Louisa of Prussia and Her Times Part 84

"Come back in a few days, then," exclaimed the book-keeper; "Mr. Palm will then be back, perhaps, from his journey."

"In a few days!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the strange voice--"in a few days my wife and child will be starved to death, for unless I am able to procure relief within this hour, my cruel creditor will have me taken to the debtors' prison, and I shall be unable then to a.s.sist my sick wife and baby. Oh, have mercy on my distress! Let me see Mr. Palm, that I may implore his a.s.sistance!"

"Mr. Palm is not at home as I told you already," exclaimed the book-keeper in an angry voice. "How am I to let you see him, then? Come back in a few days--that is the only advice I can give you. Go now, and do not disturb me any longer!"

"No, people shall never say that I turned a despairing man away from my door," muttered Palm, rapidly crossing the room and opening the door of the store.

"Stay, poor man," he said to the beggar, who had already turned around and was about to leave the store--"stay."

The beggar turned around, and, on perceiving Palm, who stood on the threshold of the door, uttered a joyful cry.

"Do you see," he said, triumphantly to the book-keeper--"do you see that I was right? Mr. Palm is at home, and will help me."

"I will help you if I can," said Palm, kindly. "What does your debt amount to?"

"Ah, Mr. Palm, I owe my landlord a quarter's rent, amounting to twenty florins. But if you should be so generous as to give me half that sum, it would be enough, for the landlord has promised to wait three months, provided I paid him now ten florins."

"You shall have the ten florins," said Palm. "Mr. Bertram, pay this man ten florins, and charge them to me."

"Oh, Mr. Palm, how kind you are!" exclaimed the beggar, joyfully. "How shall I ever be able to thank you for what you have done for me to-day?"

"Thank me by being industrious and making timely provision for your wife and child, in order not to be again reduced to such distress," said Palm, nodding kindly to the stranger, and returning to the adjoining room.

With the ten florins which the book-keeper had paid to him, the beggar hastened into the street. No sooner had he left the threshold of Palm's house than the melancholy and despairing air disappeared from his face, which now a.s.sumed a scornful and malicious mien. With hasty steps he hurried over to St. Sebald's church, to the pillar yonder, behind which two men, wrapped in their cloaks, were to be seen.

"Mr. Palm is at home," said the beggar, grinning. "Go into the store, cross it and enter the adjoining sitting-room--there you will find him.

I have spied it out for you, and now give me my pay."

"First we must know whether you have told us the truth," said one of the men. "It may be all false."

"But I tell you I have seen him with my own eyes," replied the beggar.

"I stood in the store, and cried and lamented in the most heart-rending manner, and protested solemnly that my wife and baby would be starved to death, unless Mr. Palm should a.s.sist me. The book-keeper refused my application, but then I cried only the louder, so as to be heard by Mr.

Palm. And he did hear me; he came out of his hiding-place and gave me the ten florins I asked him for. Here they are."

"Well, if you have got ten florins, that is abundant pay for your treachery," said the two men. "It is Judas-money. To betray your benefactor, who has just made you a generous present; forsooth, only a German could do that."

They turned their backs contemptuously on the beggar, and walked across the street toward Palm's house.

There was n.o.body in the hall, and the two men entered the store without being hindered. Without replying to the book-keeper and second clerk, who came to meet them for the purpose of receiving their orders, they put off their cloaks.

"French gens d'armes," muttered the book-keeper, turning pale, and he advanced a few steps toward the door of the sitting-room. One of the gens d'armes kept him back.

"Both of you will stay here," he said, imperiously, "we are going to enter that room. Utter the faintest sound, the slightest warning, and we shall arrest both of you. Be silent, therefore, and let us do our duty."

The two clerks dared not stir, and saw with silent dismay that the two gens d'armes approached the door of the sitting-room and hastily opened it.

Then they heard a few imperious words, followed by a loud cry of despair.

