Rosshalde Page 9

  The light went out of his eyes and he stood by the door as though paralyzed. He knew all this, the smell and his father's eyes and those grimaces of concentration, and he knew it had been silly to expect this day to be different from any other day. His father was working, he was deep in his foul-smelling paint, all he could think of was his stupid paintings. It had been silly to come.

  The boy's face fell in disappointment. He had known it all along! There was no refuge, not with his mother, and certainly not here.

  For a long moment he stood vacuous and sad, looking at the large painting with its glistening wet paint, but seeing nothing. His papa had time for that, but not for him. He put his hand on the latch and pressed it down, meaning to slip away quietly.

  But Veraguth heard the timid sound. He looked around, grumbled, and went over to the child. "What's the matter, Pierre? Don't run away. Don't you want to stay here with your papa awhile?"

  Pierre withdrew his hand and nodded feebly.

  "Is there something you wanted to tell me?" the painter asked affectionately. "Come, we'll sit down together. Then you'll tell me. How was your drive yesterday?"

  "Oh, it was nice," said Pierre like a well-behaved child.

  Veraguth ran his hand through the child's hair. "Didn't it do you good? You're looking kind of sleepy, my boy. They didn't by any chance give you wine to drink yesterday? No? Well, what shall we do now? Shall we draw?"

  "I don't feel like it, Papa. It's so dull today."

  "Really? You didn't sleep well, that must be it. How about some gymnastics?"

  Pierre shook his head. "I don't feel like it. I just want to be with you. But it smells so bad here."

  Veraguth caressed him and laughed. "That really is bad luck, not liking the smell of paint when you're a painter's child. I suppose you don't ever want to be a painter?"

  "No, I don't."

  "What do you want to be?"

  "Nothing. I'd like best to be a bird or something like that."

  "That wouldn't be bad. But tell me, sweetheart, what you want of me. You see, I've got to work on this big picture. If you like, you can stay here and play. Or shall I give you a picture book to look at?"

  No, that was not what he wanted. Just to get away, he said he would go and feed the pigeons, and it did not escape him that his father was relieved to see him go. He was dismissed with a kiss and went out. His father closed the door and Pierre was alone again, feeling emptier than ever. He ambled across the lawn, where he was not really supposed to go, and absently and dolefully broke off a flower or two. He saw that the wet grass had spotted and darkened his light tan shoes, but he didn't care. Finally, overcome with despair, he flung himself down in the middle of the lawn, sobbing and burying his head in the grass. He could feel the water-soaked sleeves of his light-blue blouse sticking to his arms.

  It was only when he began to shiver that he calmed down and crept timidly back into the house.

  Soon they would call him; they would see he had been crying, they would see his wet, dirty blouse and his damp shoes, and scold him. They were all enemies. He slipped past the kitchen door, he didn't want to meet anyone now. He wished he were somewhere far away where no one knew him and no one would ask after him.

  Then he saw the key in the door of one of the rarely occupied guest rooms. He went in and shut the door; then he closed the open windows and without taking his shoes off clambered, wild with fatigue, up on the large bed, which had not been made up. There he lay in his misery, half weeping, half dozing. When after a long time he heard his mother calling him from the yard, he did not answer but buried himself obstinately in the blanket. His mother's voice came and went and finally died away; he could not bring himself to answer. At last he fell asleep, his cheeks bathed in tears.

  The moment Veraguth came in to lunch, his wife asked: "Haven't you brought Pierre with you?"

  The note of anxiety in her voice did not escape him.

  "Pierre? I don't know where he is. Hasn't he been with you two?"

  Frau Adele was frightened; her voice rose. "No, I haven't seen him since breakfast. When I looked for him, the girls said they had seen him on his way to the studio. Hasn't he been there?"

  "Yes, he was there, but only for a moment, then he ran away." And, angrily, he said: "Doesn't anybody in this house look after the boy?"

  Frau Adele was offended. "We thought he was with you," she said curtly. "I'll go and look for him."

  "Send someone else. Lunch is on the table."

  "You can start. I shall look for him."

  She hurried out of the room. Albert stood up and was going to follow her.

