbish entirely uncultivated."

"Think well over it first, Max," the woman pleaded, in great anxiety.

"What is the good of hesitating?" he replied, violently. "We must not be a
burden to this Mr. Douglas, and we cannot lay claim to anything better
with our miserable two thousand thalers; therefore, let us seize upon it
promptly." And without taking time to say good-bye to the sick woman, he
strode away.

A few minutes later she heard his dog-cart driving away through the gate.

In the afternoon of the same day a strange visitor was announced. A
beautiful, distinguished lady was said to have driven into the yard in a
smart carriage, who wished to pay a visit to the mistress in her sick-
room.

"Who was it?" She had refused to give her name.

"How strange!" thought Frau Elsbeth; but as in her grief she was beginning
to believe in special providences, she did not say no.

The door opened. A slender, delicate figure, with gentle, refined features,
approached the bed of the sick woman with gliding steps. Without speaking a
word she seized her hand and said, in a soft, slightly veiled voice:

"I have concealed my name, dear Mrs. Meyerhofer, for I feared you would
refuse to see me if I had given it beforehand. And I should like best even
now to remain unknown. Unfortunately, I fear that you will not look at me
with kindness any longer when you know who I am."

"I hate no one in the world," replied Frau Elsbeth, "least of all a name."

"I am called Helene Douglas," said the lady, gently, and she pressed the
invalid's hand closer.

Frau Elsbeth began at once to cry, while the visitor, as if she had been an
old friend, put her arm round her neck, kissed her on the brow, and said,
with a soft, comforting voice:

"Do not be angry with me. Fate has ordained that I should drive you from
this house; but it is no fault of mine. My husband wanted to give me a
pleasant surprise, for the name of this estate is identical with my
Christian-name. My joy vanished directly when I heard under what
circumstances he had acquired it, and how you, especially, dear Mrs.
Meyerhofer, must have suffered in this doubly trying time. Then I felt
compelled to unburden my heart by asking your pardon personally for the
sorrow which I have caused you, and shall still have to cause you, for
your time of suffering is not over yet."

Frau Elsbeth had bent her head on the stranger's shoulder, as if that was
the most natural thing in the world, and went on softly crying to herself.

"And perhaps I can also be of use to you," she continued; "at least, so far
as I can take part of the bitterness from your soul. We women understand
each other better than those hard, passionate men. The common sufferings
that weigh on all of us bring us nearer to each other. And, above all, one
thing: I have spoken to my husband, and beg you, in my name and his, to
look on this house as your property for as long as ever it pleases you. We
generally pass the winter in town, and we have another estate besides which
we intend to let an inspector manage. You see, therefore, that you do not
in any way disturb us, but, on the contrary, do us a favor if you will stay
on here as before for another half year or longer."

Frau Elsbeth did not thank her, but the tearful glance she gave the
stranger was thanks enough.

"Now be cheerful again, dearest Mrs. Meyerhofer," she continued, "and if
in future you need advice or help, always remember that there is some one
who has to make amends to you for much--And what a splendid baby!"--she
turned towards the cradle--"a boy or a little girl?"

"A boy," said Frau Elsbeth, with a feeble smile.

"Has he found any brothers or sisters already? But why do I ask? The two
little stalwart fellows outside, who received my carriage--may I hope to
know them better? No, not here," she interposed, quickly; "it might excite
you still more. Later on, later on. This little citizen of the world
interests us most for the moment."

She bent over the cradle and arranged the baby-clothes.

"He has quite a knowing little face," she said, jestingly.

"Care stood at his cradle," answered Frau Elsbeth, gently and sadly;
"that's why he has that old face."

"Oh, you must not be superstitious, dear friend," answered the visitor.
"I have been told that newborn babes often have something old in their
features; they soon lose that."

"Surely you, too, have children?" asked Frau Elsbeth.

"Oh, I am still such a young wife," answered her visitor, blushing.
"Scarcely six months married. But--" and she blushed still more.

"God be with you in your time of trouble," said Frau Elsbeth; "I will pray
for you."

The stranger's eyes grew moist. "Thanks, a thousand thanks," she said.
"And let us be friends, I entreat you, with all my heart. Shall I propose
something? Take me as godmother for your youngest child, and do me the same
favor when Heaven blesses me."

The two women pressed each other's hands silently. The bond of friendship
was sealed.

When the visitor had left her, Frau Elsbeth looked round with a shy, sad
look. "Just now everything here was bright and sunny," she murmured, "and
now it has become so dark again."

After a short time, in spite of the nurse's opposition, the two eldest boys
rushed into the sickroom with joyful clamor. Each had a bag with sweets in
his hand.

"The strange lady has given us this," they shouted.

Frau Elsbeth smiled. "Hush, children," she said, "an angel has been with
us."

The two little boys opened anxious eyes, and asked,

"Mamma, an angel?"




CHAPTER II.

So Mrs. Douglas became Paul's godmother.

Meyerhofer, indeed, was not a little indignant at the new friendship, for
"I don't want the pity of happy people," he often used to say; but when the
mild, gentle woman appeared in the manor-house for the second time, and
tried to persuade him, he did not dare to say "No" any longer.

He also gave his consent to their prolonged stay in the old home, though
he did it with repugnance. The farm Mussainen, which in fact he had bought
that same day, was in so desolate a condition that it seemed dangerous for
wife and children to stay there in the cold autumn days. Above all, the
most needful repairs had to be made. Carpenter, mason, and builder had to
be fetched ere it was possible to think of moving.

Nevertheless, Frau Elsbeth, through her husband's obstinacy, was forced to
move into the new dwelling long before the arrangements were finished. One
day when an inspector from the new master appeared with a number of
workmen and asked for shelter in his name, he declared this proceeding to
be an intentional insult, and was firmly resolved not to stay a day longer
on the ground which once had been his property.

It was a cold, dull November day when Frau Elsbeth and her children had to
say farewell to the dear house. A fine, drizzling rain came from the sky,
making everything damp.

The heath, shrouded in gray mist, lay desolate and comfortless before their
eyes.

The youngest at her breast, the two other children crying near her, she
stepped into the vehicle which was to lead her towards her new fate, which,
alas! seemed so dark.

When they drove out of the gate, the cold winds from the heath whipped
their faces with icy scourges. Then the little one, who for so long had
been lying peaceful and quiet, began to cry bitterly. She wrapped him
closer in her cloak and bent down low over the shivering little form, in
order to hide the tears, which were streaming down her cheeks incessantly.

After half an hour's drive over the heavy rain-soaked clay roads, they
reached their destination. She could have shrieked aloud when she saw the
new house before her in all its desolation and ruin.

Wretched mud farm-buildings; a swampy yard; a low dwelling-house with a
shingle roof, from the walls of which the chalk had crumbled down and
showed the bare wall underneath; a wilderness of a garden, in which the
last sad remains of the summer asters and sunflowers stood among half-
decayed vegetables, round about a gaudy painted fence, which seemed to
have received extreme unction just before its end--this was the place
where the family of the ruined squire had to live henceforth.

This was the place where little Paul grew up, and to which the love of his
childhood, the care of half his life was devoted.

He was in his early years a delicate, sickly creature, and many a night his
mother trembled lest the feeble light of his life should be extinguished
before dawn. At such times she would sit in the dark, low bedroom, leaning
her elbow on the edge of his little bed, gazing with feverish eyes at his
little thin body, which was painfully convulsed by spasms.

But he passed all the crises of his early childhood, and at five years old,
though pale and weak of limb and almost careworn in face--for he had
really retained the old look--he was a healthy boy, who gave promise of
long life.

At this time his first recollections begin. The earliest, which in
after-years he often recalled, was as follows:

The room is half dark. Icicles are clinging to the windows, and through
the curtains shines the red glow of the sunset. The elder brothers have
gone skating, but he is in his little bed--for he has to go to bed early--
and near him sits his mother, one hand encircling his neck, and the other
on the edge of the cradle, in which the two little sisters sleep, which
Master Stork brought a year ago, both on the same day.

"Mamma, tell me a fairy tale," he pleads.

And his mother told him one. What? He could only remember very faintly, but
there was something in it about a gray woman who had visited his mother
in all her sad hours, a woman with a pale and haggard face, and dark,
tear-stained eyes. She had come like a shadow, like a shadow she had gone,
had extended her hands over his mother's head, she knew not whether for
a blessing or for a curse, and had spoken words which had reference to
him--little Paul. In them there was the question of sacrifice and of
redemption; the words he had forgotten again--probably he was too stupid
to understand them. But one thing still remained clearly enough: while he
listened to his mother's words, breathless with terror and expectation,
he suddenly saw the gray figure of whom she spoke, bodily standing at the
door--exactly the same, with her arms uplifted, and her pale, sad face. He
hid his head on his mother's arm; his heart beat, his breath began to fail
him, and, in deadly terror, he screamed out,

"Mamma, there she is, there she is!"

"Who? Dame Care?" asked his mother.

He did not answer, but began to cry.

"Where, then?" continued his mother.

"There, at the door," he replied, raising himself and clutching her round
the neck, for he was dreadfully frightened.

"Oh, you silly little one," said his mother; "that is papa's long
travelling-cloak." And she fetched it, and made him feel the lining and
the stuff, so that he should be thoroughly convinced; and he gave in. But
inwardly he was all the more firmly persuaded that he had seen the gray
woman face to face. And now he also knew what she was called.

"Dame Care," she was called.

But his mother had grown thoughtful, and was not to be moved to tell the
end of the fairy tale. Neither would she in later times, however urgently
he might plead.

He had only a vague remembrance of his father in those days: a man with
high Wellington boots, who scolded his mother and whipped his brothers,
while he overlooked him altogether. Only at rare times he got a look
askance, which did not seem to bode any good. Sometimes, especially when
his father had been in the town, his face was dark red in color, like an
overheated kettle, and his steps swayed from side to side when he crossed
the room. Then the same thing was always enacted over again.

First he fondled the twins, whom he seemed to be particularly fond of, and
rocked them in his arms, while his mother stood close beside him,
following each of his movements with anxious looks. Then he sat down to
eat, turned over what was in the dishes, pushed them aside, calling them
poor and unsavory food, only fit for beasts. Occasionally he would hit Max
or Gottfried with the rod, was angry with their mother, and finally went
out to pick a quarrel with the servants. His bullying voice resounded in
the yard, so that even Caro, chained up, hid his tail between his legs,
and retired to the farthest corner of the kennel. If after a while he
returned to the room, his humor had generally changed from anger to
despair. He wrung his hands, lamented the misery in which he had to live
there, talked to himself of all sorts of great things which he would have
undertaken if one thing or another had not prevented him, and if heaven
and earth had not conspired together to ruin him. Then he would often go
to the window, and shake his fist at the White House yonder, which looked
so attractive in the distance.

"Ah, the White House!"

His father abused it and knitted his brow if he only glanced in that
direction; and he himself--he loved it, as if part of his soul lingered
there. Why? He did not know. Perhaps only because his mother loved it. She,
too, stood often at the window, gazing at it; but she did not knit her
brow, not she; her face grew soft and melancholy, and from her eyes
there shone a longing so ardent that he, standing near her, often felt a
sensation of awe steal over him.

Was not his little heart filled with the same longing? Did not that home,
ever since he could think at all, appear to him as the embodiment of
everything beautiful and magnificent? Did it not always stand before him
when he shut his eyes and even creep into his dreams?

"Have you ever been in the White House?" he asked his mother one day, when
he could restrain his curiosity no longer.

"Oh yes, my son," she answered, and her voice sounded sad and unsteady.

"Often, mamma?"

"Very often, my boy. Your parents once lived there, and you were born
there."

Ever since then the "White House" was to him what "Paradise Lost" is to
mankind.

"Who lives in the White House now?" he asked another time.

"A beautiful kind woman, who loves everybody, and you especially, because
you are her godchild."

He felt as if an endless fountain of happiness streamed upon his head. He
was so excited that he trembled.

"Why do you not drive, then, to the beautiful kind woman?" he asked, after
a while.

"Papa won't let us," she answered, and her voice had a strangely sharp tone
which struck him.

He did not ask any more, for his father's wish was regarded as a law of
which nobody had a right to ask the reason, but from that day the secret
of the White House formed a new tie between mother and son. They could not
speak about it openly.

His father was furious if one only hinted at its existence, and his
brothers also did not like to talk about it with him, the younger one; very
likely they feared that he would repeat it in his foolishness. But his
mother--his mother trusted him.

