The Mysterious Stranger, and Other Stories
gave him seven fish-hooks--all I had--and made him take them; and
Seppi gave him his new knife and a humming-top painted red and
yellow--atonements for swindles practised upon him formerly, as I
learned later, and probably no longer remembered by Nikolaus now. These
things touched him, and he could not have believed that we loved him so;
and his pride in it and gratefulness for it cut us to the heart, we were
so undeserving of them. When we parted at last, he was radiant, and said
he had never had such a happy day.
As we walked along homeward, Seppi said, “We always prized him, but
never so much as now, when we are going to lose him.”
Next day and every day we spent all of our spare time with Nikolaus;
and also added to it time which we (and he) stole from work and other
duties, and this cost the three of us some sharp scoldings, and some
threats of punishment. Every morning two of us woke with a start and
a shudder, saying, as the days flew along, “Only ten days left;” “only
nine days left;” “only eight;” “only seven.” Always it was narrowing.
Always Nikolaus was gay and happy, and always puzzled because we were
not. He wore his invention to the bone trying to invent ways to cheer us
up, but it was only a hollow success; he could see that our jollity had
no heart in it, and that the laughs we broke into came up against some
obstruction or other and suffered damage and decayed into a sigh. He
tried to find out what the matter was, so that he could help us out of
our trouble or make it lighter by sharing it with us; so we had to tell
many lies to deceive him and appease him.
But the most distressing thing of all was that he was always making
plans, and often they went beyond the 13th! Whenever that happened it
made us groan in spirit. All his mind was fixed upon finding some way
to conquer our depression and cheer us up; and at last, when he had but
three days to live, he fell upon the right idea and was jubilant over
it--a boys-and-girls' frolic and dance in the woods, up there where we
first met Satan, and this was to occur on the 14th. It was ghastly, for
that was his funeral day. We couldn't venture to protest; it would only
have brought a “Why?” which we could not answer. He wanted us to help
him invite his guests, and we did it--one can refuse nothing to a dying
friend. But it was dreadful, for really we were inviting them to his
funeral.
It was an awful eleven days; and yet, with a lifetime stretching back
between to-day and then, they are still a grateful memory to me, and
beautiful. In effect they were days of companionship with one's sacred
dead, and I have known no comradeship that was so close or so precious.
We clung to the hours and the minutes, counting them as they wasted
away, and parting with them with that pain and bereavement which a miser
feels who sees his hoard filched from him coin by coin by robbers and is
helpless to prevent it.
When the evening of the last day came we stayed out too long; Seppi and
I were in fault for that; we could not bear to part with Nikolaus; so
it was very late when we left him at his door. We lingered near awhile,
listening; and that happened which we were fearing. His father gave him
the promised punishment, and we heard his shrieks. But we listened only
a moment, then hurried away, remorseful for this thing which we had
caused. And sorry for the father, too; our thought being, “If he only
knew--if he only knew!”
In the morning Nikolaus did not meet us at the appointed place, so we
went to his home to see what the matter was. His mother said:
“His father is out of all patience with these goings-on, and will not
have any more of it. Half the time when Nick is needed he is not to be
found; then it turns out that he has been gadding around with you two.
His father gave him a flogging last night. It always grieved me before,
and many's the time I have begged him off and saved him, but this time
he appealed to me in vain, for I was out of patience myself.”
“I wish you had saved him just this one time,” I said, my voice
trembling a little; “it would ease a pain in your heart to remember it
some day.”
She was ironing at the time, and her back was partly toward me. She
turned about with a startled or wondering look in her face and said,
“What do you mean by that?”
I was not prepared, and didn't know anything to say; so it was awkward,
for she kept looking at me; but Seppi was alert and spoke up:
“Why, of course it would be pleasant to remember, for the very reason
we were out so late was that Nikolaus got to telling how good you are to
him, and how he never got whipped when you were by to save him; and he
was so full of it, and we were so full of the interest of it, that none
of us noticed how late it was getting.”
“Did he say that? Did he?” and she put her apron to her eyes.
“You can ask Theodor--he will tell you the same.”
“It is a dear, good lad, my Nick,” she said. “I am sorry I let him get
whipped; I will never do it again. To think--all the time I was sitting
here last night, fretting and angry at him, he was loving me and
praising me! Dear, dear, if we could only know! Then we shouldn't ever
go wrong; but we are only poor, dumb beasts groping around and making
mistakes. I shan't ever think of last night without a pang.”
She was like all the rest; it seemed as if nobody could open a mouth, in
these wretched days, without saying something that made us shiver. They
were “groping around,” and did not know what true, sorrowfully true
things they were saying by accident.
Seppi asked if Nikolaus might go out with us.
“I am sorry,” she answered, “but he can't. To punish him further, his
father doesn't allow him to go out of the house to-day.”
