Then he cried out loud, clasped her knees, and wept like a child; but when she wanted to stroke his hair—the only caress which had been usual between them—he sprang up, pushed her back, and cried,
“Do not touch me, mother; I am not worthy of it.”
Then he turned his back on her, and walked out onto the heath.
Since the moment of his first waking after the fire a fixed idea possessed him which would not leave go of him; the fixed idea that he alone had been guilty of it all.
“If I had not been roaming about,” he said to himself—“if I had watched the house, as was my duty, this misfortune could never have happened.” All his secret yearnings appeared to him now like a crime committed against his father’s house.
Like Jesus in Gethsemane, he struggled with his own heart, seeking expiation and forgiveness. But his self-torment did not let him rest anywhere. At all hours the flames were dancing before his eyes, and when he went to bed at night and stared into the darkness, it seemed as if from every chink fiery tongues were jutting forth, as if clouds of black smoke surrounded him instead of the shadows of the night.
He had not been able yet to think about the cause of the fire; the cares which were overwhelming him again were too great to leave any room for thoughts of revenge. The very necessities of life failed them; money for the chemist could scarcely be scraped together. He meditated and calculated day and night, and formed great plans of campaign to collect the most absolutely necessary cash. He also wrote to his brothers, to know whether they could not procure him by their influence a few hundred thalers at moderate interest. They answered, deeply grieved, that they themselves were so overrun with debts that it was impossible for them to reckon on any further credit. Gottfried, the teacher had, indeed, engaged himself a short time ago to a wealthy young lady, and Paul was convinced that it could not have been difficult for him to induce her family to lend him a small sum, but he was of opinion that the dignity of his position would suffer by such a request; he said he should be afraid of compromising himself with his father-in-law if he disclosed his real circumstances too early.
With all this it was a blessing that the ripe harvest had already been sold and delivered, and that the potatoes, for the greater part, were still in the ground; so he could get some ready money, which would be sufficient to cover the most necessary expenses; but how, indeed, was the rebuilding of the barn ever to be contemplated?
In the middle of the ruins—melancholy ruins of charred beams and charred walls—“Black Susy” stood erect with her sooty body and slender neck, the only thing which, except for a few miserable carts, had been saved from destruction.
The twins, who during this sad time had lost much of their merriment, and only in quiet corners still prattled and giggled, went about timidly; and his father, when he for the first time sat upright in his bed and saw the black monster glaring through the window, clinched his fist, and cried,