The watchers shivered with cold. When Paul Schlieben looked at the thermometer, he was horrified to see how little it registered even in the room. Was the heating apparatus not in order? You could see your own breath. Had the servants forgotten to put coals on?
He went down into the basement himself; he could have rung, but he felt he must do something. Oh, how terribly little you could do. His wife cowered in the arm-chair in silence now, with large, staring eyes; the nurse was half asleep, nothing stirred in the room. The boy, too, was lying as quietly as if he were already dead.
A great dread took possession of the man, as he groped his way through the dark house. There was something so paralysing in the silence; all at once everything, the rooms, the staircase, the hall seemed so strange to him. Strange and empty. How the breath of youth had filled them with life before, filled them with the whole untamed thoughtlessness of a wild boy!
He leant heavily on the banisters as he groped his way downstairs. Would the servants still be up?
He found them all there. They sat shivering round the table in the kitchen, which was as cold as though there had not been a bright, blazing fire there all day. The cook had made some strong coffee, but even that did not make them any warmer. An icy cold crept through the whole house; it was as though the ice and snow from outside had come in, as though the chill breath of frozen nature were sweeping through the house too, from attic to cellar.
It was no use throwing more coals into the jaws of the huge stove, or that the water that streamed through all the pipes was hotter. Nobody's feet or hands were any warmer.
"We will try what a very hot bath will do for the patient," said the nurse. She had often seen this last remedy rewarded with success in similar cases.
All hands were busy. The cook made a fire, the other two dragged the boiling water upstairs; but Cilia carried more and was quicker about it than Friedrich. She felt all the inexhaustible strength of youth in her that is glad to be able to do something. How willingly she did it for that good boy. And she murmured a short prayer in a low voice every time she poured a bucketful into the tub that had been placed near the bed. She could not make the sign of the cross, as neither of her hands was at liberty, but she was sure the saints would hear her all the same.
"Holy Mary! Holy Joseph! Holy Barbara! Holy guardian angel! Holy Michael, fight for him!"
The cook, who remained downstairs in the kitchen, looked for her hymn-book; she was a Protestant and did not use it every day. When she found it she opened it at random: the words would be sure to suit. Oh dear! She showed it to Friedrich, trembling. There was written: