Cilia had offered her services again and again: oh, she would take such good care of him, she knew how, for a little brother of hers had died of scarlet fever. "Let me do it," she implored, "I shall not fall asleep, I'll take such good care of him."
But Käte refused. It cut her to the heart every time she heard her boy say in his feverish dreams during the nights that were so long and so black: "Cillchen--we'll toss the hay--hooray--Cillchen."
Oh, how she hated that round-cheeked girl with her bright eyes. But she feared her more than she hated her. In the hours of darkness, in those hours in which she heard nothing but the sick boy's moans and the restless beating of her own heart, this girl seemed to wander about in another form. She appeared to her out of the night, large and broad, she stationed herself boldly near the child's bed, and something of the triumph of power flashed in her eyes, that were otherwise so dull and unintelligent.
Then the tired-out woman would press her hands to her throbbing temples, and stretch out her arms as though to ward her off: no, no, you there, go away! But the phantom remained standing at the child's bed. Who was it: the mother--the Venn--the maid--Frau Lämke? Oh, they were all one.
Tears of anguish rolled down Käte's cheeks. How the boy laughed now. She stooped over him so closely that their breaths intermingled, as she had done once before, and whispered to him: "Your mammy is here, your mammy is with you."
But he made no sign of recognition.
Cilia's face was swollen with weeping as she opened the kitchen door in the basement on hearing somebody give a gentle knock. Frau Lämke greeted her in a whisper; she had always sent the children so far, but they had come home the day before with such a confusing report, that her anxiety impelled her to come herself. She wanted to ask how he was getting on. Two doctors' carriages stood outside the gate, and that had terrified her anew.
"How is he? How is he to-day?"
The girl burst into tears. She drew the woman into the kitchen in silence, where she found the cook leaning against the fireplace without stirring any pan, and Friedrich just rushing upstairs to answer the electric bell as if somebody were in pursuit of him.
"Dear, dear!" Frau Lämke clasped her hands. "Is the boy so bad, really so bad?"