Dame Care by Hermann Sudermann

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They rushed after him and entreated him to stay with them, "they were so
frightened!" but he disengaged himself gently from them and went up to his
garret, where he sat and brooded in the dark. He was so deeply ashamed that
he thought he should never more be able to bear the light of day.

The next morning he sent for the foreman and paid him off.

The good man looked up into his face quite aghast. "But now, Mr.
Meyerhofer, when all is going on so well?" he said.

"Yes, going on so well," he murmured, thoughtfully. "Shame added to
misfortune!--the man is right."

"Something has upset me," he then said, "which has given me a disgust for
work. Let us leave it for the moment, and when the time comes I will send
for you again."

His father bitterly complained over the disturbance in the night. "What
were you storming about in the garden?" he asked. "I heard your voice!"

"Thieves were after the apples," replied Paul.

The twins had red, swollen eyes, and did not dare to raise them from the
ground.

"So that's how fallen girls look," thought Paul, and promised to be as
strict with them as a jailer. But when he spoke harshly to them for the
first time, and they looked up at him with a pained, humble glance, like
two penitent Magdalenes, he was so much overcome by pity that he folded
them weeping in his arms, and said, "Compose yourselves, children; all will
yet be well."

He was under the firm conviction that the two Erdmanns would not let the
day pass without coming to the Haidehof. "Their consciences will bring
them," he said to himself. He felt so sure of it that after dinner he
strongly urged his father, who in his laziness had become very slovenly, to
put on his new coat, as visitors of importance were expected. His father
yielded, grumbling, and was doubly angry afterwards when he found that the
immense exertion had been quite useless.

"They will come to-morrow," said Paul to himself when he went to bed; "they
have not had the courage to-day."

But the next day passed, too, without anybody appearing, and so the whole
week went by.

Paul ran about the house as if distracted. Every ten minutes he was to
be seen standing at the gate and looking out over the heath, so that the
servants nudged one another and began to whisper all sorts of nonsense.

"It is a pity," he said to himself, "that I am still so innocent, and have
not the least experience in love matters; otherwise I should know what I
ought to do."

An agonizing fear began to master him, and he tossed about in his bed
unable to sleep.

"I must make matters easy for them," he thought one morning, and ordered
the basket carriage, which a short time ago he had bought at an auction, to
be got ready, and drove to Lotkeim, the Erdmanns' estate, which they kept
up together since their parents' death.

His heart felt a pang of shame and wrath as now, like one soliciting a
favor, he entered the estate of those who had already injured him so much
through his life. Little was wanting to make him turn round again at the
gate, but his hands clasped the reins more firmly, and his lips murmured,
"It is no question of what you feel."

He drove across the grass-grown yard, on which high thorn-bushes
were blooming, and which was flanked by big, though much-neglected,
farm-buildings, and stopped before the house, the shutters of which were
painted in black and white circles, probably because they were sometimes
used for targets.

"It is no honor to marry one's sisters here; but they can no longer lay
claim to much honor," he thought, tying his horse to the entrance rail, for
no human soul was to be seen who could have taken the reins; only from a
distant shed came the measured sound of the flails.

At the moment that he entered the hall he fancied he heard a confusion of
voices and then the opening and shutting of the back doors. Then, suddenly,
all was still.

He entered the parlor, in which the remains of their breakfast was
standing, and which was still filled with cigar smoke. For some time he
stood there waiting. Then a scraggy woman slipped through the door of the
next room with an embarrassed grin.

"My masters are not at home," she said, without waiting for his question;
"they drove away early this morning and will not be back for some time."

"It does not matter; I will wait."

The old woman began to chatter and explain that it would be quite useless
to wait; she never knew beforehand when they would come back; often they
stayed away all night, and so on. Meanwhile he fancied he heard a dog-cart
rattling out of the yard in the greatest haste. He jumped up, alarmed, for
he thought that his horse had broken loose, but he saw it quietly standing
in its place; then a suspicion arose within him--a suspicion which a minute
before he would have thrust back indignantly.

The old house-keeper did not dare to turn him out; and, unmolested, but
also without food or drink, he sat there waiting till the evening. When it
was dark he set out on his way home, discouraged and humiliated.

