"How can it be?"

"H'm! h'm! The old story. A poor woman again who died, and we have adopted the poor orphan. You are not angry?" Timar trembled in every limb as if with ague. "Pray do not wake the sleepers before morning,"

said Therese, "It is bad for babies to be waked: children's lives are so precarious. You will be patient, won't you?"

It never occurred to Timar to protest. He threw off his cap and cloak, drew off his coat, and turned up his shirt-sleeves. Therese thought he was mad. And why not? He ran out to the walnut-house, tore the mattings down, drew out his carpenter's bench, placed the unfinished door-panel on it, took his chisel and began to work.

It was just growing light. Noemi dreamed that some one was at work in the new house; the plane grated over the hard wood, and the busy workman sung--

"For all the gold the world could hold, I would not give my Dodi's curl."

And when she opened her eyes she still heard the plane and the song.

CHAPTER IV.

THERESE.

Timar had succeeded in robbing every one.

From Timea he stole first her father's million, then the manly ideal of her heart, and kept for himself her wifely troth. From Noemi he stole her loving heart, her womanly tenderness, her whole being. Therese he robbed of her trust, the last belief of her misanthropic mind in the possible goodness of a man; then he took the island, in order to restore it to her, and so to obtain her grat.i.tude. Theodor Krisstyan he defrauded of half a world--for he exiled him to another hemisphere. From Athalie he took father, mother, home, and bridegroom, her whole present and future happiness. He robbed his friend Katschuka of the hope of a blissful life. The respect shown to him by the world, the tears of the poor, the thanks of the orphan, the decorations bestowed by his king, were they not all thefts? By deceit he obtained from the smugglers, the fidelity with which they guarded his secret--a thief who steals from other thieves! He even robbed the good G.o.d of a little angel. His soul was not his; he had pledged it to the moon, and had not kept his promise: he had not paid what he owed. The poison was ready which was to transport him to that distant star of night--the devils were already rejoicing and stretching out their claws to receive the poor soul. He took them in too; he did not kill himself, but defrauded even death. He laid hands on a paradise in the midst of the world, and took the forbidden fruit from the tree while the watching archangel turned his back, and in that hidden Eden he defied all human law: the clergy, the king, the judge, the general, the tax-collector, the police--all were deceived and defrauded by him.

And everything succeeded with him. How long would he go unpunished?

He could deceive every one but himself. He was always sad, even when he outwardly smiled. He knew what he ought to be called, and would gladly have shown himself in his true character.

But that was impossible. The boundless, universal respect--the rapturous love--if only one of these were really due to his true self! Honor, humanity, self-sacrifice were the original principles of his character, the atmosphere of his being. Unheard-of temptations had drawn him in the opposite direction; and now he was a man whom every one loved, honored, and respected, and who was only hated and despised by himself. Fate had blessed him since his last illness with such iron strength that now nothing hurt him, and instead of aging he seemed to renew his youth.

He was busy all through the summer with manual labor. The little house he had erected the year before he now had to finish, and to add the carver's and turner's work to it. He borrowed from the Muses their creative genius: a great artist was lost in Timar. Every pillar in the little house was of a different design: one was formed of two intwining snakes, whose heads made the capital; another, of a palm-tree with creepers climbing up it; the third showed a vine with squirrels and woodp.e.c.k.e.rs half hidden in its branches; and the fourth a clump of bulrushes rising from their leaves. The internal panels of the walls were a fanciful mosaic of carving; every table and chair was a work of art, and exquisitely inlaid with light-colored woods to make a pleasant contrast with the dark walnut. Each door and window betrayed some original invention; some disappeared in the wall, some slid up into the roof, and all were opened and shut by curious wooden bolts--for as Timar had declared that no nail should be put into the whole house which was not made by himself, not a morsel of iron was used in it.

What delight when the house was ready and he conducted his dear ones into it, and could say, "See, all this is my handiwork! A king could not give his queen such a present."

But it had taken years to complete it, and four winters had Timar spent in Komorn and four summers in the island, before Dodi the second had his house ready for him.

Then Michael had another task before him; he must teach Dodi to read.

Dodi was a lively, healthy, good-tempered boy, and Timar said he would teach him everything himself--reading, writing, swimming, also gardening and mason's and carpenter's work. He who knows these trades can always earn his bread. Timar fancied things would always go on thus, and he could live this life to the end of his days. But suddenly fate cried "Halt!"

Or rather not fate, but Therese. Eight years had pa.s.sed since Timar had found his way to the little island. Then Noemi and Timea were both children: now Noemi was twenty-two, Timea twenty-one, Athalie would soon be twenty-five; but Therese was over forty-five, Timar himself nearly forty, and little Dodi was in his fifth year.

