Dame Care by Hermann Sudermann

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Paul found that there was no bed left for him, and climbed into the
hay-loft, where he sat upright all night buried in thought.

At ten o'clock in the morning the first guests arrived, and, indeed, such
guests as had neither accepted the invitation nor been expected at all.
When Paul saw them coming his first thought was, "Have I provided enough
food and drink?" and the more the carriages came rolling into the yard,
and entire strangers kept stretching out their black-gloved hands to his
family, the more a voice seemed to say to him, "There won't be enough."

His father had again one of his days of grandeur. He sat in his portable
chair as if on a throne, his two eldest sons like vassals near him, and
allowed himself to be admired in his grief.

Whenever a new guest came up to him he pressed the proffered right hand in
both of his, as if _he_ were the one to console, bent his grief-stricken
head, and spoke broken words in a voice stifled with sobs, such as: "Yes,
she has gone! gone! she's gone! There is no balm for the wounds of the
heart! May heaven make amends to her for the grief earth has caused her!"
and so forth.

In between he called out to Paul, "My son, you do not provide any wine! My
son, remember to offer our guests some refreshment."

Paul ran from one to the other like a waiter, anxiously counting the
bottles, which diminished rapidly, and envying his sisters, who, in their
fine black dresses, could quietly sit in a corner and cry to their hearts'
content, while the strange sister-in-law consoled them. He had not thought
of the mourning-dresses in his calculation at all, and it was great
good-luck that the merchant sent them on credit, otherwise his sisters
could not have appeared at all.

He himself did not look like a mourner in his simple gray suit, and most of
the guests who did not know him went quietly past him, and only noticed his
existence when he offered them wine and cigars.

In the yard a number of women assembled who had loved his mother on account
of her quiet, simple manners, and who now wanted to follow the cortege
without really belonging to the mourners.

The sharp eye of his father soon discovered them.

"Paul, my son," he cried, "go out and urge the ladies to enter the house of
mourning."

Paul obeyed this order with hesitation, for he did not know how to word the
invitation. When he stepped out onto the threshold his first glance fell
on Elsbeth, who, in a mourning-dress, stood among the village women and
carried a wreath of white roses. And when she saw him her eyes filled with
tears.

For a moment he felt as if he would like to press his head against the
folds of her dress and cry there; but others stood near her, staring at
him. He made an awkward bow, and said, "My father begs you--would you like
to see the dead?"

The women slowly went into the house; only Elsbeth lingered.

"Won't you come in, too?" he asked.

"My poor dear Paul," she said, and seized his hand.

He shut his eyes and staggered back two steps.

"Do come," he said, mastering himself again; "look at her, she has always
loved you so much."

"Paul, my son, where are you?" sounded his father's voice from the interior
of the house.

"Paul," she said, hesitating, with rising tears, "you must not despair;
there are still others who--love you."

"Oh yes," he said, "I know--but come, I must pour out the wine."

She sighed deeply; then she timidly went in after him, and mixed again with
the other women.

"Paul, come here!" beckoned his father, who today seemed to fancy himself
the master again; and when Paul bent his head to him, he whispered in his
ear, "I hear the wine is finished. What does that mean? Will you shame us
all?"

"I think there are a few more bottles," Paul answered.

"Make them last till the vicar comes; but you must also offer a glass to
the women. Do you hear?"

"Oh, if only the vicar would come soon," sighed Paul, and tried hard to
fill the glasses only half.

And at last the vicar came. The whole assembly pressed into the room where
the dead woman lay in her coffin. The place was bathed in sunshine, and
checkered lights which had found their way through the waving linden
branches played merrily on the marble-white face.

Paul helped to carry his father's chair to the head of the coffin, then he
withdrew to a quiet corner behind the mourning assembly where he could rest
a little, for he was tired with much running about.

But they would not let him rest. "Where is the youngest son?" asked the
vicar, who wanted to gather the whole family round him.

"Paul, my child, where are you?" called his father.

Then he had to come forward, and took his place close to the head of the
coffin, near his father's chair.

A low murmur passed through the assembly, and some looked embarrassed, as
if they would say, "So that is a son, too? Then we have made a mistake
there."