Next morning he returned, this time also in vain. The third day he found
the gate firmly bolted. A brand-new padlock was hanging on the hasp. It
seemed to have been purchased especially for him.

Then he could no longer doubt that the brothers avoided him on purpose.
"They are ashamed to look me in the face," he said to himself; "I will
write to them."

But when he took up his pen to compel himself to write friendly words of
reconciliation, such disgust at his own undignified deed overcame him that
he crushed it to pieces on the table, and paced about the room, moaning
aloud.

"I must first go and collect my strength," he said, and crept noiselessly
to the girls' room. They sat at the window, spoke not a word, and stared
with white faces into the distance; then one let her head sink against the
other's shoulder, and said, gently and sadly,

"They will not come any more."

"They are afraid of him," sighed the sister.

And then they relapsed again into silence.

"Ah!" he said, breathing heavily, while he crept back to his room, "I knew
that would help me."

Then he took a clean sheet of paper and wrote a beautiful letter, in which
he expounded to the brothers that he was no longer angry with them--that he
would forgive them everything if they would restore the lost honor to his
sisters.

"To-morrow they will be here," he said, with a sigh of relief, when he
dropped the letter into the box. For the rest of the day he wandered about
on the heath, for he did not dare to look any one in the face, so much was
he ashamed-of himself.

But the Erdmanns did not come.

* * * * *

It was on Christmas Eve, shortly before twilight. The heath lay deep in
snow, and from the leaden sky fresh masses of flakes were descending. Then
Paul saw that his sisters secretly took their hats and cloaks, and tried
to make their escape by the back door.

He hastened after them. "Where do you want to go?"

Then they began to cry, and Kate said, "Please, please do not ask us." But
he felt a dreadful anxiety arise within him, and, grasping their arms, he
said, "I shall follow you if you won't confess."

Then Kate gasped out, sobbing, "We are going to mother's grave."

Horror overcame him that they should go to that holy place; but he took
care not to let them see it.

"No, children," he said, stroking their cheeks, "I can't allow that; it
would excite you too much; the snow is so deep, too, on the heath, and it
will soon be dark."

"But some one must go there," said Kate, timidly, "it is Christmas Eve
to-day."

"You are right, sister," he replied, "I will go myself. You stay with
father and light a few candles for him. Please God, I shall bring you home
some comfort."

They let themselves be persuaded, and went back into the house.

But he put on a warm coat, took his cap, and walked out into the dusk.

"You must lock the gates to-night," he said, before he left the yard, for
he had a dull presentiment that he would only come home late at night, were
it only for the sake of roaming about in the snow.

The white heath lay silent. Deep under the snow lay the withered flowers,
and where a juniper-bush had stood before there was now a little white heap
that looked like a mole-hill. Even the stems of the pollard willows were
white, but only on the side against which the wind had blown.

Painfully he walked on across the snow-covered heath, at every step sinking
in over his ankles. From time to time a crow flew through the air with
heavy wings, fighting with difficulty against the snow-storm.

There was no path or road to be seen.... The three long fir-trees, which in
the distance stood out against the sky like black phantoms, were the only
sign by which he could direct his footsteps.

The golden streak, which for a few moments had flamed upon the horizon,
vanished; lower and lower the shadows were sinking, and when Paul had
reached the wall of the cemetery, which towered above him like a ghostly
rampart, it had become quite dark; but the freshly-fallen snow gave an
uncertain light, so that he hoped to find his mother's grave soon.

The gate was snowed up--the snow had been heaped up by the wind; nowhere
was an entrance to be discovered.

So he groped his way with difficulty along the hedge, from which, here and
there, a black twig stretched forth its sharp thorns out of the white
covering, till his arms sank deeper into the snow without meeting any
resistance.

From there he forced his way to the inner cemetery.

The firs greeted him with a hollow moan, and a raven which had been sitting
in the snow flew up noiselessly and circled round their tops restlessly,
like a poor soul that cannot find peace.

When he saw the snow-covered plain in its pale uniformity lying before his
eyes a terror overcame him, for he saw no sign by which to distinguish his
mother's grave. There was no cross on the mound, for he had not had money
to buy one, but the mound itself lay dead under the levelling expanse of
snow.

A torturing anxiety seized him; he felt as if he had now lost the very last
thing that he possessed in life.

