CHAPTER XVI.
Mrs. Nüssler took Frida home, and on the way there she dropped many a word of comfort into her sad heart, and her words fell like rain upon a dry and parched field. If hope did not spring up strongly in Frida's heart, she was yet able to wait in patience, and to find rest in Mrs. Nüssler's reiterated words: "Don't fret about it. Trust my brother Charles, I am sure that he'll put it all right for you." When Frida went into her room in the grey of the early morning she felt herself a different creature from what she had been when she rushed out on the previous evening. With the spark of hope that had been kindled in her breast, love and faith had come back to her, and she went up to Sophie Degel, who was seated in a large arm chair watching over her child, and stroking her hair gently, said: "I am so much obliged to you, Sophie, but I'm sure that you're tired; go to bed now."--"Oh, Madam," cried Sophie starting up--no doubt from the midst of a dream about her lover, "she has slept quietly all night; she only wakened once, and I gave her some milk and then she went to sleep again."--"That's right," answered Mrs. von Rambow, "but now go to bed." When the maid had left the room, she bent over her little girl's crib and looked at her: no, no, the baby was far too lovely for the sad fate of a penniless lady of rank; the mother's thoughts this morning were quite changed from her desponding forebodings of the evening. Her soul had been writhing in anguish the night before, and out of that anguish hope had been born anew in her heart. This child of pain now clasped her in its arms kissed her and whispered the heavenly words: Faith--and--victory!
Mrs. von Rambow went to bed, and thought of all the people she had seen that night. Caroline Kegel and Mrs. Nüssler, Mrs. Behrens and Louisa, Hawermann and Bräsig, she could recall their faces clearly, and could understand their kindness and sympathy; but there was another person she could not understand, and that was the old Jew. She remembered his speaking expression, the dark heavy folds of his dressing gown, his shadowy wrinkled face--a face such as she had never seen before--then all seemed to grow more misty--when she thought of the last words the Jew had said to her as he was going away, she seemed to see him growing larger and larger, but more and more indistinct, and folding her hands upon her breast, she fell asleep.
She slept and dreamt of the old Jew, but it was a happy dream; at last she awoke thinking she heard a carriage drive into the yard. She listened attentively, but body and mind longed for rest, her head sank back on the pillow, and her happy dream returned to her and whispered marvellous things in her ears.
She had not been mistaken after all, a carriage had really driven up to the door, and her husband had come in it.--Since he had left home Alick had been driving here, there and everywhere, like a man who goes about the country to buy up eggs and poultry. He had knocked at every door like a rag merchant. He had begged from men of business, he had made his moan to friends with whom he had become acquainted at race meetings, and who had won his money. No one was at home, and the few whom he met accidentally, had forgotten their purses at home. As long as we go about the world spending money, we have many friends, but when we begin to show ourselves a little out at elbows our friends become ashamed of knowing us. Alick was to learn this by bitter, bitter experience. He had gone secretly to Schwerin, without his sisters' knowledge; he had gone to the Jews who had formerly done business with him with so much pleasure, but what could he mortgage in these bad times?--He could see Frank's estates in the distance from the window of his inn; but where was Frank?--He had done what he could, he had even gone to his brother-in-law, Mr. von Breitenburg, with whom he had always been on bad terms, had borne with the cool reception he got, and had explained the difficulties of his position but without mentioning his sisters' money, and his brother-in-law had stared at him and turning his back upon him rudely, had said: "'Tu l'as voulu, George Dandin!' And you really want me to throw my money into the quicksands that have swallowed yours? My money that I have made by self-denial and hard work? For, as you know, your sister didn't bring it to me when I married her."--Alick was about to have reminded him of the money his father had once borrowed from Moses for him, when his brother-in-law, wheeled round suddenly and asked point blank: "Where are the £1950 you swindled your sisters out of?"--That was the last straw--his brother-in-law knew that--he turned deadly pale, staggered out of the room, and got into his carriage.--"Where?" asked the coachman.--"Home."--"Where are we to spend the night?"--"At home."--"The horses will never manage it, Sir."--"They must."--So he went home, and when he had got out of the carriage, John went and stood beside his horses: "Ah," he said, "the two horses next the carriage were knocked up before with the long distances we went, and now the two leaders are done for. None of them will be up to any work again."
