"A nice story that! All of a sudden, he finds honest work too hard for him and righteous fare not good enough, goes to town and eats flesh-meat on Our Lady's day and falls away from the faith."
My mother laughed at first, when she heard that, for she knew her child. But then the thought came to her: suppose it were true after all! Suppose her dear child were forgetting God and going astray!
She knew no peace. She went and borrowed clothes from blind Julia and borrowed three florins from a good-natured huckstress and travelled—sick and infirm as she was, leaning with either hand on a stick—to the capital. She wanted to see for herself what was true in people's talk. She found her child a poor student in a black coat, which he had had given him, and with his hair combed off his forehead. None of this pleased her greatly, it is true; it succeeded, however, in appeasing her. But, in the two days of her stay in town, she saw the mad, frivolous doings on every side, saw the neglect of old customs which she revered and the mocking of things that were sacred to her, and she said to me:
"You will never be able to stay among people like those, child; they would drag you down with them and ruin your soul."
"No, mother," I answered, "a man can think as he wishes; and people can't take away good thoughts."
She said no more. But, when she returned to the forest hills and heard the talk again, she was more dejected than ever.
It was all up now with the homestead. House and farm were sold, made over to the creditors; my brothers and sisters engaged as servants with strange farmers. The destitute parents were given a cottage that, until then, had belonged to the property. My youngest brother, who was not yet able to earn his bread, and one sister remained with them and nursed poor mother. Father kept on going over the mountains to the doctors', and all but promised them his own life, if they could save the life of his wife.
In the cottage, things looked very wretched. The ailing woman suffered in silence. The light of her eyes threatened to fail her, her mental faculties appeared to fade. Death knocked at her heart with repeated strokes. She often seemed to endure severe pain, but said nothing; she no longer took any interest in the world, asked only after her husband, after her children. And she lay years a-dying.
I often came to see her during that time. She hardly knew me, when I stood by her bedside; but then again she would say, as in a dream:
"Is that you, Peterl? Praise and thanks be to God that you are here again!"