But where was Wolfgang to be meanwhile?

"At home," said his father. "He's old enough; eleven years. He is at school in the morning and in the garden in the afternoons, and Hofmann can come and see him every other day--to rea.s.sure you."

It was an unbearable thought for the mother to leave the child alone. She would have preferred to take him with her. But Paul had got vexed: "What next?" And the doctor had said. "On no account."

Then Kate had wanted to induce her husband to take the boy with him: "How healthy it would be for him to run about to his heart's content for once in a way."

"It seems to me he does enough of that here. Really, Kate, the boy is as strong as can be, don't always make such a fuss about him.

Besides, I'm not going to take him away from school when it's quite unnecessary."

To be sure, he must not lose his place in the form, and possibly become one of the last. Kate was so ambitious on her son's account. But as the July holidays were almost over and she had not gone away with him during that time, which would have been more suitable, she would remain at home for the present. She declared she could not go away.

However, the doctor and her husband arranged everything without her; the more nervously and anxiously she refused to go, the more urgent a thorough cure seemed to be to them. The day of departure had already been proposed.

But Lisbeth gave notice beforehand: no, if the mistress was going away for so long and the master too, she would go as well. Remain alone with Wolfgang, with _that_ boy? No, that she wouldn't.

She must have saved a tidy little sum during the well-nigh ten years she had been in the house, for even the promise of a rise could not keep her. She persisted in her wish to leave, and threw an angry look at the boy, whose laughing face appeared outside above the windowsill at that moment.

Kate was beside herself. Not only because she did not want the servant she had had so long to leave her, but she had reckoned so firmly on Lisbeth keeping a watchful eye on the boy during her absence.

And it pained her that she spoke of Wolfgang in such a tone full of hate. What had the child done to her?

But Lisbeth only shrugged her shoulders without speaking, and looked sulky and offended.

Paul Schlieben took the boy in hand. "Just tell me, my boy, what's been the trouble between you and Lisbeth? She has given notice, and it seems to me she's leaving on your account. Listen"--he cast a keen glance at him--"I suppose you've been cheeky to her?"

The boy's face brightened: "Oh, that's nice, that's nice that she's going." He did not answer the question that had been put to him at all.

His father caught him by the ear. "Answer me, have you been cheeky to her?"

"Hm." Wolfgang nodded and laughed. And then he said, still triumphing in the remembrance: "It was only yesterday. I gave her a smack in the face. Why does she always say I've no right here?"

The man did not tell anything of this to his wife; she would only have brooded over it. He had not punished the boy either, only shaken his finger at him a little.

Lisbeth went away. She left the house, in which she had served so long and faithfully and in which she had had to put up with so much--as she weepingly a.s.sured her mistress, who was also overcome with emotion--like an offended queen.

Another maid had been engaged, one in whom Kate had certainly not much confidence from the commencement--Lisbeth had straightway given her the impression of being much more intelligent--but there was no choice, as it was not the time of year when servants generally leave; and she had to go to the baths as quickly as possible.

So Cilia Pioschek from the Warthe district came to the Schliebens.

She was a big, strong girl with a face that was round and healthy, white and red. She was only eighteen, but she had already been in service a long time, three years as nurse at the farm bailiff's whilst she still went to school. Paul Schlieben was amused at her--she did not understand a joke, took everything literally and said everything straight out just as it came into her head--but Kate called her behaviour "forward." On the other hand the new maid was on better terms with the old cook and the man-servant than Lisbeth, as she put up with a good deal.

"You can go away with your mind at rest," said Paul. "Do me this favour, Kate, don't oppose our plan any longer. In six weeks you will be back again quite well, G.o.d willing, and I shall not see these"--he gave a slight tap with his finger--"these small wrinkles at the corners of your eyes any more." He kissed her.

And she returned his kiss, now when she was to be separated from him for the first time since their marriage for so long; for they had always, always travelled together before, and since Wolfchen had come to the house he had only once asked permission to leave her for a fortnight at the most. She had never left the child alone. And now she was to leave her dear ones for six long weeks. She clung to him. She had it on the tip of her tongue to ask him: "Why don't you go with me as you used to? Franzensbad and Spa--there's surely no great difference between those two?" But why say it if he had never thought of doing so for a moment? Years had gone by, and some of the tenderness that had united them so closely before, that they could only enjoy things together, and that made them feel they never could be separated, had disappeared under the winged flight of time.

She sighed and withdrew quietly from the arm that he had thrown round her. "If anybody should come in and see us like this. Such an old couple," she said, trying to joke. And he gave a somewhat embarra.s.sed laugh, as she thought, and did not try to hold her.

