Dame Care by Hermann Sudermann

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"That's what they call pleasure," thought Paul.

There was a rustling in the branches. Heavy drops came splashing down on
the leaves, then Paul crept out of his hiding place like a criminal.

Shouts of laughter--welcomed him from the veranda.

"There comes August" one of the gentlemen called out, softly. He had been
in Berlin and had seen the circus there, and the others joined him.

"My honored guests,' cried Leo, climbing on a chair," this pattern boy,
called Paul Meyerhofer, has in the most inconsiderate manner withdrawn from
the verdict of the assembly. As he foresaw, in his feeling of unworthiness,
that most of the refusals would be gathered upon his undignified head, he
has in most reprehensible cowardice--"

"I don't know why you speak so badly of me," said Paul, hurt, for he took
everything seriously.

A fresh peal of laughter answered him

"I make the proposition to confer the nightcap on him as a punishment for
his crime, and to form a jury for this purpose."

"If you please, I'll take the cap without that," Paul answered, irritated.
By this time he had only to open his mouth to call forth fresh mirth.

Solemnly he was crowned with the nightcap.

"I must look very funny, after all,' he thought, for they were all dying
with laughter. Only his sisters did not laugh, blushing deeply, they looked
down in their laps, and Elsbeth looked it him with embarrassment, as if she
wanted to ask his pardon.

"August," was again softly whispered from the circle of gentlemen.

Immediately after, the thunder storm broke forth

In troops they all took refuge in the house. The young ladies turned pale,
most of them were afraid of the thunder, one even fainted.

Leo proposed they should form a circle, and that each of them should tell a
story, he who did not know any had to give a forfeit.

They agreed to this. The order of precedence was appointed by lot, and one
of the gentlemen made the beginning with a merry student's anecdote, which
he declared he had experienced himself. Then it was the turn of some young
girls, who preferred to pay forfeits, and then he himself was called out.

The gentlemen cleared their throats mockingly, and the girls nudged each
other and giggled. Then anger overpowered him, and, knitting his brow, he
began at random,

"Once upon a time there was some one who was so ridiculous that people had
only to look at him when they wanted to laugh to their hearts content. He
himself did not know how this was, for he had never laughed in his life."

There was a deep silence all round. The smiles froze on their faces, first
one and then the other looked down upon the ground.

"Go on," cried Elsbeth, nodding to him gently. But a feeling of shame came
over him that he thus dared to show his innermost self to these strange
people.

"I can't go on," he said, and rose.

This time no one laughed, and for a while there was only a deep, oppressive
silence, and then the girl who had been chosen to collect the forfeits came
up to him and said, with a polite courtesy,

"Then you must pay a forfeit."

"Willingly," he answered, and detached his watch from the chain.

"An uncomfortable fellow," he heard one of the young gentlemen say low to
his neighbor. It was he who had first called up that nickname.

Then it was Leo's turn, who treated them to one of his most racy anecdotes,
but the gayety would not come back again.

The rain splashed against the window panes with a hollow sound, the shadow
of black clouds filled the room. It was as if the gray Dame was gliding
through the air and touching the laughing young faces with her wings, so
that they looked serious and old.

Only when Elsbeth opened the piano and began a merry dance the frozen
gayety recommenced.

Paul stood in a corner and gazed at the merrymaking. They left him quite to
himself, only now and then a shy glance met him.

The twins were flying round the room, their curls were loose, and a wild
light sparkled in their eyes.

"Let them romp about," thought Paul, "they must return to misery soon
enough." But that there was no misery for them never occurred to him.

When Elsbeth was replaced at the piano by somebody else, she came towards
him and said, "You are very much bored, are you not?"

"Oh no," he said. "Everything is still so new to me."

"Be merry," she pleaded; "we only live once."

And at that moment Leo came rushing up to her, seized her round the waist,
and danced away with her.

"Nevertheless, she is still a stranger to you," thought Paul.

As she passed him again she whispered to him, "Go into the next room; I
have something to tell you."

"What can she mean to tell me?" he thought; but he did as he was told.

Half hidden by the curtain, he waited, but as she did not come, every
minute the bitterness of his soul increased. He remembered his beautiful
speeches about the peat-culture and Heine's "Buch der Lieder," and shrugged
his shoulders contemptuously over his own stupidity. He felt as if he had
grown years older and maturer in the course of this one afternoon.