One of them must prepare to go hence, for her time was come, and her cup of suffering was full enough for a long life: that one was Therese.

One summer afternoon when her daughter was out with the child, she said to Timar, "Michael, I have something to tell you--this autumn will be my last. I know that death is near. For twenty years I have suffered from the disease which will kill me; it is heart complaint. Do not look on this as a figure of speech; it is a fatal disease, but I have always concealed it, and never complained. I have kept it under by patience, and you have helped me by the love you showed and the joys you prepared for me. If you had not done so, I should long have lain beneath the sod.

But I can bear it no longer. For a year past sleep has fled from my eyes, and I hear my heart beat all day. It throbs quickly three or four times, as if frightened, then comes a sort of half-beat; then it stops entirely for a few moments, till it begins pulsating again rapidly after one or two slow throbs, followed by short beats and long pauses. This must soon come to an end. I often turn faint, and only keep up by an effort of will; this will not last through the summer--and I am content it should be so. Noemi has now another object for her affection. I will not trouble you, Michael, with questions, nor require of you any promise; spoken words are vain and empty--only what we feel is true. You feel what you are to Noemi, and she to you. What is there to disquiet me? I can die without even troubling the merciful G.o.d with my feeble prayers. He has given me all I could have asked of Him. Is it not so, Michael?"

Michael's head sunk. This had often of late destroyed his sleep. It had not escaped him that Therese's health was failing rapidly, and he had thought with trembling that she might be suddenly overtaken by death.

What would then become of Noemi? How could he leave the delicate creature here alone the whole winter with her little child? Who would help and protect her? He had often put the question aside, but now it confronted him, and must be considered.

Therese was right. The same afternoon a friendly fruit-woman came to the island, and while Therese was counting out her baskets of peaches, she suddenly fell down in a swoon. She recovered quickly, and three days later the woman came again, Therese was determined to serve her, and fainted once more. The fruit-dealer sighed heavily; the next time she came Noemi and Michael would not let her go in to Therese, but served her themselves. The woman remarked that the good lady would do well to see the priest, as she seemed so seriously ill.

Noemi did not yet know that her mother was dangerously ill; her frequent fainting-fits were put down to the hot weather. Therese said that many women suffered in the same way as they grew older. Timar was very attentive to her; he would not let her be troubled with household work, took care that she should rest, and made the child be quiet if he was noisy, but Therese's sleeplessness could not be cured.

One day all four sat together at dinner in the outer room, when Almira's barks announced the approach of strangers. Therese looked out, and said in great alarm, "Go inside quickly, that no one may see you."

Timar looked out, and he too saw that it would not be advisable for him to meet the new-comer, for it was none other than his Reverence Herr Sandorovics, the dean who had received the order, who would not fail to recognize Herr von Levetinczy, and would have some pleasant things to say to him. "Push the table away and leave me alone," said Frau Therese, making Noemi and Dodi rise too. And as if all her strength had returned, she helped to carry the table into the next room, so that when his reverence knocked at the door she was alone, and had drawn her bedstead across the door-way so as to prevent access to the inner apartment.

The dean's beard was longer and grayer since we last saw him; but his cheeks were rosy, and his figure that of a Samson. His deacon and acolyte, who had come with him, had remained in the veranda, and were trying to make friends with the great dog.

The reverend gentleman came in alone, with his hand out as if to give any one a chance of kissing it. As Therese showed no inclination to avail herself of the opportunity, the visitor was at once in a bad temper. "Well, don't you know me again, you sinful woman?"

"Oh, I know you well enough, sir, and I know I am a sinner--what brings you here?"

"What brings me, you old gossip? You ask me that, you G.o.d-forsaken heathen! It is clear you don't know me."

"I told you before that I knew you. You are the priest who would not bury my poor husband."

"No--because he left the world in an unauthorized way, without confession or absolution. Therefore it befell him to be put under ground like a dog. If you don't wish to be buried like a dog too, look to it: repent and confess while there is yet time. Your last hour may come to-day or to-morrow. Pious women brought me the news of your being near death, and begged me to come here and give you absolution--you have to thank them for my presence."

"Speak low, sir; my daughter is in the next room, and she would be alarmed."

"Indeed! your daughter? and a man and a child too?"

"Certainly."

"And the man is your daughter's husband?"

"Yes."

"Who married them?"

"He who married Adam and Eve--G.o.d."

"Foolish woman! That was when there were no priests nor altars. But now things are not managed so easily, and there is a law to govern them."

"I know it: the law drove me to this island; but that law has no jurisdiction here."

"So you are an absolute heathen?"

"I wish to live and die in peace."

"And you have permitted your daughter to live in shame?"

"What is shame?"

"Shame? The contempt of all respectable people."

"Does that make me warm or cold?"