Dame Care by Hermann Sudermann

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16

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 thoughtful brooding expression as if he were looking
into his own soul, and often days would pass without his having spoken a
single word either at his work or at table.

He went about with the conviction that in reality all his labor was
hopeless. He never could reckon on his father's gratitude, and he soon
learned to do without it; but it was more difficult to have patience when a
whim of his father's spoiled in one hour what he had been working at with
great trouble for many weeks.

When his father came home from his journeys it was not seldom that he
called him a simpleton and a blockhead in the hearing of the servants, and
would complain bitterly at being obliged to leave his farm in hands as
incapable as his, when his duty--nobody knew what that duty was--called
him away.

Paul was silent at such times, for deep in his heart he kept the
commandment: "HONOR thy father and thy mother"--"his father for his
mother's sake;" so he had reconstructed it. But his eyes passed with a
sombre, searching gaze from one servant to the other, and whomever he
caught smiling or nudging his neighbor in secret malice he dismissed next
morning.

There was one of the farm-servants who had been working almost the whole
time at the Howdahs. His name was Michel Raudszus, and he came from
Littau. He lived in a miserable hovel not far from Helenenthal, the walls
of which were surrounded by piles of turf, so that the storms should not
blow it down. He had a slatternly wife who had already been in prison
twice, and who sent her children out to beg.

He was a silent, surly fellow, who did his work faultlessly and went off
without grumbling when he was not wanted any more, but appeared again
punctually as soon as there was fresh work. Paul did not like him at
first, he was so laconic and reserved, and his sullen behavior had made an
uncomfortable impression upon him; but then it suddenly occurred to him
that he behaved in much the same way himself, and from that hour he had
begun to like him heartily.

Even his father seemed to have a certain amount of respect for him, for
though, when drunk, he used to beat the servants, he had never attempted
to touch him. It seemed as if the look which the man cast at him from
underneath his bushy brows kept him at bay.

This servant was Paul's most faithful helper. He could even trust him to
sell the grain in the market, for he always knew how to get the highest
prices.

Imperceptibly a great change had come over the silent Howdahs in these
five years. The traces of poverty became more and more rare, and want
was less often their guest at table. In the garden, where were pretty
flower-beds, the pease and asparagus stood in long rows, and the defective
fence had long since been replaced by a new one. The cattle were augmented
every year by two or three valuable milking cows, and the milk-cart which
drove into the town every morning brought home many a groschen on the first
of the month.

That there was no sign of any comfort yet in spite of all this was entirely
the fault of his father, who speculated with the greater part of their
earnings when he did not spend it in drink.

Paul had secretly contrived that a few thalers at least were saved for his
brothers and sisters every month.

His brothers needed money more than ever. Max had passed his last
examination, and was now beginning his first year's tutorship at college
without salary; and Gottfried, the clerk, was out of situation for several
months every year. The two wrote begging letters in every possible key,
from the jovial "Fork me out thirty thalers immediately," to the
heartrending supplication, "If you don't want me to be ruined, have
mercy," etc.

Paul passed many a sleepless night thinking how to help them, and it
frequently happened that he deprived himself of something necessary so as
to be able to send them the money.

Once Gottfried had written that he had no decent clothes and urgently
needed a summer suit. Paul just wanted a summer suit himself, for he had
outgrown his old one; sighing, he put the money which he had saved up for
himself into an envelope and sent it to his brother; but in the letter
accompanying it he mentioned that he was not less reduced in his wardrobe
than himself. His brother showed himself magnanimous, and a fortnight later
sent him a parcel of clothes and a letter, in which he said: "I enclose an
old suit of mine. You, in your humble position, will probably be able to
use it still."

Paul had also enabled the twins to have a better education than was to be
expected from the very reduced circumstances of his home. He had urged the
vicar's wife, who had formerly been a governess, to take them into the
private school which she had established for the daughters of well-to-do
landowners from the neighboring villages.

The money for the schooling was not the worst of it, and he could manage
also to procure their books and copy-books; but it was difficult, very
difficult, to keep them nicely dressed, for his pride would not allow his
sisters to be behind their friends, and perhaps to be considered as beggar
children.