The dancing sunbeams caught the vicar's attention, and he took them as the
text for his sermon. The earthly sun was indeed shining brightly and full
of joy; but that was nothing--that was utter darkness compared with the
heavenly sunshine. Then he praised the dead, and praised also those left
behind, especially the faithful husband and the two eldest sons as the
proud pillars of the house; there was also a spare morsel for Paul, the
servant, whom his master had found faithful unto death.

It was only a pity that he understood nothing of this honeyed praise. Lost
in thought, he stared before him. His look rested on the silk bow which
stood out from his mother's cap, and which moved gently when the draught,
caused by the vicar's waving arms, glided over it. It resembled a white
butterfly that moves its wings to rise into the air.

Then a hymn was sung and the lid placed on the coffin. At this moment there
sounded from the background a heart-rending cry, "Mother, mother!"

Startled and astonished, every one turned round. It was Elsbeth Douglas who
had uttered it. Now she lay fainting in the arms of her neighbor.
Paul understood her well. She had thought of the moment when the lid would
be laid over her own mother's face. And he vowed to himself he would then
be at her side to comfort her. His father also looked up, and on his
features the question was clearly written: "Is she, too, here?"

Elsbeth was taken into the next room, and two women remained with her until
she recovered.

But the uplifted coffin was borne staggering out of the door till it found
rest on the hearse.

Paul seized his cap. Then Gottfried, pressing to his side, put something
soft and black into his hand.

"At least tie this crape round your arm," he whispered to him.

"Why?"

"People might think you did not want to wear mourning."

Paul started at this thought and did as he was told. Afterwards he was
grieved to have been thus shamed by his brother, and only much later it
became clear to him which of them had worn the deepest mourning.

The cemetery lay in the midst of the heath. Three solitary pine-trees
indicated it from afar, and along the edge of the wall surrounding it thick
thorn-hedges bloomed.

Thither the sad cortege went; the sons followed immediately behind the
coffin, the father, with the twins, behind them in a little carriage.

Paul stared straight before him; he thought of the sand through which he
was wading--of the wine--of Elsbeth--of his father's portable chair--
and of the heather wreath, which had been half detached from the coffin
and was dragging behind.

He resolved to take care that it should not be lowered into the grave with
the coffin.

By the grave he felt nothing but a violent burning pain in his temples, and
while the vicar was giving the benediction it suddenly occurred to him that
instead of the wine he might very well have given beer. Then he had to
look after the twins, who in their grief did foolish things, and wanted to
spring into the grave after the coffin. He took them in his arms kissed
them, and made them lay their heads on his shoulder. They did so, closed
their eyes, and breathed as if asleep.

When the first handful of earth was rolling down on the coffin he had a
feeling of disgust, as if skittles were being played in his head, and when
the bare hillock began to arise, he thought, "To-morrow already there must
be some green turf put round it."

The crowd dispersed, his father was carried back to his carriage, and the
three sons walked home. Max and Gottfried spoke in low, solemn tones of
their earliest recollections of the dead. But Paul was silent, and thought,
"Thank God, they have laid her under the sod!"

A feverish activity was still working in his brain--he had as yet
understood nothing, had not wanted to understand--but when he entered
the yard which, with its shingle-roofed stable, and with the recent
traces of the fire, lay gray and desolate before him, it suddenly came
upon him as with a lightning-flash, like a totally new idea, "Mother has
gone!"

He turned round, groped with his hands in the air, and, as if
thunder-struck, sank to the ground.

CHAPTER XVII.

The summer passed away, and autumn in its garb of mist came creeping over
the heath. Red sunbeams wandered wearily along the edge of the wood, and
the heather lowered its purple head. At this time in the Howdahs, which
till now had been quieter than usual, strange sounds began to be heard.
Like the knocking of hammers and the tone of bells at the same time, they
sounded far over the heath in strict rhythm, at times louder, at times
softer, but always with a harmonious echo, which slowly died away into the
air.

The villagers stopped, wondering, on the road. One of them asked, "What is
going on at Meyerhofer's?"

And another said, "It almost sounds as if he had built himself a forge."

"He will never forge luck," said a third, and they separated, laughing.

