Читать книгу The Son of His Mother - Clara Viebig - Страница 7

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And they went away.

But it seemed to the woman as though every joy had disappeared with the emerald green meadow in the Alps, in which she had painted the lovely children. There was the same old nervous twitch in her face, the corners of her mouth drooped slightly and she cried very easily. Paul Schlieben watched his wife with positive dismay. Oh dear, had it all been in vain, the giving up of his work, all this travelling about without making any plans that was so fatiguing? Had the old melancholy frame of mind taken possession of her again?

When he saw her sitting there so disinclined to exert herself, her hands lying idle in her lap, a feeling akin to fury came over him. Why did she not do something? Why did she not paint? That confounded meadow in the Alps was surely not the only place where she could work. Was it not beautiful here as well?

They had settled down in the Black Forest. But it was in vain that he hoped from day to day that one of the quiet green wooded valleys or one of the nut-brown maidens of the Black Forest with her cherry-red hat and enormous red umbrella, as Vautier has painted them, would tempt her to bring out her painting materials. She felt no inclination--nay, she had positively a kind of dread of touching her brushes again.

He reproached himself bitterly in secret. Would it not have been better to have left her that pleasure and not have interfered? Still--the thing would have had to end some time, and the longer it had lasted the more difficult the separation would have been. But he had made up his mind about one thing, they would return to Berlin again late in the autumn. With the best will in the world he would not be able to stand it any longer. He was heartily tired of this wandering from hotel to hotel, this lounging about the world with nothing to show for it but an occasional short article for the papers, a chatty account of a journey to some corner of the earth of which people knew but little. He longed for a home of his own again, and felt a great desire to return to his business, which he had often looked upon as a fetter and so prosaic whilst he was in it. But Käte! When he thought of her again spending many hours alone at home, with no interests beyond herself and her reading for in her state of hypersensitiveness she found little pleasure in associating with other women--a feeling of hopelessness came over him. Then there would be the same sad eyes again, the same melancholy smile, the old irritable moods from which the whole house used to suffer, herself the most.

And he subjected himself to an examination as though blaming himself for it. He passed his whole life in review: had he committed any crime that no son had been given to him, no daughter? Ah, if only Käte had a child everything would be right. Then she would have quite enough to do, would be entirely taken up with the little creature round which the love of parents, full of hope and entitled to hope, revolves in an ever-renewed circle.

Both husband and wife were torturing themselves, for the woman's thoughts especially always ended at that one point. Now that she had been separated from those dear children, from the, alas, much too short happiness she had experienced that summer, it seemed to have become quite clear to her what she missed--for had it not only weighed on her like a painful suspicion before? But now, now the terrible unvarnished truth was there: everything people otherwise call "happiness" in this world is nothing compared to a child's kiss, to its smile, to its nestling in its mother's lap.

She had always given the children in the meadow a tender kiss when they came and went, now she longed for those kisses. Her husband's kiss did not replace them; she would soon have been married fifteen years, his kiss was no longer a sensation, it had become a habit. But a kiss from a child's lips, that are so fresh, so untouched, so timid and yet so confiding, was something quite new to her, something, exceedingly sweet. A feeling of happiness had flowed through her soul on those occasions as well as the quite physical pleasure of being able to bury her mouth in those delicately soft and yet so firm cheeks, which health and youth had covered with a soft down like that on the cheeks of a peach. Her thoughts always wandered back to that meadow in the Alps, full of longing. And this longing of hers that was never stilled magnified what had happened, and surrounded the figures that had appeared in her life for so short a time with the whole halo of tender memories. Her idle thoughts spun long threads. As she longed for those little ones so they would also be longing for her, they would wander across the meadow weeping, and the large present of money she had left behind for each of them with the proprietor of the hotel--she had been obliged to leave without saying good-bye to them--would not console them; they would stand outside the door and cast their eyes up to the windows from which their friend so often had waved to them. No, she could not forgive Paul for showing so little comprehension of her feelings.

The stay in the Black Forest, whose velvety slopes reminded them too much of the Swiss meadows and from whose points of view you could look over to the Alps on a clear day, became a torture to both the man and woman. They felt they must get away; the dark firs, the immense green forest became too monotonous for them. Should they not try some seaside resort for once? The sea is ever new. And it was also just the season for the seaside. The wind blew already over the stubble in the fields, as they drove down to the plain.

They chose a Belgian watering-place, one in which the visitors dress a great deal, and in which quite a cosmopolitan set of people offer something new to the eye every day. They both felt it, they had remained much too long in mountain solitudes.

