"Good," said the young Frau, "go to bed." And when the maid was gone, she stood before her child, and looked at her; no! no! the sad lot of a poor n.o.ble Fraulein was not suited to that lovely face, and the thoughts of last evening were not suited to the thoughts of this morning. Her soul had suffered torments, fearful torments, during the night, but in the night, and through the torments, hope had been born in her heart, and this child of anguish had fallen upon her neck, and nestled closely to her, and kissed her, and stroked her face, and the blue eyes were beaming heavenward, and in them shone confidence,--yes, and victory.

The young Frau went to bed, and before her rose all the forms of the night: Korlin Kegel and Frau Nussler, the Frau Pastorin and Louise, Habermann and Brasig, they all stood, clear and distinct, before her eyes, she understood them all, in their true-hearted conduct and character; but among these images was another, which she did not understand; that was the old Jew. Such clear light fell upon him, and such dark shadows lay in the folds of his dressing-gown, and the wrinkles of his face,--she had never seen such an image,--that all grew indistinct before her eyes, and when she thought of his leave-taking, the image grew larger and larger, and even more indistinct, and she folded her hands upon her breast, and slept.

She slept, and the old Jew was in her dreams, but they were happy dreams; only once she started up, for it seemed to her that a carriage drove into the yard. She listened; but body and soul longed for rest; her head sank back on the pillow, and the friendly dream again hovered over her fair head, and whispered wonderful things in her ears.

But she had not heard falsely; a carriage had really driven into the yard, and in the carriage sat her husband. Axel had been driving about the country, like a speculator buying up eggs and poultry; he had halted before every door, and knocked, like a travelling beggar; he had asked help from business acquaintances, he had complained of his troubles to old friends, whom he had learned to know at the races, who had often borrowed money from him; n.o.body was at home, and those whom he met accidentally had left their purses at home. So long as we go about in brand new breeches, we have many friends, but when they are worn out, and our others have a patch on each knee, our friends feel ashamed of us. This was Axel's bitter experience. Without his sisters'

knowledge, he had secretly been in Schwerin; he had gone to the Jew, who had transacted the business so readily and quickly; but where were his securities? From his hotel he had looked over towards the region where Franz's estates lay; but where was Franz? He had done the last thing possible, he had gone to his brother-in-law, Breitenburg, with whom he had always been on bad terms; he had endured his cold reception, had told him of his terrible situation, but had said nothing about his sisters' money; Breitenburg had looked him sharply in the eyes, and turned his back upon him:

"Tu l'as voulu, George Dandin! And do you think I will throw my hard-earned savings into this pit, dug by your folly? It was not brought me by your sister."

Axel was going to say something about the seven thousand thalers, which his father had borrowed for him from Moses; then his brother-in-law turned upon him, and asked him, right to his face, "Where are the thirteen thousand thalers, out of which you have swindled your sisters?"

That struck him dumb,--the brother-in-law knew it would,--he turned pale, rushed out of the door, and got into his carriage.

"Where?" asked the coachman.

"Home."

"Where shall we stop to-night?"

"At home."

"Herr, the horses won't hold out."

"They must."

So they drove home, and when he got out Johann stood by the two good browns: "So, the two wheel-horses were driven to death before, and now the leaders are ruined; we have a span of cripples."

Axel went up to his room with heavy steps, it was broad daylight; in his room everything was as usual, and usually he found himself very comfortable there, and the old use and wont appealed softly to his heart; but his heart was not the old heart, heart and mind were changed, and use and wont no longer harmonized with them. He was restless and troubled; he opened the window, that the fresh morning air might cool his heated brow; he threw himself into the chair, that stood before his writing table, and pressed his head in both hands, as if it were held in a vice. Then his eyes fell upon a letter, the writing seemed familiar, he must have seen it before; he opened it; yes, it was from his sister. What had his brother-in-law, Breitenburg, called him?

Yes, that was it! He looked out of the window; behind the Rexow firs the sun was rising.

He looked at the letter again; it contained friendly words, but what did words avail, he had no money. He looked out of the window again, before him lay a field of wheat; ah, if it were ripe and threshed out, and had borne twenty-fold, then--no! no! even then it could not help him. And again his eyes returned to the letter; friendly words! but soon the words became more earnest, and looked at him sternly, he could not turn his eyes away; he read them to the end, and there it stood: "On this account, I have written to Frida also, for, dear, dear brother, if you have not safely invested our capital, we poor girls are utterly ruined!"

