"We must go home," said his mother.
He was very sorry, because he had just now begun to like it. His mother pulled his collar straight, and said: "There, now kiss the lady"s hand and thank her."
He did as he was ordered, the kind lady kissed his forehead, and the man in the shooting-coat lifted him high up into the air, so that he thought he could fly.
And now his mother took Elsbeth in her arms, and kissed her several times on her mouth and cheeks, and said: "May Heaven some day reward you, my child, for what your parents have done for your G.o.dmother."
A heavy burden seemed to be taken from her soul; she breathed more freely and her eyes shone.
Elsbeth and her parents went with the two as far as the gate, when his mother took leave of them there over again, and stammered all sorts of things about compensation and divine blessings. The man interrupted her laughingly, and said the whole affair was not worth mentioning and did not require any thanks at all. And the kind woman kissed her warmly, and asked her to come again very soon, or at least to send the children.
The mother smiled sadly and was silent. Elsbeth was allowed to go a few steps farther; then she took leave with a little courtesy. Paul"s heart was heavy; he felt there was still something he had to tell her, so he ran after her, and, when he had caught up to her, whispered into her ear,
"You know--I _can_ whistle all the same!"
When, mother and son entered the wood, night was closing in. It was pitch-dark all round, but he was not afraid in the least. If a wolf had come in their way now he would soon have shown him who had the best of it.
His mother did not speak; the hand which clasped his so firmly burned feverishly, and her breath came from her breast like a sigh.
And when they both stepped out onto the heath the moon rose pale and majestic on the horizon. A blue veil spread over the distance. Thyme and juniper sent forth their perfume, here and there a little bird twittered on the ground.
The mother sat down at the edge of the ditch, and looked across at their sad home to which all her care was devoted. The outlines of the buildings stood out clearly against the evening sky. One lonely light twinkled from the kitchen.
Suddenly she spread out her arms, and called out over the silent heath, "Oh, I am happy!"
Paul clung to her side almost anxiously, for never yet had he heard a similar cry from her. He was so much accustomed to her tears and her sorrow that this exultant joy seemed to him quite uncanny.
And then it occurred to him: "What will father say when he hears of this walk? Will he not scold mother and be even more angry with her than usual?" A sullen defiance took possession of him; he set his teeth, then he stroked his mother"s hand consolingly, kissed her, and whispered,
"He shall not harm you!"
"Who?" she asked, with a shudder.
"Father," he said, softly and hesitatingly.
She sighed deeply but answered nothing, and silently and sadly they went on.
The gray woman had flitted across their path and spoiled the moment of joy, and it was the only one that Fate had still in store for Frau Elsbeth.
Next day there was a bad hour between herself and her husband. He called her undutiful and dishonorable. By her begging she had added disgrace to poverty.
However, he took the money.
CHAPTER V.
Years pa.s.sed away.
Paul grew up a quiet, unpretending boy, with a shy look and awkward behavior.
Generally he kept apart, and, while he took care of the twins, would sit for hours working at some wood-carving without saying a single word. He was what one calls in his part of the country "fussy:" a nature inclined to worry about details and brooding anxiously by himself.
He had no intercourse with any boys of his age, not even in school. Not that he avoided them on purpose; on the contrary, he liked to help them, and more than one used to copy, in the morning before prayers, his arithmetic problems or his German composition; but their interests were not his, and therefore he could not befriend them.
He also got an abundance of thrashings; especially from the brothers Erdmann--two saucy, wild-eyed fellows, loved and feared as the strongest and most daring--he had much to suffer. They were inexhaustible in the invention of new tricks which imbittered his life: they threw his copy-books on the top of the stove, filled his satchel with sand, and let his cap, in which they put a stick for a mast, float down the river like a boat. Most of these injuries he bore patiently; only once or twice a blind fury came over him. Then he bit and scratched like a madman, so that even those companions who were much stronger than he wisely took to flight. The first time one of the boys had called his father a drunkard, and another time they wanted to lock him up in a dark cow-shed with a little girl.
Afterwards he was ashamed, and came of his own accord to beg pardon.
Then they only laughed at him the more, and the hardly-won respect was lost again.
Learning went on with great difficulty. The task for which his comrades hardly needed fifteen minutes he required an hour or two to finish. On the other hand, his handwriting was like copper-plate and there never was a mistake in his sums.