And then the questions suddenly arose within him, "What business have you
here? What are all those merry people, who laugh and want to please each
other, and live thoughtlessly from one day to another--what are all those
to you? You were a fool, a miserable fool, when you thought that you had a
right to be merry; that you, too, could be what they are."

The ground burned under his feet. He felt as if he were committing a sin by
remaining a minute longer in this place.

He slipped out into the hall, where his cap hung.

"Tell my sisters," he said to the servant who was waiting there, "that I am
going home to order a carriage for them."

And he breathed as if relieved when the door closed behind him.

The storm had abated: a soft rain came drizzling from the sky, the wind
blew refreshingly over the heath, and at the verge of the horizon, where
the evening glow paled away, the sheet-lightning of the far-distant
thunder-storm shot from fiery, glowing clouds.

As if the wild hunters were behind him, he ran across the rain-soaked road
to the wood, whose branches closed above his head with a peaceful murmur.
The damp moss sent out its perfume, and sparkling drops fell from the
needles of the fir-trees.

When he stepped out onto the heath, and saw the dark outline of his home
before his eyes, he stretched out his arms, and cried out into the storm:

"Here is my place--here I belong, and I shall be a rogue if ever again I
try to find my happiness among strangers. I swear here that I will reject
all vanities and foolish hankerings. I know now what I am, and what is
unfit for me shall be lost to me. Amen."

So he took leave of his youth and of his youthful dreams.

CHAPTER XIII.

When he awoke next morning he found his mother sitting near his bed.

"You up already?" he asked, wonderingly.

"I have not been able to sleep," she said, in her low voice, which always
sounded as if she were asking pardon for what she said.

"Why not?" he asked.

She did not answer, but stroked his hair and smiled at him sadly. Then he
knew that the twins had been telling tales, and that it was grief for him
which did not let her rest.

"It was not so bad, mother," he said, consolingly; "they made fun of me a
little, nothing more."

"Elsbeth, too?" she asked, with big, anxious eyes.

"No, not she," he replied, "but--" he was silent and turned to the wall.

"But what?" asked his mother.

"I don't know," he answered, "but there is a 'but' in it--"

"You wrong her, perhaps," said his mother, "and look, she sent you this
by the girls." She drew from her pocket a long object which was carefully
wrapped in tissue-paper.

In it was a flute, made of black ebony, with sparkling silver keys.

Paul blushed with shame and joy; but his joy soon vanished, and after he
had looked at the instrument for a while he said, softly, "What must I do
with it now?"

"You must learn to play it," answered his mother, with a touch of pride.

"It is too late," he replied, shaking his head sadly; "there are other
things for me to do." He felt as if he had been made to drag something dead
out of its grave.

"Well, it seems that you cut a nice figure yesterday," said his father,
when they met at the breakfast-table.

He quietly smiled to himself, and his father muttered something about lack
of feeling of honor.

The twins had big dreamy eyes, and when they looked at each other a
blissful smile crossed their faces. They, at least, were happy.

Weeks passed. The harvest was got in unharmed, thanks to Paul's untiring
care. It was a better year than it had been for a long time. But his
father was already calculating how he could use the profits for his peat
speculation.

He bragged on in his usual manner, and the less Mr. Douglas seemed to pay
attention to the proceedings, the more he boasted at the inns about the
advantage of his partnership.

Having once consented to swindle, he had to outvie every lie by a new and
bigger one. Mr. Douglas might be as patient as he liked; the abuse which
was made of his name at last became too much for him.

It was one morning towards the end of August that Paul, who was working
in the yard with Michel Raudszus, saw the tall figure of their neighbor
walking across the fields straight to the Haidehof.

He was startled--that could not bode any good.

Mr. Douglas shook hands with him kindly, but from under his iron-gray,
bushy brows shot an ill-boding look.

"Is your father at home?" he asked, and his voice sounded angry and
threatening.

"He is in the parlor," Paul said, depressed; "if you will allow me, I will
take you to him."

At the sight of the unexpected guest, his father jumped up embarrassed from
his chair; but he recovered himself immediately, and began, in his boasting
tone, "Oh, it is a good thing that you are here, sir; I have something
urgent to say to you."

"And I not less to you," retorted Mr. Douglas, planting his massive figure
close before him. "How is it, my dear friend, that you abuse my name in
this manner?"

"I--your name--sir? What do you mean? Paul, go out."