"Yes, ruined!" he cried, "ruined!" and sprang from the chair, and strode about the room, He went to the window; before him lay nature in her fullest splendor, and nature has power over every heart, but the heart must harmonize with nature, it must open itself fully and freely to the sunlight, and receive into itself the green earth and the blue heavens and the golden beams. But his heart was not open to these influences, his situation had overpowered him, and his thoughts turned solely and miserably to the most pitiable human resources. Money, money! He could coin no louis-d'ors from the sunbeams.

He threw himself into his chair again; so _she_ knew it, too. He had told her many lies, which she could not prove false; there was no use in lying now, she knew it. And she seemed to stand before him with her child in her arms, and to look at him sternly, and her clear gray eyes asked, "Have we deserved this at your hands?" and his three sisters stood around him, with sunken cheeks and pale lips, saying, "Yes Axel, dear Axel, utterly ruined!" And behind the old maids stood a darker form, in guise that was not of this earth, and that was his father, who called to him, "Thou shouldst have been a prop for my old house, but thou hast taken away stone after stone, and my house is falling to the ground." He could endure it no longer, he started up,--the ghosts vanished,--he ran up and down, and when he recollected himself, he was standing before a closet where he kept his fire-arms. Ah, he knew a place, so lonely, so still, it was the Lauban pond in the Rexow firs; he had often been there with the chase, when the brave old forester, Slang, was hunting; he could do it there. He opened the closet, and took out the revolver which Triddelsitz had procured for him, to shoot at the day-laborers. He tried it; yes! it was loaded. He went out of the door, but as he crossed the landing, he saw the door which led into Frida's room, where his wife and his child lay sleeping; he was startled, he tottered back; all the joy he had experienced in the faithful affection of his wife, in the lovely awakening nature of his child, came back to him; he fell upon the threshold before the door, and burning tears started from his eyes, and these tears, this earnest prayer to G.o.d, may have saved him,--we shall see how,--for the Lord holds us by slender, invisible threads.

He rose up, the prayer had not been for his own soul, but for others; he walked away, he went to the lonely Lauban pond. He threw himself down under the firs, behind a bush, took the revolver from his pocket, and laid it beside him; he looked once more, eagerly, mournfully, at the world around him; he looked once more at the sun, G.o.d's beautiful sun, for the last time; soon, night would fall upon him forever. The sun blinded him, he took out his handkerchief, and covered his eyes, and now the last, the most terrible thoughts overcame him. He sighed deeply; "It must be!" he exclaimed.

"A fine morning, Herr von Rambow!" cried a friendly, human voice, close by. Axel tore the cloth from his eyes, and threw it over the revolver.

"You are up early!" said Zachary Brasig, for it was he, and he threw himself down by Axel, on the gra.s.s. "Have you come out fishing, too?"

With that, he laid his hand on the handkerchief and the revolver: "Ah, so! You were going to practise pistol-shooting a little. I used to be a very good shot, myself, could shoot out the ace of hearts and the ace of clubs, without fail."

Then he stood up, with the revolver in his hand: "You see that mark on the fir yonder,--they are getting ready to fell timber,--I will wager four groschen, I never bet higher,"--bang! the shot went wide of the mark,--bang I missed it again, and yet again, and so on with the six shots.

"Who would have thought it? All missed! Who would have thought it?

Well, I have lost. Here are the four groschen. That is such an old fool of a pistol!" he cried, and tossed the revolver far out into the pond, "children and young people might hurt themselves with it."

Axel was in a strange humor; all at once, between his firm, deliberate resolve, to which he had been driven through fierce struggle and conflict, and the dark portal he was about to enter, stood this familiar, yes, in his eyes even vulgar life, as audacious and impertinent as a peasant at a fair, which could be shoved aside, neither to the right hand nor the left. He started up:

"Herr!"

"Herr-rr!" cried Brasig in return.

"What do you want here?"

"And what do _you_ want here?" asked Brasig back again.

"You are an impertinent fool!" cried Axel.

