N. N. M. D."
"Does the fellow write that about me?" stormed the attorney, "'it has done me no harm' for sooth!--Just wait and I'll have something to say to you elsewhere!"--"But," cried David, "surely it's much better that the beating shouldn't have done you harm, than that you should have been maimed."--"You're an idiot! What's the good of lying here any longer though?" said Slus'uhr. "Pardon me, but I must get up, and repay Mr. Bräsig for his blows by sending him--a letter demanding damages."--"Don't forget, my friend, that you've to write to Pümpelhagen for me to day," said Pomuchelskopp. "Trust me to remember. I feel so savage, I'd like to write a good many more such letters. Hav'n't you anything for me to do in that line, David?"--"Whenever I have anything to write I do it myself, and when I have nothing to write, I leave it alone," said David, leaving the room with Pomuchelskopp.
CHAPTER XIV.
The hours that had elapsed since Pomuchelskopp's visit had seemed to Mrs. von Rambow the slowest and dreariest she had ever known. Wearily had they passed over her, every new minute revealing new cares and anxieties. She had tried to tear out the weeds that threatened to choke the wheat in her field, but alas the busiest hand grows tired in time, and the bravest heart craves rest, the rest that comes when the day of toil is past. Her husband had not come home on the day he had promised; instead of his arrival, a letter came from Slus'uhr brought by a special messenger, who said that he had orders to wait until he could deliver it into Mr. von Rambow's own hands. She had a very good idea of what that meant. As it grew dusk that evening she seated herself in her room beside her child, folded her hands in her lap, and gazed out of the window at the sky over which heavy clouds were rising.
The day had been close and muggy, a day in which the blood courses slowly through the veins, instead of circulating rapidly, and giving the body a sense of lightness and vitality it cannot otherwise enjoy. On such an enervating day as this the blood flows languidly, like the black, almost stagnant water in a moorland ditch, and even as all nature groans and sighs for a storm to clear the air, the heart longs for the whirlwind of action, or the shock of fate to drive away "this stifled, drowsy, unimpassioned grief," wishes at any cost to shake off the deadly lethargy! Frida's feeling was much what I have described, she longed for anything that would clear the air around her, and make it possible for her to breathe once more; and she did not long in vain.
Caroline Kegel brought in the post-bag, and stood about as if she wanted to find something to do in the room. At last she opened the bag, and taking out a letter, laid it on the table beside her mistress. Then she hung about again, and asked: "If you please ma'am, shall I light the candles?"--"No, never mind." Still Caroline did not go, she said: "If you please, ma'am, you told us we wer'n't to repeat any gossip to you, but ...."--"What is it?" asked Frida, startled out of her reverie. "The Gürlitz labourers have chased away Mr. Pomuchelskopp, his wife and two daughters."--"You don't mean to say so!" cried Frida. "Yes, and all of our labourers are down stairs in the yard, and wish to speak to you."--"Do they want to chase us away too?" asked Frida, drawing herself up proudly. "No, no! my dear, dear lady," cried Caroline, throwing herself on her knees and bursting into tears; "there's no talk of anything so dreadful, and my old father says that he'll be the death of the first who dares to speak of such a thing. They only say that Mr. von Rambow won't listen to them, and so they want to speak to you, for they have great confidence in you."--"Where is Triddelfitz?"--"Lor, ma'am, he's going about amongst them talking to them, but they won't hear a word he says, they say they have nothing to do with him, and must speak to you."--"Come," said Frida, and she went down stairs.
