The Son of His Mother Part 6

But the vestryman was tenacious, he knew the people he had to deal with. "You must think it over," he said persuasively. "And they'll give you a good sum, I tell you--won't you?" he asked, turning to the gentleman. "Haven't you said you weren't particular to a coin or two in the case of such a poor woman?"

"No, certainly not," a.s.sured Paul. And Kate was too precipitate again. "It does not matter at all to us--we will gladly give what she asks--oh, the dear child!"

"Dju n' vous nin,"[B] muttered the woman.

[Footnote A: Nous avons tous faim.]

[Footnote B: Je ne veux pas.]

"You won't? Oh, nonsense." The old peasant almost laughed at her.

"You are just like my Mayflower when she won't stand, and kicks the milk-pail with her hind foot. Don't offend the people. What advantage will it be to you if they grow impatient and go away? None at all. Then you will have five who call out for bread, and the winter is near at hand. Do you want to have such a winter as you had last year? Didn't Jean-Pierre almost die of cold? The four others are already older, it's easier to rear them. And you can get a cow for yourself--just think of that, a cow. And you could have a better roof put on the house, which won't let the rain and the snow come through, and could have enough cranberries as well. It would certainly be a good stroke of business, Lisa."

Kate wanted to add something more--oh, what a lot of good she would do the woman, if she would only give the child to her!--but the old man cleared his throat and winked at her covertly to warn her that she was to be silent.

"Kubin m'e dinroz--ve?"[A] inquired the woman all at once.

[Footnote A: Combien me donnerez-vous donc?]

She had been standing undecided for a long time with her head bowed, and a deep silence had reigned around her. The strange lady and gentleman had not moved, nor had the vestryman; no wind had whistled in the chimney, no fire crackled. A silent expectation weighed on them all. Now she raised her head, and her gloomy eyes glanced at the miserable room, the small quant.i.ty of bread on the table and then at the hungry four, as though examining everything. She no longer looked at the fifth child. She had grown pale, the deep sunburn on her face had turned a greyish colour.

"What's he going to give you? Well, what will you give her?" said the peasant encouragingly. "I think you'll see that two hundred is too little. The woman is very much attached to the child, it will not be easy for her to give it up." He watched Paul Schlieben out of the corner of his eye, and called out as they call out at an auction: "Two hundred, two hundred and fifty, three hundred. 'Pon my word, it isn't too much. Jean-Pierre is a fine boy--just look at his fists. And his thighs. A splendid fellow." He noticed the longing expression in Kate's eyes--"Three hundred thalers is not worth talking about for the boy, is it, ma'am?"

Kate had tears in her eyes and was very pale. The air in the cottage oppressed her, it was all very repugnant to her--let them only get away quickly from there. But not without the child. "Four hundred--five hundred," she jerked out, and she gazed imploringly at her husband as though to say: "Do settle it quickly."

"Five hundred, willingly." Paul Schlieben drew out his pocket-book.

The peasant craned his neck forward the better to see. His eyes were quite stiff in his head, he had never seen anybody pay so willingly before. The children, too, stared with wide-open eyes.

The woman cast a hasty glance at the notes the gentleman spread on the table near the bread; but the covetous light that flashed in her eyes disappeared suddenly again. "Neni," she said sullenly.

"Offer her some more--more," whispered the old man.

And Schlieben laid another couple of notes on the table beside the others; his fingers trembled a little as he did it, the whole thing was so unspeakably repugnant to him. He had never thought of haggling; they should have what they wanted, only let them get done with it.

Nikolas Rocherath could not contain himself any longer at the sight of such generosity--so much money on the table, and that woman could still hesitate? He rushed up to her and shook her by the shoulders: "Are you quite mad? Six hundred thalers on the table and you don't take them? What man here can say he has six hundred thalers in cash? What money, what a sum of money!" His emaciated face, which had grown very haggard from years of toil and a life lived in wind and storm and which was as sharply outlined as though cut out of hard wood, twitched. His fingers moved convulsively: how was it possible that anybody could still hesitate?

The axe which the woman still held fell out of her hand with a loud noise. Without raising her head, without looking at the table or at the cradle she said in a loud voice--but there was no ring in the voice: "Allons bon. Djhan-Pire est da vosse."[A]

[Footnote A: Eh bien. Jean-Pierre est a vous.]

And she turned away, walked to the hearth with a heavy tread and raked up the smouldering peat.

What indifference! This woman certainly did not deserve to be a mother. Kate's gentle eyes began to blaze. Schlieben was angry too; no, they need not have any scruples about taking the child away from there.