Alick went upstairs to his room with a slow heavy step. It was full daylight now, and he saw that his room looked the same as usual. He had always felt so comfortable there before, and all his life he had been so much ruled by custom. But his heart was changed, his mind and heart were changed, so that custom had no longer its old influence over him. He was anxious and restless, and opened the window that the fresh morning air might cool his heated brow. He threw himself in the arm chair before his writing table and pressed his head between his hands. Then his eyes fell upon a letter. The handwriting was well known to him, for he had often seen it before; he tore it open; yes, it was from his sister. What was it his brother-in-law Breitenburg had said to him? Yes, that was it. He looked out of the window, and saw the sun rising behind the pine wood at Rexow. He looked at the letter again, it was full of words of kindness; but what good did that do, he had no money.--He looked out at the window once more, and saw the wheat field lying before him. Ah, if the wheat were only ripe, if it were thrashed out and were found to have borne twentyfold more than usual, ah, then--no, no, even that could not save him.--He looked at the letter again: kind words! Somehow the words looked graver and more earnest now than they had done at first--he could not turn his eyes from them--he read on to the end, and this was the last sentence: "that is the reason why I wrote to Frida too, for my dear, dear brother if you have not put out our money safely we poor women are ruined."--"Yes, ruined," he exclaimed, "ruined!" and he started up and began to pace the room rapidly. He went to the window and the face of nature was turned to him in her full glory. Nature has often a soothing influence on the human heart; but then the heart must be open to receive the message of the sunshine, and the green earth and deep blue sky. Alick's heart was not capable of thus receiving the divine message, his mind and thoughts were too much under the dominion of small, miserably pitiful human action. Gold! Gold! He could not coin the sunshine into Louis d'ors.--He threw himself into his chair again; she, his wife knew all. He had often lied to her, when he knew she could not find him out; but he could not lie to her about this, for she knew the truth. He imagined her coming to him with her child in her arms, and looking at him with her clear grey eyes, as she asked: "How have we deserved this at your hands?" Then he thought that his sisters would come with hollow cheeks and white lips, and say: "Yes, Alick, dear Alick, we are ruined."--And behind his three sisters, he imagined a grave stern figure appearing--a figure not of this world--and he knew that it was his father, who seemed to say to him: "You should have been a prop and support to my ancient house, and instead of that you have pulled it down from battlement to basement, and have razed it to the ground."--He could bear it no longer, and sprang to his feet--the spirits he had called up were gone--he strode up and down the room, but at length stood still before the cabinet in which he kept his fire-arms.--He knew a good place to do the deed. Nothing could be better for his purpose than Lake Lauban which lay in the pine wood at Rexow. He had often been there shooting with good old Slang, the forester, in the happy days that were gone, and he could do it there without fear of disturbance. He took the pistol out of the cabinet which Triddelfitz had brought him to shoot at the labourers with. He tried it; yes, it was loaded. He went out of his room, but as he crossed the landing he saw the door of Frida's room, the room in which his wife and child were sleeping, and he started back, staggering as if he had received a blow. The memory of all the happiness his true hearted wife had brought into his home and the thought of the noble woman the gentle girl he had married had become, came over him, and sinking on his knees at her door, he burst into silent weeping. Who knows but what these hot tears and that fervent prayer to God may have saved him--we shall see that they did--for God holds our hearts by a light invisible thread. Alick rose, his prayer had not been for himself, but for others. He went out of doors, and walked straight on towards the still, woodland lake. When he was safely in the pine wood, he threw himself on the grass behind a bush, pulled the pistol out of his pocket and laid it down by his side. He gazed at the scene around him hungrily; he looked up once more at the sun, God's beautiful sun; it was his last look, the thick darkness of night would soon enclose him. The sunlight blinded him, so he took out his pocket-handkerchief and covered his eyes with it, and now the last terrible thoughts came into his mind. He murmured with a deep sigh: "I must!"
