When Paul Schlieben used to come home from his office in those days he was co-partner in a large business that his grandfather had founded and his father raised to a high position--he often found his wife's sweet face stained with tears, her delicate complexion marred by constant weeping. And her mouth only forced itself to smile, and in her beautiful brown eyes there lurked a certain melancholy.
The doctor shrugged his shoulders. The lady was suffering from nerves, that was what was the matter with her. She had too much time for brooding, she was left to herself too much.
In order to alter this, her anxious husband withdrew from the business for an indefinite period. His partners could get on just as well without him. The doctor was right, he must devote himself more to his wife; they were both so lonely, so entirely dependent on each other.
It was decided they should travel; there was no reason whatever why they should remain at home. The beautiful house was given up, their furniture, all their costly things were stored. If they cared to do so they could remain away for years, get impressions, amuse themselves. Käte would paint landscapes in beautiful countries, and he--well, he could easily find compensation in writing, should he miss his usual work.
They went to Italy and Corsica--still further, to Egypt and Greece. They saw the Highlands, Sweden and Norway, very many beautiful places.
Käte pressed her husband's hand gratefully. Her susceptible mind waxed enthusiastic, and her talent for painting, which was by no means insignificant, felt powerfully stimulated all at once. How splendid to be able to paint, to keep hold of all that glow of colour, that wonderful effect of tone that revealed itself to her delighted eyes on her canvas.
She was so eager that she went out with her painting materials in the morning, whether it was at Capri, on the shores of the blue Bosphorus, in the yellow sand of the desert, facing the precipitous pinnacles in the Fjords, or in the rose gardens of the Riviera. Her delicate face got sunburnt; she no longer even paid any attention to her hands, which she used to take such care of. The ardent longing to manifest herself had seized hold of her. Thank God, she could create something now. The miserable feeling of a useless life did not exist any longer, nor the torturing knowledge: your life ceases the moment your eyes close, there is nothing of you that will survive you. Now she would at least leave something behind that she had produced, even if it were only a picture. Her paintings increased in number; quite a quantity of rolls of canvas were dragged about now wherever they went.
At first Paul Schlieben was very pleased to see his wife so enthusiastic. He politely carried her camp-stool and easel for her, and never lost patience when he remained for hours and hours near her whilst she worked. He lay in the scanty shadow of a palm-tree, and used to follow the movements of her brush over the top of his book. How fortunate that her art gave her so much satisfaction. Even though it was a little fatiguing for him to lie about doing nothing he must not say anything, no, he must not, for he had nothing to offer her as a compensation, nothing whatever. And he sighed. It was the same sigh that had escaped him when the numerous flaxen-haired little children were playing about on the sandy roads in the Brandenburg March, the same sigh which Sundays drew from him, when he used to see all the proletariat of the town--man and wife and children, children, children--wandering to the Zoo. Yes, he was right--he passed his hand a little nervously across his forehead--that writer was right--now, who could it be?--who had once said somewhere: "Why does a man marry? Only to have children, heirs of his body, of his blood. Children to whom he can pass on the wishes and hopes that are in him and also the achievements; children who are descended from him like shoots from a tree, children who enable a man to live eternally." That was the only way in which life after death could be understood--life eternal. The resurrection of the body, which the Church promises, was to be interpreted as the renewal of one's own personality in the coming generations. Oh, there was something great, something indescribably comforting in such a survival.
"Are you speculating about something?" asked his wife. She had looked up from her easel for a moment.
"Eh? What? Did you say anything, darling?" The man started up in a fright, as one who has been straying along forbidden paths.