XXVIII.
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It was nearly three o'clock when the doctor came hurrying in. Konski would not leave the master, and had despatched the porter. Konski took the doctor's hat and stick, and pointed in silence--he could not speak--to the big couch at the bottom of the room. The doctor took the lamp from the writing-table, and held it to the pale face. Konski followed and relieved him of the lamp, whilst the doctor made his investigation.
"He must have been dead an hour and more," he said, looking up. "Why did you not send sooner? Put the lamp back upon the writing-table, and tell me all you know."
He had sat down in Bertram's chair. "Take a chair," he went on, "and tell me all."
Then Konski told.
He had come back at a quarter-past twelve from the telegraph-office, and had found his master writing away busily, when he brought in the bottle of champagne which he had been ordered to fetch from the cellar. His master had scolded him for bringing only one glass, and made him fetch another, for they must both drink and clink glasses to the health of the young lady.
"Then," the servant went on, "I sat opposite to him, for the first time in my life, in that corner, at the small round table, he in the one chair and I in the other. And he chatted with me, not like a master with his servant, no; exactly--well, I cannot describe it, sir; but you know how good and kind he always was. I never heard an unkind word from him all these ten years I have been with him, and if ever he was a bit angry, he always made up for it afterwards. And, to-morrow I was to leave for Rinstedt to get married, and he had given us our furniture and all, and fitted up a new shop for us into the bargain. Then we talked a good deal of Rinstedt, and of the manœ vres last year, and of Miss Erna that was, and of Italy, where, as you know, sir, I was with the master two years ago. Well, I mean, it was not I who was talking so much, but master, and I could have gone on listening, listening for ever, when he was telling of Capri, where we did not get that time, and where Mrs. Ringberg is staying now--Miss Erna as was. And then his eyes shone and sparkled splendidly, but he hardly drank any wine, just enough to pledge the young lady's health with, and the rest is in his glass still. But he made me fill up mine again and again, for I could stand it, said he, and he could not, he said, and he would presently finish his work; and there are the papers on the table in front of you, sir, that he had been looking at. And then, of a sudden like, he says, 'Konski, I am getting tired; I shall lie down for half an hour. You just finish the bottle meanwhile, and call me at half-past one sharp.' It was just striking one o'clock then.
"So he lay down, and I put the rug over him, sir, and, oh--I'll never forgive myself for it; but all day long I had been running backward and forward about these things of mine, and then at last the long walk at night to the telegraph-office, and perhaps the champagne had gone to my head a bit, since I am sure, that I had not sat for five minutes before I was asleep. And when I woke it was not half-past one, but half-past two, so that I was regular frightened like. But as the master was a-sleeping calm and steady, I thought, even as I was standing quite close to him, that it was a pity to wake him, even though he was lying on his left side again, which formerly he could not bear at all, and which you, sir, had forbidden so particularly. I mind of our first evening in Rinstedt, sir, but then he did wake up again ... and now he is dead."
Konski was crying bitterly. The doctor held out his hand to him.
"It is no fault of yours. Neither you nor I could have kept him alive. Now, leave me here alone; you may wait in the next room."
After Konski had left, the doctor went to the little round table on which the empty bottle and two glasses were standing, one empty, one half-full. Above the sofa, to the right and left, were gas-brackets, with one lighted jet on either side. He held the half-full glass to the light and shook it. Bright beads were rising from the clear, liquid.
He put the glass down again, and murmured--
"He never spoke an untruth! It was in any case solely a question of time. He drank his death-draught six months ago. The only wonder is that he bore it so long."
Erna's letter was lying upon the table. The doctor read it almost mechanically.
"Pretty much as I thought!" he muttered. "Such a clever and, as it would seem, large-hearted girl, and yet--but they are all alike!"
A scrap of paper, with something in Bertram's hand writing caught his eye. It was the German telegram.
"All hail--happiness and blessing--to-day and for ever--for my darling child in Quisisana."
The doctor rose, and was now pacing up and down the chamber with folded arms. From the adjoining room, the door of which was left ajar, he heard suppressed sobs. The faithful servant's unconcealed grief had well-nigh unchained the bitter sorrow in his own heart. He brushed the tears from his eyes, stepped to the couch, and drew the covering back.
He stood there long, lost in marvelling contemplation.
The beautiful lofty brow, overshadowed by the soft and abundant hair, the dark colour of which was not broken by one silvery thread; the daintily curved lips, that seemed about to open for some witty saying, lips the pallor of which was put to shame by the whiteness of the teeth, which were just visible; the broad-arched chest--what wonder that the man of fifty had felt in life like a youth--like the youth for whom Death had taken him.
From those pure and pallid features Death had wiped away even the faintest remembrance of the woe which had broken the noble heart.
Now it was still--still for evermore!
He laid his hand upon that silent heart.
"Qui si sana!" he said, very gently.
FOOTNOTE.
"Und immer ist der Mann ein junger Mann,
Der einem jungen Weibe wohlgefällt."