Only a Girl Part 8

"And I must bear this from an ignorant peasant!" wailed Hartwich. "How they will abuse me to my child, if she recovers! Oh, oh, I deserve it all; 'tis wretched,--wretched! But I must be calm. I must not be excited." Thus he murmured, with trembling lips, exerting all his energy to repress his excitement, and to force the breath regularly from his laboring breast.

Again the clock struck--ten this time.

"They must soon be here now!" thought Hartwich. "If I can only keep my head clear!"

The wretched man in his anguish now exercised his mental faculties in every way that he could devise, repeating the formula which he had composed for his will a hundred times, that it might be so stamped upon his mind as to be forthcoming even in his last moments.

At last steps were heard in the hall.

"It is Lederer with the bandages," he thought, suddenly remembering his desire to be bled. But there were several people there. It must be the lawyers. The door opened. "Ah, thank G.o.d! thank G.o.d!" Hartwich stammered, and fainted.

"I thought so!" cried the Geheimrath. "If you had only bled him, or at least remained with him!" he continued to the terrified barber, who entered at the same time. "Be quick now; give me that case; bring me some ice from the child's room," he ordered; and, while he spoke the lancet had done its work, and the dark blood was flowing from the arm.

"Pray be ready, gentlemen," he said as he was bandaging the arm; "I believe the sick man will come to himself in a few moments. You will find writing-materials there in the corner."

The gentlemen took their seats, and arranged a table for writing from the sick man's dictation. The surgeon brought the ice; it was laid upon Hartwich's head, and, as the Geheimrath had prophesied, he soon came to himself. He looked around him with astonishment "Am I still living?" he feebly asked.

"Certainly, certainly," said the Geheimrath, cheerfully; "it was only a slight attack."

"G.o.d of mercy," gasped Hartwich, "Thou art all compa.s.sion! My memory is still perfect. Are the lawyers here?"

One of them arose, and approached the bed.

"We are here, Herr von Hartwich, and await your directions."

"I am still of sound mind,--indeed I am," Hartwich insisted with childlike eagerness.

"The intention with which you have summoned us would certainly not indicate the contrary," said the lawyer gravely, signing to his companion to prepare to write.

"And I declare that this last decision of mine is entirely my own,"

Hartwich continued.

"I am convinced that it is so. I should far rather suppose that your previous will was a forced one," the official rejoined.

"Will it impair the authenticity of this doc.u.ment that I am unable to sign it? I cannot, unfortunately, move my hand."

"Not at all," said the lawyer. "These two gentlemen, Herr Geheimrath Heim and the surgeon Lederer, will have the kindness to affix their signatures as witnesses, and the instrument will be legally correct. If you are strong enough to dictate your will, there is nothing now to prevent your doing so."

"Oh, yes! oh, yes!" gasped Hartwich, as the Geheimrath supported him; "every moment is precious."

The preliminary sentences were written at Hartwich's request. The Geheimrath closed the door, and the dying man began to dictate in such feverish haste that the lawyer was obliged to entreat him to speak more slowly. Some irregularities in the formula were arranged, and the will was completed before the glimmering spark of life in the testator was extinguished. Little Ernestine was made heir to a property of ninety thousand thalers. The doc.u.ment was read aloud to Hartwich, and the Geheimrath and Lederer affixed their signatures instead of his own.

"Now I can die!" said the sick man, with the air of a released captive; and instantly his mental and physical powers failed him.

"Geheimrath!" he faltered, and a strange smile transfigured his countenance, "lay the will upon my child's bed, as her--father's--last--farewell--thanks--thanks." And his eyelids closed, he muttered unintelligibly, and relapsed into unconsciousness.

The Geheimrath nodded to the lawyers, and said, "It was high time!"

CHAPTER IV.

THE SAD SURVIVORS.

