Next spring it was the turn of the farm buildings; the barn, especially, was to be made an example of rural magnificence, as a monument of that terrible night which had given the death-blow to his mother.
The farmers who now drove across the heath often halted to look admiringly at the smart buildings which, with their red-tiled roofs, impressed them already in the distance, and many a one shook his head thoughtfully and murmured the old proverb:
“To build and to lend
Bring cares without end.”
“Black Susy” on the moor was sending forth her black clouds of smoke, the knives of the cutting-machine bored themselves deep into the clammy ground, and the press worked slowly and silently like a good-natured domestic animal. A newly-built shed with its white walls looked dazzling in the sunshine, and all round about the long black rows of compressed peat were to be seen. The blocks were hard and heavy, with little fibre and much coal. They easily beat all competition and had a good reputation as far as Koenigsberg.
Paul, who on his business journeys mixed much with strange people, now also enjoyed the happiness of being greeted as a man of consequence, and of being treated by the worthy land-owners as their equal. But he had no longer any pleasure in it.
When they shook hands with him in a friendly manner, congratulated him upon his success, or requested a visit from him, he asked himself in silence, “Are they mocking me?” And though he saw well that the gentlemen were quite in earnest about it, he always felt as if freed from a nightmare when they let him go.
“Why did not these kind people come here before,” he said to himself, “at that time when I needed them—when each kind word would have been of great advantage to me? Now I am as insensible as a stone—now it is too late.”
But his ambition increased more and more. And as if Heaven itself wished to consecrate it all, it caused the fruit to thrive in such abundance that year (the seventh since his mother’s death), sent rain and sunshine so lavishly, each at its proper time, that the people began to feel uncomfortable at all this profusion, and asked each other anxiously, “Can it be for any real good?”
“Something will still come and spoil all—a hailstorm or the like,” said Paul, who was always prepared for the worst. But no; the harvest wagons came in one after the other heavily laden, swaying from side to side, and kept pouring the profusion of golden ears into the granary, scattering grains around until it was full up to the rafters.
But neither did this give pleasure to Paul. The more he saw his property accumulate, the more proudly the fruits of his handiwork greeted him, the heavier grew his care. Any one who had seen him slowly walking across the yard, with deep lines in his forehead and bowed head, might have taken him for a man encumbered with debts and very near to ruin.