"Good morning, Mr. von Rambow," said a kindly human voice beside him.--Alick pulled the handkerchief off his face and threw it over the pistol.--"You're up very early," said Zachariah Bräsig, for it was he, and as he spoke he sat down on the grass beside Alick, "but perhaps you're going to fish too?" Laying his hand on the handkerchief and pistol, he added: "Ah, I see you're going to practise pistol shooting." And rising he asked, "do you see that mark on the pine?--Slang's going to have the tree cut down--Now, I bet four pence that I hit it, and I never bet more than that"--bang! and missed it; bang! missed it again, and so on every time till he had fired off all the six shots the revolver contained. "Who would have thought it? Missed them all! I've lost my bet so, here's the four pence. It's a good-for-nothing thing," he exclaimed, throwing the revolver far into the lake, "and it's better there, for children and young people might get hold of it and imprudently shoot themselves dead with it."--Alick felt his thoughts in a strange whirl. Between him and the firm determination he had come to after much internal conflict and painful thought; between him and the dark portal through which he had made up his mind to pass although unsummoned, stood a common man, a mere clown as he had often called him in his thoughts, and withal a man who was as self-satisfied and impudent as a juggler at a fair. He sprang to his feet, exclaiming: "Sir!"--"And you, Sir!" cried Bräsig.--"What are you doing here?" asked Alick.--"And what are you doing here?" retorted Bräsig.--"You're a meddlesome fool!" cried Alick.--"And you're much the greater fool of the two!" cried uncle Bräsig, "You were about to do the most horrible of all deeds here, in your thoughtlessness. You have forgotten everything: Your wife and your child. H'm! you thought it a small thing to do, and then you'd be free. Am I not right? Who's the fool now?"--Alick was leaning against a pine-tree, one of his hands pressed upon his heart, and the other shading his eyes from the sun, while the "clown" who had prevented him entering the gates of death stood before him, fishing-rod in hand.--"Look you," continued uncle Bräsig, "if you had come here three minutes before I did"--these were the three minutes he spent weeping and praying at his wife's door--"you would now have been lying there with a hole through your head, a horrible example to all, and when you appeared before the throne of God, our Lord God would have said to you: You didn't know, Tom Fool, what your dear good wife did for you to-night, and Mr. bailiff Hawermann, and Mrs. Nüssler, and Mrs. Behrens, and Moses, and--and the others. If our Lord God had enlightened you on this subject, do you know where you would have felt yourself to be? In Hell!"--Alick had taken his hand down from his eyes, and was staring hard at Bräsig: "What? What are you saying?"--"That £4650 have been got for you this very night, that Moses is raising the money for you, and that your cousin Frank has come, and he will probably do more than that for you. But you are a foolish sort of man; you employ the greyhound Triddelfitz to get you a revolver to fire upon your labourers, and after all you are about to use it against yourself."--"Frank here? Frank, did you say?"--"Yes, he is here, but he didn't come for your sake; he has come to turn Louisa Hawermann into Mrs. von Rambow. However if you want to know to whom you owe gratitude just now--Frank will probably do something besides--you must go to your own sweet wife, and to Charles Hawermann; you may also go to Moses, and be sure that you don't forget either Mrs. Nüssler or Mrs. Behrens. They have all united in doing you a good turn this night."