  "Albert, you stay here," cried Veraguth. "We are at table."

  The young man looked at him angrily. "I'll eat with Mother," he said in a tone of defiance.

  Veraguth looked at his flushed face and smiled ironically. "Very well. You're the master here, aren't you? And, by the way, if you feel like throwing any more knives at me, don't let any old-fashioned prejudices deter you."

  Albert blanched and pushed back his chair. This was the first time his father had brought up his act of childish rage.

  "You have no right to speak to me like that," he shouted. "I won't stand for it!"

  Veraguth did not answer. He picked up a piece of bread and bit into it. He filled his glass with water and drank it slowly, determined to keep calm. He pretended he was alone. Albert went irresolutely to the window.

  "I won't stand for it!" he shouted again, unable to repress his anger.

  His father sprinkled salt on his bread. In his thoughts he saw himself boarding a ship and riding over endless strange oceans, far away from this incurable confusion.

  "Never mind," he said, almost peacefully. "I see you don't like me to talk to you. All right, let's drop it."

  At that moment a cry of astonishment and a flood of excited words were heard. Frau Adele had discovered the boy in his hiding place. The painter hurried out. Everything seemed to be going wrong today.

  He found Pierre lying with his soiled shoes on the rumpled guest-room bed. His face was sleepy and tearstained, his hair in disorder. Beside him stood Frau Adele, helpless in her consternation.

  "But, child," she cried at length, torn between worry and anger, "what are you doing? Why don't you answer? And why are you lying here?"

  Veraguth lifted the child up and looked anxiously into his expressionless eyes. "Are you sick, Pierre?" he asked tenderly.

  The boy shook his head in bewilderment.

  "Have you been sleeping here? Have you been here long?"

  With a thin, frightened voice, Pierre said: "I can't help it ... I didn't do anything ... I just had a headache."

  Veraguth carried him to the dining room.

  "Give him a dish of soup," he said to his wife. "You must eat something hot, child, it will make you feel better, you'll see. Poor little fellow, you must be sick."

  He sat him down, wedged a cushion behind his back, took a spoon, and fed him soup.

  Albert sat silent and reserved.

  "He really seems to be sick," said Frau Veraguth, almost relieved, after the manner of a mother who is more cheerfully prepared to care for illness than to investigate and deal with unaccustomed misconduct.

  "We'll put you to bed in a little while, just eat now, my darling," she comforted him.

  Pierre's face was gray. He sat there with half-closed eyes and swallowed without resistance what was spooned into him. While his father fed him his soup, his mother felt his pulse and was reassured to find that he had no fever.

  "Should I get the doctor?" asked Albert in an unsteady voice, feeling that he ought to be doing something.

  "No, never mind," said his mother. "Pierre is going to bed, we'll bundle him up nice and warm. He'll have a good night's sleep and tomorrow he'll be all right. Won't you, angel?"

  The child was not listening. He shook his head when his father tried to give him more soup.

  "No, he mustn't force himself," said his mother. "Come alon
g, Pierre, we'll go to bed and everything will be all right."

  She took him by the hand. He stood up sleepily and followed his mother. But in the doorway he stopped, grimaced, doubled up, and in a fit of nausea vomited everything he had eaten.

  Veraguth carried him to his room and left him to his mother. Bells rang, servants ran upstairs and down. The painter ate a few bites. In between he ran once or twice to see Pierre, who had been undressed and washed and now lay in his brass bed. Then Frau Adele came back and reported that the child was quiet, that he felt no pain and apparently wanted to sleep.

  Veraguth turned to Albert: "What did Pierre have to eat yesterday?"

  Albert recollected, but addressed his answer to his mother. "Nothing special. In Bruckenschwand I gave him bread and milk, then for lunch in Pegolzheim we had chops and macaroni."

  The father went on with his inquisition. "And later?"

  "He didn't want anything more to eat. In the afternoon I bought him some apricots from a gardener. He only ate one or two."

  "Were they ripe?"

  "Yes, of course. You seem to think I'm to blame for his upset stomach."

  The mother saw the boy's irritation and asked: "What's wrong with you two?"