The father, who as usual had sat in his corner yawning and grumbling,
started up at the first sound, and called the twins to account for it. But
they knew nothing either, but that quite early that day a workman had come
from the town with files, hammers, and a solder-box, and had had a long
conference with Paul, who held in his hand all sorts of plans and designs.
They quickly ran to look, and this was what they found:

Behind the shed stood "Black Susy," surrounded with a wooden scaffolding
like a lady in her crinoline, and on the scaffolding Paul and the foreman
climbed busily about, hammering, examining, and screwing in rivets.

Full of wonder, the twins looked at each other, for they guessed that
something grand was in preparation; but they did not deem it necessary to
bring these tidings to their father, for they remembered that two little
letters they had written had to be quickly and secretly taken to the post
by the servant-girl.

Paul, however, stood high up on "Black Susy's" round back, leaning against
the slender chimney, and looked longingly towards the moor, like Columbus
about to discover a new world.

The first steps on the hazardous road were taken.

In the long, sleepless nights which followed his mother's death, when
grief held his soul in iron claws, he had fled from the melancholy image
of the deceased to his books. Like a mole he burrowed his way through the
dark theories, and when his head buzzed and his body became exhausted from
the exciting brain-work, he would cry out to himself, "Her last hope shall
not be disappointed!" Then he stretched his limbs, and a new impulse of
energy flashed into his brain, and on and on he went, working restlessly
till the iron riddle solved itself harmoniously, till each lever was
transformed into a muscle, each tube into an artery, contrived on the
wisest plans, like a human body by the spirit of the eternal Creator.

Weeks and months passed. Meantime his mind was so completely absorbed by
this thirst for knowledge, this desire to create, that all that which had
previously harassed him vanished like a distant shadow. His mother's image
became more and more peaceful, and seemed to smile upon him. The harvest
became multiplied in the barn as if carried thither by invisible hands, and
on the day when the last bundle of oats was unloaded before the stack
he clapped his hand to his forehead and exclaimed, "It seems to me only
yesterday since I saw the first car!"

The more his knowledge increased and ripened, so much the more the anxiety
to succeed arose in his soul. When he wrote to the blacksmith, his heart
beat like that of a student before his examination. He shunned bringing his
deeds to the light as though to mention them were a crime, for he feared
being laughed at. But the constant hammering proclaimed the news to the
world.

The new foreman had to sit at their own table, and the father marked his
disapprobation of him by refusing to greet his entrance, and muttering a
great deal into his plate about fools and parasites.

But nobody heeded him, and the work quietly proceeded. According to Paul's
directions, the machine was taken to pieces and sounded in every one of
its minutest parts. The faults which a professional engineer would have
discovered at the first glance, these two men had to search out and explain
to each other with the greatest trouble. A dispute between them would often
last for hours, like meetings of the senate.

Once the foreman asked, impatiently, "Why the devil do you not send the
thing to a workshop to be repaired?"

Paul started. That, indeed, was an idea! It seemed to him quite a new one
to--day, and yet it had often come into his mind before. But he had never
liked to yield to it, for it seemed to him too daring and absurd; and,
besides, he was too much afraid they might return "Susy" as "past mending."
He was like that peasant woman who preferred doctoring her husband to death
herself to being told by the doctor "he cannot be saved."

When it had grown dark, and the workmen and servants had ceased working,
he used to poke about the work-room aimlessly for another hour or so,
simply because he could not tear himself away from "Susy." He would have
liked best to stand near her as watchman until the morning. He liked to
carry with him under his arm some of his plans or a book. This, also, was
aimless, for it was dark--he only wanted to have everything nicely in
order. All this happened in great secrecy, for no one had a firmer
conviction that Paul was a fool than Paul himself.

One evening, when he was searching in the dark for one of his books to take
there with him, he put his hand upon something long and round, carefully
wrapped up in tissue-paper in the farthest corner of a drawer.

He could feel in the darkness how he blushed. It was Elsbeth's flute. How
was it possible that he had so seldom bestowed a thought upon it or upon
the giver? The fair form that he had seen for the last time on the darkest
day of his life had gradually faded from his mind as his existence passed
into the shadowy realm of sorrow, and now at last, from sheer trouble and
care, she had become to him like a shadow herself.

For the first moment he could scarcely recall her features. It was only
little by little that her image presented itself to his mind.

He took the flute instead of the books under his arm, crept away to the
shed, and sat down on the boiler. He fingered the keys with curiosity; he
also put the mouth-piece to his lips, but did not dare to produce a sound,
for he did not want to disturb any one's sleep.