During the first days the gay doings amused them, but then Paul and his wife, between whom something like a barrier had tried to push itself lately, both agreed all at once: this sauntering up and down of men who looked like fools, of women who if they did not belong to the demi-monde successfully imitated it, was not for them. Let them only get away.

The man proposed they should give up travelling entirely and return to Berlin a little earlier, but Käte would not listen to it. She had a secret dread of Berlin--oh, would she have to go back to her old life again? So far she had never asked herself what she had really expected from these long months of travel; but she had hoped for something--certainly. What?

Oh dear, now she would be so much alone again, and there was nothing, nothing that really filled her life entirely.

No, she was not able to return to Berlin yet. She told her husband that she felt she had not quite recovered yet--she was certainly anæmic, she was suffering from poorness of blood. She ought to have gone to Schwalbach, Franzensbad or some other iron springs long ago--who knows, perhaps many things would be different then.

He was not impatient--at least he did not show it--for he was moved with a deep compassion for her. Of course she should go to some iron springs; they ought to have tried them long ago, have made a point of it.

The Belgian doctor sent them to the well-known baths at Spa.

They arrived there full of hope. In her the hope was quite genuine. "You will see," she said to her husband in a brighter voice, "this will do me good. I have a vague feeling--no, I really feel quite sure that something good will happen to us here."

And he hoped so too. He forced himself to hope in order to please her. Oh, it would be enough, quite enough if the characteristics of the landscape won so much interest from her that she took up her painting again, which she had neglected entirely. How pleased he would be at even that. If her former zeal for art showed itself again, that was a thousand times more health-bringing than the strongest iron springs at Spa.

The heather was in bloom, the whole plateau was red, the purple sun set in a mass of purple.

It happened as he had hoped, that is to say, she did not begin to paint, but she made expeditions into the Ardennes and the Eifel with him on foot and in a carriage, and enjoyed them. The Venn had bewitched her. In her light-coloured dress she stood like a small speck of light in the immense seriousness of the landscape, protected her eyes with her hand from the view of the sun, which is so open there, so unobstructed either by tree or mountain, and took deep breaths of the sharp clear air that has not yet been vitiated by any smoke from human dwellings, hardly by human breath. Around her the Venn blossomed like a carpet of one colour, dark, calm, refreshing and beneficial to the eye; it was only here and there that the blue gentian and the white quivering flock of the cotton-grass were seen to raise their heads among the heather.

"Oh, how beautiful!" She said it with deep feeling. The melancholy of the landscape flattered her mood. There was no gaudy tone there that disturbed her, no medley of colours. Even the sun, which sets there in greater beauty than anywhere else--blushing so deeply that the whole sky blushes with it, that the winding Venn rivulet hedged in by cushions of moss, that every pool, every peat-hole full of water reflects its beams ruddy-gold, and the sad Venn itself wears a mantle of glowing splendour--even this sun brought no glaringly bright light with it. It displayed its mighty disc in a grand dignified manner, a serious victor after a serious struggle.

Käte looked into this marvellous sun with large eyes bathed in tears, until the last beam, the last rosy streak in the grey mass of clouds had vanished. Now it had gone--the heavens were dead--but in the morning it would be there again, an eternal, imperishable, never-conquered hope. Then should not, ought not the human heart to beat again too, revived anew, always full of hope?

Clouds of mist sped across the moor, veiled, indescribable, vague shapes. There was a whispering before the coming of the wind, a lisping through the heather and the cotton-grass--it seemed to Käte as though the Venn had something to tell her. What was it saying? Ah, it must be for some reason that she had come there, that she felt she was being held fast as though by a strong and still kind hand.

She walked on with quicker, more elastic steps, as though she were searching for something.

Her husband was delighted that his wife was so pleased with the neighbourhood. True, the landscape had no special attraction for him--was it not very desolate, monotonous and unfertile there? But the characteristic scenery was certainly harmonious, very harmonious--well, if she found pleasure in it, it was better than a paradise to him.

They often drove up to Baraque Michel, that lonely inn on the borders between Belgium and Prussia, in which the douaniers drank their drams of gin when on the look-out for smugglers, and where the peat-cutters dry their smocks that the mist has wetted and their saturated boots at the fire that is always burning on the hearth.

