"I will work," Paul gasped out, and looked at the brothers in humble entreaty.

"You have worked already for ten years and have not saved anything."

"The fire came and prevented me," stammered Paul, as if he were asking pardon for the misfortune that had happened to him.

"And next year something else will come and prevent you. No, dear friend, we cannot depend upon that."

The fear that he would have to return to his sisters without bringing any consolation sank deeper and deeper into his heart. He was so overpowered that it loosed his tongue, and he cried out, "But for G.o.d's sake, listen to reason. I can't do more than work.... I will work like a slave.... Will work day and night. I will pinch, save, and starve even, and all I earn shall be yours.... Just see.... I have splendid prospects.... The locomobile will soon be repaired ... and the moor is very lucrative ... it is fifteen feet deep ... you can measure it....

The cart-load of peat fetches ten marks ... and the dowry shall be paid to the last farthing in yearly instalments."

He gazed at them with expectant eyes, for he felt sure they would seize this offer directly; and when they continued silent, he pa.s.sed his hand despairingly over his forehead, from which the cold perspiration was streaming, and murmured,

"Well, what more can I do?... Yes, I _will_ do more; I will ask my father to give up the farm to me, and will make it over to you, so that ... when my father dies one of you will be master there.... I will go away and take nothing but the clothes I stand up in. Is not that enough for you?"

But still they were silent.

Then he felt as if everything to which his belief had hitherto clung was slipping from him, as if the ground were giving way under his feet, as if he himself were dropped into s.p.a.ce. He clasped his hands, his teeth chattered, and he stared at them like a man bereft of reason. "Is it possible, then, you are not willing? really not willing? Can't you understand at all that it is your duty to make amends where you have sinned?... Does not your sense of honor tell you that you may not rob others of their honor?... Does your conscience let you sleep?"

"Stop!" cried Ulrich, who began to feel decidedly uncomfortable.

"No, I will not stop; I cannot go home like this ... really I cannot....

Have you no idea, then, of the mischief you have done ... of the misery that reigns in my home?" and he shuddered at the remembrance of what he had left there. "If you knew that you would not be so hard.... See, Fritz and Ulrich ... I have known you both such a long time.... We have sat together in school ... and together ... we have knelt before the altar ... you always had an ill-will towards me; I have had to bear much from you.... But I will forget everything if only you will make amends for this one thing. You are light-minded, but you are not bad ... you cannot be bad... you, too, have had a mother.... I have seen her... she was standing at our confirmation by the third pillar on the left, and crying just as my mother cried, and my mother--oh, fie!" He interrupted himself, for he felt overwhelmed with shame at having mentioned the name of his saint before these scoundrels; but the fear of having to return home without any consolation made him crazy; but he gulped that down, too, and began again, while his thoughts chased each other through his head. "Only think if you went out now to the cemetery and had sisters ... who had been betrayed ... and you had not watched over those sisters sufficiently ... and you dared not touch the snow that lies on the grave ... and I were the betrayer ... what ... what would you do?"

"We should kill you," said Ulrich, glancing at him contemptously.

He uttered a piercing cry, for he now realized how deeply he lowered himself--how he had dragged his pride and honor in the dust. With clinched fists he rushed upon Ulrich, but the latter barricaded himself behind the table, and Fritz rushed to the next room to call the servant.

Then he staggered out.

The gate was locked as before. He did not dare go back to have it opened, so, lying down flat, he crept under the fence like a dog.

CHAPTER XVIII

"The young master leads a very gay life all at once,"

said the servants; and as everything went as it pleased, they stole one bushel of corn after the other.

Paul meanwhile visited all the festivities and dances in the neighborhood. Any one who saw him appear in that merry crowd with his sombre brow and his scared, searching look, asked himself indeed, "What does he want here?" And many gave him a wide berth, as if a shadow had fallen on their joy.

Paul was quite clear about what he was doing. He had heard that the Erdmanns let no festivity pa.s.s without going thither to be merry as wildly as possible.

"I shall know how to meet them," he said to himself; "the night is a dark and the heath lonely. They will look into my face and the face of death under G.o.d's open sky."