I never wished to shoot myself and I do not know how a poor fellow feels when he is drawn back from the gates of death by a chance such as this. I think it must be as provoking as for a weary, way-worn traveller to be shown a glass of sour beer--and uncle Bräsig looked uncommonly sour that morning--which he cannot get at. But very soon the love of life returned, the dear love of life, and with it came the thought of his young wife and little child, refreshing him as a glass of cool wine drunk to the last drop: "Do tell me what has happened," he said. Uncle Bräsig then told him of the good things in store for him, and Alick staggered forward from his resting place against the pine and throwing his arms round the old man's neck, exclaimed: "Mr. Bräsig! Dear Mr. Bräsig! Can it be true?"--"What do you mean? Do you think that I would lie to you at such a solemn moment." Alick felt dizzy when he thought of the black abyss which had lain before him, and into which he had dared to gaze. He fell back a few steps. The sweet sounds he heard in the air, and the fair earth around him, all that he had formerly looked at, and listened to with indifference, now filled his heart with a sense of harmonious beauty he had never hitherto imagined. He hid his face in his hands and wept bitterly. Bräsig looked at him compassionately, and going up to him, put his arm round his shoulders and shook him gently, saying: "We all have our times of bitterness while we are in this world, and a great part of your misfortunes arise from your own fault; but the fault doesn't lie entirely on your shoulders, for what induced your lady mother to ride the devil of pride, and make you lieutenant in a cavalry regiment? What use is a lieutenancy to a farmer? It's much the same thing as if David Berger the town musician, having blown away half the breath in his body in playing the trumpet, were to wish to turn preacher and hold forth with only a half allowance of breath; he'd break down to a certainty! But," here he drew the young man's arm within his own, "come away from this place, and then you'll feel better."--"Yes, yes," cried Alick, "you're right. All my misfortunes spring from the time I was in the army. It was then that I first got into debt, and after that things grew worse. But," he added after a short pause and coming to a sudden standstill, "what am I to say to my wife?"--"Nothing at all," answered Bräsig.--"No," said Alick, "I have just sworn a solemn oath to myself to tell her the exact truth from henceforth."--"You're right there," replied Bräsig. "Surely you don't think that Mrs. von Rambow will ask you--plump out--whether you didn't want to shoot yourself this morning? If you should get into any difficulty in conversation with her when we go in, I'll lie for you as much as is needful, and I'm sure that it won't be counted against me, for it would be too horrible if the dear good young lady were to go through life with the knowledge that the husband, who ought to take care of her and her child, was once going to have been cowardly enough to have forsaken them both. No," he said decidedly, "she must never know it, nor must anyone know it except you and me. Now listen, she must be still asleep, for it was very late before she got to bed, and she must have been quite worn out."
When they reached Pümpelhagen, they found Daniel Sadenwater at the door. "Daniel," said Bräsig, "will you go and get us some breakfast, for," he added as soon as Daniel was gone, "you must eat to strengthen yourself, what you have gone through this morning is enough to have made you feel faint and weak." This time it is difficult to decide whether Bräsig was actuated by love of his neighbour, or love of himself, for when the breakfast came Alick could eat nothing, while he had the appetite of a ploughman.