So many crosses in the Venn, so many human beings who have met with a fatal accident. Käte listened to the men's stories with a secret shudder--could the Venn be so terrible? and she questioned them again and again. Was it possible that the man from Xhoffraix, who had driven off to get peat litter, had been swallowed up there so close to the road with cart and horse, and that they had never, never seen anything of him again? And that cross there, so weather-beaten and black, how had that come into the middle of the marsh? Why had that travelling journeyman, whose intention it was to go along the high road from Malmedy to Eupen, gone so far astray? Had it been dark or had there been a heavy fall of snow so that he could not see, or was it the cold, that terrible cold, in which a weary man can freeze to death? Nothing of the kind; only a mist, a sudden mist, which confuses a man so, that he no longer knows which is forward or which is backward, which is left or which is right, that he loses all idea of where he is going, gets away from the road and runs round in a circle like a poor, mad, terrified animal. And all the mists that rise in the Venn when daylight disappears, are they the souls of those who have never been buried, and who in garments that are falling to pieces rise every night from their graves, which have neither been consecrated by a benediction nor by holy water and in which they cannot find rest?

That was a fairy tale. But was not everything there as in the fairy tale? So quite different to everywhere else in the world, in reality ugly and yet not ugly, in reality not beautiful and yet so exceedingly beautiful? And she herself, was she not quite a different being there? Did she not wander about full of hope, in blissful dreams, like one to whom something wonderful is to happen?

It was in the sixth week of their stay at Spa. The nights were already as cold as in winter, but the days were still sunny. It was always a long journey up to the inn even for the strong Ardennes horses, but Paul and his wife were there again to-day. Would they have to leave soon? Alas, yes. Käte had to confess it to herself with sorrow. Everything was very autumnal, the heather had finished flowering, the air was raw; the grass that had already been frozen during the night rustled under her feet. They could have found use for their winter clothes.

"Ugh, how cold," said the man shivering, and he turned up the collar of his overcoat. He wanted to twist a shawl round his wife's neck, but she resisted: "No, no!" She ran on in front of him through the rustling heather with quick steps. "Just look."

It was a wide view that presented itself to their eyes there on the highest point in the Venn, that is adorned with a rickety wooden tower. The whole large plateau covered with heather lay before them, with here and there a group of dark firs that only showed spreading branches on the side away from the storm. These firs that cowered so timidly were trees that had been planted there; they were hardly higher than the heather, and only recognisable on account of their different colour. And, here and there, there was a stray grey boulder and a cross that the wind had carried to the side of it. And a calm lay over the whole in the pale midday autumn light as though it were God's acre.

When they had climbed up the tower they saw still more. From the plateau they looked down into the valley: a blue expanse around them, blue from the darkness of the forests and from autumn vapours, and in the beautiful blue outstretched villages the white houses half hidden behind tall hedges. And here, looking down on Belgium, with its grey fumes hanging like a cloud in the clear transparent autumn air, lay the large town of Verviers with its church-towers and factory chimneys towering above it.

Käte heaved a sigh and shuddered involuntarily: oh, was the workaday world so near? Was grey life already approaching nearer and nearer to her wonderful fairy world?

Her husband gave a slight cough; he found it very cold up there. They went down from the tower, but when he wanted to take her back to the inn she resisted: "No, not yet, not yet. That's only the midday bell."

The bell was ringing in Fischbach Chapel, that ancient little church with its slated roof, in whose tower the great red lantern was formerly hoisted to point out the safe harbour to the wanderer swimming in the wild sea of mists, and the bell rung unceasingly to save the man who had lost his way through his ear should his eye fail him. The bell rang out clear and penetrating in the solitude, the only sound in the vast stillness.

"How touching that sound is." Käte stood with folded hands and looked into the wide expanse, her eyes swimming in tears. What a charm there was in this Venn. It encircled the soul as the tough underwood of the heather and the creeping tendrils of the club moss entangled the foot. When she thought of how soon she would have to leave it, to go away from that immense stillness that seemed to be concealing a secret, to be cherishing something marvellous in its deep lap, her heart contracted in sudden fear. What would happen to her, what would become of her? Her seeking soul stood like a child on the threshold of fairyland asking for something--was there to be no gift for her?

"What was that?" All at once she seized hold of her husband's arm with a low cry of terror. "Didn't you hear it as well?"

She had grown quite pale; she stood there with dilated eyes, raising herself on her toes with an involuntary movement and craning her neck forward.

"There it is again. Do you hear it?" Something like a child's soft whimpering had penetrated to her ear.