He himself knew too well the feeling of being looked down upon to let his
sisters experience the same.

His mother did not offer him any help even in these little feminine cares.
She was so much cowed by her husband's abuse that she lacked the courage to
buy the smallest trifle on her own responsibility.

"What you do, my son, is sure to be right," she said, and Paul drove to
town and was cheated, both by the draper and the dress-maker.

The twins grew up blooming, careless, and saucily merry, without the
faintest idea what a tragedy was being enacted in their immediate
neighborhood. At ten years old they romped and fought with the village
boys, at twelve they went with them to steal pears, and at fifteen
graciously accepted bunches of violets from them.

They were known far and wide as the most beautiful girls of the
neighborhood. Paul knew this well, and was not a little proud of it; but
what he did not know was that they had rendezvous behind the garden fence,
and that half the boys who were to be confirmed with them could boast of
having kissed their sweet red lips.

CHAPTER X.

It was in the month of June on a sunny Sunday afternoon.

Trumpet music sounded softly out of the wood. A great festival was to be
held there to-day. A wandering band had consented to be hired to give
a concert. The country people had come from far and wide, and even the
squires had not refused to participate in it, for such a thing did not
often happen in this quiet part of the world.

Since the middle of the day a long row of carriages had passed the
Haidehof, and old Meyerhofer, who did not like staying at home when
anything was going on, had suddenly been overcome by a fit of kindness, and
called out to his womenfolk to get ready as quickly as possible; he would
sacrifice himself and take them to the festivity.

The twins, who had already for a long time been standing at the window,
looking out with eager sparkling eyes, broke out into a loud demonstration
of joy. Frau Elsbeth gave them a quiet smile and turned to Paul, who sat
silently in his corner and went on cutting little sticks to tie up the
flowers, as if all this did not concern him at all. "Will you not come,
too?" she asked.

"Paul can drive," cried Meyerhofer, carelessly.

He thanked them and said that his coat was too shabby, and also he wanted
to look after the workmen, who were to come at sunset. The next morning
haymaking was to begin.

The twins looked at him, laid their heads together, and giggled; then, when
he went towards the door, they hung round him, and Katie whispered,

"Listen; we know something."

"Well, what is it?"

"Something nice," said Greta, mysteriously.

"Out with it."

"Elsbeth Douglas has come home again."

And breaking out into merry laughter they ran away.

Paul at first felt very angry that they dared to mock him; then he sighed
and smiled, and wondered why his heart had suddenly begun to beat so
loudly.

Half an hour later his family drove away.

"Do join us soon," his mother called down to him from the carriage, and
Katie getting into it whispered into his ear,

"I believe they will be there, too."

Now he stood quite alone in the deserted courtyard. The servants had gone
to the fields to milk--no human being was to be seen far and wide. The
ducks in their pool had put their heads under their wings, and the kennel-
dog snapped sleepily at the flies.

Paul seated himself on the garden fence and gazed towards the wood, at the
edge of which gay light dresses flitted to and fro, while now and then
there was a bright glitter, when the sunbeams were reflected in the harness
of the waiting carriage-horses.

The evening came; he was still undecided whether he should venture to
follow his family.

A thousand reasons occurred to him which made his staying at home
absolutely necessary, and when it was quite clear to him that he ought to
remain at home and not go anywhere else he put on his Sunday coat and went
to the festival.

It began already to grow dusk as he walked across the sweet-scented
heather. His heart was weighed down with secret fear. He did not dare to
think out the cause, but as he walked past the juniper-bush, beneath which
he once had whistled his most beautiful song to Elsbeth, a pain shot
through his breast as if he had been stabbed.

He stopped and reconsidered whether it would not be better to turn back.
"My coat is much too shabby," he said to himself; "I can't show myself in
any decent society." He took it off and looked at it on all sides. The
back was getting shiny at the seams; at the elbows there was a dull silver
gloss, and the border on the flaps of the breast even showed a little
fringe.

"It won't do with the best will in the world," he said, and then he sat
down beneath the juniper-bush and dreamed how smart and elegant he would
look if only he could afford a new coat. "But that won't be yet a while,"
he continued; "first Max and Gottfried must have permanent places, and
Greta and Katie must have the ball-dresses they wish for, and mother's
arm-chair must be newly done up--" and the more he thought the more other
things came to his mind which had a prior claim.