But when the carriage which was to take her to the station in Berlin stood before the door early one morning, when the two large trunks as well as the small luggage had been put on the top of it, when he held out his hand to help her in and then took a seat beside her, she could not refrain from saying: "Oh, if only you were going with me. I don't like travelling alone."

"If only you had said so a little earlier." He felt quite perturbed; he was exceedingly sorry. "How easily I could have taken you there the one day, seen you settled there and come back the next."

Oh, he did not understand what she meant by "if only you were going with me." Stay with her there as well--that was what she had meant.

Her sorrowful eyes sought the upstairs window behind which Wolfchen was sleeping. She had had to say goodbye to him the evening before, as she was leaving so early. She had only stood at his bedside with a mute good-bye that morning, and her gloved hand had pa.s.sed cautiously over his head, that rested so heavily on the pillow, so as not to waken him.

Oh, how she would have liked to have said some loving words to him now.

"Give my love to the boy, give my love to the boy," she said quickly, hastily, several times after each other, to the cook and Friedrich, who were standing near the carriage. "And take good care of him. Do you hear? Give my love to the boy, give my love to the boy."

She could not say anything more or think of anything more. "Give my love to----"

Then the upstairs window rattled. Stretching both her arms out she rose half out of her seat.

The boy put his head out. His cheeks, that were hot with sleep, showed ruddy above his white night-shirt.

"Good-bye, good-bye. Come back well. And be sure to write to me."

He called it out in a very contented voice and nodded down to her; and she saw Cilia's round, healthy, white and red face behind his and heard her friendly laugh.

CHAPTER X

Kate did not know herself how she got over those weeks in which she was separated from her home. It was not so bad as she had imagined. She felt that a greater tranquillity had come over her, a tranquillity she never could feel at home; and this feeling of tranquillity did her good. She wrote quite contented letters, and her husband's bright accounts of "magnificent mountains" and "magnificent weather" delighted her. She also heard good news from Dr. Hofmann, who used to send her his reports most faithfully, as he had promised.

"The boy is in the best of health," he wrote, "you need not worry about him, my dear lady. He certainly has to do without his playfellows at present, for a boy and girl are ill, and he feels bored when alone with the fat boy who is still left. He is generally by himself in the garden; Friedrich has given him some lettuce plants, and he has also sown some radishes. I have found him at his lessons as well."

Thank G.o.d! It seemed to the woman as if she could breathe freely now, as though free from a load. She carried the letter from her old friend about in her pocket for a long time, read it whilst out for a walk, when sitting on a bench and in the evening when lying in bed. "A boy and girl are ill"--oh, the poor children. What could be the matter with them? But thank G.o.d, he was mostly by himself in the garden now. That was the best.

She wrote a letter to her boy, a very bright one, and he answered her in the same strain. The letter in itself was certainly rather funny. "Beloved mother"--how comical. And the whole wording as though copied from a polite letter-writer. She made up her mind to enclose it in her next letter to her husband what would he say to it? "Beloved mother"--but it pleased her all the same, and also "Your obedient son"

at the end of it. Otherwise the letter really contained nothing, nothing of what he was doing, not even anything about the Lamkes, also no longing "come back soon"; but it was written carefully, tidily and clearly, not such a scrawl as he usually wrote. And that showed her that he loved her.

He had also enclosed a little picture, a small square with a border of lace paper, on which there was a snow-white lamb holding a pink flag. Under it stood in golden letters, "Agnus Dei, miserere n.o.bis."

Where could he have got that from? Never mind from where, he had wanted to give her something. And the small tasteless picture touched her deeply. The good boy.

She put the picture with the lamb of G.o.d carefully among her treasures; it should always remain there. A tender longing came over her for the boy, and she could not imagine how she had been able to stand it so long without him.

August was over and September already almost half gone when Kate returned home. Her husband, who had returned before her, came to meet her; they met in Dresden, and their meeting was a very cordial one.

He could never get tired of looking at her bright colour, her bright eyes; and she on her side found him very sunburnt, more youthful-looking and almost as slender as formerly.

They sat hand in hand in the compartment he had had reserved for them; quite alone like two young lovers. They had an enormous amount to say to each other--there was nothing, nothing whatever that disturbed them. They gazed at each other very tenderly.

"How delighted I am to have you again," she said, after he had told her a lot about his journey in a lively manner.

"And I you." He nodded to her and pressed her hand. Yes, it really seemed to both of them as if they had been separated from each other for an eternity. He drew her still closer, held her as tightly as though she were a precious possession that had been half s.n.a.t.c.hed away from him, and she clung to him, leant her head on his shoulder and smiled dreamily.