Unspeakable misery had descended on the Haidehof. The father lay in the parlor, on his sickbed, and groaned and complained and cursed the hour of his birth. In milder moments he seized his wife’s hand with tearful eyes, and asked her forgiveness for having united her fate to his ruined life, and promised to make her rich and happy in future. Rich—above all things, rich.
It was too late. Mild words from him now made no impression on her. In her tormented heart she already heard the abuse which would inevitably follow them. With withered cheeks and lustreless eyes she walked about, never uttering a sound of complaint, doubly pitiful in her silence.
But no one had pity on her—not even God and eternal fate. She grew more tired from day to day; on her pale, blue-veined forehead the stamp of death seemed already to burn, and the happiness she had longed for through all her life was farther away than ever.
The only one who would have been able to give her some relief was Paul, and he avoided her like a criminal. He scarcely dared to shake hands with her in the morning, and when she looked at him he looked down. If she had been less torpid and less grief-laden she might have had some suspicion, but all she felt in her misery was that she lacked consolation.
Once at twilight, when he was rummaging about as usual after work in the ruins of the spot where the fire had been, she went after him, sat down near him on the crumbling foundation, and tried to enter into conversation, but he avoided her, as he had done before.
“Paul, don’t be so hard to me,” she pleaded, and her eyes filled with tears.
“I am not doing anything to you, mother,” he said, setting his teeth.
“Paul, you have something against me?”
“No, mother.”
“Do you think that the fire was caused by my fault?”