Then again he saw himself in a brand-new black suit, patent-leather shoes
on his feet, a fashionable tie round his neck, entering the dancing-room
with a careless, distinguished air, while Elsbeth smiled at him very
respectfully.

Suddenly he started from his dreams. "Oh, fie! what a fop I am growing!"
he scolded himself. "What have I to do with patent-leather shoes and
fashionable ties? And now I will just go in my old coat to the wood.
Besides, it has almost grown dark," he added, prudently.

Louder sounded the trumpets, and through the branches of the fir-trees
joyful laughter met his ears.

A turfy spot in the wood had been selected for the principal scene of the
festival. In the middle of it stood the platform for the musicians, on the
right the tent of the village innkeeper, who sold sour beer and sweet cake,
and on the left a place for dancing was fenced off, the entrance to which
cost a groschen more, as one might read on a white board.

Round about in a big circle tables and benches had been placed where the
different families enjoyed the supper they had brought with them, and
through it all a jubilant, giggling, staring crowd was pressing, eager for
either love or a good hand-to-hand fight.

The concert was already finished, the dancing had begun; on the firm,
trodden-down moss the couples circled round breathless and stumbling.

The glow of the sunset lay on the open space, while the wood bordering it
was already buried in darkness. Here were the farm-servants and maids
from the neighboring hamlets; even the coachmen had left their carriages,
because it would have broken their hearts to have looked on at these
love-makings from the distance. Every bush, every small tree seemed alive,
and out of the darkness came low, amorous tittering.

Shyly, like a criminal, Paul slunk round the festive scene. A fear of
strangers had always been his peculiarity, but never yet had his heart
fluttered so anxiously as at this moment.

"Is Elsbeth there?" Nowhere in all the crowd were there any traces of
the inmates of the White House, but then his family also seemed to have
disappeared without leaving any trace. Once he thought the cooing laughter
of the twins caught his ear, but the next moment the noise had drowned it.

Twice he had already made the round; then suddenly--his heart threatened to
stop from surprise and rapture--he saw, quite close before him, his mother
and father sitting in peaceful intercourse at the same table with the
Douglas family.

His father rested his elbows on the table, and, red with excitement, talked
eagerly to Mr. Douglas. The broad-shouldered giant with the bushy gray
beard listened to him silently, at times nodding and smiling to himself.
The slender, delicate figure with the sunken cheeks and the blue rings
round her eyes, who leaned wearily against the trunk of a tree and clasped
his mother's hand with her thin white fingers, that was his godmother, who
had always seemed to him like an angel from the other world. But next to
her--next to her, the lady in the modest gray dress, her fair hair simply
combed back--

"Elsbeth! Elsbeth!" cried a voice within him; and then suddenly a wall of
clouds sank down between him and her, and froze his innermost soul, and
veiled his eyes with a damp mist.

Opposite to her sat a gentleman with a saucy-looking fair mustache, and
still more saucy blue eyes, who bent towards her familiarly, while a smile
flitted over her quiet face.

"She will marry that man," he said to himself, with a conviction which
seemed to be more than a jealous foreboding. With the clear-sightedness of
love he had understood that these two natures harmonized and must seek each
other. And perhaps they had already found one another while he himself
wasted his days in idle dreams.

He stood there as if stunned, and scrutinized the man who suddenly had
rendered it clear to him what he had lost--lost, indeed, without ever
having possessed it.

How could he ever have dared to compare himself to this man that, to a
hair, was the ideal man of whom he had always dreamed?

Bold and energetic and triumphant (that's what he had meant to be one day),
exactly like the strange young man who looked at Elsbeth with his frivolous
smile. He also wore patent-leather boots and a fashionable colored necktie,
and his suit was made of the finest shining black cloth.

Almost for an hour Paul stood there without daring to move from his
position, devouring Elsbeth and her vis-à-vis with his eyes.

The night came. He scarcely perceived it. Long rows of lanterns were
lighted, and shed forth an uncertain light on the gay crowd.