When they were alone together--and they were nearly always alone during
school-time--she would open her mouth and her heart, too, and the White
House arose higher and brighter before his eyes from her description of it.
Soon he knew each room, each arbor in the garden, the pond, surrounded by
green bushes and shrubs, before it the shining glass balls, and the sundial
on the terrace: only fancy, a clock on which the sun itself had to mark the
hours.

What a marvel!

He could have walked about in Helenenthal with his eyes closed, and not
have lost his way.

And when he played with his bricks, he built a White House for himself with
terraces and sundials--two dozen at a time. He dug ponds in the sand and
fastened pebbles on little posts to represent the glass balls. But, of
course, they did not reflect anything.




CHAPTER III.

At this time he made the plan to pay a visit to the White House quite on
his own account. He put it off till spring, but when spring came he did not
find the necessary courage; he put it off till summer, but even then all
sorts of hindrance came between plan and execution. Once he had seen a
big dog roving alone in the meadow--who could know whether it might not be
a mad one? and at another time a bull had made straight for him with his
horns lowered.

"Yes; when I am big like my brothers," he consoled himself by thinking,
"and when I go to school, then I'll take a stick and kill the mad dog, and
the bull I'll seize by the horns so that he cannot harm me any more." He
put it off until next year, for then he was to begin going to school, just
like his big brothers.

These brothers were the objects of his veneration. To be like them seemed
to him the brightest aim of all earthly wishes--to ride on horses, on big
real ones, to skate, to swim quite without the help of either floats or
bladders, and to wear shirt-fronts, white starched ones, which were
fastened with ribbons round the waist--oh, if he could do all that! But
for that one must first grow big, he comforted himself by thinking. He
kept these thoughts quite to himself; he did not like to tell his mother,
and, as to his brothers, they occupied themselves with him very little.

He was a little manikin in their eyes, and when their mother told them to
take him with them anywhere they were angry, because then they had to take
care of him, and on account of his silliness could not play so many tricks.
Paul felt that very well, and in order to escape their angry faces and
still more angry blows, he generally said he wanted to stay at home,
however sore his heart might feel. Then he seated himself on the
pump-handle, and, rocking himself to and fro, dreamed of the time when he
could do as his brothers did.

In learning, too, and that was no small matter; for both of them, Max as
well as Gottfried, were always the highest in their school, and always
brought home for the holidays excellent testimonials of good conduct; how
excellent they were was quite evident, for their father always gave them a
silver groschen and their mother a honey-cake in consequence.

On such joyful days he used to hear his father say:

"Yes; if only the two eldest could go to a good school, something might be
made of them, for they have clear heads; but beggars as we are, I suppose
we shall have to bring them up like beggars."

Paul reflected a good deal about this, for he already knew that Max was
born to be a Field-marshal, and Gottfried to be Chief Master of the
Ordnance.

The fact was that once a Rapine picture-book, with pictures of the Austrian
army, had found its way into the Howdahs, and on that day the brothers
had agreed to divide the two highest dignities in the army between
themselves, while to him, the younger, the place of a non-commissioned
officer was assigned. Since then, indeed, there had been periods when one
of them had inclined to the vocation of a trapper, and the other to that of
an Indian chief, but Paul's thoughts clung to those gold-braided uniforms,
with which the wooden spears, and the patched rag sandals, which the
brothers wore in their games--the latter they called moccasins--could by no
means bear comparison; also, why they afterwards wanted to be naturalist
and superintendent was incomprehensible to him; the new Rapine pictures
always remained the best.

At this time the twins began to walk; Katie, the elder one--she was born
three-quarters of an hour before her sister--made the beginning, and Greta
followed her three days after.

That was an important event in Paul's life.

He suddenly found himself in a round of duties from which he could not
easily get free. Nobody had ordered him to watch his little sisters' first
steps, but just as it had always been natural to him to clean his boots in
the evening, and his brothers' into the bargain, to fold his little frock
in a square, and to put it at the head of his bed, with his stockings
across it, never to make a spot on the tablecloth, and to receive the
punishment from his father when the self-same accidents happened to his
brothers--so it became just as natural that he should henceforth look
after his little sisters, and, with premature care, watch over their most
rash attempts to stand and walk.

He appeared to himself so full of importance in this office that even the
longing to go to school became less, and if by a lucky chance he had only
been able to whistle, there would have been no wish left him.

Ah! to be able to whistle, like Jones, the farm-servant, or like his elder
brothers; that was now the goal of all his wishes, the object of incessant
practice. But however much he might point his lips, however much he might
moisten them to make them flexible, no sound came forth. If he drew in
the air, then accidentally he would do it. Once he had even succeeded in
producing the first notes of "IST in J.D. im Washer gefallen" (A Jew
Tumbled into the Water); but each professional whistler knows that the air
must be blown from the mouth, and this was just what he could not learn.

Here also the thought comforted him: "When I am big."

Christmas this year brought glad tidings. There arrived a big box from his
"good aunt" out of the town, a sister of his mother's, with all sorts of
beautiful and useful things: books, linen for his brothers' shirts, little
frocks for his sisters, and for himself a velvet coat--a real velvet coat,
with military braidings and big shining buttons. That was a delight. But
the most beautiful Christmas-box was contained in the letter, which his
mother read aloud with tears of emotion. The good aunt wrote that she had
seen from Elsbeth's last letters that it was her husband's dearest wish to
be able to give a better education to his two eldest boys, and that in
consequence she had decided to receive them in her own house, and to let
them go to college at her expense. His brothers shouted with joy, his
mother cried, his father walked up and down the room, passed his hand
through his hair, and muttered excited words.

He meanwhile sat quietly at his sisters' little bed, rejoicing inwardly.

Then his mother came to him, buried her face in his hair, and said,

"Will _you_ ever have such luck, my boy?"

"Oh, he," said his father--"he never understands anything!"

"He is so young still!" answered his mother, stroking his cheeks; and then
she dressed him in his beautiful velvet coat, and he was allowed to wear
it till night because it was a holiday. And his brothers came and fondled
him, partly because their hearts were so full of joy, partly on account of
the beautiful velvet coat.

They had never been so good to him before.

Ah, that was a Christmas!

And as spring drew near a great deal of sewing and embroidering for the
outfit began. Paul was allowed to help with the cutting-out: to hold the
yard-measure and to hand the scissors; and the twins lay on the ground,
rummaging among the white linen. The brothers were fitted out like two
princes. Nothing was forgotten. They even received neckties, which his
mother had manufactured from an old silk bodice.

The brothers meanwhile were immensely proud. They already played at being
gentlemen in every possible way. Max rolled cigarettes by putting the
tobacco from his father's canister into little paper bags, which he lighted
at the thick end, and Gottfried put on a pair of spectacles, which he had
purchased at school for six trouser buttons.

"Does this suit me?" he asked, strutting up and down before Paul, and as
the latter said "Yes," he was caressed; had he said "No," he would have had
a box on the ear.

Soon after Easter the two brothers went away. There was much weeping in the
house, but when the dog-cart had rolled out of the yard gate his mother
pressed her tear-stained face against Paul's cheeks and whispered,

"You have long been neglected, my poor child; now we two are together again
as before."

"Mamma, tiss me, too!" screamed little Kate, stretching out her tiny arms,
and her sister did the same.

"Yes; of course you are there as well!" their mother cried, and bright
sunshine lighted up her pale face.

And then she took one on each arm and approached the window with them, and
gazed a long time at the White House.

Paul hid his head in the folds of her dress and did the same.

His mother looked down upon him, and as she met the prematurely wise look
in the child's eyes she blushed a little and smiled, but neither spoke a
word.

When his father came back from the town he wanted Paul to begin going to
school.

His mother grew very sad, and begged that he might be left at home for one
half-year longer, so that she should not miss the two eldest ones too
much. She would teach him herself, and surely get him on more than the
school-master would do. But his father would not listen to anything of the
sort, and called her "a weeping fool."

Paul was terrified. The longing for school that he had formerly felt had
now quite disappeared; but then of course the brothers, whom he wished to
emulate, were no longer there.

The following day his father took his hand and led him into the village,
the first houses of which were a few hundred yards from Meyerhofer's
farm--at all events, a tolerable distance for such a little fellow.

But Paul kept up bravely. He had such fear of a thrashing from his father
that he would have marched to the end of the world.

The school was a low, thatched building, not very different from a
peasant's hut; but near it there stood all sorts of long poles, ladders,
and scaffoldings.

"That's where lazy children are hanged," explained his father.

Paul's anxiety rose still higher; but when the teacher, a kind old man with
a white stubby beard and greasy waistcoat, took him on his knee and showed
him a beautiful, many-colored picture-book, he felt calmer; only the many
strange faces that stared at him from the benches seemed to forebode no
good to him.

He had to take the lowest place, and during two hours made pothooks on a
slate.

During the time for recreation the big boys came up to him and asked about
his luncheon, and when they saw that it was a sausage sandwich they took
it away from him. He quietly yielded, for he thought it must needs be so.
On the way home they beat him, and one stuffed some nettles inside his
collar. He thought that, too, was only to be expected because he was the
smallest; but when he had left the village behind him and was walking
alone across the sunny heath, he began to cry. He threw himself down
underneath a juniper-tree and gazed up at the blue sky, where the swallows
flitted to and fro.

"Oh, if only one could fly like that, too," he thought. Then the White
House came into his mind; he raised himself up, and strained his eyes to
look for it; it shone from afar (like the enchanted castles of which his
mother spoke in her fairy tales); the windows sparkled like carbuncles, and
the green bushes surrounded it like a hedge of thorns of a hundred years'
growth.

A feeling of pride and self-importance mixed with his grief. "You are
big now," he said to himself, "for you go to school. And if you were to
undertake your pilgrimage now, nobody could say anything against it."

And then fear overcame him again. The wicked bull and the mad dogs--one
never knew. He resolved to consider the matter till next Sunday.

But henceforth the White House left him no peace. Each time when he went
across the heath he asked himself what could really be in that road more
than on the road to school. The high-road, indeed, ran across a dark fir-
wood, and in such woods all sorts of goblins and witches live; even wolves
are no rare occurrence, as the Story of Little Red Ridinghood clearly
shows; but if he were to go over the fields he could always keep his home
in view and be sure of the way back.

It seemed to him he was in honor bound to undertake this journey, because
he was "big" now, and when his fears arose anew he called himself a coward.
This word in school was considered a great insult.

When Sunday came he resolved to risk the expedition. He crept along the
fence, and ran as quickly as he could across his father's meadows, in the
direction of the White House.

Then came a stile which could be easily climbed over, and then a piece of
unknown heath-land, on which he had never yet been. But there was nothing
dangerous here, either. The heath glittered in the sun, the withered
hawkweed crackled at his feet, a warm wind blew softly towards him. He
tried to whistle, but still he had to draw in the air to produce any sound.
At that he was ashamed, and a feeling of despondency seized him. Then came
a swampy moor that again belonged to his father. Of this the latter often
spoke; he meditated the idea of cutting peat there, but he only wanted to
begin on a large scale, and for that he lacked the necessary capital. Paul
sank up to his ankles in the marsh, and now for the first time the thought
occurred to him that he might, perhaps, dirty his new boots. He was
terrified, for he remembered his mother saying: "Be very careful of them,
my boy; I have saved them from my milk money."

He was also wearing his beautiful velvet coat, because it was Sunday. He
looked down at the shining silk braid, and for a moment hesitated whether
he had not better return, not for the sake of the velvet coat, but only in
order not to grieve his mother.

"But perhaps I shall get through unhurt," he consoled himself by thinking,
and began to run on. The ground gave under his feet, and at every step a
squashy sound was heard, as if the handle were being drawn out of a churn.

Then came a black morass, at the edge of which stood white-haired
cotton-grass, and on which swam a layer of dissolved iron, shining like
verdigris.

He carefully avoided it, though he got into the morass after all, but
finally struggled back to dry land. The boots were ruined, but he thought
perhaps he could wash them secretly at the pump.

He marched on. He was no longer in the mood to whistle, and the clearer the
White House rose from the bushes, the more embarrassed he felt. He could
already distinguish a kind of rampart, which was surrounded by trees, and
through a breach in the foliage he saw a long, low building, which from
a distance he had never noticed; behind that another one, and in a black
hollow a high flame which quivered up and down. "That must be a forge; but
did they work even on Sundays?"