"You are the greatest fool!" cried Uncle Brasig, "you were about to commit the most fearful crime, from a reckless impulse, and you had forgotten everything,--your wife, your child. Hm! just touch a little spring, then we are out of it all! Wasn't it so? Who is the fool now?"

Axel leaned against a tree, with one hand pressed to his heart, and the other shading his eyes from the sun, and before him stood this vulgar man, with a fishing-rod in his hand, and had interposed between him and the dark portal,--it was life, however!

"Do you see!" continued Uncle Brasig, "if you had come three minutes earlier than I,"--those were the three minutes when he lay praying, on the threshold, for his wife and child,--"then you would be lying here, with a hole in your head, a frightful object; and when you had gone up to the throne of G.o.d, our Lord would have said to you: 'Thou fool! Thou didst not know, what, this very night, thy dear gracious Frau was doing for thee, and the Herr Inspector Habermann, and Frau Nussler, and the Frau Pastorin and Moses, and--and the others,'--and when the Lord had told you, do you know what you would have suffered? h.e.l.l torments!"

Axel removed his hand from his eyes, and stared at Brasig:

"What? what did you say?"

"That thirty-one thousand thalers have been advanced for you, this night, and Moses advances it, and your cousin Franz has arrived, who may possibly do something more. But you are an ignorant creature, who lets that greyhound of a Triddelsitz get revolvers, to shoot the day-laborers with, and then goes to shooting himself."

"Franz is here? Franz, did you say?"

"Yes, he is here; but he did not come on your account, he is here because he is determined to make Louise Habermann Frau von Rambow; but if you want to thank anybody,--Franz will do something, will perhaps do something more,--then go to your dear gracious Frau, and to Karl Habermann; you can go to Moses also, if you like, and you must not forget Frau Nussler, and the Frau Pastorin, they have all been good to you this night."

I never attempted to shoot myself, and cannot tell exactly how a poor man would feel, when, between himself and his resolution, ordinary life presses in so forcibly. I should think it might be a little vexatious, as when a weary, weary traveller is offered a gla.s.s of flat, sour beer,--and Uncle Brasig looked a little sour, this morning,--which he may not refuse; but then comes the love of life, dear, human life, and a wife, with a child on her arm, pours him a gla.s.s of cool, fresh wine, and he drains the gla.s.s: "So! now tell me what has happened."

Uncle Brasig related the good news, and Axel tottered from the tree, and fell upon the old man's neck.

"Herr Brasig! Dear Herr Brasig! Is it all true?"

"What do you mean? Do you think I would deceive you, at such a moment as this?"

Axel turned dizzy before the black abyss, into which, just now, he had looked so boldly; he staggered back, and there was a singing and a ringing in his ears, and a glowing and shining before his eyes and everything to which he was usually indifferent pressed overpoweringly upon him,--he pressed his hands over his eyes and began to weep bitterly. Uncle Brasig stood and looked at him compa.s.sionately, and going up to him with the most tender pity took him by the shoulder, and shook him gently, saying:

"We all wander, here, in confusion, and you are greatly to blame for your misfortunes; but the fault is not wholly yours: what possessed your blessed Frau Mother to make a lieutenant of you? How could a farmer be made out of a lieutenant? It is just as if the musician, David Berger, who has blown half his breath out of his body with his trumpet, should set up to be pastor, and preach preach with his half-breath; he couldn't hold out. But"--and he took the young man by the arm,--"come away from this place, and then you will feel better."

"Yes, yes!" cried Axel, "you are right! All my misfortunes arose from this unblessed soldier career. I got in debt there, and these first debts brought others in their train. But," he added, standing still, "what shall I say to my wife?"

"Nothing at all," said Brasig.

"No," said Axel, "I have solemnly resolved to tell her the whole truth, henceforth."

"Do you think the young gracious Frau will be likely to ask you--right to your face--why you didn't shoot yourself this morning? If you should get into any difficulty about it, I will tell fibs for you, I should not mind doing it; for it would be too horrible that such a dear young Frau should carry the thought with her, through her whole life, that the husband who should have cared for her was ready to leave her and her child, like a coward. No!" he added firmly, "she must not know it; no one need know it, but you and I. And make yourself easy, she is still asleep, for she could not have gone to bed before morning, and she must have been dreadfully tired."

They came back to Pumpelhagen, and met Daniel Sadenwater in the hall.