"What do you want with me?" she asked as she stepped out at the door, before which the labourers were all collected. Fred Flegel, the carpenter, came forward, and said: "Madam, we have come to you, for we're all of one mind. We told the master about it some time ago, but he wouldn't attend to us. The squire was affronted with us for saying it; but you see we have no confidence in Mr. Triddelfitz, he is too young and doesn't know enough, and we thought perhaps you could help us if you would be so very kind. We are not so impertinent as to ask for more than we have, indeed we're quite satisfied with what we've got, and we get all we ought, though never at the right time so that our wives sometimes find it difficult to manage."--"Yes," interrupted Päsel, "and last year, which was a year of famine, the rye was all sold, and, Madam, you see I always have my wages paid in kind, so when I couldn't get the rye, how could I live; and when I didn't get it, I was told to be patient. Yes, to be patient! Then there was the potato disease! So how could one live?"--"Madam," said a white-haired old man, "I won't speak of food, for we never really starved; but I am an old man and I was sometimes kept standing so long in the marl pit pouring water over the marl, that I couldn't straighten myself in the evening, nor sleep at night from pain, and it might have been so easily managed better. We were used to other ways when Mr. Hawermann was here, but now we're ordered about by folk that don't know what work is."--"Yes, Madam," resumed the carpenter, "that's why we've come to ask you to let us have a bailiff put over us who knows what ought to be done, either Mr. Hawermann or another as good; one who will listen to us quietly when we've got anything to say, who will not abuse us when we don't deserve it, and who will not use his stick to our children when they are doing their work, as Mr. Triddelfitz was in the habit of doing."--"That must never happen again," cried Frida.--"Well, Madam, he has given up doing that now. It must be six months ago that I made bold to speak to him seriously about it one day when I was alone with him, and he has never done it since. I wish that the squire would only see that it would be for his own advantage if he got a good bailiff, for he understands nothing about farming himself, and then the wind wouldn't blow all the grain out of a field of wheat from leaving it standing too long, as was the case last year, nor would the people talk of him as they do now. And, Madam, there's a great deal of talk just now. It's said that he's going to sell the estate to Mr. Pomuchelskopp, but we won't have him for our master."--"No," they all exclaimed, "we won't have him."--"A fellow whom his own labourers have turned out."--"We needn't have him."
The labourers' words had fallen like heavy blows on Frida's heart. She felt how little love and respect they had for her husband, and the knowledge of the difficulty of her position made it hard for her to speak. After a sharp inward struggle for composure, she said: "Hush, my men! When the squire comes home he must decide whether he will grant your request. Go home quietly and don't come back to the house in such numbers again. I will tell the squire what you want, and I believe I can promise you that there will be a change in the farming arrangements at midsummer--one way or another," she added with a sigh. Then she was silent for an instant, as though to swallow a lump in her throat. "Yes," she continued, "wait patiently till midsummer, and then there shall be a change."--"That's all right!"--"That's all we want!"--"And we're very grateful to you."--"Good-night, Madam."--And they all went away.
Frida returned to her room. It had begun to thunder and lighten, and the wind which was blustering through the yard drove sand and straw pattering against the window. "Yes," she said to herself, "midsummer will decide it. I hav'n't promised too much, for there must be a change then. But what will it be?" and involuntarily she thought of the picture David had so mercilessly drawn of her future life. She saw herself condemned to spend the rest of her days in a hired house in a small country town with her husband and child, leading an idle useless life without hope of remedy, and hearing people whisper that their fate might have been so different. She saw her husband get up in the morning and go out into the town, come home to dinner, spend the afternoon lounging on the sofa, then go out again, and come home to bed. He had always hitherto frittered away the time God had given him to work, and he would continue to waste his days in idleness. She saw herself worn out and wearied with household cares, comfortless and friendless, fighting the battle of life alone; she saw herself dying and her child standing by her bed. Her child! Her poor child! The penniless daughter of a nobleman! There are few things that are a greater curse than the possession of rank without the means of keeping it up.--A man can get on pretty well, for he can go into the army; but a girl? Even if God has endowed her with the loveliness of an angel, and her parents have done the best they can for their darling, a gentleman says: "She is poor, so I cannot marry her," and a man of the middle-class says: "She has grand notions, so I cannot marry her."--Frida looked sadly at her child, who was sleeping calmly through the storm that was raging out of doors, and that which was raging in her mother's breast.
Caroline Kegel brought in candles, and Mrs. von Rambow hastily took up the letter that was lying on the table, like one who did not wish it to be perceived that she had been engaged in deep and painful thought. She looked at the direction and saw it was from her sister-in-law, Albertine. She opened the envelope, and another letter fell out addressed to her husband.--"Put this letter on your master's writing table," she said to the maid.--Caroline took it and left the room.