An incomprehensible desire to cry seized him, and while he blindly ran on
tears gushed from his eyes.

Suddenly he saw a wide ditch before him filled to the edge with water. He
knew very well he could not get across, but obstinacy compelled him to
prepare for a spring, and the next moment the thick and dirty water closed
over him.

He reached land wet to the skin, covered with a layer of morass and weeds.

He tried to let his clothes dry, sat down on the grass, and looked over at
the White House. He had grown quite despondent, and as he began to shiver
very much, he turned sadly and slowly homeward.




CHAPTER IV.

The summer which followed brought nothing but grief and care to
Meyerhofer's house. The former owner wished to have the mortgage paid off,
and there was no prospect of any one lending the necessary sum.

Meyerhofer drove to the town three or four times weekly, and returned home
late at night dead drunk. Sometimes he stayed away for the whole night.

Frau Elsbeth meanwhile sat upright in her bed and stared into the darkness.
Paul often woke when he heard her low sobs; then for a while he would lie
as quiet as a mouse, because he did not want her to know that he was awake,
but at last he would begin to cry, too.

Then his mother became quiet; and if he could not stop crying she got up,
kissed him, and stroked his cheek; or she said,

"Come to me, my boy."

Then he sprang up, slipped into her bed, and went to sleep on her shoulder
again.

His father often beat him--he seldom knew why; but he took the blows for
granted.

One day he heard his father scolding his mother.

"Do not cry, you blubbering fool," he said; "you are only here to make my
misery worse."

"But, Max," she answered, softly, "will you prevent your family from
bearing your misfortune with you? Must we not keep closer together when we
are so unhappy?"

Then he was moved, said she was his brave wife, and called himself bad
names.

Frau Elsbeth tried to pacify him, bade him confide in her, and be brave.

"Yes, be brave--be brave!" he cried, getting angry again. "It is all very
fine for you women to speak so; you sit at home, and spread your apron out,
waiting humbly for fortune or misfortune to fall into your laps, just as
kind Fate may send it. But we men must go forth into hostile life; we must
struggle and strive and fight with all sorts of rogues. Away with your
warnings! Be brave; yes, indeed, be brave!"

Then he walked out of the room with heavy steps, and ordered the trap to be
got ready, in order to set off on his usual pilgrimage.

When he came back, and had slept off his intoxication, he said:

"There, now my last hope is gone. The d--d Jew, who wanted to advance the
money at twenty-five per cent., declares he will have nothing more to do
with me. Well, let him do the other thing. I don't care a straw for him.
And at Michaelmas we may really go a-begging, for this time nothing
remains to us but what we stand up in. But this I tell you: this time
I shall not survive the blow. An honorable man must set some value on
himself, and if one fine morning you see me swinging from the rafters,
don't be astonished."

The mother uttered a piercing cry, and clung with both arms round his neck.

"Well, well, well!" he calmed her; "it was not meant so seriously. You
women-folk are all the same deplorable creatures, a mere word upsets you."

The mother started and stepped back from him, but when he had gone out she
seated herself at the window, and looked after him anxiously, as if she
feared he might already be thinking of doing himself a mischief. From time
to time a shudder ran through her frame, as if she were cold.

In the following night, Paul, waking, observed that she got up, put on a
petticoat, and went to the window from which the White House could be seen.
It was bright moonlight--perhaps she really gazed at it. For wellnigh two
hours she sat there, looking out fixedly. Paul did not stir, and when, with
the approach of dawn, she came back from the window and stepped to her
children's bedsides, he closed his eyes firmly and feigned to sleep. She
first kissed the twins, who were sleeping with their arms entwined; then
she came to him, and as she bent down over him he heard her whisper, "God
give me strength. It must be." Then he guessed that something extraordinary
was in preparation.

When, the following afternoon, he came home from school, he saw his mother
sitting in the arbor in her hat and cloak and Sunday clothes; her cheeks
were paler than usual; her hands, which lay in her lap, trembled.

She seemed to have been waiting for him, for when she saw him she breathed
more freely.

"Are you going out, mamma?" he asked, wonderingly.

"Yes, my boy," she answered, "and you shall go with me."

"To the village, mamma?"

"No, my boy"--her voice quivered--"not to the village. You must put on your
Sunday clothes; the velvet coat, of course, is spoiled, but I have taken
the stains out of your gray jacket--it will still do; and you must polish
your boots quickly."

"Where are we going, then, mamma?"

Then she laid her arms round him, and said, softly,

"To the White House."

He felt a sudden fever of excitement. The exultant joy which welled up from
his heart nearly choked him; he jumped on his mother's lap and kissed her
impetuously.

"But you must tell nobody," she whispered--"nobody; do you understand?"

He nodded, full of importance. He was such a clever fellow. He knew what it
was all about.

"And now dress yourself quickly."

Paul flew up-stairs to the room where his clothes were kept, and
suddenly--he never clearly knew on which step it was--a long-drawn shrill
sound escaped his mouth; there was no doubt any more--he could whistle! he
tried for the second, the third time--it went splendidly.

When he came back to his mother in all his finery he shouted, jubilantly,
"Mamma, I can whistle!" and was astonished that she showed so little
interest in his art. She only pulled his collar straight and said, "You
happy children!"

Then she took his hand, and their pilgrimage began. When they reached the
dark fir-wood in which the wolves and goblins lived he had just finished
his studies for "Kommt in Vogel geflogen" (A Bird Comes A-flying), and
when they came out again into the open field he could be sure that "Heil
Dir im Siegerkranz" (God Save the Queen) went without a flaw.

His mother looked down at him with a sad smile; each shrill note made her
start, but she said nothing. The White House now stood close before them.
He no longer thought of his new art. All his faculties were absorbed in
what he saw.

First there came a high red-brick wall with a gate in it, on the posts of
which stood two stone heads; then farther on a large grass-grown court;
whole rows of wagons stood in it, and it was flanked by low gray farm
buildings, forming a big square. In the middle lay a sort of pool,
surrounded by a low hedge of may, in which a troop of quacking ducks were
making merry.

"And where is the White House, mamma?" asked Paul, whom this did not please
at all.

"Behind the garden," replied his mother. Her voice had a strange, husky
sound, and her hand clasped his so firmly that he almost screamed with
pain.

Now they turned the corner of the garden fence, and before Paul's eyes lay
a simple two-storied house, closely shaded by lime-trees, and having little
or nothing remarkable about it. It did not look nearly as white, either, as
from the distance.

"Is this it?" asked Paul, drawling out the words.

"Yes; this is it," answered his mother.

"And where are the glass balls and the sundial?" he asked.

A desire to cry came over him suddenly. He had imagined everything a
thousand times more beautiful; if they had cheated him regarding the glass
balls and the sundial as well, he would not have been surprised.

At this moment two Newfoundland dogs, as black as coal, came rushing up to
them with suppressed barks. He took refuge behind his mother's dress and
began to scream.

"Caro! Nero!" called a sweet childish voice from the house door, and the
two monsters, howling joyfully, rushed off in the direction whence the
voice came.

A little girl, smaller still than Paul, in a pink-flowered frock, round
which a kind of Scotch sash was tied, appeared before the house. She had
long, golden curls, which were drawn back from her forehead by a round
comb, and a small, delicate little nose, which she carried rather high.

"Do you wish to speak to mamma?" she asked in her gentle, soft voice, and
smiled at the same time.

"Are you called Elsbeth, my child?" inquired his mother, in return.

"Yes; I am called Elsbeth."

His mother made a movement as if she wanted to clasp the strange child in
her arms, but she mastered herself, and said,

"Will you lead us to your mother?"

"Mamma is in the garden; she is just drinking coffee," said the little
girl, with much importance. "I would rather lead you round the front of the
house, because if we open the door on the sunny side so many flies come in
directly."

His mother smiled. Paul wondered that this had never struck him at home.

"She is much cleverer than you are," he thought.

Now they entered the garden. It was much larger and more beautiful than the
one at Mussainen, but there was nothing to be seen of a sundial. Paul
had formed a vague idea of it as a great golden tower, on which a round,
sparkling disk of the sun formed the dial-plate.

"Where is the sundial, mamma?" he asked.

"I will show it to you afterwards," said the little girl, eagerly.

From the arbor came a tall, slender lady, with a pale, delicate face, on
which shone an inexpressibly sweet smile.

His mother gave a cry, and threw herself on her breast, sobbing loudly.

"Thank God that I have you with me once again!" said the stranger, and
kissed his mother on her brow and cheeks.

"Believe me, all will now be well; you will tell me what weighs upon your
mind, and it will be strange if I cannot help you."

His mother dried her eyes and smiled.

"Oh, this is pure joy," she said; "I feel already so relieved and happy
because I am near you. I have longed for you so much."

"And could you really not come?"

His mother shook her head sadly.

"Poor woman!" said the lady, and both looked for a long time into each
other's eyes.

"And this, I suppose, is my godchild?" the lady exclaimed, pointing towards
Paul, who clung to his mother's dress and sucked his thumb.

"Oh, fie! take your finger from your mouth," said his mother. And the
beautiful, kind lady took him on her lap, gave him a teaspoonful of
honey--"as a sort of foretaste," she said--and asked him after his little
sisters, about school, and all sorts of other things which it was not at
all difficult to answer, so that at last he almost felt comfortable on her
lap.

"And what things do you know already, you little man?" she asked him at
last.

"I can whistle," he answered, proudly.

The kind woman laughed heartily, and said, "Well, then, whistle us
something."

He pointed his lips and tried to whistle, but the sound would not come; he
had forgotten it again.

Then they laughed--the kind lady, the little girl, and even his mother; but
tears rose to his eyes with shame; he struggled and kicked, so that
the lady had to let him glide down from her lap, and his mother said,
reproachfully,

"You are naughty, Paul."

But he went behind the arbor and cried, until the little girl came to him
and said:

"Oh dear, you must not cry. God does not like naughty children." Then he
was ashamed again, and rubbed his eyes with his hands till they were dry.

"And now I will show you the sundial," continued the child.

"Oh yes, and the glass balls," he said.

"They were broken a long time ago," she replied; "a stone I threw flew by
accident into one of them, and the other was blown down by a storm." And
then she showed him the spots where they had stood.

"And this is the sundial," she went on.

"Where?" he asked, looking round, wonderingly.

They were standing before a gray, unpretending post, on which was fastened
a sort of wooden plate. The child laughed, and said that this was the
sundial.

"Oh, fie!" he retorted, angrily; "you are mocking me."

"Why should I want to mock you?" she asked; "you have never done me any
harm." And then she repeated her assertion that this was the sundial, and
nothing else, and she also pointed out to him the hand, a miserable rusty
piece of metal, which stuck out from the middle of the dial and threw its
shadow just on number six, which was written there among other figures.

"Oh, this is too stupid," he said, and turned away. The sundial in the
garden of the White House was the first great disappointment of his life.

When he returned to the arbor with his new friend, he found a tall,
broad-shouldered gentleman with bushy whiskers there, who wore a gray
shooting-coat, and whose eyes seemed to twinkle merrily.

"Who is that?" asked Paul, timidly, hiding behind his friend.

She laughed and said, "That is my papa; you need not be afraid of him."

And, shouting with joy, she jumped on the strange man's knee.

Then he thought to himself, would he ever dare to jump on _his_ papa's
knee, and from this he concluded that all fathers were not alike.

But the man in the shooting-coat caressed his child, kissed her on both
cheeks, and let her ride on his knees.

"See! Elsbeth has got a playfellow," said the kind, strange lady, pointing
towards Paul, who, hidden by the foliage, glanced shyly towards the arbor.

"Just come here, my boy," the man called out merrily and snapped his
fingers.

"Come--here, on the other knee; there is room enough for you," called out
the child; and when, with a questioning glance at his mother, he crept
timidly nearer, the strange man seized him, put him on his other knee, and
then they had a merry race.

He had lost all fear, and when freshly-baked cakes were put on the table,
he fell to bravely. His mother stroked his hair and warned him not to eat
too much. She spoke very softly, and kept looking down upon the ground
before her. And then the children were allowed to go to the bushes and pick
gooseberries for themselves.

"Are you really called Elsbeth?" he asked his friend, and as she said
"Yes," he expressed his astonishment that she had the same name as his
mother.

"But I have been christened after her," said the child; "she is my
godmother."