  "Nothing," said Albert.

  Veraguth continued: "I don't think anything. I'm only asking. Didn't anything happen yesterday? Didn't he vomit? Or did he fall down? Didn't he complain of pains?"

  Albert replied with a curt yes or no, wishing desperately for this meal to be over.

  Returning again to Pierre's room, on tiptoe, Veraguth found him asleep. His pale little face had the gravity of utter abandonment to consoling sleep.

  Chapter Eleven

  ON THAT ANXIOUS DAY Johann Veraguth completed his large painting. Frightened and deeply troubled on leaving the sick child, he had found it harder than ever to hold his thoughts in check and to capture the perfect peace of mind which was the secret of his strength and for which he had to pay so high a price. But his will was strong, he succeeded, and that afternoon, in the fine soft light, he put the finishing touches to his work.

  When he laid aside his palette and sat down facing the canvas, he felt strangely desolate. He knew that this picture was good, that he had produced something remarkable. But inwardly he was empty, burned out. And he had no one to whom he could show his work.

  His friend was far away, Pierre was sick, and there was no one else. The only reactions that would reach him--in newspapers and letters--were those of an indifferent outside world. They meant nothing, less than nothing; at that moment, only the glance of a friend or the kiss of a loved one could have rewarded him, given him pleasure and strength.

  For some minutes he gazed in silence at the picture, which, having absorbed the energies and the good hours of his past few weeks, radiated vitality, while he stood there exhausted and estranged.

  "Oh, well, I'll sell it, it will pay for my trip to India," he said in defenseless cynicism. He closed the doors of his studio and went over to the manor house to see how Pierre was getting along. He found him asleep. The boy looked better than at lunch time, sleep had brought color to his face, his mouth was half open, the expression of torment and hopelessness had vanished.

  "How quickly these things pass with children," he whispered to his wife in the doorway. She smiled feebly and he saw that she too had been relieved of a weight, that her worry had been greater than she had shown.

  The thought of dinner alone with his wife and Albert did not appeal to him.

  "I shall be going to town," he said. "I won't be here this evening."

  Pierre lay dozing, his mother darkened the room and left him.

  He dreamed that he was walking slowly through the flower garden. Everything looked different, much bigger and wider than usual; he walked and walked and there was no end. The flower beds were more beautiful than he had ever seen them, but the flowers all seemed strangely glassy, large, and unfamiliar, and the whole gleamed with a sad dead beauty.

  Somewhat uneasy, he walked around a circular bed of shrubs with large blossoms. A blue butterfly clung, quietly sucking, to a white flower. It was unnaturally still, on the walks there was no gravel but something soft, it was like walking on a carpet.

  From the other side of the flower bed, his mother came toward him, but she did not see him and did not nod to him; she looked severely and sadly into the air and passed soundlessly by, like a ghost.

  A little while later, on another path, he saw his father, and then Albert, and they too walked straight ahead, silent and severe, and neither of them saw him. Under enchantment, they went about stiff and solitary, and it seemed as though it must always be like this, as though there would never be a light in their fixed eyes or a smile on their faces, as though no sound would ever be wafted into this impenetrable silence or the softest breeze ever touch the motionless leaves and branches.

  The worst of it was that he himself was unable to call out. There was nothing to prevent him, he felt no pain, but he had no courage and no real desire to; he understood that this was how it had to be, and that it would only be more horrible if he rebelled.

  Pierre went slowly on through the soul-less splendor of the garden. Thousands of magnificent flowers glittered in the bright dead air, as though they were not real or alive. From time to time he saw Albert or his mother or father, and always they passed him and one another with the same unrecognizing rigidity.

  It seemed to him that this had been going on for a long time, years perhaps, and that those other times, when the world and the garden had been alive, when people had been cheerful and talkative and he himself full of joy and wildness, lay far far away in a deep blind past. Perhaps the world had always been as it was now, and the earlier life was only a pleasant, foolish dream.