No, he had not heard anything. "I suppose there are some people in the neighbourhood. How you do frighten a body, Käte." He shook his head a little angrily. "You know very well that all the women and children have left their villages in the Venn to gather cranberries. That's all the harvest they have, you see. Look, the berries are quite ripe." Stooping down he took up a plant.

The small cluster of berries of a deep coral in colour formed a beautiful contrast to the glossy dark green of the small oval leaf. But there were also some flowers on the plant, small pure white flowers.

"Like myrtle, just like the flower on a myrtle," she said, taking the plant out of his hand. "And the leaves are also exactly like myrtle leaves." Twisting the stalk round between her finger and thumb she gazed at it thoughtfully. "The Venn myrtle." And, raising the little flower to her mouth, she kissed it, full of delight.

"Do you still remember--that time--on the evening of our wedding-day, do you still remember? You kissed the myrtle that had been in my wreath and I kissed it too, and then we kissed each other. Then--then--oh, how happy we were then." She said it very softly, as though lost in sweet memories.

He smiled, and as she swayed towards him, with a dreamy look in her eyes that were fixed the whole time on the little green plant, he drew her closer and laid his arm round her. "And are we not--not"--he wanted to say "not just as happy," but all he said was: "not happy to-day, too?"

She did not answer, she remained silent. But then, hurling the plant with its glossy leaves away with a sudden movement, she turned and ran away from him blindly into the Venn, without noticing where she was going.

"What's the matter, Käte?" He hurried after her, terrified. She ran so quickly that he could not overtake her at once. "Käte, you'll fall. Wait, I say. Käte, what is the matter with you?"

No answer. But he saw from the convulsive movements of her shoulders that she was weeping violently. Oh dear, what was the matter now? He looked troubled as he ran after her across the desolate Venn. Was she never to get any better? It was really enough to make a fellow lose all pleasure in life. How stupid it had been to bring her to the Venn--real madness. There was no brightness to be found there. A hopelessness lurked in that unlimited expanse, a terrible hardness in that sharp aromatic air, an unbearable melancholy in that vast stillness.

The man only heard his own quickened breathing. He ran more and more quickly, all at once he became very anxious about his wife. Now he had almost reached her--he had already stretched out his hand to seize hold of her fluttering dress--then she turned round, threw herself into his arms and sobbed: "Oh, here's both, blossom and fruit. But our myrtle has faded and not borne fruit--not fruit--we poor people."

So that was it--the same thing again? Confound it. He who as a rule was so temperate stamped his foot violently. Anger, shame, and a certain feeling of pain drove the blood to his head. There he stood now in that lonely place with his wife in his arms weeping most pitifully, whilst he himself was deserving of much pity in his own opinion.

"Don't be angry, don't be angry," she implored, clinging more closely to him. "You see, I had hoped--oh, hoped for certain--expected--I don't know myself what, but still I had expected something here--and today--just now everything has become clear. All, all was in vain. Let me cry."

And she wept as one in whom all hope is dead.

What was he to say to her? How console her? He did not venture to say a word, only stroked her hot face softly whilst he, too, became conscious of a certain feeling, that feeling that he had not always the strength to push aside.

They stood like that for a long time without saying a word, until he, pulling himself together, said in a voice that he tried to make calm and indifferent: "We shall have to return, we have got quite into the wilds. Come, take my arm. You are overtired, and when we--"

"Hush," she said, interrupting him, letting go of his arm quickly. "The same as before. Somebody is in trouble."

Now he heard it as well. They both listened. Was it an animal? Or a child's voice, the voice of quite a small child?

"My God!" Käte said nothing more, but making up her mind quickly, she turned to the right and ran down into a small hollow, without heeding that she stumbled several times among the bushes, through which it was impossible for her to force a passage.

Her quick ear had led her right. There was the child lying on the ground. It had no pillow, no covering, and was miserably wrapt up in a woman's old torn skirt. The little head with its dark hair lay in the heather that was covered with hoar-frost; the child was gazing fixedly into the luminous space between the heavens and the Venn with its large clear eyes.

There was no veil, nothing to protect it; no mother either--only the Venn.

Nevertheless they had deceived themselves. It was not crying, it was only talking to itself as quiet contented children generally do. It had stretched out its little hands, which were not wrapped up like the rest of its body, and had seized hold of some of the red berries and squashed them. Then its little fists had wandered up to the hungry mouth; there were drops of the juice from the berries on its baby lips.