"Why didn't she kiss you, then?" he asked.

"I don't know," said Elsbeth, sadly, "perhaps she does not like me."

But that she had not had the courage to do it never occurred to either of
them.

It already began to grow dark when the children were called back.

"We must go home," said his mother.

He was very sorry, because he had just now begun to like it. His mother
pulled his collar straight, and said: "There, now kiss the lady's hand and
thank her."

He did as he was ordered, the kind lady kissed his forehead, and the man in
the shooting-coat lifted him high up into the air, so that he thought he
could fly.

And now his mother took Elsbeth in her arms, and kissed her several times
on her mouth and cheeks, and said: "May Heaven some day reward you, my
child, for what your parents have done for your godmother."

A heavy burden seemed to be taken from her soul; she breathed more freely
and her eyes shone.

Elsbeth and her parents went with the two as far as the gate, when his
mother took leave of them there over again, and stammered all sorts of
things about compensation and divine blessings. The man interrupted her
laughingly, and said the whole affair was not worth mentioning and did not
require any thanks at all. And the kind woman kissed her warmly, and asked
her to come again very soon, or at least to send the children.

The mother smiled sadly and was silent. Elsbeth was allowed to go a few
steps farther; then she took leave with a little courtesy. Paul's heart
was heavy; he felt there was still something he had to tell her, so he ran
after her, and, when he had caught up to her, whispered into her ear,

"You know--I _can_ whistle all the same!"

When, mother and son entered the wood, night was closing in. It was
pitch-dark all round, but he was not afraid in the least. If a wolf had
come in their way now he would soon have shown him who had the best of it.

His mother did not speak; the hand which clasped his so firmly burned
feverishly, and her breath came from her breast like a sigh.

And when they both stepped out onto the heath the moon rose pale and
majestic on the horizon. A blue veil spread over the distance. Thyme and
juniper sent forth their perfume, here and there a little bird twittered on
the ground.

The mother sat down at the edge of the ditch, and looked across at their
sad home to which all her care was devoted. The outlines of the buildings
stood out clearly against the evening sky. One lonely light twinkled from
the kitchen.

Suddenly she spread out her arms, and called out over the silent heath,
"Oh, I am happy!"

Paul clung to her side almost anxiously, for never yet had he heard a
similar cry from her. He was so much accustomed to her tears and her
sorrow that this exultant joy seemed to him quite uncanny.

And then it occurred to him: "What will father say when he hears of this
walk? Will he not scold mother and be even more angry with her than usual?"
A sullen defiance took possession of him; he set his teeth, then he stroked
his mother's hand consolingly, kissed her, and whispered,

"He shall not harm you!"

"Who?" she asked, with a shudder.

"Father," he said, softly and hesitatingly.

She sighed deeply but answered nothing, and silently and sadly they went
on.

The gray woman had flitted across their path and spoiled the moment of joy,
and it was the only one that Fate had still in store for Frau Elsbeth.

Next day there was a bad hour between herself and her husband. He called
her undutiful and dishonorable. By her begging she had added disgrace to
poverty.

However, he took the money.




CHAPTER V.

Years passed away.

Paul grew up a quiet, unpretending boy, with a shy look and awkward
behavior.

Generally he kept apart, and, while he took care of the twins, would sit
for hours working at some wood-carving without saying a single word. He was
what one calls in his part of the country "fussy:" a nature inclined to
worry about details and brooding anxiously by himself.

He had no intercourse with any boys of his age, not even in school. Not
that he avoided them on purpose; on the contrary, he liked to help them,
and more than one used to copy, in the morning before prayers, his
arithmetic problems or his German composition; but their interests were not
his, and therefore he could not befriend them.

He also got an abundance of thrashings; especially from the brothers
Erdmann--two saucy, wild-eyed fellows, loved and feared as the strongest
and most daring--he had much to suffer. They were inexhaustible in the
invention of new tricks which imbittered his life: they threw his copy-
books on the top of the stove, filled his satchel with sand, and let his
cap, in which they put a stick for a mast, float down the river like a
boat. Most of these injuries he bore patiently; only once or twice a blind
fury came over him. Then he bit and scratched like a madman, so that even
those companions who were much stronger than he wisely took to flight. The
first time one of the boys had called his father a drunkard, and another
time they wanted to lock him up in a dark cow-shed with a little girl.

Afterwards he was ashamed, and came of his own accord to beg pardon. Then
they only laughed at him the more, and the hardly-won respect was lost
again.

Learning went on with great difficulty. The task for which his comrades
hardly needed fifteen minutes he required an hour or two to finish. On the
other hand, his handwriting was like copper-plate and there never was a
mistake in his sums.

All the same, no work seemed done well enough to satisfy himself, and often
his mother surprised him as he got up at night on the sly, because he was
afraid that what he had learned by heart had escaped his memory.

That he should go to a better school, like his brothers, was not to be
thought of. His mother had for some time cherished the plan of letting him
follow the two elder ones as soon as they had passed their examination, for
it pained her mother's heart that he should be behind the others; but in
the end she gave in, and that was certainly for the best.

Paul himself had never expected anything else. He considered himself as a
creature totally subordinate compared to his brothers, and had long since
given up trying ever to be like them. When they came home for their
holidays--velvet caps on their wavy hair, many-colored ribbons on their
breasts, for they belonged to some forbidden school corporation--he looked
up to them as to beings from a higher world. Eagerly he listened when they
began to talk to each other about Sallust and Cicero, and the tragedies
of Aeschylus--and they liked to speak about them a great deal, if only to
impress him. But the object of his highest admiration was the thick book,
on the first page of which was written "Table of Logarithms," and which
from the first page to the last contained nothing but figures--figures in
long, close rows, the mere sight of which made him giddy. "How learned he
must be, to have all that in his head," he said to himself, caressing the
cover of the book, for he imagined that they had to do no less than learn
all those figures by heart.

The brothers were unusually affable and condescending to him; when they
wished to have anything in the house, when they desired a saddled horse or
an extra stiff glass of grog, they always addressed him confidentially, and
he felt highly honored to be allowed to help them.

As regards farming matters, he was as well acquainted with them as if he
were the master of the house himself; to them were devoted all his efforts
and his care.

What was it that had made him so prematurely serious?

Was it the helplessness of his lonely mother, who had initiated him so
early into all her cares? Was it the brooding, striving spirit, ever
looking to the future, which was peculiar to him?

Very often when he sat musing, his elbows leaning on the table--in his
manners, too, he was quite like a grown-up person--his mother stroked his
hair, and said,

"Let us see a bright face, my boy; be glad that you have no cares yet."
Oh, he had cares enough! Care cleaved to him like his own flesh and blood:
whether the hen which had strayed to-day would be found again to-morrow;
whether the ointment which his father had brought from the town yesterday
would agree with a dun-colored horse; whether the hay had been dry enough
before it was turned; and how the starlings in the gutter on the roof would
bring up their little ones without the cat getting at them.

And he had to care about everything. Care had been born with him; only for
himself he never took any care.

The older and more reasonable he grew, the deeper, too, grew his
understanding of the mismanagement which his father had allowed to
prevail, and often a deep sigh came from his breast: "Oh, if I were only
big already!" The fear of his father's wrath did not let him express his
anxieties, and if ever he dared to speak his mind to his mother, she looked
with fearful eyes all around the room, and said, anxiously, "Be quiet."

And yet his father saw very well whither his son's thoughts tended. He had
given him the nickname of "Cotquean," and jeered at him whenever he saw
him. That naturally was in his good moments; in his bad ones he thrashed
him with the yard measure, with the handle of the whip, with the straps
of the harness--with whatever was nearest his hand. Paul feared his hand
itself most of all, the blows of which hurt more than all the sticks in the
world. His father had a strange manner of boxing his ears. He flung his
hand into his face with the knuckles outward, so that the nails and
joints left bruises on his cheeks. This kind of blow he called his
"cheek-comforter," and when he intended beating Paul he called out to him
in the most affable tone, "Come here, my son, I want to comfort you."

When he had received his beating he used to run out trembling onto the
heath in shame and pain, and while he made faces and drummed with his
fists, to choke down his tears, he whistled.

In whistling he manifested not only all his longings, his childish dreams,
but also his anger and indignation. The feelings for which his uncouth mind
did not find any expression, for which he lacked words or even thoughts, he
dared in this loneliness to pour forth unchecked by means of whistling. So
his depressed, timid soul found an outlet. Whole symphonies he executed,
shrill and harsh at the beginning, growing softer and softer, and at last
melting away in sadness and resignation.

Nobody guessed the art he practised by himself, and how much consolation
and exultation he owed to that same art--not even his mother.

Since he had seen her break into tears, one winter's night, as he, without
heeding her, had softly whistled to himself--since that time he left off as
soon as she came near him; he thought it hurt her. What power was given him
in those sounds he little knew.

Only at times he was proud--looking towards the White House--that he had
after all learned to whistle; and when some melody seemed to him especially
good, he thought within himself, "Who knows if you would laugh at me if you
were to hear this?"

But never had he met any of them again.




CHAPTER VI.

For some time past Mr. Meyerhofer had gone about with great plans in his
head. He had discovered that the turf moor which surrounded the farm in a
wide circle was in a condition to afford a sure profit. Already, twice or
thrice, when need had been sorest, he had, to make shift, ordered peat to
be cut, and sent five cart-loads to the town.

Secretly, quite secretly--for he was too proud to be considered as nothing
better than a common peat-cutting farmer. His people had each time brought
home twenty to twenty-five marks clear gain, and said that there was far
more to be gained still in this way, because black, firm peat was an
article much in demand in the market.

But Meyerhofer was not to be induced to utilize the moor in this manner.
"I have never bothered about such trifles," he said; "I'd rather be ruined
wholesale than earn in detail," and then he drew himself up like a hero.

But the moor did not let him rest. It was in September, after an unusually
favorable harvest, when Lob Levy, the complaisant friend of all farmers
in debt, appeared on the farm twice or thrice weekly, and had much to
negotiate with the master. Frau Elsbeth trembled with fear as soon as the
Jew, in his dirty caftan, appeared at the gate. She seated herself at the
window and followed untiringly every movement of the negotiators. If her
husband assumed a thoughtful air she felt a cold shiver, and only when he
smiled again she dared to breathe freely, too.

She anticipated no good, but did not venture to ask what kind of business
her husband had to transact with this usurer.

She was soon to be enlightened. One afternoon Paul saw how a strange
vehicle came rumbling along on the road from the town, which looked in the
distance like an immense black copper on wheels. Something that appeared
to be a chimney stuck out beyond it, and when the wheels staggered on the
uneven ground bent to the right and the left like a man politely bowing. He
gazed at the wonder for a while, then ran to his mother, whom he eagerly
pulled to the door by her dress.

She shaded her eyes with her hand and looked down the road. "That is a
locomobile," she said at last.

Paul knew as much as before. "What is a locomobile?" he asked.

"A steam-engine which can be moved anywhere, and which great land-owners
use to turn their thrashing-machines; one can also harrow and plough with
it, for such a thing has more strength than ten horses."

"But why is it drawn by horses, then?" he asked.

"Because by itself it cannot move anywhere," was the answer.

He did not understand that. "Anyhow," he thought, "it must be a great
happiness to possess such a thing with that strange name, and if we ever
become rich--"

At this moment his father came rushing out of the house in great
excitement; he had a slipper on one foot, a boot on the other, and his
necktie had turned to the back of his neck.

"They are coming! they are coming!" he cried, clapping his hands; then he
caught his wife round the waist and danced with her into the middle of the
road.

She looked at him with great anxious eyes, as if she wanted to say, "What
fresh nonsense have you contrived now?" But he would not let her go, and
when the twins in their pink cotton frocks and dark little pigtails came
running out of the garden, he made for them, took them in his arms, let
them dance on his shoulders, and pretended to throw them over the ditch, so
that the mother could only stop this nonsense by most ardent pleading.

"There, you little rogues," he cried, "rejoice and dance. All poverty is
ended now; next spring we shall measure our money by the bushel." The
mother looked at him askance, but said nothing.

The monster came nearer and nearer. Paul stood there motionless--all eyes.
Then he looked up at his mother, whose face was care-worn, and a certain
fear came over him as if now the devil had come into the house; but then he
remembered how his wish of a moment ago was fulfilled, and he resolved to
meet the black guest with full confidence.