"It would be nice," he said to himself, "if I could play all sorts of
sweet melodies and think of Elsbeth all the while; I could then once more
pour out my heart to her, and feel that I, too, was something in the
world. But, then, _am_ I in the world for myself alone?" he asked himself,
absently laying hold of one of the crooked handles. "As this crooked
handle turns and turns without knowing why, and in itself is nothing but a
piece of dead iron, so I, too, must turn and turn, and not ask 'Why!'
There are said to be people in the world who have the right to live for
themselves, and to mould the world according to their own wishes. But they
are differently constituted from me; they are handsome and proud and
daring, and the sun always shines upon them. They may even allow
themselves the privilege of possessing a heart and acting according to its
dictates. But I! Oh, good God!" He paused, and sadly contemplated the
flute, the keys of which dimly shone in the dusk.

"If I were such a one," he continued, after a while, "I should have become
a celebrated musician. I know very well there are many melodies in my brain
which no one else has ever whistled; and when I had attained my end I
should have married Elsbeth--and father would have been rich, and mother
happy; but now mother is dead--father is a poor cripple--Elsbeth will take
another--and I stand here looking at the flute and can't play on it."

He laughed out loud, and then slid to the front, so that he could reach the
chimney. He stroked it, and said, "But I will learn to play _this_ flute
that it'll be a pleasure to hear."

As he sat there he fancied he heard subdued tittering and whispering in
the garden. He listened; there was no doubt of it. A pair of lovers were
cooing, or, perhaps, more than one pair, for divers voices were
intermingled, like the twittering of a number of sparrows.

"The maids keep sweethearts, it seems to me," he said; "I'll show them the
way out."

He fetched a whip, which was hanging on the stable door, and climbed over
the farthest part of the garden fence to waylay the intruders.

Then suddenly he stopped short as if turned to stone, his eyes starting out
of his head, and the whip trembling in his hand. He had distinguished his
sisters' voices.

He leaned against the trunk of a tree and listened.

"Does he leave you in peace now?" one of the lovers asked, in a whisper.

"He has too much to do with his machine just now," Greta's voice replied;
"even his unpalatable sermons he spares us."

"You have never heeded them, anyhow!"

Greta giggled. "In spite of all his dignity he is only a stupid boy, and he
understands nothing about love; as long as I can remember he has hung about
Elsbeth Douglas; but do you suppose he has ever once dared raise his eyes
to her? She, of course, would not dream of taking such a languishing idiot.
There is her cousin Leo--he is quite another fellow."

His heart threatened to stop beating, but he went on listening.

"I can't understand why you obey him at all," said the voice of her lover;
"we have always given him a thrashing first, and then let him go, and in
return he would beg our pardon. One has only to oppose him firmly, he is
such a coward!"

"Just wait a bit, you rogue!" thought Paul, who now knew whom he had before
him.

But Greta answered, eagerly: "Oh, fie! he has not deserved that from us.
He loves us so much that we really ought to be ashamed to deceive him;
whatever he sees that we want he gives us, and I could swear that it is
nothing but love that makes him so sad. So one mustn't mind now and then
taking a sermon into the bargain, especially if one pays no attention to it
afterwards!"

"It's a good thing I know that," thought Paul, and crept round in a
half-circle, till he came to the arbor where the other couple were sitting.

There it was very much quieter; only from time to time a kiss or a giggle
sounded from the darkness among the trees. Then he heard Kate's voice:

"And why did you dance so much with Matilda last Sunday?"

"That is a horrid calumny," answered the other brother. "What gossip
told you that?"

"The vicar's daughter Hedwig told me."

"I like that! She is jealous of you; that's the whole story. How she
looked at me last Sunday! I thought my hair would be singed."

"Oh, the false girl!"

"Well, don't grieve about that. You are all false! My sweet little lark, my
sunshine, my little madcap, lay your head on my knee, I want to ruffle your
hair."

"So?"

"No; you are lying on my watch-chain. That's right! Sing me something."

"What shall I sing about?"

"About love!"

"First earn it, you rogue!"

Then all was quiet for a while. Presently Katie began to warble, softly,

"'The nightingale on the lilac-bush
Sang night's soft hours away;
I heard a crash, a gentle push,
My window-pane gave way!