Frida came into the room about ten o'clock: "What, you here, Mr. Bräsig, and you too, Alick."--"Yes, dear Frida, I came home this morning," said the young man in a low weak voice. "And now, you won't go away again, you'll remain here," said Frida determinately. "Ah Alick, I have so much to tell you, and good news too. But how did Mr. Bräsig and you happen to meet." Uncle Bräsig thought that the time had now come for him to keep his promise about telling a lie: "I went out early this morning to fish--I hope, Madam, that you won't mind my having put my fishing tackle in your hall--and I met Mr. von Rambow, who had gone out for a turn; we looked at his wheat field together and he asked me to come to breakfast! Oh, Madam, what a capital sausage your cook makes. You must have got the receipt from Mrs. Nüssler."--"No," answered Frida slowly, and looking first at Bräsig and then at Alick, as though she thought it strange that Alick should have invited the old bailiff to come back with him. "What do you think of the wheat, Mr. bailiff Bräsig?" H'm! thought Bräsig, there'll be no end to the lying if I don't look out, I must change the subject, so he said, "Pardon me, Madam, but you always call me 'bailiff,' I used to be that, but have now got an advancement, and am made assessor. Apopo," turning to Alick, "why have you never come for the money that is waiting for you at the town-hall in Rahnstädt?"--"What money is that?" asked Alick. "Why, the two hundred and twenty five pounds that remain of the three hundred you sent by Regel. The mayor wrote to tell you about it last week."--"Ah," said Alick, "I've had so many letters from the Rahnstädt court of justice lately that I've ceased to open them."--"I know all about it," cried Frida, "Mrs. Nüssler told me. I'll go and fetch the letter."--"Young Mr. von Rambow," said Bräsig drawing himself up, "that was another mistake on your part, for we magistrates are not only the punishers of humanity, but also its ben'factors."--"Do tell me how the money got there."--"Here's the letter," said Frida, giving it to her husband. Alick opened it with feelings that may easily be imagined! His soul had longed for money during the last few weeks, money, more money! And now an unlooked for sum was going to fall into his hands; but what was it? "Oh God! Oh God!" he cried starting up and beginning to pace the room with uneven steps and a troubled mien like that of a sleep walker: "Neither is this true! Nothing true! In what hands have I been? Deceived by all! Deceived by myself--and that was the worst deception!" So saying he rushed out at the door. Frida would have followed him, but Bräsig held her back: "Leave him to me, dear Lady," he entreated, "I know how to calm him."--He followed Alick to the garden where he found him in a half maddened state, and said: "What mischief are you hatching now, Sir?"--"Get out of my way!" cried Alick. "No," answered Bräsig, "there's no need of that. You ought to be ashamed of yourself for distressing your wife so terribly."--"Why didn't you let me put an end to myself?" cried Alick, "this is a thousand times bitterer than death. Benefits and what benefits!--to have to accept benefits at the hands of those one has formerly despised and injured, on whom one has even brought shame and disgrace. Oh that I had not to do it--but--if I am to live at all--I must. Oh, oh," he cried, striking his forehead, "why should I live? Why should I live with this arrow in my heart?" So he raged against himself and against the world, and uncle Bräsig stood quietly beside him, watching him. At last he said: "Go on like that a little longer. I'm glad to see you so. You're getting rid of all your old stuck-up folly, and that's good for you. What?--you wouldn't have any friendship with honest middle-class people? Wasn't it so? You were quite happy when any Mr. von something or other came, or you could even put up with Pomuchelskopps, Slus'uhrs and Davids, for you thought you could then keep everything snug and secret. But that sort won't come again. However that's quite a second'ry matter. You ought to be ashamed of yourself for having dared to wish that you had shot yourself before the very face of our Lord God who saved you this morning. What? You are doubly a soo'cide!" Alick was quite quiet now, but as pale as death. His head swam when he thought of the abyss into which he had so nearly thrown himself, and Bräsig catching him in his arms, supported him to the bench on which both his old father and his wife had sat in their hour of sorrow. When he was sufficiently recovered, Zachariah Bräsig took his arm again, and said: "Come away. Come to your wife. That's the proper place for you just now." And Alick followed him like a lamb. When they got back to the morning room, Mrs. von Rambow put her arms round her husband, made him lie down on the sofa and spoke so lovingly to him, that the tears came into his eyes, and then the ice was broken by the warmth of the spring sunshine her love spread around him, and his soul was free from the bondage with which he had bound it--free, though not yet at peace! Meanwhile Zachariah Bräsig had gone to the window, where he amused himself by drumming his favourite 'March of the old Dessauer,' and Fred Triddelfitz, who was passing, came and asked: "Do you want me, Mr. Bräsig?"--"No," growled Bräsig, "attend to your own business, and see to the farming."