"Quite alone?" Käte had sunk down on her knees, her hands trembled as they embraced the bundle. "Oh, the poor child. How sweet it is. Look, Paul. How has it come here? It will die of cold, of hunger. Do call out, Paul. The poor little mite. If its mother came now I would give her a piece of my mind it's disgraceful to let the helpless little mite lie like this. Call--loud--louder."

He called, he shouted: "Heigh! Hallo! Is nobody there?"

No voice answered, nobody came. The whole Venn was as quiet as though it were an extinct, long-forgotten world.

"Nobody is coming," whispered Käte quite softly, and there was an expression of fear and at the same time trembling exultation in her voice. "Its mother does not trouble--who knows where the woman is? I wonder if she's coming?" She looked round searchingly, turned her head in all directions, and then stooped over the child again with a sigh of contentment.

What unpardonable thoughtlessness--no, what unspeakable barbarity to abandon such a mite in that place. If they had come only a few hours--only an hour later. It might already have been bitten by a snake then, might even have been torn to pieces by a wolf.

Then her husband had to laugh, although the sight of her over-excitement had slightly annoyed him. "No, my child, there are no poisonous snakes here and no more wolves either, so you can be at rest about that. But when the mists begin to rise, they would have done for him."

"Oh!" Käte pressed the foundling to her bosom. She was sitting on her heels holding the child in her lap; she stroked its rosy cheeks, its little downy head, and showered caresses and flattering words on it, but the child continued to gaze into the luminous space with its large, dark, and yet so clear eyes. It did not smile, but it did not cry either; it took no notice whatever of the strangers.

"Do you think it has been left here intentionally?" asked Käte suddenly, opening her eyes wide. The blood flew to her head in a hot wave. "Oh then--then"--she drew a trembling breath and pressed the child to her bosom, as though she did not want to let it go again.

"It will all be cleared up somehow," said the man evasively. "The mother will be sure to come."

"Do you see her--do you see her?" she inquired almost anxiously.

"No."

"No." She repeated it in a relieved tone of voice, and then she laughed. After that her eyes and ears belonged entirely to the helpless little creature. "Where's baby--where is he then? Laugh a little, do. Look at me once with those big, staring eyes. Oh, you little darling, oh, you sweet child." She played with it and pressed kisses on its hands without noticing that they were dirty.

"What are we to do now?" said the man, perplexed.

"We can't leave it here. We shall have to take it with us, of course." There was something very energetic about the delicate-looking woman all at once. "Do you think I would forsake the child?" Her cheeks glowed, her eyes gleamed.

Paul Schlieben looked at his wife with a certain awe. How beautiful she was at that moment. Beautiful, healthy, happy. He had not seen her like that for a long time. Not since he had folded her in his arms as a happy bride. Her bosom rose and fell quickly with every trembling breath she took, and the child lay on her breast and the Venn myrtle bloomed at her feet.

A strange emotion came over him; but he turned away: what had that strange child to do with them? Still he admitted in a hesitating voice: "We certainly can't leave it here. But do you know what we can do? We'll take it with us to the inn. Give it to me, I'll carry it."

But she wanted to carry it herself, she only let him help her up. "There--there--come, my sweet little babe." She raised her foot cautiously to take the first step--then a shout tied her to the spot.

"Hallo!"

A rough voice had shouted it. And now a woman came up to them; the figure in the fluttering skirt was outlined big and clear against the rarefied ether that flowed around it.

Where had she come from so suddenly? From there, from behind the mound of earth that had been thrown up near the peat pit. She had been creeping on all fours plucking berries; a pail that was almost ft 11 hung on her arm, and in her right hand she carried the wooden measure and the large bone curry-comb with which she stripped off the berries.

That was the mother! Käte got a terrible fright; she turned pale.

Her husband was taken by surprise too. But then he gave a sigh of relief: that was decidedly the best way out of it. Of course, they might have known it at once, how should the child have come into the desolate Venn all alone? The mother had been looking for berries, and had put it down there meanwhile.

But the woman did not seem to take it kindly that they had looked so carefully after the child during her absence. The strong bony arms took it away from the lady somewhat roughly. The woman's eyes examined the strangers suspiciously.

"Is it your child?" asked Paul. He need not have asked the question; it had exactly the same dark eyes as the woman, only the child's were brighter, not dulled as yet by life's dust as the mother's were.

The woman made no answer. It was only when the man asked once more, "Are you the mother?" and put his hand into his pocket at the same time, that she found it worth while to give a curt nod:

"C'est l' mi'n."^[A] Her face retained its gloomy expression; there was no movement of pride or joy.