Read Ebook: Dame Care by Sudermann Hermann Overbeck Bertha Translator

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Ebook has 2275 lines and 71222 words, and 46 pages

Frau Elsbeth had bent her head on the stranger's shoulder, as if that was the most natural thing in the world, and went on softly crying to herself.

"And perhaps I can also be of use to you," she continued; "at least, so far as I can take part of the bitterness from your soul. We women understand each other better than those hard, passionate men. The common sufferings that weigh on all of us bring us nearer to each other. And, above all, one thing: I have spoken to my husband, and beg you, in my name and his, to look on this house as your property for as long as ever it pleases you. We generally pass the winter in town, and we have another estate besides which we intend to let an inspector manage. You see, therefore, that you do not in any way disturb us, but, on the contrary, do us a favor if you will stay on here as before for another half year or longer."

Frau Elsbeth did not thank her, but the tearful glance she gave the stranger was thanks enough.

"Now be cheerful again, dearest Mrs. Meyerhofer," she continued, "and if in future you need advice or help, always remember that there is some one who has to make amends to you for much--And what a splendid baby!"--she turned towards the cradle--"a boy or a little girl?"

"A boy," said Frau Elsbeth, with a feeble smile.

"Has he found any brothers or sisters already? But why do I ask? The two little stalwart fellows outside, who received my carriage--may I hope to know them better? No, not here," she interposed, quickly; "it might excite you still more. Later on, later on. This little citizen of the world interests us most for the moment."

She bent over the cradle and arranged the baby-clothes.

"He has quite a knowing little face," she said, jestingly.

"Care stood at his cradle," answered Frau Elsbeth, gently and sadly; "that's why he has that old face."

"Oh, you must not be superstitious, dear friend," answered the visitor. "I have been told that newborn babes often have something old in their features; they soon lose that."

"Surely you, too, have children?" asked Frau Elsbeth.

"Oh, I am still such a young wife," answered her visitor, blushing. "Scarcely six months married. But--" and she blushed still more.

"God be with you in your time of trouble," said Frau Elsbeth; "I will pray for you."

The stranger's eyes grew moist. "Thanks, a thousand thanks," she said. "And let us be friends, I entreat you, with all my heart. Shall I propose something? Take me as godmother for your youngest child, and do me the same favor when Heaven blesses me."

The two women pressed each other's hands silently. The bond of friendship was sealed.

When the visitor had left her, Frau Elsbeth looked round with a shy, sad look. "Just now everything here was bright and sunny," she murmured, "and now it has become so dark again."

After a short time, in spite of the nurse's opposition, the two eldest boys rushed into the sickroom with joyful clamor. Each had a bag with sweets in his hand.

"The strange lady has given us this," they shouted.

Frau Elsbeth smiled. "Hush, children," she said, "an angel has been with us."

The two little boys opened anxious eyes, and asked,

"Mamma, an angel?"

So Mrs. Douglas became Paul's godmother.

Meyerhofer, indeed, was not a little indignant at the new friendship, for "I don't want the pity of happy people," he often used to say; but when the mild, gentle woman appeared in the manor-house for the second time, and tried to persuade him, he did not dare to say "No" any longer.

He also gave his consent to their prolonged stay in the old home, though he did it with repugnance. The farm Mussainen, which in fact he had bought that same day, was in so desolate a condition that it seemed dangerous for wife and children to stay there in the cold autumn days. Above all, the most needful repairs had to be made. Carpenter, mason, and builder had to be fetched ere it was possible to think of moving.

Nevertheless, Frau Elsbeth, through her husband's obstinacy, was forced to move into the new dwelling long before the arrangements were finished. One day when an inspector from the new master appeared with a number of workmen and asked for shelter in his name, he declared this proceeding to be an intentional insult, and was firmly resolved not to stay a day longer on the ground which once had been his property.

It was a cold, dull November day when Frau Elsbeth and her children had to say farewell to the dear house. A fine, drizzling rain came from the sky, making everything damp.

The heath, shrouded in gray mist, lay desolate and comfortless before their eyes.

The youngest at her breast, the two other children crying near her, she stepped into the vehicle which was to lead her towards her new fate, which, alas! seemed so dark.

When they drove out of the gate, the cold winds from the heath whipped their faces with icy scourges. Then the little one, who for so long had been lying peaceful and quiet, began to cry bitterly. She wrapped him closer in her cloak and bent down low over the shivering little form, in order to hide the tears, which were streaming down her cheeks incessantly.

After half an hour's drive over the heavy rain-soaked clay roads, they reached their destination. She could have shrieked aloud when she saw the new house before her in all its desolation and ruin.

