At the beginning of April she took to her bed. “General weakness,” the doctor said, and recommended a visit to a place where there were iron baths. She smiled, and begged him not to speak of a watering-place to any one, for she knew that Paul would work himself to death to make this course of treatment possible for her.
Such a course would not really help her. She knew very well what she needed; sunshine! Dame Care had shrouded her too closely with her sombre veil to allow a single ray of sun to penetrate into her soul.
It was now left to the twins to take care of the household. And the work was briskly done indeed; even Paul had to confess that. When they had broken anything, they laughed; when a walk was refused them, they cried; but the crying soon changed again to laughter, and the table was never so promptly served, the milk-pails had never been so bright.
His mother often observed that from her window, and thought, “It is a good thing that I should go away; I am no longer of any use in the world.”
About Whitsuntide her sleep began to fail; then fever set in.
“Oh, how expensive quinine is!” sighed Paul, when the servant rode off to the chemist’s; and he looked appealingly at “Black Susy,” but she did not move. Often the work in the fields had to come to a stand-still, in order that they might earn a few groschen for the household by cutting peat.
His mother began to suffer from palpitations, and desired most earnestly that somebody would sit up with her at night. But the twins, tired out with their day’s work, would fall asleep in the evening by the bedside of the invalid, and often sank down right across her bed, so that the feeble woman often had to bear upon her own body the weight of the two healthy girls.
Paul sent his sisters to rest, and took upon himself the office of watching.
“Go to sleep, my son,” said his mother; “you need rest more than any of them.”
But he remained; and in the May nights, when outside in the garden the flowers were whispering and the perfume of the lilac penetrated through every crack, the two would often sit hand in hand for hours looking at each other, as though they had wondrous things to impart. So it had always been between mother and son. The wealth of their love sought for expression in words, but care had robbed them of speech.