And with a trembling hand he began to grope about in the snow, from one
mound to the other--a long row, from among which, here and there, a wreath
or a little cypress-tree stood out in the dusk.

"Here rests this one, here that one." He knew almost every grave and who
reposed beneath it.

And at last his groping hand hurt itself against a piece of glass that
stuck out from underneath.... He stopped and felt carefully all round....
The fragment must be the one which Greta had carried out in early spring
to plant asters in; a piece of a green bottle with sharp-pointed edges--
yes, here it was. The faded stalks were still in it. And near it the
wreath, the heather wreath, which appeared to be frozen stiff, like a
stone ring; he had put it there himself the last time he had been here.

When he saw the little heap of snow, which hid all that was dearest to him,
lying so white and still, he fell on his knees, and buried his face in the
cool, soft flakes.

"It is all my fault, mother," he lamented; "I have not watched over them, I
have let them run wild. Do not judge them, mother, they knew not what they
did!... But I implore you, mother, show me how to act! Send me only one
word from beyond the grave.... See, I kneel here and do not know what to
do."

And then he suddenly felt as if he had no right to lie in that place; he
felt as if the shame which his sisters had brought upon themselves was
resting on him, too. He called himself a coward, selfish and lazy, because
he had remained inactive for such a long time without daring the worst.

"I will do it, mother, this very night," he cried, springing up. "There
shall be no question of myself. I will relinquish the last remnant of
pride, if only my sisters can be saved." He vowed it with uplifted arms,
and hurried out onto the heath.

For wellnigh three hours he struggled along the snowed-up roads. It might
have been eight o'clock when he stopped, tired and breathless, before the
gates of Lotkeim.

"To-day they shall not escape me," he said, and as he found the gate locked
again, he lay down and crept through underneath the fence, as he had seen
dogs do.

The windows of the manor-house were brightly lighted up, but as the
curtains had been let down, nothing could be seen of the room inside; only
snatches of song and laughter floated out into the open air. The house door
stood open. He stopped for a moment in the dark hall to stifle the beating
of his heart; then he knocked.

Ulrich's voice called out, "Come in!"

There lay the two brothers, stretched out on a long sofa, the feet of the
one near the head of the other, a picture of perfect peace of mind and
serenity of soul. Each of them balanced a big glass of grog on the palm of
his hand, and before them on the table stood a steaming punch-bowl.

They were so startled at the sight of him that they forgot to get up. They
were petrified, and remained lying as they were and staring at him.

"I say!" cried Ulrich, who was the first to recover his speech, and Fritz
let his glass fall jingling to the ground.

Then the one stooped down and gathered up the fragments of glass with great
zeal.

"You can well imagine why I come," said Paul, slowly stepping to the table
in his snow-sprinkled garments.

"No!" said Ulrich, who slowly raised himself.

"No idea," chimed in Fritz, who wisely retired behind his brother's back.

"You received my letter, though?" asked Paul.

"We know of no letter," answered the elder one, staring impudently in his
face.

"It probably has been lost in the post," the younger added, hastily.

"Only recollect. It was the 16th of November," said Paul.

Then they remembered vaguely that a letter had been delivered to them.

"But we could not make it out and threw it into the fire," said Ulrich.

"Don't use these evasions," Paul answered; "you know quite well what is
expected of you."

They shrugged their shoulders, and looked at each other as if he were
speaking Spanish to them.

"I have not come to play comedy with you," Paul continued; "you have taken
away my sisters' honor and you must restore it to them."

Ulrich scratched his head and said:

"My dear Myerhofer, that is a bad business and can't be so quickly settled.
Just sit down and drink a glass of punch with us; then we shall much sooner
come to an understanding."

"Yes, much sooner and more comfortably," added Fritz, getting up to fetch
two fresh glasses.

"Thank you," said Paul, "I am not thirsty."

The vague feeling was tormenting him that the brothers were laughing at
him even now, as they had done all his life. Iron fetters seemed to bind
his limbs; he now felt himself quite powerless and disabled.

"Well, if you come to us like that," Ulrich retorted, apparently hurt,
"then we will not speak to you at all. I have no mind to have my Christmas
Eve spoiled,"

"And to let the punch get cold," Fritz added.

Paul gazed fixedly from one to the other.