"He may stay here," retorted Mr. Douglas, turning to Paul.

"He shall go out, sir!" cried the old man. "I suppose I am still master in
my own house, sir?"

Paul left the room.

In the dark passage he found his mother, who had folded her hands and was
gazing towards the door with a fixed look. At the sight of him she broke
into tears and wrung her hands.

"He will lose us the only friend we have still on earth," she sobbed; then
she sank down in his arms, starting convulsively when the threatening
voices of the two men fell louder on her ear.

"Come away, mother," he urged; "it excites you too much, and we can't help
matters, anyhow."

She let him drag her to her bedroom without resistance.

"Give me a little vinegar," she entreated, "or I shall drop."

He did as she asked, and while he rubbed her temples with it, spoke to her
in a loud tone, so that she should not hear the raised voices of the two
men.

Suddenly the doors banged; for a while all was quiet--uncomfortably quiet;
then the clattering of a chain and the cry of his father, hoarse with fury,

"Sultan--at him!"

"For God's sake, he is setting the dog at him!" shrieked Paul, and rushed
into the yard.

He came just in time to see how Sultan, a big fierce mastiff, sprang at
Douglas's neck, while his father, brandishing his whip, ran after him.

Michel Raudszus had thrust his hands into his pockets and was looking on.

"Father, what are you doing?" he shouted, tore the whip from his hand, and
wanted to go after the dog, but before he could reach the struggling group
the beast, strangled by the powerful hand of the giant, lay on the ground
stretching out its four paws.

The blood ran down from Douglas's arm and neck. His anger seemed over. He
remained standing still, wiping his hands with his pocket-handkerchief, and
said, with a good-natured smile,

"The poor beast has had to pay for it."

"You are wounded, Mr. Douglas!" Paul cried, clasping his hands.

"He has taken my neck for a joint of veal," he said. "Come with me for a
few steps, and help me to wash myself, so that my womenkind may not be too
much frightened."

"Forgive him," Paul entreated; "he did not know what he was doing."

"Will you come back, you wretch?" shrieked his father's voice from
the yard. "I suppose you want to make common cause with that forsworn
scoundrel!"

There was a convulsive twitch in his neighbor's clinched fists; but he
mastered himself, and said with a forced smile,

"Go back; the son ought to stay with the father."

"But I want to make amends," Paul stammered.

"The swindler, the rogue," was heard from the background.

"Go back," said Douglas, with set teeth; "make him keep quiet, or he will
do for himself."

Then he began to whistle a march with all his might, in order not to hear
the abuse, and walked off with a measured tread.

The old man was raging in the yard like a madman; he threw the stones
about, swung the cart-pole in the air, and kicked with his feet right and
left.

When he met Paul he wanted to seize him by the throat, but at that moment
his mother rushed out of doors with a piercing cry and threw herself
between them. She clung to Paul with both arms; she wanted to speak, but
the fear of her husband lamed her tongue. She could only look at him.

"Pack of women!" he cried, shrugging his shoulders contemptuously, and
turned away; but feeling obliged to vent his rage on somebody, he walked up
to Michel Raudszus, who was slowly returning to his work.

"You dog, what are you gaping here for?" he shouted at him.

"I am working, sir," he answered, and gave him a cutting glance from under
his black brows.

"What should prevent me, you dog, from grinding you to powder?" the old man
shrieked, shaking his fists under his nose.

The servant shrank back, and at that moment both his master's fists struck
him in the face. He staggered back--every drop of blood left his dark
face; without uttering a sound, he seized upon an axe.

But at this moment, Paul, who had been watching the scene with growing
anxiety, grasped his arm from behind, wrested the weapon from his hand, and
threw it into the well.

His father tried to clutch the servant by the throat again, but with quick
resolution Paul seized him round the body, and although the old man kicked
and struggled, gathering up all strength, carried him in his arms into the
parlor, the door of which he locked from the outside.

"What have you done to your father?" his mother whimpered. She had beheld
this deed of violence petrified with horror, for that her son could attack
his father was to her perfectly incomprehensible. She looked shyly up at
him, and repeated, wofully, "What have you done to your father?"

Paul bent down to her, kissed her hand, and said, "Be calm, mother, I had
to save his life."

"And now you have locked him up? Paul, Paul!"

"He must remain there till Michel has gone," he replied. "Don't open the
door for him, or there will be an accident."