He was filled with disgust.

The woman behaved now as though the whole affair did not concern her any longer. She busied herself at the hearth whilst the vestryman counted the notes--licking his fingers repeatedly and examining both sides of each one--and then put them carefully into the envelope which the gentleman had given him.

"There they are, Lisa, put them into your pocket."

She tore them out of his hand with a violent gesture, and, lifting up her dress to a good height, she slipped them into her miserable ragged petticoat.

The last thing had still to be settled. Even if Paul Schlieben felt certain that n.o.body there would inquire about the child any more, the formalities had to be observed. Loosening his pencil from his watch-chain--for where was ink to come from there?--he drew up the mother's deed of surrender on a leaf from his pocketbook. The vestryman signed it as witness. Then the woman put her three crosses below; she had learnt to write once, but had forgotten it again.

"There!" Paul Schlieben rose from the hard bench on which he had sat whilst writing with a sigh of relief. Thank goodness, now everything was settled, now the vestryman had only to procure him the birth and baptismal certificates and send them to him. "Here--this is my address.

And here--this is for any outlay." He covertly pressed a couple of gold coins into the old man's hand, who smiled when he felt them there.

Well, now they would take the boy with them at once? he supposed.

Kate, who had been standing motionless staring at the mother with big eyes as though she could not understand what she saw, woke up. Of course they would take the child with them at once, she would not leave it a single hour longer there. And she took it quickly out of the cradle, pressed it caressingly to her bosom and wrapped it up in the warm wide cloak she was wearing. Now it was her child that she had fought such a hard battle for, had s.n.a.t.c.hed from thousands of dangers, her darling, her sweet little one.

Little Jean-Pierre's sister and brothers stood there in silence with eyes wide open. Had they understood that their brother was going away, going for ever? No, they could not have understood it, otherwise they would have shown how grieved they were. Their big eyes were only interested in the bread on the table.

Paul Schlieben pitied the little ones greatly--they would remain there in their wretchedness, their hunger, their poverty. He stuck a present into the hands of all four. None of the four thanked him for it, but their small fingers clasped the money tightly.

The woman did not thank him either. When the strange lady took Jean-Pierre out of the cradle--she had seen it without looking in that direction--she had started. But now she stood motionless near the empty cradle, on the spot where the axe had fallen out of her right hand before with a loud noise, looking on in silence whilst Jean-Pierre was being wrapped up in the soft cloak. She had nothing to give him.

Paul Schlieben had feared there would be a scene at the very last in spite of the mother's indifference--she surely could not remain so totally void of feeling, when they carried her youngest child away with them?--but the woman remained calm. She stood there motionless, her left hand pressed against the place in her skirt where she felt the pocket. Did not that money in her pocket--Paul felt very disturbed--give the lie to all the traditions about a mother's love?

And still--the woman was so demoralised by her great poverty, half brutalised in the hard struggle for her daily bread, that even the feeling she had for the child she had borne had vanished. Oh, what a different mother Kate would be to the child now. And he pushed his wife, who had the little one in her arms, towards the door, in his tender anxiety for her.

Let them only get away, it was not a nice place to be in.

They hastened away. Kate turned her head once more when she reached the threshold. She would have to cast a glance at the woman who remained behind so stiff and silent. Even if she were incomprehensible to her, a compa.s.sionate glance was her due.

Then ... a short cry, but loud, penetrating, terrible in its brevity, a cry that went through nerve and bone. One single inarticulate cry that agony and hatred had wrung from her.

The woman had stooped down. She had s.n.a.t.c.hed up the axe with which she had chopped the wood. She raised her arm as though to throw something--the sharp edge flashed past the lady's head as she hurried away, and buried itself in the door-post with a crash.

CHAPTER V

They had hastened away with the child as though they were running away.

They had bundled it into the carriage--quick, quick--the coachman had whipped up the horses, the wheels had turned round with a creaking noise. The village in the Venn remained behind them, buried like a bad dream one wants to forget.

A dull grey lay over the Venn. The sun, which had been shining in the morning, had quite disappeared, as though not a single beam had ever been seen there. The Venn mist, which rises so suddenly, was there covering everything. There was a wall now where there had been a wide outlook before. A wall not of stone and not of bricks, but much stronger. It did not crack, it did not burst, it did not totter, it did not give way before the hammer wielded by the strongest hand. It shaped itself out of the mora.s.ses, powerful and impenetrable, and stretched from the moor up to the clouds--or was it the clouds that had lowered themselves to the earth?