How was it possible that those who had so covered themselves with shame
could stand before him so proud and impudent, while he, who only came to
ask for his rights, trembled and shook like a criminal!

"And if you go home without any consolation!" cried an anxious voice within
him. "Do not make them angry; remember what you have vowed to your mother!
There must be no question of yourself."

"Well, will you drink or won't you?" Ulrich called out, angrily.

"There must be no question of yourself," cried the voice again. Then he
bowed his head, and said, in a husky voice,

"Well, then, please."

The two brothers glanced at each other and smiled, and Fritz, raising his
glass, said,

"Merry Christmas!"

"A merry Christmas," he stammered, and swallowed the hot beverage, almost
choking, for he was overcome with disgust.

Now he sat in good-fellowship at the same table with the two brothers, he
who ought to have been there as an avenger.

"Well, now to end this affair, dear Meyerhofer," Ulrich began. "What is
done cannot be undone. We will not stop to inquire whether we ran most
after your sisters, or your sisters after us; anyhow, it is just as much
their fault as ours. We love them with all our hearts; they are the
prettiest girls in the neighborhood, and we are truly sorry when we think
that we have injured their reputation; but that we should marry them now
you can't possibly expect of us."

Paul cast a hesitating glance at him, and began, dejectedly, "That is the
least that--" he did not get any further; he felt as if the blood was
freezing in his veins.

"Don't be ridiculous," said Fritz; and Ulrich continued:

"Look here, we would be willing to do it because we think a lot of them,
although they have lowered themselves so much"--a spasm of fury darted
through Paul's brain, but he controlled himself; "we would fulfil your wish
directly, but first tell us what dowry will you give them?"

"I have nothing," stammered Paul.

"There it is," answered Fritz.

"And we want money, a great deal of money," Ulrich continued. "I am the
eldest, and if I take the estate for myself alone I must pay Fritz so much
to enable him to purchase for himself."

"I will work," Paul gasped out, and looked at the brothers in humble
entreaty.

"You have worked already for ten years and have not saved anything."

"The fire came and prevented me," stammered Paul, as if he were asking
pardon for the misfortune that had happened to him.

"And next year something else will come and prevent you. No, dear friend,
we cannot depend upon that."

The fear that he would have to return to his sisters without bringing any
consolation sank deeper and deeper into his heart. He was so overpowered
that it loosed his tongue, and he cried out, "But for God's sake, listen
to reason. I can't do more than work.... I will work like a slave.... Will
work day and night. I will pinch, save, and starve even, and all I
earn shall be yours.... Just see.... I have splendid prospects.... The
locomobile will soon be repaired ... and the moor is very lucrative ...
it is fifteen feet deep ... you can measure it.... The cart-load of peat
fetches ten marks ... and the dowry shall be paid to the last farthing in
yearly instalments."

He gazed at them with expectant eyes, for he felt sure they would seize
this offer directly; and when they continued silent, he passed his hand
despairingly over his forehead, from which the cold perspiration was
streaming, and murmured,

"Well, what more can I do?... Yes, I _will_ do more; I will ask my father
to give up the farm to me, and will make it over to you, so that ... when
my father dies one of you will be master there.... I will go away and take
nothing but the clothes I stand up in. Is not that enough for you?"

But still they were silent.

Then he felt as if everything to which his belief had hitherto clung was
slipping from him, as if the ground were giving way under his feet, as
if he himself were dropped into space. He clasped his hands, his teeth
chattered, and he stared at them like a man bereft of reason. "Is it
possible, then, you are not willing? really not willing? Can't you
understand at all that it is your duty to make amends where you have
sinned?... Does not your sense of honor tell you that you may not rob
others of their honor?... Does your conscience let you sleep?"

"Stop!" cried Ulrich, who began to feel decidedly uncomfortable.