Then he walked out into the yard. The servant was leaning against the
stable door, chewing his black beard, and leering at him viciously.

"Michel Raudszus!" he called out to him.

The man approached. The veins on his forehead had swollen like blue cords.
He did not dare look at him.

"Your surplus wages are five marks and fifty pfennigs. Here they are. In
five minutes you must be gone."

The servant gave him such a terribly sinister glance that Paul was alarmed
at the thought that he had suffered this man near him so long without any
foreboding; he kept his eyes fixed upon him, for he feared every moment to
be attacked by him.

But the servant turned away in silence, went to the stables, where he tied
up his bundle, and two minutes later walked out at the gate. During the
whole terrible scene he had not uttered a single word.

"That's done! now to father," said Paul, firmly resolved to bear all blows
and abuse calmly.

He unlocked the door, and expected that his father would rush upon him.

The old man was sitting huddled up in the corner of the sofa, staring
before him. He did not move, either, when Paul came up to him and said,
beseechingly,

"I did not like doing it, father, but it had to be done."

He only gave him a shy look askance; then said, bitterly,

"You can do what you like; I am an old man, and you are the strongest."

Then he sank back again.

From that day forward Paul was master in the house.

CHAPTER XIV.

Three weeks had passed since then. Paul worked like a galley-slave. In
spite of that a strange unrest was upon him. When he allowed himself a few
moments' repose he could not bear to stay at home. He felt as if the walls
were falling in upon him. Then he rambled about on the heath or in the
wood, or he lingered near Helenenthal.

"If I should meet Elsbeth I think I should sink into the ground with
shame," he said to himself, and yet he looked about for her everywhere, and
trembled with fear and joy when he saw a female figure coming towards him
in the distance.

He also began to neglect his night's rest. As soon as all in the house were
asleep he crept away, and often returned only in the bright morning to go
to work again with swimming head and weary limbs.

"I will make amends--amends," he murmured often to himself; and when his
scythe hissed through the corn, he said, keeping time with it, "make
amends--make amends." But how to do so was totally vague to him; he did
not even know if Douglas had been seriously hurt by the dog's bite.

Once when he was roving about at twilight on the other side of the wood he
saw Michel Raudszus coming from Helenenthal. He carried a spade over his
shoulder, on which hung a bundle. Paul looked at him fixedly; he expected
to be attacked by him, but the servant only gave him a shy side-glance and
a wide berth.

"That fellow looks as if he were brooding over some evil," he thought,
looking after him.

Douglas had taken the expelled workman into his service, so one of the
laborers said, and when his father heard this he laughed, and said, "That's
just like the hypocrite--he will brew something nice for me."

He was firmly convinced that Douglas had given his case into the hands of
the law; indeed, he found a certain satisfaction in the thought that he
would be judged "unjustly," of course, and as from one day to the other the
summons never came, he explained, scornfully,

"The noble lord is fond of respites."

But Douglas seemed willing totally to ignore the ignominy he had suffered;
he did not even demand the capital lent on mortgage.

Paul's soul was overflowing with gratitude, and the less he found means to
show it the deeper he felt the shame--the more his unrest haunted him.

So one night he again stood motionless at the garden fence of Helenenthal.

Early autumn mists lay on the ground, and the withering grass quivered
lightly.

The White House disappeared in the shadows of the night, and only from one
of the windows there shone a dull, dark-red light.

"There she is, watching near her sick mother," Paul thought. And as he
found no other means to call her he began to whistle. Twice, three times,
he stopped to listen. Nobody came, and anxiety rose within him.

With groping hand he searched for the gap in the fence which Elsbeth had
shown him once, and when he had found it he penetrated to the inner garden.
The branches tore his clothes as, in a sort of wilderness, he crept along
the ground to find a path. At last he came to an open place. The white
gravel threw out a dim light which shone brighter than the little lamp in
the sick-room.

He seated himself on a bench and looked thither. He thought he saw a shadow
moving behind the curtains.

Then suddenly all around grew light; the rose-trees were visible in the
night; the gravel sparkled, and the gables of the dwelling-house, which had
just before stood out in a dark mass, now showed in dark reddish tints, as
if the light of dawn had fallen upon it.

Wonderingly he turned round; the blood froze in his veins; a purple flash
of fire shot up in the dark sky. The black clouds were outlined with edges
of fire, white flames whirled upward, and high above shot the glowing
beams, as if there was an _aurora borealis_ in the sky.