Meanwhile all the farm-servants and maids came hurrying from the stables
and kitchen. All the inmates of the Howdahs stood in a row by the fence
and gazed at the approaching wonder.

"But tell me, what do you want to do with it?" Frau Elsbeth at last asked
her husband.

He threw a pitying glance at her; then he laughed shortly, and said, "Drive
about in it."

Frau Elsbeth asked no more. Her husband, turning to the upper farm-servant,
expounded his plans: how he would begin peat-cutting on a large scale;
cutting and pressing machines were also on the way, and to-morrow, early,
work could begin. Then he gave him orders to go to the village to engage
the necessary workmen. Ten men would suffice for the beginning, but he
hoped soon to need as many as twenty or thirty.

Frau Elsbeth mutely shook her head, and went into the house just as the
locomobile arrived before the gate. Paul never tired of looking and
admiring. Behind the yellow screws and crooked handles there seemed to lie
a world of mystery; the place for the fire, with the grate and ash-box
beneath, seemed to him like the entrance to that fiery furnace, in which
the well-known three holy men had once intoned their song of praise; and
the chimney above all, standing threateningly upright, with its wreath
of pine soot at its mouth, which seemed to lead down into blackness and
fathomless depths!

Paul did not heed the little basket-carriage that drove behind the monster,
in which sat Lob Levy, with his shaggy, reddish beard, and his merry,
twinkling eyes; he did not heed the screaming of the carmen, and the
exultation of his two little sisters, who danced like mad round the wheels.
He stood there dazed with wonder, as if he could not understand yet what
was happening around him.

When, later on, he entered the big room, he found his mother crouching in
the corner of the sofa, crying.

He put his arm round her neck; but she kept him gently off, and said, "Go
and look after the little ones, so that they do not get under the wheels."

"But why do you cry, mamma?"

"You will see in time, my boy," she said, stroking his hair. "Lob Levy is
in it--you will see in time."

Then he felt angry with his mother! When all were joyful why should she
sit moping in a corner and cry? But the joy was now over for him; and when
he saw Lob Levy loiter about the yard, in his long black "heel-warmer," he
would have liked most to favor Caro with a hint towards his calves.

The twins were quite beside themselves with joy. They took a cord, and
crying "gee" and "whoa," raced wildly through the garden. One of them was
the locomobile, the other the horse, but each wanted to be the locomobile,
because then she got father's black hat put on for the chimney.

Before going to sleep they had already given a name to the new monster.

They maintained that it resembled the fat servant-girl with a long neck,
who a short time ago had been dismissed on account of her slatternliness,
and they called it, after her, "Black Susy."

The locomobile kept this name forever after in Meyerhofer's house.

Next morning the noise began afresh. The ten hired workmen stood in the
yard and did not know what to do. Meyerhofer wanted to have the engine
heated, but Lob Levy, who had passed the night in a shed in order to be at
hand the first thing in the morning, wanted first to receive his price, as
it had been settled in the agreement, because the grain had to be delivered
in town by noon.

"What grain?" the mother asked, turning pale.

Well, it could not be denied any longer: Meyerhofer had sold almost
the whole harvest--the thrashed corn as well as the amount still to be
thrashed--to the Jew for the old worn-out engine. Triumphantly the latter
drove away with the beautiful full sacks. And this was only a sort of
premium; towards Christmas he would come and fetch the rest.

A feeling of discouragement overcame for a moment even the light-minded
Meyerhofer himself when he saw the high-piled carts disappear behind
the woods; but in the next he put his hands defiantly into his
trousers-pockets, and ordered that the machine should be got ready without
delay.

At the same time as the monster a man in a blue blouse and with a
brandy-nose had come to the farm; he called himself "stoker," and
distinguished himself by constantly eating onions; he said that this was
good for the digestion. This man fancied himself the hero of the day.
Puffed up with pride, he stood near the engine, called it his foster-child,
and stroked the rusty iron walls with his black, knotty hand, that sounded
as if two graters were rubbed together. With a great show of foreign words
he explained to every one who came near him the inner arrangement of the
"lookmanbile," as he called his foster-child, only he had to have some
drink; otherwise he was abusive. But if he got the amount of brandy which
he wanted, he was deeply moved, and swore he would rather have his hands
and feet cut off than ever separate himself from his foster-child. He had
got to love it like his own flesh and blood, and thought a thousand times
more of it than of any human being in the world. Meyerhofer walked proudly
round him, for this pearl was now his property, too, and he declared over
and over again that here one could see what German faithfulness meant.

But when the engine was to be heated, the very faithful man could nowhere
be found. At last he was discovered on a hay-stack asleep. When he was
awakened, he called this proceeding ill-treatment of human beings, and
could only with great trouble be induced to come out of his corner.

The heating of the engine was a new festival. Paul stood before the fire,
and stared with dreamy eyes into the glowing depths which opened yawning,
as if it wished to swallow something alive. He thought of the old
heathenish idol Moloch, about whom he had heard in his biblical history,
and every moment he expected to see a pair of red, glowing arms stretch
themselves forth. And then in the body of the monster there arose a
mysterious singing, at times hollow, like the distant roar of a forest,
then again delicate and high, like soft angels' voices. Then it began to
hiss in the valves--steam clouds rose, the iron shovel clattered, and
fresh heaps of coal sank rattling into the furnace. There was such a noise
all round that one could hardly hear one's own voice. The stoker with the
red nose stood there like a king; he drank from a flat-bodied flask, and
from time to time he handled the valves, sending forth a loud, imperious
bellowing like a tamer of wild beasts. And then the big wheel began to
turn--surr, surr, surr--always quicker and quicker. One became quite giddy
by merely looking on, and then there was a crack--a clatter--a hissing--
the great wheel stood still forever.

At first the stoker gave himself great airs, and declared in half an hour
the whole damage would be repaired, but when Meyerhofer, after two days'
work, urged him to have done with his repairs, he became abusive, and
declared that this old heap of rubbish could not be repaired any more, and
that it was just good enough to be sold to the dealer for old iron.

"Foster-child?" he thanked you for such a foster-child; he was still a
little too good to look after such a heap of rubbish. And then it came out:
Lob Levy had picked him up three days ago in some low den, and had asked
him whether he would like to live like a king for a week--longer the joke
would not last, anyhow. And only on this assurance he had gone with him,
for to stay in one place longer than eight days was against his principles.

Hereupon he was driven from the farm.

Next day Meyerhofer sent for the village blacksmith, that he might look at
the damage. He again fumbled about the engine for a few days, ate and drank
for two, and declared in the end that if it was not all right now the devil
was in it.

The heating was repeated; but "Black Susy" was not to be brought to life
again.

When, towards Christmas, Lob Levy came to the farm to fetch the rest of
the grain, Myerhofer thrashed him with the handle of his own whip. The Jew
screamed "Murder!" and drove away hastily. But soon a lawyer's messenger
with a big red-sealed letter appeared. Myerhofer swore and drank more than
ever, and the end of it all was that he was sentenced to pay all costs of
the case and compensation money as well. Only with great difficulty he
escaped the punishment of imprisonment.

Since that day he would not see "Black Susy" any longer. She was put into
the farthest shed, and stood there in concealment many a year without
anybody ever looking at her.

Only Paul from time to time secretly took the key of the shed and crept
in to the black monster that he loved more and more, and which at last
appeared to him like a dumb, ill-treated friend.




CHAPTER VII.

When Paul was fourteen years old his father decided to send him to
confirmation-classes.

"He will never learn anything decent in school, anyhow," he said; "time and
money are thrown away upon him. Therefore, he shall be confirmed at once,
so that he can make himself useful on the farm. He will never be anything
better than a peasant, anyhow."

Paul was satisfied, for he was longing to take a part of the care which
pressed on his mother upon his own shoulders. He thought of making himself
a sort of inspector, who could at any time replace the absent master, and
work himself where the farm-servants needed a good example. He hoped this
activity might be the beginning of a new, prosperous time, and when he lay
in his bed at night he dreamed of waving cornfields and brand-new massive
barns. The resolution to use all his strength to bring the neglected
Haidehof into good repute became stronger and stronger.

The brothers one day should be able to say of him: "He has been of some
good, after all, even if he could not follow us in our brilliant careers."

Yes; the brothers! How tall and distinguished they had grown meanwhile. One
of them studied philology, and the other had entered a big bank as clerk.
In spite of their good aunt, both wanted money, much money--far, far more
than their father could send them. Paul hoped that for them also, as a
result of his beginning farming, a better time would come. All surplus
money should be sent to them, and he! oh, he would save and scrape, so that
they might strive for their lofty aims, free from need and care.

With these pious thoughts Paul made his way to the first confirmation
class. It was a sunny spring morning at the beginning of the month of
April.

The fresh grass on the heath shone in greenish lights, juniper and heather
budded with new tender shoots, anemones and ranunculus were blooming at the
edge of the wood.

A warm wind waved over the heath towards him; he could have shouted aloud,
and his heart was quite filled with rapture.

"There must be something sad in store," he said to himself, "for on earth
one may not feel so happy."

Before the rectory garden there stood a long row of conveyances, only a few
of which he knew. There was also aristocratic carriages among them. The
coachmen with their shining buttons sat on their boxes with proud smiles
and threw contemptuous glances all around.

In the garden were assembled a big troop of children. The boys and girls
stood apart. Among the boys were the two brothers from whom he had had to
suffer so much formerly, and who had ceased going to school for the last
year. They gave him a friendly greeting, and while one of them shook hands
with him the other tripped him up.

Some of the girls walked arm in arm on the paths. Some also had put their
arms round each other's waists and giggled. Most of them were strangers to
him. Some seemed especially aristocratic; they wore fine gray ulsters, and
had hats with feathers on their heads. The carriages outside must belong to
them.

He looked down at his jacket, to assure himself that he had nothing to be
ashamed of. It was made of fine black cloth, from an old evening suit of
his student brother's, and looked as good as new, only that the seams were
a little shiny. Taken altogether, he did not need to be ashamed of himself.

A bell sounded. The candidates were called into the church. Paul felt
light-hearted and pious in the solemn twilight of the house of God. He
did not think of his jacket any longer; the forms of the boys around grew
shadowy.

At both sides of the altar benches were placed. On the right the boys were
to have their seats, and on the left the girls.

Paul was pushed into the back row, where the little ones and the poor sat.
Between two barefooted cottage children, who wore coarse, ragged jackets,
he took his seat. Past the shoulders of the boys before him he saw how the
girls on the other side ranged themselves: the most distinguished in
front, and then the more poorly clad.

He was thinking whether in heaven the order of rank would be a similar one,
and the verse occurred to him:

"Blessed are the meek and lowly, for they shall be exalted."

The vicar came.

He was a comfortable-looking man, with a double chin and light, spare
whiskers. His upper lip shone from frequent shaving. He did not wear his
robe, but a simple black coat; nevertheless, he looked very dignified and
solemn.

He first spoke a long prayer on the text, "Suffer little children to come
unto Me," and added an exhortation to consider the coming year as a time
of consecration, not to romp wildly or to dance, for that would not be in
keeping with a student of religion.

"I have never romped or danced," thought Paul, and for a moment he was
filled with pride over his pious conduct. "But it was a pity all the
same--" he thought afterwards.

Then the vicar praised as the highest of all Christian virtues: humility.
None of these children should feel above the others because their parents
happened to be richer and more distinguished than those of their humbler
brethren and sisters, because before God's throne they were all equal.

"That's for you," thought Paul, and lovingly seized the arm of his ragged
neighbor. The latter thought he wanted to pinch him, and said, "Ow, don't!"

Then the vicar took from his pocket a piece of paper, and said, "Now I will
read you the order of rank in which you will have to sit henceforth."

"Why this order of rank," thought Paul, "if before God's throne we are all
equal?"

The very first name startled Paul, for it was "Elsbeth Douglas." He saw a
tall, pale girl, with a gentle face and fair hair smoothly combed back,
rise and walk towards the first place.

"So that's you," thought Paul, "and we shall be confirmed together." His
heart beat with joy, but also with fear, because he was anxious at the same
time lest she should think him too much beneath her. "Perhaps she does not
remember me any more," he thought.

He watched her as she took her seat with downcast eyes and a kind smile.

"No; she is not proud," he said softly to himself; but to make sure he
looked at his jacket.

