Rosshalde Page 14

  The painter's heart beat stormily when at last he heard the voice which he had missed so long, which had become so thin and feeble, calling out to him and acknowledging him. It had been so long since he had heard that voice otherwise than moaning and muttering wretchedly in dull suffering, that he was terror-stricken with joy.

  "Pierre, my darling!"

  He bent down tenderly and kissed the smiling lips. Pierre looked fresher and happier than he had ever hoped to see him again, his eyes were clear and alert, the deep crease between the brows had almost disappeared.

  "Are you feeling better, my angel?"

  The little boy smiled and looked at him as though in surprise. His father held out his hand and into it the child put his little hand, which had never been very strong and was now so tiny and white and tired.

  "Now you'll have your breakfast right away, and then I shall tell you stories."

  "Oh yes, about Mr. Larkspur and the birds," said Pierre, and to his father it seemed a miracle that he should speak and smile and belong to him again.

  He brought him his breakfast. Pierre ate willingly and even let himself be cajoled into a second egg. Then he asked for his favorite picture book. His father cautiously thrust one of the curtains aside, admitting the pale light of the rainy day, and Pierre tried to sit up and look at pictures. The effort seemed to give him no pain, he studied several pages attentively and greeted the beloved pictures with little cries of joy. Then he grew tired from sitting and his eyes began to hurt a little. He let his father lay him down again and asked him to read some of the verses, especially the one about Creeping Cucumber who goes to see Apothecary Mistletoe:

  Apothecary Mistletoe,

  Oh, help me with your ointments!

  I cannot come, I cannot go,

  I ache in all my jointments!

  Veraguth was at pains to read as gaily and waggishly as possible, and Pierre smiled gratefully. But the verses seemed to have lost their old force, as though Pierre had grown years older since last hearing them. The pictures and verses kindled memories of many bright, laughing days, but the old joy and lightheartedness could not come again, and already, without knowing why, Pierre looked back into his childhood, which had still been reality days and weeks ago, with the yearning and sadness of an adult. He was no longer a child. He was an invalid from whom the world of reality had slipped away and whose soul, grown clairvoyant, already sensed the presence of lurking death on all sides.

  Nevertheless, that morning was full of light and happiness after all the terrible days. Pierre was quiet and thankful and Veraguth against his will felt time and again the touch of hope. Wasn't it possible that the child would be spared after all? And then he would belong to him; to him alone!

  The doctor came and stayed a long while at Pierre's bedside but did not torment him by asking him questions or examining him. It was only then that Frau Adele, who had shared the last night watch with the nurse, appeared. She was overwhelmed by the unexpected improvement, she held Pierre's hands so hard that it hurt him, and struggled to hold back the tears of relief that welled in her eyes. Albert, too, was allowed in for a little while.

  "It's a miracle," said Veraguth to the doctor. "Aren't you surprised?"

  The doctor nodded and gave a friendly smile. He did not say no, but neither did he show any great enthusiasm. At once the painter was assailed by suspicion. He watched the doctor closely and saw that, even as his face smiled, the cold concentration and restrained anxiety were undiminished in his eyes. Afterward, he listened through the crack in the door to the doctor's conversation with the nurse, and although he could not understand a word, there seemed to be nothing but danger in the severe, earnest tone of his whispers.

  At length he saw him to his carriage and asked at the last minute: "I gather you don't think much of this improvement?"

  The ugly, self-controlled face turned back to him: "Be glad that he has a few good hours, the poor little tyke! Let's hope that it lasts a long while."

  There was no sign of hope to be read in his shrewd eyes.

  Quickly, so as not to lose a moment, he returned to the sickroom. Frau Adele was telling the story of Sleeping Beauty; he sat down beside her and watched Pierre's features follow the story.

  "Shall I tell you another?" Frau Adele asked.

  "No," he said rather wearily. "Later."

  She went to give orders in the kitchen and Veraguth took the boy's hand. They were both silent but from time to time Pierre looked up with a faint smile, as though glad that his father was with him.

  "You're much better now," Veraguth said tenderly.