"Father's house is burning!"

His head fell heavily against the back of the bench; the next moment he
raised himself up, his knees shook, the blood hammered in his temples. "On,
on! save what is to be saved!" cried a voice within him; and with a wild
rush he broke through the bushes, climbed the garden fence, and sank down
into the ditch on the other side.

The burning farm glared over the heath like the rising sun. The stubble
shone, and the black wood was dipped in a red glow.

The dwelling-house was as yet unhurt; its walls shone like marble, its
windows sparkled like carbuncles. The yard was as bright as in daylight.
It was the barn that was burning--the barn, filled to the roof with the
harvest. His work, his happiness, his hope, lost like this in smoke and
flames.

He gathered himself up again; in wild haste he rushed across the heath.
When he passed the wood he thought he saw a shadow flitting away which, at
his approach, sank flat on the ground. He scarcely heeded it.

"On, on! save what is to be saved!"

Tumultuous screams greeted him from the yard. The farm-servants were
rushing about wildly, the maids were wringing their hands, his sisters ran
about calling his name.

The village had just awakened.... The high-road filled with people....
Water-buckets were dragged forth, and a rotten fire--engine came also
rattling along.

"Where is your master?" he shouted to the servants.

"Just being carried in; he has broken his leg," was the reply. Misfortune
upon misfortune.

"Let the barn burn," he called out to others who, losing their heads
entirely, were pouring tiny buckets of water into the flames.

"Save the cattle--take care that they do not run into the flames."

Three or four men hurried to the stables.

"You others to the house; don't carry anything out of it."

"Don't carry anything out," he repeated, tearing the objects out of the
hands of some strangers who were just dragging them out of the house.

"But we want to save the things."

"Save the house!"

He hurried up the staircase. In passing he saw his mother sitting mute and
tearless near his father, who lay on the sofa, whimpering.

Through a trap-door he jumped onto the roof.

"Give me the hose."

On a pitchfork they handed him the metal point of the hose. The column of
water fell hissing upon the hot bricks.

He sat astride on the ridge of the roof. His clothes became hot;
glimmering sparks, which came flying from the barn, settled on his hair.
Burning wounds covered his face and hands.

He felt nothing that happened to his person, but he saw and heard
everything around him--his senses seemed doubled.

He saw how the sheaves flew up to the sky in fiery flames, and saw them
sink down in a magnificent circle; he saw the horses and cows run out into
the meadows, where they were safe between the fences; he saw the dog,
half-singed, tearing at his chain.

"Unchain the dog," he called down.

He saw little graceful flames, in bluish flickering light, dancing from the
roof of the barn to the neighboring shed.

"The shed is burning!" he shouted below. "Save what is in it!"

A few people hurried away to pull out the carts.

And meanwhile the column of water hissed over the roof, made its way to the
rafters and splashed over the bricks. Little white clouds rose before him
and disappeared, to reappear again in other places.

Then suddenly "Black Susy" came to his mind. She was standing in the
farthest corner of the shed, buried among old rubbish.

A pang shot through his breast. Shall she perish now as well--she, on whom
his heart had ever placed its hopes?

"Save the locomobile!" he shouted down.

But no one understood him.

The longing to bring help to "Black Susy" seized upon him so powerfully
that for a moment he felt he must even sacrifice the house.

"Send somebody to replace me," he called down to the crowd of people, who
for the greater part stood idly gaping.

A stalwart mason from the village came climbing up, took off the slates,
and so made himself a path up to the ridge of the roof. Paul gave the hose
to him and glided down, wondering inwardly that he broke neither arms nor
legs.

Then he penetrated into the shed, from which suffocating smoke was already
whirling towards him.

"Who is coming with me?" he shouted.

Two laborers from the village presented themselves.

"Forward!"

Into the smoke and flames they went.

"Here is the shaft--seize it--out quickly!"

Creaking and rattling, the locomobile came staggering out into the yard.
Behind her and those who had saved her the roof of the shed fell in.

* * * * *

The morning dawned. The gray twilight intermingled with the smoke of the
ruins, from which here and there flames sprang up to sink down again
immediately exhausted.

The crowd had dispersed. Leaden silence weighed upon the farm; only from
the scene of the fire there came a soft creaking and hissing, as if the
flames, before subsiding, were holding once more murmuring intercourse.

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