Chronicles of the Schonberg-Cotta Family Part 9

When I returned to the bed-side, after obeying these directions, Fritz's mind was wandering; and although we could understand little that he said, he was evidently in great distress. He seemed to have comprehended the physician's words, for he frequently repeated, "The plague! the plague! I have brought a curse upon my house!" and then he would wander, strangely calling on Martin Luther and Eva to intercede and obtain pardon for him, as if he were invoking saints in heaven; and occasionally he would repeat fragments of Latin hymns.

It was dreadful to have to keep him awake; to have to rouse him, whenever he showed the least symptom of slumber, to thoughts which so perplexed and troubled his poor brain. But on the second night the mother fainted away, and I had to carry her to her room. Her dear thin frame was no heavy weight to bear. I laid her on the bed in our room, which was the nearest. Eva appeared at the door as I stood beside our mother. Her face was as pale as death. Before I could prevent it, she came up to me, and taking my hands said,--

"Cousin Else, only promise me one thing;--if he is to die, let me see him once more."

"I dare not promise anything, Eva," I said; "consider the infection!"

"What will the infection matter to me if he dies?" she said; "I am not afraid to die."

"Think of the father and the children, Eva," I said; "If our mother and I should be seized next, what would they do?"

"Chriemhild will soon be old enough to take care of them," she said very calmly; "promise me, promise me, Else, or I will see him at once."

And I promised her, and she threw her arms around me, and kissed me.

Then I went back to Fritz, leaving Eva chafing my mother's hands. It was of no avail, I thought, to try to keep her from contagion, now that she had held my hands in hers.

When I came again to Fritz's bed-side he was asleep! Bitterly I reproached myself; but what could I have done? He was asleep--sleeping quietly, with soft, even breathing. I had not courage to awake him; but I knelt down and implored the blessed Virgin and all the saints to have mercy on me and spare him. And they must have heard me; for, in spite of my failure in keeping the physician's orders, Fritz began to recover from that very sleep.

Our grandmother says it was a miracle; "unless," she added, "the doctor was wrong!"

He awoke from that sleep refreshed and calm, but weak as an infant.

It was delightful to meet his eyes when first he awoke, with the look of quiet recognition in them, instead of that wild, fixed stare, or that restless wandering; to look once more into his heart through his eyes.

He looked at me a long time with a quiet content, without speaking, and then he said, holding out his hand to me,--

"Else, you have been watching long here. You look tired; go and rest."

"It rests me best to look at you," I said, "and see you better."

He seemed too weak to persist, and after taking some food and cooling drinks, he fell asleep again, and so did I; for the next thing I was conscious of was our mother gently placing a pillow underneath my head, which had sunk on the bed where I had been kneeling, watching Fritz. I was ashamed of being such a bad nurse; but our mother insisted on my going to our room to seek rest and refreshment. And for the next few days we took it in turns to sit beside him, until he began to regain strength. Then we thought he might like to see Eva; but when she came to the door, he eagerly motioned her away, and said,--

"Do not let her venture near me. Think if I were to bring this judgment of G.o.d on her!"

Eva turned away, and was out of sight in an instant; but the troubled, perplexed expression came back into my brother's eyes, and the feverish flush into his face, and it was long before he seemed calm again.

I followed Eva. She was sitting with clasped hands in our room.

"Oh, Else," she said, "how altered he is! Are you sure he will live, even now?"

I tried to comfort her with the hope which was naturally so much stronger in me, because I had seen him in the depths from which he was now slowly rising again to life. But something in that glimpse of him seemed to weigh on her very life; and as Fritz recovered, Eva seemed to grow paler and weaker, until the same feverish symptoms came over her which he had learned so to dread, and then the terrible tokens, the plague-spots, which could not be doubted, appeared on the fair, soft arms, and Eva was lying with those dim, fixed, pestilence-veiled eyes, and the wandering brain.

For a day we were able to conceal it from Fritz, but no longer.

On the second evening after Eva was stricken, I found him standing by the window of his room, looking into the street. I shall never forget the expression of horror in his eyes as he turned from the window to me.

"Else," he said, "how long have those fires been burning in the streets?"

"For a week," I said. "They are fires of cypress-wood and juniper, and myrrh and pine gums. The physicians say they purify the air."

"I know too well what they are," he said. "And, Else," he said, "why is Master Burer's house opposite closed?"

"He has lost two children," I said.

"And why are those other windows closed all down the street?" he rejoined.

"The people have left, brother," I said; "but the doctors hope the worst is over now."

"O just G.o.d!" he exclaimed, sinking on a chair and covering his face; "I was flying from thee, and I have brought the curse on my people!"

Then, after a minute's pause, before I could think of any words to comfort him, he looked up, and suddenly demanded,--

"Who are dead in _this_ house, Else?"

"None, none," I said.

"Who are stricken?" he asked.

"All the children and the father are well," I said, "and the mother."

"Then Eva is stricken!" he exclaimed--"the innocent for the guilty! She will die and be a saint in heaven, and I, who have murdered her, shall live, and shall see her no more, for ever and for ever."

I could not comfort him. The strength of his agony utterly stunned me. I could only burst into tears, so that he had to try to comfort me. But he did not speak; he only took my hands in his kindly, as of old, without saying another word. At length I said--

"It is not you who brought the plague, dear Fritz; it is G.o.d who sent it!"

"I know it is G.o.d!" he replied, with such an intense bitterness in his tone that I did not attempt another sentence.

That night Eva wandered much as I watched beside her; but her delirium was quite different from that of Fritz. Her spirit seemed floating away on a quiet stream into some happy land we could not see. She spoke of a palace, of a home, of fields of fragrant lilies, of white-robed saints walking among them with harps and songs, and of One who welcomed her.

Occasionally, too, she murmured s.n.a.t.c.hes of the same Latin hymns that Fritz had repeated in his delirium, but in a tone so different, so child-like and happy! If ever she appeared troubled, it was when she seemed to miss some one, and be searching here and there for them; but then she often ended with, "Yes, I know they will come; I must wait till they come." And so at last she fell asleep, as if the thought had quieted her.

I could not hinder her sleeping, whatever the physician said; she looked so placid, and had such a happy smile on her lips. Only once, when she had lain thus an hour quite still, while her chest seemed scarcely to heave with her soft, tranquil breathing, I grew alarmed lest she should glide thus from us into the arms of the holy angels; and I whispered softly, "Eva, dear Eva!"

Her lips parted slightly, and she murmured--

"Not yet; wait till _they_ can come."

And then she turned her head again on the pillow, and slept on.

She awoke quite collected and calm, and then she said quietly--

"Where is the mother?"

"She is resting, darling Eva."

She gave a little contented smile, and then, in broken words at intervals, she said--

"Now, I should like to see Fritz. You promised I should see him again; and now if I die, I think he would like to see me once more."

I went to fetch my brother. He was pacing up and down his room, with the crucifix clasped to his breast. At first, to my surprise, he seemed very reluctant to come; but when I said how much she wished it, he followed me quite meekly into her room. Eva was resuming her old command over us all. She held out her hand, with a look of such peace and rest on her face.