  Pierre flushed slightly, his fingers moved playfully in his father's hand. "You love me, Papa, don't you?"

  "Of course I love you, sweetheart. You're my dear boy, and when you're well again we shall always be together."

  "Oh yes, Papa ... Once I was in the garden and I was all alone, and none of you loved me any more. You must all love me and you must help me when it hurts again. Oh, it hurt so badly!"

  His eyes were half closed and he spoke so softly that Veraguth had to lean close to his mouth to understand him.

  "You must help me. I'll be good, always, you mustn't scold me. You won't ever scold me, will you? And you must tell Albert, too."

  His eyelids quivered and opened, but the look in his eyes was dark and his pupils were much too large.

  "Sleep, child, sleep. You're tired. Sleep, sleep, sleep."

  Veraguth closed Pierre's eyes gently and hummed softly to him as he had sometimes done when he was a baby. And the child seemed to fall asleep.

  An hour later the nurse came in to call Veraguth to table and relieve him at Pierre's bedside. He went to the dining room, silently and absently ate a dish of soup, scarcely hearing what was said around him. The child's tender, frightened, loving whispers echoed sweet and sad in his ears. Oh, how many hundreds of times he might have talked with Pierre like that, savoring the naive trust of his carefree love, and had neglected to do so.

  Mechanically he reached for the carafe to pour himself water. And then his dream was shattered by a piercing scream from Pierre's room. All three jumped up with pale faces, the carafe was overturned, rolled over the table, and fell to the floor.

  In an instant Veraguth was out the door and in Pierre's room.

  "The ice bag!" cried the nurse.

  He heard nothing. Nothing but that terrible, desperate scream which stuck in his consciousness as a knife in a wound. He rushed to the bed.

  There lay Pierre as white as snow, his mouth hideously distorted; his emaciated limbs writhed in furious convulsions, his eyes stared in unreasoning horror. And suddenly he uttered another scream, wilder and louder than the last, and his body arched up so violently that the bedstead trembled; and then it slumped and rose up again, tense with pain and bent like a switch in the hands of an angry boy.

  All stood helpless with horror, until the nurse's commands created order. Veraguth kneeled down by the bed and tried to prevent Pierre from hurting himself in his convulsions. Even so, the child's right hand struck itself bloody on the metal rim of the bed. Then he slumped, turned over on his stomach, bit silently into the pillow, and began to kick his left leg rhythmically. He lifted it, brought it down with a stamping movement, rested a moment, and then made the same movement again, ten times, twenty times, and on and on.

  The women were at work making compresses, Albert had been sent away. Veraguth was still on his knees, looking on as the child's leg rose with uncanny regularity under the blanket, stretched out, and fell. There lay his child, whose smile only a few hours ago had been like sunshine and whose imploring, loving babbling had touched and enchanted his heart to its deepest depths. There he lay and was nothing more than a mechanically quivering body, a poor helpless bundle of pain and misery.

  "We're here with you," he cried in despair. "Pierre, child, we're here and trying to help you."

  But the path from his lips to the child's mind was cut off, his imploring words of comfort, h
is tender meaningless whisperings no longer penetrated the terrible loneliness of the dying child. He was far away in another world, wandering thirst-parched through a hell of torment and death, and there perhaps, in the valley of hell, was crying out for the very man who was kneeling by his side, who would gladly have suffered every torment to help his child.

  They all knew that this was the end. Since that first terrifying scream so full of deep animal suffering, death had lurked in every window and doorway of the house. No one spoke of it, but all had recognized it, Albert, too, and the maids downstairs and even the dog, who ran around restlessly on the gravel walk, now and then letting out a frightened whimper. And though they all did what they could, boiled water, brought ice, and kept very busy, the fight was over, the hope had gone out of it.

  Pierre had lost consciousness. His whole body trembled as with cold, occasionally he uttered a feeble delirious scream, and time and time again, after a pause of exhaustion, his leg began to kick and to stamp, rhythmically as though moved by clockwork.