"How well I am hidden," thought Paul, and was glad of the darkness into
which he had crept. He did not see that two men came walking towards him
and were occupying themselves close to him with something on the ground.
Then suddenly, not ten steps away from him, a purple red flame flared up
and flooded all around in a sea of dazzling light.

He wanted to take refuge quickly in the shade of a tree, but it was too
late.

"Isn't that Paul standing there?" called out his mother.

"Where?" asked Elsbeth, turning with curiosity.

"Boy, why are you hanging about in the dark?" shouted his father.

Then he had to come out, in spite of all; and burning with shame, his cap
in his hand, he stood before Elsbeth, who leaned her head on her hand and
looked up at him smilingly.

"Yes, that's what he always is: a real sneaker," said his father, giving
him a clap on the shoulder, and the unknown young gentleman pushed his hair
from his forehead and smiled half good-naturedly, half ironically.

Then old Douglas rose, went up to him, and seized both his hands. "Hold up
your head, young friend," he called out, with his lion's voice. "You have
no reason to lower your eyes--you, least of all the world. He who can at
the age of twenty do what you do is a capital fellow and need not hide
himself. I won't make you conceited, but just ask who could bear comparison
with you. You, perhaps, Leo?" He turned to the young fop, who answered,
with a merry laugh,

"You must make the best of me as I am, dear uncle."

"If only there was anything in you to make the best of, you
good-for-nothing!" replied Douglas. "This, you must know, is my nephew, Leo
Heller, a new edition of 'Fritz Triddlefitz.'"

"Uncle, I'll have my revenge."

"Be quiet, you scoundrel."

"Uncle, I'll wager twenty glasses which of us lies under the table first."

"That's what he calls respect."

"Uncle, you are pinching me."

"Be quiet; just look at this young farmer, twenty years old, who keeps the
whole farm going."

"Well, Mr. Douglas, _I_ count for something, too," cried Meyerhofer, with a
somewhat lengthened face.

"No offence to you," the former answered; "but you have so much to do with
your company you naturally cannot bother about such trifles."

Meyerhofer bowed, flattered, and Paul felt ashamed for him, for he well
understood the irony of these words.

Mrs. Douglas, smiling, beckoned him to come to her. She seized his hand and
stroked it. "You have grown tall and good-looking," she said, in her weak,
kind voice, "and you have a beautiful beard."

"But do call him '_Du_,'" interrupted his mother, who seemed to be much
easier in her mind than usual. "Paul, ask your godmother."

"Yes--I entreat you," said Paul, stammering and blushing anew.

"God bless you, my son," said Mrs. Douglas; "you have deserved it," and
then her head again sank against the trunk of the tree.

Paul stood behind the bench and did not know what to do. For the first time
since he was grown up he happened to find himself in strange society.

His glance met Elsbeth's, who, resting her head on her hand, looked round
at him.

"I suppose you won't say 'How do you do' to me at all?" she added,
mischievously.

The familiar "_Du_" gave him courage. He stretched his hand out to her, and
asked how she had fared during all this long time.

A shade of sadness flitted across her face. "Not well," she said, softly;
"but more of that later on when we are alone."

She made room at her side, and said, "Come." And as he sat down near her
his elbow touched her neck. Then a thrill went through his body, such as he
had never felt in all his life.

Leo Heller shook hands with him across the table, and said, laughing, "To
our good friendship, you pattern boy, you!"

"I am, unfortunately, not worthy to be taken for a pattern boy," he
answered, innocently.

"Then be glad; I am not one, either. Nothing is more disgusting to me than
such a pattern boy."

"Why, then, did you call me so?"

Leo looked at him quite surprised. "Oh, you seem to take everything
literally," he said.

"Pardon me, I am so little accustomed to joking," he replied, and a
blush of shame rose to his face. In turning towards Elsbeth he saw that she
was gazing at him with a strangely earnest, searching look. Then a sudden
feeling of bliss rose in his soul. He felt here was one who did not think
him stupid or ridiculous, who understood his nature and the laws according
to which it manifested itself.

While the three were silent his father, at the other end of the table,
continued to expound the plans of his company to Mr. Douglas.