"No, I will not stop; I cannot go home like this ... really I cannot....
Have you no idea, then, of the mischief you have done ... of the misery
that reigns in my home?" and he shuddered at the remembrance of what he
had left there. "If you knew that you would not be so hard.... See, Fritz
and Ulrich ... I have known you both such a long time.... We have sat
together in school ... and together ... we have knelt before the altar ...
you always had an ill-will towards me; I have had to bear much from
you.... But I will forget everything if only you will make amends for this
one thing. You are light-minded, but you are not bad ... you cannot be
bad... you, too, have had a mother.... I have seen her... she was standing
at our confirmation by the third pillar on the left, and crying just as my
mother cried, and my mother--oh, fie!" He interrupted himself, for he felt
overwhelmed with shame at having mentioned the name of his saint before
these scoundrels; but the fear of having to return home without any
consolation made him crazy; but he gulped that down, too, and began again,
while his thoughts chased each other through his head. "Only think if you
went out now to the cemetery and had sisters ... who had been betrayed ...
and you had not watched over those sisters sufficiently ... and you dared
not touch the snow that lies on the grave ... and I were the betrayer ...
what ... what would you do?"

"We should kill you," said Ulrich, glancing at him contemptously.

He uttered a piercing cry, for he now realized how deeply he lowered
himself--how he had dragged his pride and honor in the dust. With clinched
fists he rushed upon Ulrich, but the latter barricaded himself behind the
table, and Fritz rushed to the next room to call the servant.

Then he staggered out.

The gate was locked as before. He did not dare go back to have it opened,
so, lying down flat, he crept under the fence like a dog.

CHAPTER XVIII
"The young master leads a very gay life all at once," said the servants;
and as everything went as it pleased, they stole one bushel of corn after
the other.

Paul meanwhile visited all the festivities and dances in the neighborhood.
Any one who saw him appear in that merry crowd with his sombre brow and
his scared, searching look, asked himself indeed, "What does he want
here?" And many gave him a wide berth, as if a shadow had fallen on their
joy.

Paul was quite clear about what he was doing. He had heard that the
Erdmanns let no festivity pass without going thither to be merry as wildly
as possible.

"I shall know how to meet them," he said to himself; "the night is a dark
and the heath lonely. They will look into my face and the face of death
under God's open sky."

Two days after his last visit to Lotkeim he had driven to the town and
bought a revolver; a beautiful six-shooter, one with a long slender
barrel. Like a wild animal he lurked about at night in the bushes and
hidden paths of the heath when he thought they would pass.

But they did not come. They seemed to have become suspicious, and
therefore stayed at home; or, what was still more likely, their money had
come to an end.

"I can wait," he said, and continued this mode of life; and when he
occasionally spent the evening at home, and sat together with his sisters
at the supper-table--a sad, silent meal--he felt terrified each time when
he looked up and found his mother's features reflected in the two pale,
haggard young faces. It drove him out of the house again.

It was Shrove Tuesday, the last night of the carnival, that a grand ball
was to be given in the town-hall by the land-owners of the neighborhood.

"I shall catch them there," he said to himself, for he had heard that both
the brothers were to be stewards of the festivity.

When dusk approached he ordered his sledge, hid the revolver in the boot of
it, and set out on his way to the town.

The sun had been shining all day, and now the sky was all aglow with the
last rays of the setting sun. The heath lay shrouded in a blue-gray mist,
and sparkling ice-crystals were flying through the clear winter air.

When he passed Helenenthal he saw two sledges moving towards the
manor-house laden with fir branches.

"It seems to me they are going to have a festivity there," he murmured,
looking after the sledges; and with a sombre smile he added, "I need not be
jealous, for to-day I, too, hold a festival."

At six o'clock he arrived in the town, procured himself an entrance-ticket,
and remained crouched in a corner of the inn till nine o'clock, absorbed in
his own dark thoughts.

When he entered the dancing-room, which was all stir and confusion, he hid
himself in the shadow of a pillar, for he felt as though the murderous
thoughts that filled his soul were written on his forehead, clearly visible
to everybody.

All of a sudden a painful thrill ran through his frame. He had found the
brothers; they stood in the middle of the room, proud and radiant, with
silken badges on their shoulders, and lilies-of-the-valley in their
button-holes, looking at the row of girls dressed in white, who ornamented
the walls, with a triumphant smile.

"There, now you are doomed," he muttered with a deep sigh. He felt that
there was no retreat for him now. And then he hid in a quiet corner, from
whence he could keep his victims in sight. The blazing lights lit up the
scene for him as clearly as daylight, but he did not see it; the music fell
in full chords upon his ear, but he did not hear it; all his faculties were
swallowed up in one wild, bloodthirsty longing.

As he was staring in this way at the crowd, he heard close behind him a
conversation between two portly elderly men.

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