  So the afternoon passed and the evening and finally the night. It was not until morning, when the little fighter had exhausted his strength and surrendered to the enemy, that the parents exchanged a silent glance out of sleepless eyes. Johann Veraguth laid his hand on Pierre's heart and felt no beat, and he left his hand on the child's sunken chest until it grew cool and cold.

  Then he gently stroked Frau Adele's folded hands and said in a whisper: "It's all over." As he led his wife from the room, supporting her and listening to her hoarse sobbing; as he entrusted her to the nurse and listened at Albert's door to see whether he was awake; as he went back to Pierre and straightened him out in his bed, he felt that half his life had died away and been laid to rest.

  With composure he did what was necessary. Then at length he left the dead child to the nurse, and lay down to a short, deep sleep. When the full daylight shone through the windows, he awoke, arose at once, and set about the last piece of work he meant to do at Rosshalde. He went to Pierre's room and opened all the curtains, letting the cool autumnal light shine on his darling's little white face and stiff hands. Then he sat down near the bed, spread out a sheet of paper, and for the last time drew the features which he had studied so often, which he had known and loved since their tender beginnings, and which were now matured and simplified by death, but still full of ununderstood suffering.

  Chapter Eighteen

  THE SUN WAS SHINING fiery-red through the fringes of the limp, rained-out clouds as the little family rode home from Pierre's funeral. Frau Adele sat erect in the carriage; her face, drained with weeping, seemed strangely bright and rigid as it looked out from between her black hat and her black, high-cut dress. Albert's eyelids were swollen and throughout the ride he held his mother's hand.

  "So you'll be leaving tomorrow," said Veraguth in an effort to distract them. "Don't worry about a thing, I'll attend to everything that has to be done. Chin up, my boy."

  At Rosshalde, as they descended from the carriage, the dripping branches of the chestnut trees glittered in the light. Dazzled, they entered the silent house, where the maids, clothed in mourning, had been whispering as they waited. Veraguth had locked up Pierre's room.

  Coffee was ready and the three sat down to table.

  "I've taken rooms for you in Montreux," said Veraguth. "See that you get a good rest. I shall be leaving too, as soon as I've finished here. Robert will stay and keep the house in order. He will have my address."

  No one was listening to him; a profound, shaming emptiness weighed on them all like a frost. Frau Adele looked fixedly into space and gathered crumbs from the tablecloth. She shut herself up in her grief, unwilling to be roused, and Albert imitated her. Now that little Pierre lay dead, all semblance of unity in the family had vanished, just as the politeness maintained by an effort of the will vanishes from a man's face as soon as a feared and powerful guest has gone away. Veraguth alone rose above the circumstances, playing his role and preserving his mask to the last moment. He feared that a womanish scene might mar his leave-taking from Rosshalde, and in his heart he waited fervently for the moment when the two of them would be gone.

  Never had he been so alone as sitting in his little room that evening. Over in the manor house, his wife was packing. He had written letters, to Burkhardt, who had not yet been told of Pierre's death, announcing his arrival; to his lawyer and bank, giving them their final instructions. Then, when his desk had been cleared, he propped up his drawing of the dead Pierre before him. Now he was lying in the ground, and Veraguth wondered if he would ever again be able to give his heart to anyone as he had to Pierre, ever again share so deeply in anyone else's suffering. Now he was alone.

  For a long while he looked at his drawing, the slack cheeks, the lids closed over sunken eyes, the thin, pressed lips, the cruelly emaciated hands. Then he locked up his drawing in the studio, took his coat, and went out. It was already night in the park and everything was still. Over in the house, a few windows were lighted; they did not concern him. But under the black chestnut trees, in the rain-drenched little arbor on the gravel walk, and in the flower garden, there was still a breath of life and memory. Here Pierre had once--had it not been years ago?--showed him a little captive mouse, and over there by the phlox he had spoken with the swarms of blue butterflies, and he had invented tender fanciful names for the flowers. Here, between henhouse and kennel, on the lawn and on the walk under the lime trees, he had led his little life and played his games; here his light, free, boyish laughter and all the charm of his self-willed, independent nature had been at home. Here, observed by no one, he had enjoyed his childlike pleasures and lived his fairy tales, and sometimes perhaps he had been angry or wept when he felt neglected or misunderstood.

