"It is just because I _did_ always think of them, because I tried again and again to remember that Martin Rockhammer is my brother, that things have turned out like this and not differently. It has cost me a heavy sacrifice,--you may believe me that! I have behaved quite fairly towards you, ha-ha-ha, brother--quite fairly!"

Martin inquires no further. The solution of this riddle is perfectly clear to him. Old blood-guilt has risen from the grave to claim its penalty.... He folds his hands and mutters softly:

"Retribution for Fritz! Retribution for Fritz!"

"For one reason, however, you are quite right to remind me of our parents; I must not bring shame upon their name, upon the name of Rockhammer! That is the one thing which has been worrying me all along--even though it did not alter matters; for surely a man must enjoy himself somehow ... ha-ha-ha! After all I am quite glad to have met you, for we can talk things over quietly ... I intend going to America!"

Martin looks for a while into his glowing, bloated face; then he says softly, "Go, in G.o.d's name!" and lets his hand drop heavily upon the table slab.

"And soon, too, what's more," Johannes continues. "I have already made enquiries. On the first of October the ship sails from Bremen--next week I shall have to leave here,--you know what part of our inheritance is owing to me--I dare say, by the bye, that I have got through a good bit of it already; give me as much as you happen to have handy in cash and send it to Franz Maas; I will fetch it from him."

"And won't you come just once more to the--to the--"

"To the mill? Never!" cries Johannes starting up, while a restless gleam, full of terror and of longing, comes into his eyes.

"And you expect me to--I am to bid you good-bye here--here in this disgusting hole--good-bye forever? good-bye forever?"

"I suppose that is what it will be," says Johannes, bowing his head.

Then Martin falls all in a heap and once more murmurs, "Retribution for Fritz!"

With burning eyes Johannes stares at his brother, crouching there before him as if broken, body and soul.... He is quite determined never to see him again ... but he must give a hand at parting!

"Farewell, brother," he says, approaching him, as he sits there motionless. "Keep well and happy!" Then, suddenly, a warm, gentle sensation comes over him. His brain reels. A thousand scenes seem simultaneously to be evoked. He sees himself as a child, petted and spoilt by his elder brother, he sees himself as a youth proudly walking at his side, he sees himself with him at their parent's death-bed, he sees himself hand in hand with him at that solemn moment when they vowed never to part, nor to let any third person come between them.

And now!--And now!

"Brother!" he cries aloud--and loudly sobbing he falls at his feet.

"My boy--my dear boy." He sobs and cries with joy, and catches hold of him with both hands and presses him to him as if he nevermore would let him go.

"Now I have got you ... oh, thank heaven--now I have got you! Now everything will come right again--won't it? Tell me it was all only a dream--only madness! You did not know what you were doing--eh? You don't remember anything of it--eh? I bet you haven't any notion of it all--eh? Now you have woke up, haven't you--you have woke up again now?"

Johannes digs his teeth into his lips till they smart and leans his face upon his breast. Then suddenly a thought takes possession of him and weighs him down and buzzes in his ears--a thought like a vampire, cold and damp, and beating the air with bat's wings.... In these arms Trude has rested this very day--this very day....

He jumps up abruptly.

Away from this place, away from this atmosphere--else madness will really a.s.sail him!

He rushes towards the door. One creak of its hinges, one click of the lock: he has disappeared.

Martin looks after him, mute with consternation; then he says, as if to quell his rising fear:

"He is too excited; he wants some fresh air. He will come back!"

His glance falls upon the wooden clothes=pegs on the opposite wall. He smiles, now quite rea.s.sured, and says "He has left his cap here; it is raining outside, the wind blows cold; he will come back." Thereupon he calls the innkeeper, orders his horse to be put up and has some hot grog mixed for his brother, and a bed prepared for him. "For," he says with a blissful smile, "he will come back again."

When everything is made ready he sits down on the bench and becomes lost in brooding. From time to time he murmurs as if to resuscitate his sinking courage:

"He will come back!"

Outside the rain beats against the windowpanes, autumn blasts are soughing around the housetop, and every gust of wind, every drop of rain, seems to proclaim:

"He will come back! He will come back!" The how's pa.s.s; the lamp goes out.... Martin has fallen asleep over his waiting and is dreaming of his brother's return.

In the morning the people of the inn wake him. Haggard and shivering he looks about him. His glance falls upon the empty bed in which his brother was to have slept. The first bed since six weeks!--Sadly he stands there in front of it and stares at it. Then he has his conveyance brought round and drives off.

This year autumn has come early. Since a week there has been a rough north wind which cuts through one's body as if it were November. Gusts of rain beat against the window-panes and the ground is already covered with a layer of yellowish-brown half-decayed leaves off the lime-trees.

And how soon it grows dark! In the bakery a light burns in the swinging lamp long before supper-time. Beneath its globe sits Franz Maas, eagerly reckoning up and counting. On the baker's table before him where as a rule the little white round heaps of dough are ranged, to-day there are little white round heaps of florins, and instead of the crisp "Bretzels" to-day the paper of bank-notes is crackling.

This is the treasure which Martin Rockhammer entrusted to him the Sunday before, with instructions to hand it over to Johannes. He also left a letter in which the various items of the inheritance are set down to a penny.

Every morning since then he has knocked at the door, and each time asked the selfsame question, "Has he been?" Then when Franz Maas shook his head, has silently departed again.

To-day the same. To-day is Friday; today he must come if he wants to be in time for the Bremen ship. Noiselessly he has opened the door and is standing behind him, just as he is about to lock the money away. "I suppose that is all for me," he asks, laying his hand on his shoulder.

"Thank heaven I you have come," cries Franz, agreeably startled. Then he casts a critical glance over his friend's figure. Martin must have been exaggerating when, with tears in his eyes, he described his dilapidated appearance. He looks decent and respectable, is wearing a brand new waterproof, beneath the turned-back flaps of which a neat gray suit is visible. His hair is smoothly brushed--he is even shaved.

But of course his dark, dulled gaze, the bagginess under his eyes, the ugly red of his cheeks, are sad witnesses in this face, eretime so youthfully joyous.

And then he grasps both his hands and says:

"Johannes, Johannes, what has come over you?"

"Patience; you shall hear all!" he replies, "I must confide in one living soul, or it will eat my very heart out over there."

"Then you really mean it? You intend--"

"I am off to-night by the mail-coach. My seat is already booked. Before I came to you, I went once more through the village. It was already dark, so I could venture--and I took leave of everything. I went to our parents' grave, and as far as the church door, and to the host of the 'Crown,' to whom I owed a trifle."

"And you forgot the mill?"

Johannes bites his lips and chews at his moustache; then he mutters: "That is still to come."

"Oh, how glad Martin will be," cries Franz Maas, quite red with pleasure himself.

"Did I say I was going to see Martin?" asks Johannes between his teeth, while his chest heaves, as if it had a load of embarra.s.sment to throw off.

"What? You intend slinking about on your father's inheritance like a thief,--avoiding a meeting with any one?"

"Not that either. I have to bid good-bye to some one, but not to Martin!"

"To whom else then?--To whom else, man?" cries Franz Maas, in whom a horrible suspicion dawns.

"Lock the door and sit down here," says Johannes,--"now I will tell you."

The hours pa.s.s by; the storm rattles at the shutters. The oil in the lamp begins to splutter. The two friends sit with their heads together, their looks occasionally meeting. Johannes confesses--conceals nothing.