Then the boys were called up. The brothers Erdmann came first. Without
asking, they had already placed themselves comfortably on the first seats,
and then his own name was called out. At this moment Elsbeth Douglas did
exactly as he had done before. She raised her head quickly and scrutinized
the ranks of the boys.

When he had seated himself in his place he also looked down on the ground,
for he wanted to imitate her humility; and when he looked up again he saw
her eyes on him, full of curiosity. He blushed and picked a little feather
from the sleeve of his jacket.

And then the lesson began. The vicar explained passages from the Bible and
heard verses of hymns. It was Elsbeth's turn first. She raised her head a
little, and repeated her verses quietly and modestly.

"Oh golly! the hussy has courage," mumbled the younger Erdmann, who was at
his left side.

Paul felt sudden anger rise within him. He could have cudgelled him in open
church. "If he calls her 'hussy' again I shall thrash him afterwards."
He promised this solemnly to himself. But the younger Erdmann no longer
thought of her; he was busy sticking pins into the calves of the boys
sitting behind him.

When the lesson was over, the girls left the church first, marching in
couples. Only when the last were outside, the boys were allowed to follow.
Just outside the church he met Elsbeth, who was walking towards her
carriage. Both looked a little askance at each other and passed on. An old
lady, with little gray curls and a Persian shawl, stood near her carriage;
she probably had waited for her at the vicarage. She kissed Elsbeth's
forehead, and both seated themselves on the back seat. The carriage was
the finest one in the whole row. The coachman wore a beautiful fur cap
with a red tassel; he had also smart braid on his collar and cuffs.

Just as the carriage had started, Paul was attacked by the two Erdmanns,
who thrashed him a little.

"You ought to be ashamed, two against one," he said, and they let him go.

He went home very contentedly. The midday sun glittered on the open heath,
and in misty distance the carriage rolled before him; it grew smaller and
smaller, and at last disappeared as a black spot in the fir-wood.

When he arrived home his mother kissed him on both cheeks, and asked,
"Well, was it nice?"

"Quite nice," he answered, "and, mamma, Elsbeth from the White House was
there, too."

Then she blushed with joy and asked all sorts of things: how she looked,
whether she had grown pretty, and what she had said to him.

"Nothing at all," he answered, ashamed; and as his mother looked at him
surprised, he added, eagerly, "but you know she is not proud."

Next Monday when he entered the church he found her already sitting in her
place. She had the Bible lying on her knee, and was learning the verses
they had been given as their task.

There were not many children there, and when he sat down opposite to her
she made a half movement as if she meant to get up and come over to him;
but she sat down again immediately and went on learning.

His mother had told him before he left just to address Elsbeth. She had
charged him with many greetings for her mother, and he was to ask, too, how
she was. On his way he had studied a long speech, only he was not quite
decided yet whether to address her with "_Du_" or "_Sie_." "_Du_" would
have been the simplest; his mother took it for granted. But the "_Sie_"
sounded decidedly more distinguished--so nice and grown up. And as he could
come to no decision he avoided addressing her at all. He, too, took out his
Bible, and both put their elbows on their knees and studied as if for a
wager.

It was not of much use to him, because when the vicar questioned him
afterwards he had forgotten every word of it.

A painful silence ensued; the Erdmanns laughed viciously, and he had to sit
down again, his face burning with shame. He dared not look up any more, and
when, on leaving the church, he saw Elsbeth standing at the porch as if
she was waiting for something, he lowered his eyes and tried to pass her
quickly. However, she stepped forward and spoke to him.

"My mother has charged me--I am to ask you--how your mother is?"

He answered that she was well.

"And she sends her many kind regards," continued Elsbeth.

"And my mother also sends many kind regards to yours," he answered, turning
the Bible and hymn-book between his fingers, "and I was to ask you, too,
how she is?"

"Mamma told me to say," she replied, like something learned by heart, "that
she is often ill, and has to keep in-doors very much; but now that spring
is here she is better; and would you not like to drive in our carriage as
far as your house? I was to ask you, she said."

"Just look, Meyerhofer is sweethearting!" cried the elder Erdmann, who had
hidden behind the church door, through the crack of which he wanted to
tickle his companions with a little straw.

Elsbeth and Paul looked at each other in surprise, for they did not know
the meaning of this phrase; but as they felt that it must signify something
very bad they blushed and separated.

Paul looked after her as she got into the carriage and drove away. This
time the old lady was not waiting for her. It was her governess, he had
heard. Yes; she was of such high rank that she even had a governess of her
own.

"The Erdmanns will get a good licking yet;" with that he ended his
reflections.

The next week passed without his speaking to Elsbeth. When he entered the
church she was generally already in her seat. Then she would nod to him
kindly, but that was all.

And then came a Monday when her carriage was not waiting for her. He
noticed it at once, and as he walked towards the church-yard he breathed
more freely, for the proud coachman with his fur cap, which he wore even in
summer, always caused him a feeling of oppression. He had only to think of
this coachman when he sat opposite to her and she appeared to him like a
being from another world.

To-day he ventured to nod to her almost familiarly, and it seemed to him as
if she answered more kindly than usual.

And when the lesson was ended she came towards him of her own accord, and
said, "I must walk home to-day, for our horses are all in the fields. Mamma
thought you might walk with me part of the way, as we go the same road."

He felt very happy, but did not dare to walk by her side as long as they
were in the village. He also looked back anxiously from time to time, to
see whether the two Erdmanns were lurking anywhere with their mocking
remarks. But when they went through the open fields it was quite natural
that they should walk side by side.

It was a sunny forenoon in June. The white sand on the road glittered;
round about golden hawkweed was blooming and meadowsweet waved in the warm
wind; the midday bell sounded from the village; no human creature was to
be seen far and wide; the heath seemed quite deserted.

Elsbeth wore a wide-brimmed straw-hat on her head as a protection against
the sun's rays. She took it off now, and swung it to and fro by the
elastic.

"You will be too hot," he said; but as she laughed at him a little he took
his off also and threw it high in the air.

"You are quite a merry fellow," she said, nodding approvingly.

He shook his head, and the lines of care which always made him look old
appeared again upon his brow.

"Oh no," he said; "merry I am certainly not."

"Why not?" she asked.

"I have always so many things to think of," he answered, "and if ever I
want to be really happy something always goes wrong."

"But what do you always have to think about?" she asked.

He reflected for a while, but nothing occurred to him. "Oh, it is all
nonsense," he said; "clever thoughts never come to me, by any means."

And then he told her about his brothers, of the thick books, which were
quite filled with figures (the name he had forgotten), and which they had
already known by heart when they were only as old as he was now.

"Why don't you learn that as well, if it gives you pleasure?" she asked.

"But it gives me no pleasure," he answered; "I have such a dull head."

"But _something_ you know, surely?" she went on.

"I know absolutely nothing at all," he replied, sadly; "father says that I
am too stupid."

"Oh, you must not heed that," she replied, consolingly. "My Fraulein
Rothmaier also finds fault with many things I do. But I--pah, I--" she was
silent, and pulled up a sorrel-plant which she began to chew.

"Has your father still such sparkling eyes?" he asked.

She nodded, and her face brightened.

"You love him very much--your father?"

She looked at him wonderingly, as if she had not understood his question,
then answered, "Oh yes; I love him very much."

"And he loves you, too?"

"Well, I should think so."

Now he also rooted up a sorrel-plant and sighed.

"Why do you sigh?" she asked.

Something was just crossing his mind, he said, and then asked, laughingly,
if her father still took her on his knee sometimes, as on the day when he
had been in the White House.

She laughed and said she was a big girl now, and he should not ask such
silly questions; but afterwards it came out that all the same she still
sat on her father's knee--"Of course, not astride any more!" she added,
laughing.

"Yes, that was a nice day," he said, "and I sat on his other knee. How
small we must have been then."

"And we were so pitifully stupid," she answered, "when I think now how you
wanted to whistle, and could not."

"Do you remember that?" he asked, and his eyes sparkled in the
consciousness of his present attainments in the art.

"Of course," she replied; "and when you went away you came running back
and--do you still remember?"

He remembered very well.

"Now you can whistle, of course," she laughed; "at our age that is no
longer an accomplishment--even I can do it," and she pointed her lips in a
very funny manner.

He was sad that she spoke so slightingly of his art, and reflected whether
it would not be better to give up whistling altogether.

"Why are you so silent?" she asked. "Are you tired, too?"

"Oh no, but you--eh?"

Yes; the walk through the sand and the noontide heat had tired her.

"Then come into our house and rest," he cried, with sparkling eyes, for he
thought what joy his mother would feel at seeing her.

But she refused. "Your father is not kindly disposed towards us, mamma
said, and that's why you may not come for a visit to Helenenthal. Your
father would perhaps send me away."

He replied, with a deep blush, "My father would not do that," and felt much
ashamed.

She cast a glance towards the Haidehof, which lay scarcely a hundred yards
from the road. The red fence shone in the sunshine, and even the gray
half-ruined barns looked more cheerful than usual.

"Your house looks very nice," she said, shading her eyes with her left
hand.

"Oh yes," he answered, his heart swelling with pride, "and there is an owl
nailed to the door of one of the sheds. But it shall become much nicer
still," he added after a little while, seriously, "only let me begin to
rule." And then he set to work to explain to her all his plans for the
future. She listened attentively, but when he had finished she said again,

"I am tired--I must rest;" and she wanted to sit down on the edge of the
ditch.

"Not here in the blazing sun," he cautioned her; "we'll look out for the
first juniper-bush we can find."

She gave him her hand, and let him drag her wearily over the heath, which
undulated with molehills like the waves on a lake, and near the edge of the
wood there were some solitary juniper-bushes, which stood out like a group
of black dwarfs above the level plain.

Under the first of these bushes she cowered down, so that its shadow
almost entirely shrouded her slight, delicate figure.

"Here is just room enough for your head," she said, pointing to a mole-hill
which was just within the range of shade.

He stretched himself out on the grass, his head resting on the mole-hill,
his forehead covered by the hem of her dress.

She leaned back on the bush in order to find support in its branches.

"The needles don't prick at all," she said; "they mean well by us. I
believe we could pass through the Sleeping Beauty's hedge of thorns."

"You--not I," he answered, lifting his eyes to her from his recumbent
position; "every thorn has pricked me. I am no fairy prince, not even a
simple Hans in luck, am I?"

"That will all come in time," she replied, consolingly, "you must not
always have sad thoughts."

He wanted to reply, but he lacked the right words; and as he looked up,
meditatively, a swallow flitted through the blue sky. Then involuntarily he
uttered a whistle as if he wanted to call it, and as it did not come, he
whistled again, and for a second and third time.

Elsbeth laughed, but he went on whistling--first without knowing how, and
without reflecting why; but when one tone after the other flowed from his
lips, he felt as if he had become very eloquent all of a sudden, and as if
in this manner he could say all that weighed on his heart and for which in
words he never could have found courage. All that which made him sad, all
that which he cared about came pouring forth. He shut his eyes and
listened, so to speak, to what the tones were saying for him. He thought
that the good God in heaven spoke for him, and was relating all that
concerned him, even that which he had never been clear about himself.

When he looked up he did not know how long he had been lying there
whistling, but he saw that Elsbeth was crying.

"Why do you cry?" he asked.

She did not answer him, but dried her eyes with her handkerchief and rose.

Silently they walked side by side for a while. When they reached the wood,
which lay thick and dark before them, she stopped and asked,

"Who has taught you that?"

"Nobody," he said; "it came to me quite naturally."

"Can you also play the flute?" she went on.

No, he could not; he had never even heard it; he only knew that it was the
favorite pastime of "old Fritz."

"You must learn it," she said.

He thought it would probably be too difficult for him.

"You should try all the same," she counselled him; "you must be an
artist--a great artist."

He was startled when she said that; he scarcely dared to follow out her
thoughts.

When they had reached the other side of the wood they separated. She went
towards the White House and he went back. When he passed the juniper-bush
where they had both been sitting all seemed to him like a dream, and
henceforth it always remained so to him. Two or three days elapsed before
he dared to say anything of his adventure to his mother, but then he could
contain himself no longer; he confessed everything to her.

His mother looked at him for a long time and then went out; but from that
time she used to listen secretly to catch, if possible, some notes of his
whistling.

The two children often walked home together, but such an hour as the one
beneath the juniper-bush never came to them again.

When they passed it they used to look at each other and smile, but neither
of them dared to propose sitting down again beneath it.