Wretched mud farm-buildings; a swampy yard; a low dwelling-house with a shingle roof, from the walls of which the chalk had crumbled down and showed the bare wall underneath; a wilderness of a garden, in which the last sad remains of the summer asters and sunflowers stood among half-decayed vegetables, round about a gaudy painted fence, which seemed to have received extreme unction just before its end--this was the place where the family of the ruined squire had to live henceforth.

This was the place where little Paul grew up, and to which the love of his childhood, the care of half his life was devoted.

He was in his early years a delicate, sickly creature, and many a night his mother trembled lest the feeble light of his life should be extinguished before dawn. At such times she would sit in the dark, low bedroom, leaning her elbow on the edge of his little bed, gazing with feverish eyes at his little thin body, which was painfully convulsed by spasms.

But he passed all the crises of his early childhood, and at five years old, though pale and weak of limb and almost careworn in face--for he had really retained the old look--he was a healthy boy, who gave promise of long life.

At this time his first recollections begin. The earliest, which in after-years he often recalled, was as follows:

The room is half dark. Icicles are clinging to the windows, and through the curtains shines the red glow of the sunset. The elder brothers have gone skating, but he is in his little bed--for he has to go to bed early--and near him sits his mother, one hand encircling his neck, and the other on the edge of the cradle, in which the two little sisters sleep, which Master Stork brought a year ago, both on the same day.

"Mamma, tell me a fairy tale," he pleads.

And his mother told him one. What? He could only remember very faintly, but there was something in it about a gray woman who had visited his mother in all her sad hours, a woman with a pale and haggard face, and dark, tear-stained eyes. She had come like a shadow, like a shadow she had gone, had extended her hands over his mother's head, she knew not whether for a blessing or for a curse, and had spoken words which had reference to him--little Paul. In them there was the question of sacrifice and of redemption; the words he had forgotten again--probably he was too stupid to understand them. But one thing still remained clearly enough: while he listened to his mother's words, breathless with terror and expectation, he suddenly saw the gray figure of whom she spoke, bodily standing at the door--exactly the same, with her arms uplifted, and her pale, sad face. He hid his head on his mother's arm; his heart beat, his breath began to fail him, and, in deadly terror, he screamed out,

"Mamma, there she is, there she is!"

"Who? Dame Care?" asked his mother.

He did not answer, but began to cry.

"Where, then?" continued his mother.

"There, at the door," he replied, raising himself and clutching her round the neck, for he was dreadfully frightened.

"Oh, you silly little one," said his mother; "that is papa's long travelling-cloak." And she fetched it, and made him feel the lining and the stuff, so that he should be thoroughly convinced; and he gave in. But inwardly he was all the more firmly persuaded that he had seen the gray woman face to face. And now he also knew what she was called.

"Dame Care," she was called.

But his mother had grown thoughtful, and was not to be moved to tell the end of the fairy tale. Neither would she in later times, however urgently he might plead.

He had only a vague remembrance of his father in those days: a man with high Wellington boots, who scolded his mother and whipped his brothers, while he overlooked him altogether. Only at rare times he got a look askance, which did not seem to bode any good. Sometimes, especially when his father had been in the town, his face was dark red in color, like an overheated kettle, and his steps swayed from side to side when he crossed the room. Then the same thing was always enacted over again.

First he fondled the twins, whom he seemed to be particularly fond of, and rocked them in his arms, while his mother stood close beside him, following each of his movements with anxious looks. Then he sat down to eat, turned over what was in the dishes, pushed them aside, calling them poor and unsavory food, only fit for beasts. Occasionally he would hit Max or Gottfried with the rod, was angry with their mother, and finally went out to pick a quarrel with the servants. His bullying voice resounded in the yard, so that even Caro, chained up, hid his tail between his legs, and retired to the farthest corner of the kennel. If after a while he returned to the room, his humor had generally changed from anger to despair. He wrung his hands, lamented the misery in which he had to live there, talked to himself of all sorts of great things which he would have undertaken if one thing or another had not prevented him, and if heaven and earth had not conspired together to ruin him. Then he would often go to the window, and shake his fist at the White House yonder, which looked so attractive in the distance.

"Ah, the White House!"

His father abused it and knitted his brow if he only glanced in that direction; and he himself--he loved it, as if part of his soul lingered there. Why? He did not know. Perhaps only because his mother loved it. She, too, stood often at the window, gazing at it; but she did not knit her brow, not she; her face grew soft and melancholy, and from her eyes there shone a longing so ardent that he, standing near her, often felt a sensation of awe steal over him.

Was not his little heart filled with the same longing? Did not that home, ever since he could think at all, appear to him as the embodiment of everything beautiful and magnificent? Did it not always stand before him when he shut his eyes and even creep into his dreams?

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