"Oh, the poor woman!" muttered the book-keeper, with quivering lips, but without moving from the spot.

The door of the sitting-room, which the gens d'armes had closed, opened again, and the two policemen stepped into the store; they led Palm into it. Each of them had seized one of his arms.

Palm looked pale, and his brow was clouded, but nevertheless he walked forward like a man who is determined not to be crushed by his misfortunes, but to bear them as manfully as possible. When he arrived in the middle of the store, near the table where his two clerks were standing, he stopped.

"Then you will not give me half an hour's time to arrange my business affairs with my book-keeper, and to give him my orders?" he asked the policemen, who wanted to drag him forward.

"No, not a minute," they said. "We have received stringent orders to take you at once to the general, and if you should refuse to follow us willingly, to iron you and remove you forcibly."

"You see I offer no resistance whatever," said Palm, contemptuously.

"Let us go. Bertram, pray look after my wife--she has fainted. Remember me to her and to my children. Farewell!"

The two young men made no reply; their tears choked their voices. But when Palm had disappeared, they rushed into the sitting-room to a.s.sist the unhappy young wife.

She was lying on the floor, pale, rigid, and resembling a lily broken by the storm. Her eyes were half opened and dim; the long braids of her beautiful light-colored hair, which she had just been engaged in arranging when the gens d'armes entered, fell down dishevelled and like curling snakes on her face and shoulders, from which the small, transparent, gauze handkerchief had been removed. Her features, always so lovely and gentle, bore now an expression of anger and horror, which they had a.s.sumed when she fainted on hearing the French policemen tell her husband that they had come to arrest him, and that he must follow them.

They succeeded only after long efforts in bringing her back to consciousness. But she was not restored to life by the salts which her servant-girl rubbed on her forehead, nor by the imploring words of the book-keeper, but by the scalding tears of her little girls which melted and warmed her frozen blood again.

She raised herself with a deep sigh, and her wild, frightened glances wandered about the room, and fixed themselves searchingly on every form which she beheld in it. When she had satisfied her-self that he was not among them, he whom her glances had sought for so anxiously, she clasped her children with a loud cry of horror in her arms and pressing them convulsively against her bosom, sobbed piteously.

But she did not long give way to her grief and despair. She dried her tears hastily and rose.

"It is no time now for weeping and lamenting," she said, drawing a deep breath; "I shall have time enough for that afterward, now I must act and see whether I cannot a.s.sist him. Do you know whither they have taken him?"

"To the headquarters of Colomb, the French general, who is stationed in this city," said the book-keeper.

"I shall go to the general, and he will have to tell me at least if I cannot see my husband in his prison," she said, resolutely. "Quick, Kate, a.s.sist me in dressing-; arrange my hair, for you see my hands are trembling violently; they are weaker than my heart."

She rose to go to her dressing-room. But her feet refused to serve her; she turned dizzy, and sank down overcome by a fresh swoon.

It was only after hours of the most violent efforts that the poor young wife succeeded in recovering from the physical prostration caused by her sudden fright, and in becoming again able to act resolutely and energetically. Then, as bold and courageous as an angry lioness, she was determined to struggle with the whole world for the beloved husband who had been torn from her.

CHAPTER LVII.

A WIFE'S LOVE.

Anna went in the first place to General Colomb, and begged him to grant her an interview.

About four hours had pa.s.sed since Palm's arrest when the general received her.

"Madame," he said, "I know why you have come to me, you are looking for your husband, but he is no longer here at my headquarters."

"No longer here?" she e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed in terror. "You have sent him to France? You intend to kill him, then?"

"The law will judge him, madame," said the general, sternly. "I have myself examined him and requested him to give us the name of the author of this infamous libel which Mr. Palm has brought into general circulation. Had he done so, he would no longer be held responsible, and would have been at liberty to return to his house and to you. But he refused firmly to state the names of the author and printer of the pamphlet."