From that moment she resumed all her duties to the company, managed the money matters, kept an eye, with Kunigunde's assistance, on the wardrobe, sent the members word that she would again provide the dinner, and only shrank from one thing--occasionally attending a rehearsal as usual.
She again treated every one pleasantly, but never spoke a word to her husband except when he addressed her. Her misfortune had drawn the members of the company nearer to her; the women, especially, showed her many little attentions, except Victorine, who held aloof as before, and no longer even appeared at the Round Table.
But, when darkness came, she always went to the graveyard and remained there an hour alone, declining even my companionship with a silent shake of the head. But we met each other several other times when she was returning home, and walked silently side by side, absorbed in the same thoughts, which needed no utterance. I only remember that I once asked her how she could reconcile this pitiless blow with God's fatherly kindness. She stopped and, raising her tearful eyes to heaven, answered:
"Never for one moment have I doubted him. Spite of all the burdens that weighed upon me, I was the most blessed among women, and God is wise and just. He lets the tree of no earthly happiness grow into heaven. But, for the very reason that he took the child from me, I know that he has not deserted me. If he had left him to me, and he had some day seen with his innocent eyes the ugly world around us as it really is, and been permitted only the choice between scorning it or becoming akin to it, who knows what he would have decided, and either course would have made both him and me wretched. Now I have buried him here in my heart, in all his purity and loveliness, and may love him forever, far better and more fervently than when I still clasped him in my arms. And, though this love is full of sorrow, neither time nor fate has any power over it, and for this I thank God, whom I always know near to me when I go down into the depths of my own heart and feel the dear child living on there."
What answer could I have made? My whole philosophy became pitiful and humble before the pious trust of this strong soul. She received the news calmly, when one day at table her husband said that they would be obliged to change their residence. The receipts were miserably poor, and he had had an invitation from the magistrates of the next town on the coast to give a series of plays, lasting several weeks.
As he spoke, he cast a side-glance at his wife, as though fearing she would object to leave the place where her child lay buried. He had long since fallen into the habit of discussing no subjects, when alone with her, except those required by absolute necessity.
To his surprise she simply assented. Even, when, three days after, we departed and I drove through the gate in the same carriage with her and the worthy lady whose young daughter played the ingénues, while Spielberg, with Daniel and Victorine, formed the rear-guard, she had strength enough to give no sign of the emotions which must have assailed her in parting from the little grave.
But the hopes with which we had struck our tents were not to be realized. Just at that time a panic occurred in commercial circles that made itself felt in the seaport no less than in the large North German commercial towns. People kept their pockets buttoned, and even the renowned artist could not open them.
He became so irritated by this state of affairs that, to punish the ingratitude of the age, he intentionally hid the light of his art under a bushel, and played his parts with such haughty negligence that even the few patrons of the theater, who had known his reputation, shook their heads, and transferred their favor to the less famous members of the company. Victorine was the admiration of the young merchants; the ingénue previously mentioned turned the heads of the older school-boys; Daniel, whose acting, even when most negligent, always had its interesting moments, found favor with the critics in the two local papers--yet, nevertheless, the receipts were so small that the company would have been compelled to disband had not Frau Luise's wise economy provided a reserve fund for such contingencies. She paid the salaries as regularly as ever, and kept the wardrobes and other requisites in decent order, without receiving any special thanks from any one.