The next day, at about the same hour, Frau Bertha was in her kitchen, beating whites of eggs for a cake, her round cheeks shaking merrily with the exercise. She had sent her maid into the garden with Gretchen, and was supplying the maid's place. She turned the bowl upside down, to convince herself that the eggs were sufficiently beaten; not a drop fell,--they were all right. She set them aside with an air of great satisfaction, and turned to a bag beneath the table, whence issued a melancholy flapping and cooing. A white dove poked its head out of the mouth of the bag, and Bertha thrust it back again, securing the opening more tightly. A pot of water on the fire boiled over with a loud hissing, and she hastened to roll up her sleeves over her large, well-formed arms, and lift the heavy vessel from the glowing coals. She was a beautiful sight, as the glare from the fire illuminated her ma.s.sive proportions; as she moved hither and thither, now arranging her various cooking-utensils, now opening the door beneath the oven, to thrust in huge pieces of wood, hastily picking up and tossing back the bits of burning coal that fell out, she might have been Frau Venus, the coa.r.s.e Frau Venus of the popular German imagination, fresh from the infernal regions in the Horselberg, who, clad in a kitchen ap.r.o.n, was here in the likeness of a cook-maid to seduce the calm, cold-blooded Dr. Gleissert by the magic charms of her cookery. She tossed a net full of crabs into a pot of cold water, and looked thoughtlessly on at their slow death over the fire. She never dreamed that just at that moment a human life was leaving its mortal tenement beneath her roof, and when, a few minutes later, she was pounding ingredients in her huge mortar, that the noise she was making was the death-knell of a departing soul.

She did not hear her husband's approach until he stood before her, and seizing her by the arm, said breathlessly, "Wife, this is our last day of torment!"

Frau Bertha looked at him with surprise, that was only half joy, painted upon her heated face. "I have never seen you so delighted before, except when you were examining those odd fishes at Trieste; what has happened?"

"Can you not guess?" asked Leuthold.

"Is he dead?"

"He is; he has been dying for the last twenty-four hours."

"Thank Heaven!" said Frau Bertha, folding her plump hands.

"And if I believed in Heaven I should say so too," rejoined Leuthold, throwing himself upon a kitchen chair. "Only conceive of the joy!

We are wealthy,--independent,--delivered from our ten years'

servitude,--delivered--ah!" He fanned himself with the pocket-handkerchief that he had just used at the bedside of Hartwich's corpse to dry the tears that he did not shed.

In spite of her good fortune, Frau Bertha looked uncomfortable. "I am almost sorry he has gone," she said timidly. "It seems to me a sin to rejoice so at any one's death,--he might appear to us."

"Don't talk such nonsense; you know I cannot endure it," said Leuthold angrily. "You behave as if we had killed him. Wishes are neither poison nor steel; and we are not rejoicing at his death, but at our inheritance. It is but human."

"Yes, yes," said Bertha, comforted, "you are quite right. If we could have had the money while he lived, we should not have wanted him to die; he might have lived for a hundred years for all I would have cared. It was his own fault that we wished him dead. Why did he keep us so pinched?"

Leuthold nodded approvingly. "I see you are willing to listen to reason; now have the kindness to come downstairs with me and pay the proper respect to the body."

"What must I do that for?" asked Bertha, alarmed.

"Because it is becoming! I have instructed you sufficiently upon this point; you know my wishes--come!"

These words, that cut like a knife in their utterance, made opposition useless. Bertha took her ca.s.seroles from the fire, looked after the doves in the bag, and followed her husband down stairs. On the way she asked him, "What shall I say when we get there?"

"Not much," said Leuthold dryly. "There is not much to be said in such stiff, silent society,--a couple of oh's and ah's will suffice; it is very graceful in a woman to fall upon her knees by the bedside; but if you should attempt it, pray restrain your usual impetuosity, or the repose even of the dead might be disturbed."

"You are a fearful man," whispered Bertha. "I am actually afraid of you. Will you make such joking speeches when I die?"

"I shall not outlive you, my good Bertha," said Leuthold, plaintively.

"If I should, be a.s.sured I will mourn for you as the nurseling for his nurse!"

Frau Bertha looked doubtfully at her husband. She scarcely knew what to make of this tender a.s.severation, and she said nothing. They had reached the door of Hartwich's apartment.

"Where is your handkerchief--your pocket-handkerchief?" Leuthold asked softly. Bertha sought it in vain; she had forgotten it. "How thoughtless," whispered Leuthold, "to forget your handkerchief under such circ.u.mstances!"

"Then give me yours," said Bertha.