The great fraud of my life I will write down here--the fraud towards myself--towards you, and towards a third as well, who was pure and good--and who yet was the cause of it all.
"I was a quiet, lonely child.
"He who is always surrounded by love, and who has never known anything but love, often learns most easily to suffice to himself. And yet in my heart, too, there lay an inexhaustible store of love. I squandered it on dumb creatures, petted the dogs, kissed the cats, and hugged the geese. One of my pa.s.sions was to play in the stable: there I lolled about on the soft, warm straw, under the very hoofs of my special pets, that never did me any harm; or I climbed into the manger, where I could sit for hours and gaze lovingly into my friends" great brown eyes. But my favourite place was in the dog-kennel. There they often found me asleep at midday, and it was no easy matter to get me out again: for Nero, who was as a rule so quiet and good, showed his teeth to any one, even to his master, who came within reach of his chain on such occasions. My tender affection extended also to the vegetable kingdom.
The rose-trees appeared to me like enchanted princesses, whose fate I bitterly bewailed; the sunflowers were Catholic priests in full canonicals, and the dahlias Polish maidservants with red head-dresses.
Thus I succeeded in a.s.sembling around me in the garden the whole human world, and found the counterfeit presentment preferable to the original, for it submitted in silence when I ordained its fate.
"The estate that my father had rented was the old feudal possession of a Polish magnate, which lay close to the Prussian frontier, on a hill whose one side sloped down gradually in a weed-grown park towards barren fields, while the other dropped down precipitately towards a rivulet, on whose opposite bank lay a dirty little Polish frontier village.
"When one stood on the brink of the precipice one looked down upon the tumble-down shingle roofs, through the crevices of which smoke issued forth, and could see right into the midst of the wretched traffic of the miry street, where half-naked children wallowed in the gutter, women crouched idly on the doorsteps, and the men in ragged fustian coats trooped, with their spades on their shoulders, towards the alehouse.
"Verily there was little that was attractive about this small town, and the rabble of frontier Cossacks, that trotted to and fro sleepily on their cat-like nags, did not enhance its charms. But yet, to my childish eyes, it was enveloped in inexpressible glamour, the sensation of which creeps over me even to-day, when I picture to myself how, bewitched by all these wonderful visions, I sat for hours motionless on the gra.s.s, and stared down upon the throng in which the figures were no larger than the wooden dolls in my box of toys.
"I had been forbidden to go down, nor had I any desire to do so, since I had once been almost crushed to death between two wheels in the crowd of the weekly market to which my father had taken me.
"It was only delightful when from up there, raised high above the dirt and screaming, one could gaze down upon this world of ants, which seemed so tiny that, like the Creator Himself, one could command it with a look, but which grew larger and larger, and a.s.sumed weird, giant proportions the more one attempted to penetrate into it.
"It is remarkable that just of those persons who were most closely connected with me throughout my life, I have preserved but a vague recollection as they were at that time. Possibly because later impressions effaced these earliest ones.
"My father was a small, st.u.r.dy man, of thick-set stature, with close-cut black beard and hair, clad in high, brightly blacked boots, and a greyish-green s.h.a.ggy jacket, who laughed at me when he saw me, gave me a friendly slap on the back, or pinched my arm, and then was gone again. He was always busy, poor papa; as long as he lived I never saw him give himself a moment"s rest.
"Mama was then already very stout, was constantly eating sweet-stuff, and loved her afternoon nap; but she, too, was at work from morning till night, though she only reluctantly betook herself from place to place, and did not like one to hang on to her, or to bother her with questions.
"At that time another member of the family was Cousin Robert, who had been sent over by our Prussian relations to learn farming from papa; a big fellow, broad-shouldered and thick-necked, with fair tufts of beard, which I was wont to pull when he took me on his knee to instil the A B C into me by means of bent liquorice sticks. I think we were always good friends, though he probably was no more to me than the other articled pupils; for his picture, as he was then, has become hazy, exactly like all the others.
"Only one scene do I remember distinctly, when on a summer evening he had caught hold of Martha by her fair plaits and was racing after her, laughing and screaming, through the yard, and the house, and the garden.
""What are you up to with Martha, you rascal?" cried papa to him.
""She has been vexing me," he answered, without letting go of her, while she kept on screaming.
""When I was your age I knew better how to revenge myself on a girl,"
laughingly said papa, who always liked to have his little joke.
""Well, how?" he asked.
""Oh, if you don"t know that yourself!" replied papa.
""One just gives her a kiss. Master Robert," said an old gardener, who happened to be pa.s.sing with a watering-can.