  At length he came to a little stone basin where the gardener had formerly filled his watering cans and where he himself had kept a few tiny tadpoles. The bright green water stood motionless, reflecting the stone rim and the overhanging leaves of a clump of yellow asters. It looked pretty, forsaken, and somehow unhappy like everything else.

  "If you fall in there, you drown and you're dead," the gardener had once said. But it wasn't at all deep.

  Pierre stepped up to the edge of the oval basin and bent forward.

  He saw his own face mirrored in the water. It was like the faces of the others: old and pale and rigid with severity and indifference.

  He was surprised and horrified, and suddenly the secret dread and meaningless sadness of his condition rose up in him overpoweringly. He tried to cry out, but there was no sound. He wanted to wail, but all he could do was screw up his face and grin helplessly.

  Then his father reappeared and Pierre turned to him, desperately summoning up all his strength. He sobbed silently, and all his anguish, all the unbearable suffering of his despairing heart, turned to his father for help. His father approached as impassive as a ghost and again seemed not to see him.

  "Father!" the child tried to cry out, and although no sound could be heard, the force of his terrible affliction reached the silent, solitary man. His father turned his face and looked at him.

  With a painter's searching look, he peered attentively into the imploring eyes, smiled feebly, and gave a slight nod; there was kindness and regret in his glance but no solace, as though there were nothing to be done. For a brief moment a shadow of love and of kindred suffering passed over his severe face, and in this brief moment he was no longer the all-powerful father, but rather a poor helpless brother.

  Then again he looked straight ahead and went slowly on at the same even pace.

  Pierre saw him recede and disappear, the basin and the path and the garden grew dark before his horrified eyes and vanished like misty clouds. He awakened with aching temples and a hot parched throat and saw that he was lying in bed alone in the darkened room. He tried in amazement to think back, but found no memories. Exhausted and discouraged, he turned over on the other side.

  Full consciousness returned t
o him only slowly. Then he sighed with relief. It was ugly to be sick and have a headache, but it was bearable; it was light and sweet compared to the deathly feeling of his nightmare.

  What was the good of all this torment, Pierre thought, and rolled himself up into a ball under his blanket. What was the point in sickness? If it was a punishment--what was he being punished for? He hadn't even eaten anything forbidden--as he had once, when he had spoiled his stomach eating unripe plums. They were forbidden, but he had eaten them all the same; so it had served him right and he had had to take the consequences. That was plain. But now? Why was he lying in bed now, why had he had to vomit, and why did he have such a wretched pain in his head?

  He had been lying awake for a long time when his mother came into the room. She opened the curtain and the room was flooded with soft evening light.

  "How are you, darling? Have you had a good sleep?"

  He did not answer. Lying on his side, he raised his eyes and looked up at her. She looked back at him in surprise. His eyes seemed strangely questioning and grave.

  No fever, she thought with relief.

  "Would you like something to eat now?"

  Pierre shook his head feebly.

  "Isn't there something I can bring you?"

  "Water," he said softly.

  She brought him water, but he took only a sip, then he closed his eyes again.

  Suddenly the piano rang out from next door, filling the room with great waves of sound.

  "No!" he cried out. "No! Leave me alone!"

  He held both hands over his ears and burrowed his head in the pillow.

  With a sigh, Frau Veraguth went to her room and asked Albert to stop playing. Then she came back and sat at Pierre's bedside until he dozed off again.

  That evening it was very still in the house. Veraguth was absent, Albert was disgruntled at not being able to play the piano. They went to bed early. Frau Veraguth left her door open so as to hear Pierre if he needed anything during the night.

  Chapter Twelve

  ON HIS RETURN FROM TOWN that night, Veraguth had made his way stealthily past the house, on the alert for a lighted window, an opening door, or a voice that would tell him his darling was still sick and suffering. Finding all quiet and asleep, he felt his fear fall from him like a heavy wet garment, and was deeply thankful as he lay in bed awake. Shortly before he finally fell asleep, he smiled to think how little it took to cheer a dejected heart. Everything that tormented him and weighed him down, the whole dismal sodden burden of his life turned to nothing, became light and insignificant beside his loving anguish over his child, and no sooner had that dark shadow receded than everything looked brighter and his whole life seemed bearable.