"And if you trust me, sir--but no, you need not even do that--I mean to
say, if you will not frivolously forfeit your own chance--one must never
stand in the way of one's chance, sir--if you have only just a little
spirit of enterprise--oh, then, yes, then, you know, there are hundreds and
thousands to be earned; the moor is inexhaustible--why let others grow rich
in your stead, sir? On through darkness to light; that's my device. I will
strive and fight to the last breath; it is not my own interest which is at
stake. It seems to me to be a question for the welfare of humanity. The aim
is to win this barren soil for cultivation, to give new life-blood to this
whole district, to change the poverty of this country into prosperity--to
be a benefactor to humanity, sir."

And in this tone he swaggered on.

Then suddenly he came quite close to Douglas, as if he wanted to put a
pistol to his head, crying,

"Then will you take shares in it sir?"

Douglas caught a glance from his wife, who quietly pointed towards Frau
Elsbeth, and made him a beseeching sign; then he said, half amused, half
angry, "I don't mind."

Paul was again ashamed, for he read in Douglas's face that for him it was
only a question of the fun of throwing a few hundred thalers out of the
window. He himself knew, too well, that no sensible man could take his
father's plans in earnest.

"Have you not seen our girls, Paul?" asked his mother, who now seemed no
less constrained than he.

No; he had not seen them anywhere.

"Do go and look about for them; they have gone to the dancing-ground. Tell
them not to be too wild, or else they will catch cold."

Paul rose.

"I will go with you," said Elsbeth.

"May I not come too, little cousin?" asked cousin Leo.

"You had better remain here," she answered, lightly, whereupon he declared
he should be obliged to kill himself for grief.

"A merry bird," said Paul, with a sigh of envy, as he walked at her side
through the crowd.

"Yes; but nothing more," she replied.

"Do you like him?"

"Certainly; very much.

"She will marry him, after all," Paul meditated.

All around people screamed and shouted. A lantern had caught fire, and a
troop of young fellows endeavored to tear it from the cord. Flaming pieces
of paper were flying through the air, and the liquid was spirted in all
directions.

Elsbeth put her arm in his and bent her head on his shoulder. Again that
blissful thrill which he could not explain ran through him.

"There, now I am safe," she said, in a whisper. "Come to the wood
afterwards, Paul, I have so much to tell you; there we shall be
undisturbed."

And as she said this he felt quite anxious, out of pure joy.

They had come to the dancing-place. The trumpets resounded, and the dancers
were spinning round and round.

"Shall we dance, too?" she asked, smiling.

"I cannot," he answered.

"That does not matter," she said; "for those sort of things Leo does well
enough."

His foolish dreams which he had had under the juniper-bush to-day occurred
to him.

"So it is with everything that I fancy to myself," he thought. "I have
still one of your books, Elsbeth," he said then.

"I know, I know," she answered, looking up at him with a smile.

"Pardon me that I--"

"Oh, what a fidget you are," she jested. "Leo meanwhile has ruined my whole
library for me, and wants me now to replenish it for him, because he has
nothing more to read."

Leo, and still Leo over again.

"Have you read much that is beautiful in it?" she asked him.

"Once I knew everything by heart."

"And now?"

"Now? Oh, good heavens, I have so much to think of in every-day life--they
won't fit into my head any longer."

"Nor into mine, either, Paul. It is because we have seen too much of life;
poetry is lost to us."

"To you, too?"

She sighed. "My poor mother," she said.

"What is it?"

"You see, for five years I have been sick-nurse; there are many sad hours,
and when the night-light burns, and one's eyes hurt with watching so much,
and outside the storm rattles the shutters, many thoughts come to one about
life and death, about love and loneliness--well, in short, one makes a book
of poetry in one's own head and does not read other people's any more. But
come away from this noise; I should like to ask you so much, and here one
can hardly hear one's own voice."

"Directly," he said; "I only wanted--"

His eyes wandered searchingly over the dancing-ground, then he heard a
man's voice behind him, saying:

"Just look at those two little minxes, mad after men."

Instinctively he turned round, and saw the brothers Erdmann, whom he had
not met for years. They had meanwhile been at an agricultural college and
become grand gentlemen.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16