Two days after his last visit to Lotkeim he had driven to the town and bought a revolver; a beautiful six-shooter, one with a long slender barrel. Like a wild animal he lurked about at night in the bushes and hidden paths of the heath when he thought they would pa.s.s.

But they did not come. They seemed to have become suspicious, and therefore stayed at home; or, what was still more likely, their money had come to an end.

"I can wait," he said, and continued this mode of life; and when he occasionally spent the evening at home, and sat together with his sisters at the supper-table--a sad, silent meal--he felt terrified each time when he looked up and found his mother's features reflected in the two pale, haggard young faces. It drove him out of the house again.

It was Shrove Tuesday, the last night of the carnival, that a grand ball was to be given in the town-hall by the land-owners of the neighborhood.

"I shall catch them there," he said to himself, for he had heard that both the brothers were to be stewards of the festivity.

When dusk approached he ordered his sledge, hid the revolver in the boot of it, and set out on his way to the town.

The sun had been shining all day, and now the sky was all aglow with the last rays of the setting sun. The heath lay shrouded in a blue-gray mist, and sparkling ice-crystals were flying through the clear winter air.

When he pa.s.sed Helenenthal he saw two sledges moving towards the manor-house laden with fir branches.

"It seems to me they are going to have a festivity there," he murmured, looking after the sledges; and with a sombre smile he added, "I need not be jealous, for to-day I, too, hold a festival."

At six o'clock he arrived in the town, procured himself an entrance-ticket, and remained crouched in a corner of the inn till nine o'clock, absorbed in his own dark thoughts.

When he entered the dancing-room, which was all stir and confusion, he hid himself in the shadow of a pillar, for he felt as though the murderous thoughts that filled his soul were written on his forehead, clearly visible to everybody.

All of a sudden a painful thrill ran through his frame. He had found the brothers; they stood in the middle of the room, proud and radiant, with silken badges on their shoulders, and lilies-of-the-valley in their b.u.t.ton-holes, looking at the row of girls dressed in white, who ornamented the walls, with a triumphant smile.

"There, now you are doomed," he muttered with a deep sigh. He felt that there was no retreat for him now. And then he hid in a quiet corner, from whence he could keep his victims in sight. The blazing lights lit up the scene for him as clearly as daylight, but he did not see it; the music fell in full chords upon his ear, but he did not hear it; all his faculties were swallowed up in one wild, bloodthirsty longing.

As he was staring in this way at the crowd, he heard close behind him a conversation between two portly elderly men.

"Are you going to the funeral also to-morrow?"

"Yes. They say it will be a great ceremony. One ought not to miss it."

"Had she been ill long?"

"Oh, very long. Our old doctor had already given her up years ago. Then she was in the south with her daughter, and after her return lingered on for I don't know how long."

He listened; a dim presentiment arose in his mind. The fir branches. The fir branches.

And one of the voices continued:

"Tell me; the daughter must be quite at a marriageable age now. Is she not engaged yet?'

"She is celebrated for the refusals she deals out," answered the other voice. "Some say she did so in order not to leave her sick mother; others because she has a secret love-affair with her cousin, Leo h.e.l.ler; you know him."

"Oh, the young good-for-nothing!" said the first voice again. "Last week he lost eight hundred marks at baccarat; the money-lenders have got him well into their clutches, and he keeps a mistress, too. But he is a smart, gay fellow for all that, and quite made to catch goldfish."

And the two voices went away laughing.

Paul had a vague feeling as if he must throw himself down on the ground and press his face in the dust; something rose in his throat; everything began to swim before his eyes. So she had ceased to suffer: the pale, kind woman who had watched over the Haidehof like a good angel, and whom his heart had clung to all his life.

Now that she was dead the way was free to ruin and crime. And Elsbeth?

How she had trembled in antic.i.p.ation of this dreadful moment, how he had vowed to be near her then; and instead of that he was lurking here like a wild beast, bloodthirsty thoughts in his soul--he, the only one in whom her pure soul had once confided.