"'I ran to see the cause in haste,
At night's soft witching hour,
And there I found a ladder placed--
A man stood by my bower.
La, la, la!'"

"Go on singing!"

"Oh no, it really is not proper."

"Why, then, did you begin it?"

She giggled and was silent.

"Sing me something else."

"Before I sing give me a kiss!" A short struggle; then his voice:

"What? first you want one, and then you struggle, you cat!"

"Here I am."

"Leave go! d----n it, you scratch!"

"If you take another girl I will scratch out your eyes!"

"Anything else?"

"No; I will lie down under a juniper-bush and starve myself to death.
You must come to my funeral. Oh, that will be beautiful! Now just pay
attention; I know a beautiful verse:

"'What my love for you is, have you known?
There is on the heath a grave all alone;
In it a poor dead poet is sleeping,
To whom his love has brought much weeping;
He sleeps and sleeps in his sombre grave,
But sleeps not away the grief love gave.
At midnight go to the grave on the heath,
And wait till he again shall breathe;
He knows the singing and kissing well,
And he can tell--'

"Isn't that pretty?"

"Very pretty! Who taught you that, Kitty?"

"I once found it in a book of songs which belonged to mother. I almost
think she made it herself."

During this conversation Paul had stood there stupefied with horror; but
when he heard his mother's name his anger overpowered him, and he cracked
his whip over the heads of the couple, so that the withered leaves of the
arbor flew rustling about.

With a loud cry they all sprang up. No sooner had the brothers recognized
him than they attempted to make off; but the girls clung to them
whimpering. They sought protection against their own brother.

"Come here!" he called out to them. Then they left their lovers and flew to
one another for mutual protection.

The two Erdmanns receded farther still.

"You stay here!" he cried.

"What do you want with us?" said the elder one, who was the first to
recover his impudence.

"You shall answer to me for your conduct."

"You know where we are to be found," said the younger one, and pulled his
brother by the coat-tail as a hint to escape with him. But at this moment
Paul seized him by the throat.

"Leave go!" he screamed.

"You come into the house with me."

"Oh no; _rather_ not," said the elder one.

"I don't know at all what you want with us," said the younger one, who,
under the iron grasp of Paul's fist, was not a little frightened. "We love
your sisters; we have nothing to do with you."

"And if you love them, don't you know where the door is, through which you
might have come to woo them? Robbers that you are!"

At this moment Ulrich had torn his brother from Paul's grasp; and before he
could collect his senses they both flew in hot haste through the garden,
leaped the fence, and disappeared in the darkness of the heath.

Completely stunned, he turned round and saw his sisters crouching behind
the trunk of a tree.

"Come!" he said, pointing towards the house, and, sobbing, they followed
him.

When they wanted to slip away to their own room, he said, opening the door
of the parlor, "In here." Trembling, they crouched down in a corner, for
they did not know what punishment he would inflict upon them.

He lit the candle himself, took up the family album and took out a picture.

"Now come to your room." Like two returning penitents they crept slowly
behind him.

"Who is that?" he asked, in his severest voice, pointing to the picture. It
was a portrait of their mother, taken in early youth, almost effaced by the
lapse of time. But they recognized it very well, and, wringing their hands,
fell on their knees before the bed and sobbed pitifully on the pillow.

And then they confessed everything to him. It was worse than he had ever
imagined.

A dreadful silence ensued. Paul stepped to the window and looked out into
the night.

"Thank God you are dead, mother!" he said, folding his hands.

Then they wept aloud, crept up to him on their knees, and wanted to kiss
his hands. He stroked their hair. He loved them far too well.

"Children, children!" he said, sinking down in a chair, almost as helpless
as they were.

"Scold us, Paul," sobbed Kate.

"No, rather beat us," urged Greta; "we have deserved it."

He passed his hand across his brow. It all still seemed to him like a bad
dream.

"How could this have happened?" he murmured. "Have I watched over you so
badly?"

"They said they--wanted to--marry us!" Kate gasped out.

"When the year of mourning was over, the wedding was to be," added Greta.

"And if they said that, they shall keep their word," he said, endeavoring
to console himself. "Do not kneel to me, children, kneel down before
God--you need it. This portrait henceforth shall stand on your little table
every night. Will you then still have courage to pursue the path of shame?
Good-night."

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