"If only this anxiety were not always with me," she complained.

"Anxiety! you must let her be your friend, I have known her all my life, and when I did not know why I quickly found some reason. It is not so bad, either--if there were no anxiety, one would not know for what purpose one lives. But only think how contented you might be. You see nothing but merry faces surrounding you. Your mother feels happy in spite of all her sufferings, does she not?"

"Yes, thank G.o.d," she replied, "she has no idea how ill she is."

"There you see! and your father has no idea of it, either. No care weighs on them, they love each other, and love you as well. No angry word is spoken among you, and when your mother at last closes her eyes she will perhaps do so with a smile on her lips, and be able to say, 'I have always been very happy.' Do tell me--what more can you wish for?"

"But she shall not die,' cried Elsbeth.

"Why not? he asked, 'is death so terrible?"

"Not for her but for myself.

"There must not be any question of one's self," he replied, pressing his lips firmly together, "one must just try to bear it the best one can.

Death is only terrible when one has waited for happiness all through life and it has not come. Then one must feel as if one had to get up hungry from a richly spread table, and I should like to save any one I love from that. You see I have a mother, too, she also wished to be happy once, and even yet would like far too much to be so. I am the only one who could take care from her shoulders, and I am not able to do so.

What do you think I must feel in this case? I see how she grows old in sorrow and need, I can count the wrinkles on her forehead and cheeks.

Her mouth falls in and her chin grows long. It is a long time since she spoke any loud word, from day to day she becomes quieter, and so, quietly, she will die one day, and I shall be standing by and shall say, 'It is my fault, I have not been able to give her one single day of happiness."

"Poor fellow," she whispered, "can't I help you at all?"

"No one can help me as long as my father--" he stopped, terrified at the course of his own thoughts.

Both were silent They sat there for a long time without moving, their twenty year old heads leaning on their hands bowed with care. The moonbeams lay like silver on their hair, which the soft wind of the heath ruffled gently.

Then the shadow of a cloud pa.s.sed over them They both trembled. They felt as if the sad fairy whom they called Dame Care were spreading her sombre wings over them.

"I will go home," Elsbeth said, rising.

"Go, with G.o.d's blessing," he answered, solemnly.

She seized both his hands "Thank you," she said, softly, "you have done me much, much good."

"And if you need me again--"

"Then I shall come and whistle for you," she answered, smiling.

And then they parted.

As in a dream Paul walked through the dark wood. The fir trees rustled softly, the moonbeams were dancing on the moss.

"It is strange," he thought, "that they all tell me their woes," and he concluded from that that he was the happiest of them all. "Or the unhappiest," he added, meditatively, but then he laughed mysteriously and threw his cap high in the air.

When he stepped out into the light on the heath he saw two shadows flitting before him which disappeared in the misty distance.

Immediately after he heard something rustle in the juniper bushes.

He turned quickly round and saw another shadowy couple, who seemed to sink into the ground behind a bush.

"The whole heath seems alive to-day," he murmured, and added, smiling, "of course, it is mid summer night."

Soon after him the twins came home with wild hair and flushed faces.

They declared the vicar had told them their fortunes by cards till midnight. They would soon get husbands.

Giggling, they slipped away into their bedroom.

CHAPTER XII

Old Meyerhofer revelled in happiness. The promise of the rich Douglas to partic.i.p.ate in his undertakings had raised his chances suddenly to a giddy height. The ears which for him heretofore had been closed began to listen to his explanations with eagerness, and in the public houses, where until now he had been received with a half ironical, half pitying smile, he was now considered a great man.

"He will join me with half his fortune," he related, "we are already in communication with Borsig, in Berlin, who is going to furnish us with the necessary machines, we have written to Oldenburg for a technical director, and every day we have inquiries at what price we are able to sell the peat blocks per million."

The consequence was that they pressed him to begin issuing his shares and when they gathered round him and asked him to reserve so and so many shares for each, he drew himself up proudly and said they would probably remain in private hands.

At home he was busy designing the new headings for the note paper of the future firm, and the borrowed money jingled in all his pockets.

Four weeks had pa.s.sed since that midsummer night, when there came from Helenenthal two cards of invitation one for Meyerhofer junior and the other for the young ladies.

"For a garden party," they said.

"Aha! they court our favor already," the old man cried, "the rats smell the bacon."

Paul went with his card--which bore Elsbeth's hand-writing--behind a haystack, and there studied each letter of it in solitude for wellnigh an hour.

Then he went up to his garret and stood before the looking gla.s.s.

He found that his whiskers had grown in fulness and only at the cheeks still showed thin places.

"It will do very well," he said, in an attack of vanity, but when he saw himself smile he wondered at the deep sad lines which ran from his eyes, past his nose, down to the corners of his mouth.

"Wrinkles make one interesting," he consoled himself by thinking.

From this hour he exclusively thought about what role he was to play at the party.

He practised before the looking gla.s.s making stylish bows, and every morning looked at his Sunday suit, and tried to hide the shabbiness of his coat by brushing some black color over it.

The invitation had caused a great revolution in his mind It was for him a greeting from the promised land of joy, which he, like Moses, had never seen but from afar. It was not for nothing that he was twenty years old.

The day of the party arrived. His sisters had put on their white muslin dresses and fastened dark roses in their hair. They skipped up and down before the looking gla.s.s and asked each other, "Am I beautiful?' And though each willingly replied" Yes,' to this question, they hardly knew how beautiful they were.

His mother sat in a corner, looked at them and smiled.

Paul ran hither and thither in confusion. He inwardly wondered how such a joyful event could cause one such great anxiety. He had prepared all sorts of beautiful speeches which he intended to hold at the party about the welfare of humanity, about peat-culture, and Heine's "Buch der Lieder". They should see that he was able to converse amiably with ladies.

The open carriage, a remainder of past splendor, took the brother and sisters to the party. They were to return on foot.