All the same, no work seemed done well enough to satisfy himself, and often his mother surprised him as he got up at night on the sly, because he was afraid that what he had learned by heart had escaped his memory.
That he should go to a better school, like his brothers, was not to be thought of. His mother had for some time cherished the plan of letting him follow the two elder ones as soon as they had pa.s.sed their examination, for it pained her mother"s heart that he should be behind the others; but in the end she gave in, and that was certainly for the best.
Paul himself had never expected anything else. He considered himself as a creature totally subordinate compared to his brothers, and had long since given up trying ever to be like them. When they came home for their holidays--velvet caps on their wavy hair, many-colored ribbons on their b.r.e.a.s.t.s, for they belonged to some forbidden school corporation--he looked up to them as to beings from a higher world.
Eagerly he listened when they began to talk to each other about Sall.u.s.t and Cicero, and the tragedies of Aeschylus--and they liked to speak about them a great deal, if only to impress him. But the object of his highest admiration was the thick book, on the first page of which was written "Table of Logarithms," and which from the first page to the last contained nothing but figures--figures in long, close rows, the mere sight of which made him giddy. "How learned he must be, to have all that in his head," he said to himself, caressing the cover of the book, for he imagined that they had to do no less than learn all those figures by heart.
The brothers were unusually affable and condescending to him; when they wished to have anything in the house, when they desired a saddled horse or an extra stiff gla.s.s of grog, they always addressed him confidentially, and he felt highly honored to be allowed to help them.
As regards farming matters, he was as well acquainted with them as if he were the master of the house himself; to them were devoted all his efforts and his care.
What was it that had made him so prematurely serious?
Was it the helplessness of his lonely mother, who had initiated him so early into all her cares? Was it the brooding, striving spirit, ever looking to the future, which was peculiar to him?
Very often when he sat musing, his elbows leaning on the table--in his manners, too, he was quite like a grown-up person--his mother stroked his hair, and said,
"Let us see a bright face, my boy; be glad that you have no cares yet."
Oh, he had cares enough! Care cleaved to him like his own flesh and blood: whether the hen which had strayed to-day would be found again to-morrow; whether the ointment which his father had brought from the town yesterday would agree with a dun-colored horse; whether the hay had been dry enough before it was turned; and how the starlings in the gutter on the roof would bring up their little ones without the cat getting at them.
And he had to care about everything. Care had been born with him; only for himself he never took any care.
The older and more reasonable he grew, the deeper, too, grew his understanding of the mismanagement which his father had allowed to prevail, and often a deep sigh came from his breast: "Oh, if I were only big already!" The fear of his father"s wrath did not let him express his anxieties, and if ever he dared to speak his mind to his mother, she looked with fearful eyes all around the room, and said, anxiously, "Be quiet."
And yet his father saw very well whither his son"s thoughts tended. He had given him the nickname of "Cotquean," and jeered at him whenever he saw him. That naturally was in his good moments; in his bad ones he thrashed him with the yard measure, with the handle of the whip, with the straps of the harness--with whatever was nearest his hand. Paul feared his hand itself most of all, the blows of which hurt more than all the sticks in the world. His father had a strange manner of boxing his ears. He flung his hand into his face with the knuckles outward, so that the nails and joints left bruises on his cheeks. This kind of blow he called his "cheek-comforter," and when he intended beating Paul he called out to him in the most affable tone, "Come here, my son, I want to comfort you."
When he had received his beating he used to run out trembling onto the heath in shame and pain, and while he made faces and drummed with his fists, to choke down his tears, he whistled.
In whistling he manifested not only all his longings, his childish dreams, but also his anger and indignation. The feelings for which his uncouth mind did not find any expression, for which he lacked words or even thoughts, he dared in this loneliness to pour forth unchecked by means of whistling. So his depressed, timid soul found an outlet. Whole symphonies he executed, shrill and harsh at the beginning, growing softer and softer, and at last melting away in sadness and resignation.
n.o.body guessed the art he practised by himself, and how much consolation and exultation he owed to that same art--not even his mother.
Since he had seen her break into tears, one winter"s night, as he, without heeding her, had softly whistled to himself--since that time he left off as soon as she came near him; he thought it hurt her. What power was given him in those sounds he little knew.
Only at times he was proud--looking towards the White House--that he had after all learned to whistle; and when some melody seemed to him especially good, he thought within himself, "Who knows if you would laugh at me if you were to hear this?"