  Veraguth wandered about in the darkness, visiting every spot that preserved a memory of his little boy. Last he knelt down by Pierre's sand pile and cooled his hands in the damp sand. His hands encountered something wooden and, picking it up, he recognized Pierre's sand shovel. And then he broke down, his will abandoned him, and for the first time in those three terrible days, he was able to weep without restraint.

  The next day he had a last talk with Frau Adele.

  "Try to get over it," he said, "and don't forget that Pierre belongs to me. You would have given him up to me, and I thank you again for that. Even then I knew he was going to die, but it was generous of you. And now live exactly as you please, and don't be in a hurry about anything. Keep Rosshalde for the present, you might regret it if you sold it too soon. The notary will keep you informed, he says the price of land around here is sure to go up. I wish you the best of luck. There's nothing left here that belongs to me except the things in the studio, I shall have them taken away later on."

  "Thank you ... And you? You'll never come here any more?"

  "No. There would be no point. And I wanted to tell you this: I feel no more bitterness. I know that I myself was to blame for everything."

  "Don't say that. You mean well, but it only makes me miserable. And now you're staying behind all by yourself. It wouldn't be so bad if you had been able to keep Pierre. But as it is--no, this shouldn't have happened. I've been to blame too, I know..."

  "We've made atonement these last few days. You mustn't fret, everything will be all right, there's really nothing to have regrets about. Look, now you have Albert all to yourself. And I, I have my work. That makes everything bearable. And you too will be happier than you've been for years."

  He was so calm that she too controlled herself. Oh, there were many things, very many, that she would have liked to say, things she would have liked to thank him for, or hold up to him. But she saw that he was right. It was plain that to him everything that she still felt to be life and bitterly present had already become shadowy past. There was nothing else to do but be calm and let the past be past. And so she listened patiently and attentively to his instructions, surprised at how thoroughly he had thought it all out.

  Not a word was sai
d of divorce. That could be taken care of some time in the future when he returned from India.

  After lunch they drove to the station. There stood Robert with all the suitcases, and amid the noise and soot of the great glass dome Veraguth saw the two of them into the carriage, bought magazines for Albert, gave him the baggage check, and waited outside the window until the train moved off. Then he took off his hat and waved it and looked after the train until Albert disappeared from the window.

  On the way home, Robert, in response to his inquiry, told him how he had broken off his overhasty engagement. At the house the carpenter was waiting to crate Veraguth's last paintings. Once they were packed and sent away, he too would leave. He longed to be gone.

  And now the carpenter had finished his work. Robert was working at the manor house with one maid who had stayed on; they covered the furniture and locked the doors and windows.

  Veraguth strode slowly through his studio, then through his living room and bedroom. Then he went out, around the lake and through the park. He had taken this walk a hundred times, but today everything, house and garden, lake and park, seemed to echo loneliness. The wind blew cold in the yellowing leaves and brought new fleecy rain clouds in low-hovering files. The painter shivered with the cold. Now they were all gone. There was no one here to care for, to be considerate of, no one in whose presence he had to maintain his composure, and only now, in this frozen loneliness, were the cares and sleepless nights, the quivering fever and all the crushing weariness borne in on him. He felt them not only in his mind and bones but deep in his heart. In those days the last shimmering lights of youth and expectancy had been extinguished; but the cold isolation and cruel disenchantment no longer frightened him.

  Sauntering on along the wet paths, he tried to follow back the threads of his life, whose simple fabric he had never before seen so clearly. It came to him without bitterness that he had followed all those pathways blindly. He saw clearly that despite his many attempts, despite the yearning that had never left him, he had passed the garden of life by. Never had he lived out a love to its bottommost depths, never until these last days. At the bedside of his dying child he had known, all too late, his only true love; then he had forgotten, and risen above, himself. And now that would be his experience, his poor little treasure, as long as he lived.