"Then I can see him yet, how he suddenly let the plaits drop from his hands, stood there suffused with blushes and did not know where to look. Papa shook with laughter and Martha ran off as fast as she could.
When I tried her door, she had locked herself in. Not till supper-time did she put in an appearance again. Her hair hung in disorder over her forehead, and beneath it she looked out dreamily and scared.
"When, to-day, I compare the pale, thin, little suffering face that fills my whole soul, with yonder rosy, chubby, roguish countenance as it gleams upon me sometimes from my earliest childhood, I can hardly realise that both can have belonged to one and the same being.
"How her long fair plaits fluttered in the wind! With what precocious, housewifely care her eyes scanned the long table where we all sat together, with apprentices and inspectors, waiting to be filled--a whole collection of hungry mouths. And how l.u.s.tily each one helped himself, when, with her merry smile, she offered the dishes.
"Now only do I begin to understand what a pilgrimage of suffering she had to make, now that I am myself preparing for the long, sad journey, at the end of which a lonely grave awaits me, more lonesome even than hers.
"In those days I was a child and looked up unsuspectingly to her, who became my teacher when she herself had hardly put off childish ways.
"It was at that time that our affairs began to take a downward course.
Papa had to struggle against debts; failure of crops, and floods--for three years in succession--destroyed any hope of improvement, and monetary cares gathered thicker and thicker around our home.
"In the household everything not absolutely necessary was dispensed with, our intercourse with the neighbouring estate owners was restricted, and even the old governess who had educated Martha and was now to have fulfilled her mission upon me, had to leave the estate.
"Martha, who was seven years older than I and just preparing to grow into her first long dress, stepped into her place. In this way, purely sisterly relations could not grow into existence between us. She was the protectress and I was the ward, until after we exchanged our _roles_.
"I may have been about fourteen years old, when it struck me for the first time that Martha had strangely altered in manner and appearance.
I ought, indeed, to have noticed it before, for I was accustomed to look about me with open eyes, but in the slow monotony of everyday life one easily overlooks the destruction that sorrow and time are working around us.
"Now I took heed, and saw her face grow thinner and thinner, saw that the colour faded more and more from her cheeks, and that her eyes sank deeper and deeper into dark hollows. Nor did she any longer sing, and her laugh had a peculiar tired, hoa.r.s.e sound that hurt my ears so, that I was sometimes on the point of calling out to her "Do not laugh!"
"At the same time she began to sicken; she complained of headache and spasms, and only with difficulty dragged herself about the house. Then, of course, papa and mama were bound to notice her condition too; they packed her up in warm wraps, and, in spite of her remonstrance, drove with her to Prussia to consult a doctor. He shrugged his shoulders, prescribed steel pills and advised a change of air.
"Something else, too, he must have advised, which greatly disturbed my parents, at least papa; for mama, since a long time already, was not to be roused from her phlegmatic composure. When she dreamily gazed out into the distance, he often looked at her askance, shook his head, sighed, and slammed the door after him.
"But however much she might be suffering, she would not give up her work. As long as I can remember, I have never seen her idle even for a moment. As a child already she stood with her lesson-book at the cooking-stove, or had an eye on the wash-kitchen, while she wrote her German composition. Since she was grown up, she combined the duties of my instruction with all the cares which a large household imposes upon its manager. Mama had quite retired in virtue of her age, and allowed her to do and dispose as she pleased, if only the _compotes_ and other dainties won her approval.
"I, who was spoilt beyond measure by everyone in the house, was ashamed of my inactivity, and endeavoured to take a part of the responsibility off Martha"s shoulders; but with gentle remonstrance she dissuaded me.
""Leave that, child," she said, stroking my cheeks; "you happen to be the princess of the house, you had better remain so."
"That hurt me. I could bear anything rather than to be repulsed, when I came with my heart full to overflowing of generous resolves.
"One evening I saw her crying. I slunk out into the garden and fought a hard battle. I almost choked with my longing to help, but I could not so far conquer myself as to go up to her and put my arms consolingly about her neck. When I lay in bed, my desire to comfort her came upon me with renewed force; I got up, and in my nightdress, just as I was, I slipped out into the dark corridor.
"For a long time I stood outside her door, trembling with cold and with fear, and with my hand on the door-k.n.o.b. At last I took heart and crept in softly.
"She knelt before her bed with her head pressed into the pillows. She seemed to be praying.
"I stopped at the door, for I did not venture to disturb her.
"At last she turned round, and at sight of me started up abruptly.
""What do you want?" she stammered.