There was also no further mention of the flute-playing between them, but
Paul thought of it often enough in secret. It seemed to him like something
divine, unheard of--like the science which taught the table of logarithms.
Ah, if he had been clever and gifted like his two brothers; but he was only
a dull, stupid boy, who might be glad if others allowed him to help them.

He often asked himself what such flute-playing sounded like, and what kind
of people they were who were initiated into the mysteries of it. He formed
a high opinion of them, and thought that they must always cherish high and
holy thoughts, such as arose in his own mind occasionally when he was
deeply absorbed in his whistling.

And then came the day when he was to see a flute-player face to face.

It was a dreary, stormy afternoon in the month of November. It began to get
dark already as he left school and slowly walked along the village road
to-go home. Issuing from the public-house, which used to be frequented by
all the rogues of the neighborhood, wonderful sounds met his ear. He had
never heard the like, but he immediately knew this must be a flute-player.
Eagerly listening, he stopped at the door of the public-house. His heart
beat loudly, his limbs trembled. The sounds were very much like his
whistling, only much fuller and softer. "Such music the angels of God must
make at His throne," he thought to himself.

Only one thing was inexplicable to him: how this flute-playing, which
sounded so sad and plaintive, could come from such a place of ill-repute.
The shouts and the clinking of glasses which sounded in between filled his
soul with horror. Sudden rage seized him; if he had been tall and strong
he would have sprung into the house and turned all these noisy and drunken
people out into the street, so that the holy sounds should not be profaned.

At this moment the door was thrown open; a drunken workman reeled past him,
an obnoxious odor issued forth. Louder still grew the noise; the tones of
the flute could scarcely make themselves heard above it.

Then he took courage, and before the door was closed pressed through the
narrow opening into the inner room of the public-house.

He stood there, squeezed behind an empty brandy-cask. Nobody heeded him.

During the first few moments he could not distinguish anything.

The oppressive atmosphere and the noise had overwhelmed his senses, and the
tones of the flute grew harsh and unmelodious, so that they hurt his ears.

In the midst of the yelling and stamping people sat a ragged fellow on an
upturned cask; he had a bloated, pimply face, a brandy-nose, and black,
greasy hair--a figure, the sight of which made Paul shudder. It was he who
had played the flute.

Petrified with horror, the boy stared at him. It seemed to him as if the
heavens were falling and the world going to ruin.

The musician now put down his flute, uttered a few coarse words in a rough,
hoarse voice, greedily swallowed the brandy which was handed to him by
the by-standers, and, beating time with his feet, began playing a vulgar
ballad, which the listeners accompanied with loud brawling.

Then Paul fled from the den, and ran and ran till he was perfectly dizzy,
as if he wished to escape from his own thoughts.

When he was alone on the storm-swept heath, from the extremity of which a
sulphurous streak of evening light was shining, he stopped, hid his face in
his hands, and cried bitterly.

In the winter which followed, Paul stopped whistling altogether, and
flute-playing disgusted him even more. When he thought of it there stood
before his eyes the figure of the outcast who had profaned his yearnings
for art.

He did not see Elsbeth any more. With the beginning of the cold weather the
confirmation-classes had been transferred from the church to the vicarage,
and as there was no room there large enough to hold all the candidates, the
boys and girls were taught separately. Sometimes he saw Elsbeth's carriage
pass, but she herself was so wrapped up in furs and shawls that her face
could not be recognized. He did not even know whether she had seen him.

At this time he had to suffer much vexation from the brothers Erdmann, who
knew how to torment him beyond endurance. He was perfectly powerless
against them, for each of them was twice as strong as he; besides, they
always attacked him both at the same time, and while one held him the
other pinched. Not that they were thoroughly vicious; on the contrary,
they knew how to practise benevolence and generosity towards others; but
his quiet, reserved nature was just what they hated with all their heart.
They called him a hypocrite and a Puritan, and when they had thrashed him
would say, "There, now go and tell tales of us; that would be just like
you."

His rancor against these antagonists grew stronger and stronger. He often
reproached himself with behaving in a cowardly and dishonorable manner, and
accused himself of having a low, servile nature. One day, when he ran up
and down in the snow, he worked himself into such a fury that he resolved
to rid himself of these two wicked brothers were it at the risk of his own
life. He ran to the stables where the grindstone stood, thawed the frozen
water in the tub, and sharpened his pocket-knife till it cut a piece of
the thinnest tissue-paper. But when, on the following Monday, he was again
thrashed, he had not the courage to draw it from his pocket, and had once
more to reproach himself with cowardice. He put it off till the next time;
but that was the end of it. From his father, too, he had much to endure.
The latter was again taken up with grand plans, and when this was the case
he always felt very superior, and in an especially bad humor with Paul,
whom he despised for his narrow-mindedness.

"Why has not the tiniest spark of my genius been transmitted to that boy?"
he would remark; "how beautifully I could educate him to assist in my
plans. But he is too stupid--everything is lost upon him." It was now his
intention to found a company to make his moor profitable, to bring capital
together, and to be himself named director of it all, with a salary of
several thousand thalers. Every week he drove into town two or three
times, and often did not come home even on the following day. "It is
difficult enough," he would say, when he had slept off his intoxication,
"but I'll be even with the niggards! That Douglas, too, insolent fellow,
shall pay for it. If I only knew how to tackle him. I will never enter
Helenenthal again, were it only that I might not see how the fellow has
neglected it--for that he certainly has done--and in town I never get
sight of him. But pay for it--pay for it he shall. If he does not
immediately sign a whole bushel of shares, the devil take him."

Frau Elsbeth listened sadly to all this without saying a word, but Paul
used secretly to take down the key of the shed from its shelf, and go off
to have mute intercourse with "Black Susy." He stuck to the belief that she
would be the means of saving them.

When the Easter holidays were over, the confirmation-classes were again
held in the church. Boys and girls met together after a half year's
separation.

Elsbeth had changed very much during the winter. She almost looked like a
grown-up lady now.

She wore a longer dress and her hair was arranged in little curls on her
forehead.

Paul saluted her very shyly; he felt as if he were no longer fit for her;
but she rose from her seat, walked a few steps towards him, and shook his
hand heartily before everybody's eyes. During the ensuing lesson a sheet
of paper was circulated among the boys which caused much mirth. On it was
written, with all sorts of flourishes:

  "_Paul Meyerhofer,
  Elsbeth Douglas,
  Betrothed."_

The writing was that of the younger Erdmann. Paul's hand searched for his
knife; for a moment he felt as if he could draw it on his neighbor here
in the open church. He snatched the paper from his hand and tore it into
little pieces.

Elsbeth looked at him wonderingly, and the vicar called him to order. Then
he became terrified at his own audacity. The Erdmanns must have understood
that on this subject he would not stand any joking, and made no further
attempts to tease him about Elsbeth.

The confirmation took place on the last Sunday before Whitsuntide. The
night before, Paul could not sleep, and at sunrise quietly got up, put on
the new clothes which his good aunt had sent him for this occasion, and
took a walk through the quiet yard and over the dewy fields, till he
reached the moor, which in its flowery garb lay brightly extended before
him.

At the sight of the rising sun he folded his hands and said an ardent
prayer. From this day forth he resolved to begin a new and better life,
forgive all offences, and love his enemies, as Jesus Christ had commanded.
Then he thought of the knife which he had once ground with a view to the
Erdmanns; he pulled it out of his pocket and threw it far away over the
moor, where it sank down in the swamp with a gurgling sound. Hot tears
streamed from his eyes; he thought himself bad and reprobate, and totally
unworthy to stand before God's altar; he scarcely dared to go home to the
farm; only when the twins came rushing towards him in their brand-new
muslin dresses did he feel happier and easier in his mind. He embraced his
sisters, and vowed in silence to be a true friend and support to them.

Then came his mother, dressed in a faded silk gown, kissed him on his
forehead and cheeks, and held his face between her two hands for a long
while, looking fixedly into his eyes. She wanted to say something to him,
but she could get out nothing more than "My boy, my dear boy!"

Even his father was in the rosiest humor to-day. He took both Paul's hands
in his, and made him a long speech as to how he must learn to look out for
what was great in human life, and to emulate him, his father, who, though
always pursued by misfortune and plundered by the wickedness of men, had
never allowed himself to be discouraged from aspiring to the stars, even
in this miserable hole into which adverse fate had let him sink. And he
knitted his brows and ruffled his hair, every inch of him grandeur and
importance.

Paul kissed both his hands and promised everything. At eight o'clock he saw
on the high-road which led across the heath a carriage roll by, the silver
ornaments of which sparkled in the morning sun.

For a long time he looked after it. Everything seemed to him like a dream.
He felt so exultantly glad that he was almost overpowered by happiness.
"How have I deserved all this?" he asked himself; and then he began
brooding over what the first trouble would be which would drag him down
from this bliss. When the twins announced to him that the carriage stood
ready for the drive to church he felt sad and depressed.

In the vicarage garden, where syringa and lilac were in bloom, and where
the sunbeams glittered on the lawn, stood two little groups of human beings
apart from each other--one black, the other white. The former were the
boys, the latter the girls.

Elsbeth, in her snowy muslin dress with a lace handkerchief crossed over
her bosom, looked white and graceful as a hawthorn blossom.

Her cheeks were very pale, and she kept her eyes lowered, and played
alternately with her hymn-book and a twig of lilac, both of which she held
in her hand.

Paul looked at her for a long time, but she did not see him. She would not
be disturbed in her devotion by any worldly thought.

And then the vicar came; the bells pealed, the organ resounded, and the
procession, ranged in couples, advanced slowly towards the altar.

Paul walked close behind the two Erdmanns, who in their long black coats
looked very solemn and demure. Suddenly the consciousness of his guilt
overcame him more forcibly than ever. He bent forward a little, touched
them softly on the shoulder, and whispered, with moist eyes,

"Forgive me, I have behaved so badly to you."

They nudged each other and smiled maliciously. One of them half turned
round, and whispered, with a face of pathetic misery and a look of injured
innocence,

"My son, we forgive you."

Paul felt very well that they were mocking him, but his heart was so full
of devotion and love that no mocking could affect him.

The children ranged themselves on both sides of the altar.

Paul sent a shy glance into the body of the church, which was crammed with
people, but he could not distinguish anybody.

The hour for the sermon was past. He gazed down before him. All seemed like
a dream.

A little later he felt his knees resting on a soft cushion and the hand of
the vicar on his head. What he said to him he did not hear. He saw Elsbeth
on the other side, crying quietly with her handkerchief to her eyes, and
thought,

"Ah, cry away, cry away, you will soon laugh again."

And then he asked himself why people always laughed so much, while on the
whole there were so few laughable things in the world.

The organ now intoned the hymn, "Praise ye the Lord, the mighty King of
Glory." The chorus of the congregation sounded jubilant, and his gaze
wandered up to the sunbeams which fell in iridescent light through the
painted church windows like a rainbow.

And while he was gazing at it he suddenly started. Just opposite the cross
which crowned the altar stood a dark woman clad in gray, of supernatural
stature, looking down upon him with big, hollow eyes. It was the penitent
Magdalene.

He felt a cold shudder run through his frame.

"Dame Care," he murmured, and bent his head as if he wished to accept with
humility what she might grant him for life.

And when he lifted his eyes again the sun shone more magnificently than
before.

Fiery red and emerald green sparkled the rays, weaving a radiant halo
round the gray dame's head.

But she stood there sadly in the midst of all the brilliant radiance, and
stared down upon him with her big, hollow eyes.

Then the organ began the finale with swelling chords. A joyful thrill
passed through the congregation. The troop of children hastened to throw
themselves into the arms of their parents, and a kindly glance greeted him
from Elsbeth's eyes.




CHAPTER VIII.

Paul now began to help with the farming. He faithfully kept the vow which
he had made on the morning of his confirmation. He worked like the meanest
of his servants, and when his mother begged him to spare himself, he kissed
her hand and replied, "You know we have a great deal to make good."

In the evening, when the servants had retired to rest and the twins had
frollicked till they fell asleep, mother and son often sat together for
hours and planned and calculated; but when some resolution had ripened
within them and a gleam of hope shone from their eyes, it often happened
that they would suddenly start and let their heads droop with a sigh; but
neither of them gave utterance to that which weighed on their minds.

About this time Frau Elsbeth began to age rapidly. Long, deep furrows lined
her face, her chin became very prominent, and silver streaks appeared in
her hair. Only from the depths of her sorrowful eyes one could still see
how beautiful she had once been.

"Yes, you see, I am quite an old woman now," she said to her son one
morning, as she combed her hair before the looking-glass, "and luck has
never yet come."

"Hush, mother, what else am I here for?" he answered, though he did not
feel hopeful at all.

Then she smiled sadly, stroked his cheeks and his brow, and said, "Yes, you
certainly look as if you had caught luck in its flight! but I won't speak
like this," she continued; "what should I do without you?"

Such moments of overflowing love had to satisfy them for a long time, for
often months passed by without mother or son daring to say any loving words
to each other; their hearts were too sorrowful.

The twins meanwhile grew up--two frolicksome, apple-cheeked tomboys, for
whom no tree was too high, no ditch too deep. Their curly brown hair fell
over their foreheads in a thousand little ringlets, and beneath them two
pairs of eyes peeped out, as full of mischief and as sparkling, both with
shyness and impudence, as if a stray sunbeam were laughing out of black
forest depths.

The laughter of these two resounded from morning to night through the
lonely Howdahs, and the quietness when they were at school or running
about in the open fields was the more oppressive.

It was all the same to the twins whether there was sunshine or storm in
the house; their heads were always full of tricks, and when at times their
father's storming grew too insupportable and they deemed it more prudent
to, hide behind the stove, they made up for it there by pinching one
another's legs.

They were devoted to Paul, which, however, did not prevent them from
quietly claiming as their property the best morsels from his plate, the
whitest sheets of paper from his writing-case, and the finest buttons off
his trousers, for they used to steal like magpies.

He was very anxious about them, for he feared they would become wilder and
wilder, especially as his mother grew more tired and despondent, and left
matters to take their own course. But he began his educational experiments
at the wrong end. His warnings were of no avail, and once as he was in
the middle of a beautiful sermon one of them suddenly jumped on his knee,
pulled his nose, and called out to his sister, "Fanny, he is getting a
beard."

Then the other one climbed after her, and both of them tried who could
pinch him the most. But when he got seriously angry with them, they began
to sulk, and said, "Fie, we won't speak to you any more."

He had not seen Elsbeth again since the day of their confirmation, though a
whole year had elapsed meanwhile.

It was said she had been sent to town to learn there how to move in
society. This word had given his heart a pang; he scarcely knew what it
meant, but he vaguely felt that she was farther and farther removed from
him.

But it happened one day about Easter-tide that he had to work on a piece of
ground which lay removed from the other fields and far away at the edge of
the wood. He was sowing the seed himself, and a servant with two horses
went harrowing after him.

He wore a big seed-cloth round his shoulders, and watched with quiet
pleasure how the grains sparkled like a golden fountain as they sank into
the earth. Then it seemed to him that he saw something bright between the
dark trunks of the trees, rocking up and down like a cradle suspended in
the air. But he scarcely allowed himself time to notice it, for sowing is
the kind of work which requires all one's attention.

At length the pause for breakfast came. The servant sat down on a sack
of corn, but he himself, feeling hot, went towards the wood to be in the
shade.

He threw a passing glance at the suspended cradle, and thought, "That must
be a hammock;" but he little cared who was lying in it.

Then suddenly it seemed to him as if he heard his name called.

"Paul, Paul!" It sounded sweet and familiar, and in a soft, clear voice,
which he seem to know.

He started and looked up.

"Paul, do come here," the voice called again.

He turned hot and cold, for now he well knew who it was.

He cast a shy look at his working-suit, and began to untie the knots of his
seed-cloth; but it slipped round to the back of his neck, so that he could
not reach it.

"Do come as you are," called out the voice; and now he could see how the
upper part of her body raised itself from the hammock, while a book, bound
in red and gold, glided from her hands and fell to the ground.

Hesitatingly he approached, trying secretly to wipe his boots in the moss,
for the soil of the fields was sticking to them.

She on her part had only this moment perceived that her feet and white
stockings showed beneath her dress, and hastily tried to cover them with
the shawl which had been put round her shoulders. But she could not pull it
from under her arms, and she could think of nothing better than to crouch
down quickly so that she looked like a hen, while the hammock swayed to and
fro.

Perhaps she might have had the intention to impress him a little with her
elegance and freshly-acquired social education, but now, as fate would have
it, she did not look at him less blushingly or shyly than he at her.

On his side he observed nothing of her state of mind; he only saw that she
had grown very beautiful, that her hair was twisted up into a very
aristocratic knot, and that the bow at her bosom trembled slightly on her
rounded form. It was quite clear to him that she had now grown into a
lady.

A long while elapsed before either of them spoke a word.

"Good-day," she said, at last, with a little laugh, and stretched out her
right hand to him, for she soon saw that she had the best of it.

He was silent and smiled at her.

"Help me to pull out my shawl," she continued.

He did so.

"That's it; now turn round."

He did that, too.

"Now it's all right." She had made herself comfortable, thrown the shawl
quickly over her feet again, and was looking up at him roguishly through
the meshes of the hammock. "It's really delightful to be with you again,"
she said; "you are the best of them all. Have you also been longing for
me?"

"No," he answered, truthfully.

"Oh, get away with you!" she replied, and, pouting, tried to turn over
to the other side; but the hammock began to sway too much again, so she
laughed and remained lying as she was.

He wondered inwardly at her being so merry. He never heard any one laugh
like that, except the twins, and they were children. But this laugh gave
him back his self-possession, for he felt instinctively how much older
than she he had grown during the interval.

"I suppose you have been very happy all this time?" he asked.

"Thank God, yes!" she replied. "Mamma is always rather delicate, but that
is all." A shadow passed over her face, but disappeared again the next
moment, and then she chatted on: "I have been in town--oh dear, what I have
gone through there! I must tell you about it at the first opportunity. I
have had dancing lessons. I have also had admirers--you can fancy that!
They serenaded me under my windows, sent me anonymous bouquets, and
verses, too--original verses! There was a student, among others, with a
white-braided coat, and a green, white, and red cap; oh, he understood it!
The things he would say to you! Afterwards he engaged himself to Betty
Schirrmacher, one of my friends, but quite in secret--nobody knows it but
myself."

Paul breathed freely again, for the student had already begun to make him
uncomfortable.

"And were you not vexed?" he asked.

"Why?"

"At his being fickle to you."

"No; we are above such things," she replied, shugging her shoulders. "Oh,
you know--they are all stupid boys in comparison with you!"

He felt quite frightened at the idea of calling a student a stupid boy,
and, above all, in comparison with him.

"My brother is no stupid boy," he retorted.

"I don't know your brother," she said, with philosophic calmness; "perhaps
he is not. Oh, I have grown ever so much older," she went on. "I took
literature lessons, and from that I learned many beautiful things."

Tormenting envy awoke in him.

"Do pick up that book."

He did so.

"Do you know that?"

In gold letters he read on the red cover the words, "Heine's Buch der
Lieder" (Heine's Book of Songs), and shook his head sadly.

"Ah, then you don't know anything! Oh, how much there is in that book! I
must lend it to you. There, read that; it teaches one a great deal. And
after reading it for a little while one generally begins to cry."

"Is it so sad, then?" he asked, looking at the cover with shy curiosity.

"Yes, very sad; as beautiful and as sad as--as--It only speaks of love, of
nothing else; but you feel such a great longing overpower you, and that you
would like to fly off to the Ganges, where the lotus blossoms, and where--"
She stopped, and then she laughed merrily and said, "Oh, that is too
stupid; is it not?"

"What?"

"What I am chattering about."

"No; I could listen to you for my whole life."

"No! could you? Oh, you know--it is so cosey here; I feel so secure when
you are near me," and she stretched herself out in the net-work as if she
wanted to lean her head on his shoulder.

A strange feeling of happiness and peace came over him, such as he had not
felt for a long time.

"Why do you look away?" she asked.

"I don't look away."

"Yes, you do.... You must look at me. I like that.... You have such
earnest, faithful eyes. Oh, I know now what to compare those poems with!"

"Well, with what?"

"With your whistling. That is also so--so--well, you know what I mean....
Do you still whistle sometimes?"

"Very seldom."

"And you have not learned to play the flute either, I suppose?"

"No."

"Oh, fie! If you love me, you will learn it.... I will give you a beautiful
flute next time."

"I have nothing to give you in return."

"Oh yes--you shall give me all the songs which you play. And when your
heart is very sad ... well, only read that book; everything is in there."

Paul looked at it from all sides. "What a wonderful book it must be!" he
thought.

"And now tell me something about yourself," she said. "What are you doing?
What are you working at? How is your dear mamma?"

Paul gave her a grateful glance. He felt he could speak to-day of all that
was in his heart; then it suddenly occurred to him that the pause for
breakfast was long over, and that the servant was waiting for him with the
horses. By noon he must finish, for after dinner the cart was to drive to
the town with a load of peat which he had had secretly cut.

"I must go to work," he faltered.

"Oh, what a pity! And when will you have done?"

"At dinner-time."

"I can't wait so long as that or mamma will be uneasy. But in the next few
days do come and look here again--perhaps you'll find me. Now I shall lie
here for another hour or so and watch you. It looks quite splendid when you
walk up and down in your big snowy white cloth and the grain flies round
you."

He gave her his hand silently and went away.

"I shall leave the book here," she called after him; "fetch it when you
have finished."

The servant smiled knowingly when he saw him come, and Paul hardly dared to
raise his eyes to him.

Each time when he passed at his work the place where she was resting in
the wood she raised herself up a little and waved to him with her pocket-
handkerchief. About twelve o'clock she rolled up her hammock, stepped to
the edge of the wood, and called out a farewell to him through her folded
hands.

He took off his cap to thank her, but the servant looked the other way and
whistled softly, as if he had seen nothing.

During dinner that day his mother could not take her eyes from her son, and
when they were alone she went up to him, took his head in both her hands,
and said,

"What has happened to you, my boy?"

"Why?" he asked, with embarrassment.

"Your eyes sparkle so suspiciously."

He laughed loudly and ran away; but when at supper she still looked at
him--inquiringly and sadly--he was sorry that he had not given her his
confidence, and went after her and confessed all that had happened to him.

Then her haggard face suddenly lit up as by a ray of sunshine, and while he
crept away ashamed, with glowing cheeks, she looked after him with moist
eyes and folded her hands as if in prayer.

He sat up in his room till nearly midnight, his head leaning on his hands.
The mysterious book was lying on his knee; but he could not read it,
because his father had forbidden him to burn a light at night. He had to
wait till Sunday.

He was musing on how she had altered. If only she had not laughed so
often; her mirth estranged her from him, and the full blooming life by
which she was surrounded removed her far away into that distant country
where happy people live. And although she appeared as good and kind as
ever, she could not fail to despise him sooner or later because he was
nothing but a peasant, and stupid and awkward into the bargain.

A wild tumult of happiness, shame, and self-reproach raged within him,
for he thought he might have behaved in a much more dignified manner. An
unaccountable fear was mixed up with it all which almost choked him, though
in vain he racked his mind to find out whom this fear was connected with.

The next afternoon he could see from the yard, where he was putting up some
poles, something white moving to and fro at the edge of the wood. He set
his teeth with pain and vexation, but could not make up his mind to abandon
his work.

For two days more the white was to be seen there--then it disappeared
altogether.

On Sunday morning he took the book of poems out of his box and went with it
towards the wood. At dinner-time he was still absent, and in the evening
the twins, who were playing at hide-and-seek on the heath, found him
whistling under a juniper-bush with the tears streaming down his cheeks.

Thus he translated the "Buch der Lieder" into his own language.

       *       *       *       *       *

A short time afterwards he heard that Mrs. Douglas had been ordered by
the doctor to make a prolonged stay in the South, and that Elsbeth would
accompany her thither.

"It is all right so," he said to himself. "She will no longer haunt me,
then." For a long time he was uncertain whether to send her book back or
not; he would have liked to keep it, but his conscience would not allow
him. He waited for a favorable opportunity of returning it till he heard
that they had gone. Then he was satisfied.




CHAPTER IX.

Five years passed away; five years full of care and trouble.

Paul toiled and moiled; he worked from early morning till late at night;
his busy hands were occupied with every sort of labor, and whatever he
touched throve. But he scarcely noticed this, for his mind was always taken
up with the future.

The same lines of care were on his brow at all times; his eyes were cast
down with the same thou