We had a great hope! I saw it in Seppi's eyes. We thought, “If he cannot
leave the house, he cannot be drowned.” Seppi asked, to make sure:
“Must he stay in all day, or only the morning?”
“All day. It's such a pity, too; it's a beautiful day, and he is so
unused to being shut up. But he is busy planning his party, and maybe
that is company for him. I do hope he isn't too lonesome.”
Seppi saw that in her eye which emboldened him to ask if we might go up
and help him pass his time.
“And welcome!” she said, right heartily. “Now I call that real
friendship, when you might be abroad in the fields and the woods, having
a happy time. You are good boys, I'll allow that, though you don't
always find satisfactory ways of improving it. Take these cakes--for
yourselves--and give him this one, from his mother.”
The first thing we noticed when we entered Nikolaus's room was the
time--a quarter to 10. Could that be correct? Only such a few minutes to
live! I felt a contraction at my heart. Nikolaus jumped up and gave us
a glad welcome. He was in good spirits over his plannings for his party
and had not been lonesome.
“Sit down,” he said, “and look at what I've been doing. And I've
finished a kite that you will say is a beauty. It's drying, in the
kitchen; I'll fetch it.”
He had been spending his penny savings in fanciful trifles of various
kinds, to go as prizes in the games, and they were marshaled with fine
and showy effect upon the table. He said:
“Examine them at your leisure while I get mother to touch up the kite
with her iron if it isn't dry enough yet.”
Then he tripped out and went clattering down-stairs, whistling.
We did not look at the things; we couldn't take any interest in anything
but the clock. We sat staring at it in silence, listening to
the ticking, and every time the minute-hand jumped we nodded
recognition--one minute fewer to cover in the race for life or for
death. Finally Seppi drew a deep breath and said:
“Two minutes to ten. Seven minutes more and he will pass the
death-point. Theodor, he is going to be saved! He's going to--”
“Hush! I'm on needles. Watch the clock and keep still.”
Five minutes more. We were panting with the strain and the excitement.
Another three minutes, and there was a footstep on the stair.
“Saved!” And we jumped up and faced the door.
The old mother entered, bringing the kite. “Isn't it a beauty?” she
said. “And, dear me, how he has slaved over it--ever since daylight,
I think, and only finished it awhile before you came.” She stood it
against the wall, and stepped back to take a view of it. “He drew the
pictures his own self, and I think they are very good. The church isn't
so very good, I'll have to admit, but look at the bridge--any one can
recognize the bridge in a minute. He asked me to bring it up.... Dear
me! it's seven minutes past ten, and I--”
“But where is he?”
“He? Oh, he'll be here soon; he's gone out a minute.”
“Gone out?”
“Yes. Just as he came down-stairs little Lisa's mother came in and said
the child had wandered off somewhere, and as she was a little uneasy I
told Nikolaus to never mind about his father's orders--go and look her
up.... Why, how white you two do look! I do believe you are sick. Sit
down; I'll fetch something. That cake has disagreed with you. It is a
little heavy, but I thought--”
She disappeared without finishing her sentence, and we hurried at once
to the back window and looked toward the river. There was a great crowd
at the other end of the bridge, and people were flying toward that point
from every direction.
“Oh, it is all over--poor Nikolaus! Why, oh, why did she let him get out
of the house!”
“Come away,” said Seppi, half sobbing, “come quick--we can't bear to
meet her; in five minutes she will know.”
But we were not to escape. She came upon us at the foot of the stairs,
with her cordials in her hands, and made us come in and sit down and
take the medicine. Then she watched the effect, and it did not satisfy
her; so she made us wait longer, and kept upbraiding herself for giving
us the unwholesome cake.
Presently the thing happened which we were dreading. There was a sound
of tramping and scraping outside, and a crowd came solemnly in, with
heads uncovered, and laid the two drowned bodies on the bed.
“Oh, my God!” that poor mother cried out, and fell on her knees, and put
her arms about her dead boy and began to cover the wet face with kisses.
“Oh, it was I that sent him, and I have been his death. If I had obeyed,
and kept him in the house, this would not have happened. And I am
rightly punished; I was cruel to him last night, and him begging me, his
own mother, to be his friend.”
And so she went on and on, and all the women cried, and pitied her, and
tried to comfort her, but she could not forgive herself and could not
be comforted, and kept on saying if she had not sent him out he would be
alive and well now, and she was the cause of his death.
It shows how foolish people are when they blame themselves for anything
they have done. Satan knows, and he said nothing happens that your first
act hasn't arranged to happen and made inevitable; and so, of your own
motion you can't ever alter the scheme or do a thing that will break
a link. Next we heard screams, and Frau Brandt came wildly plowing and
plunging through the crowd with her dress in disorder and hair flying
loose, and flung herself upon her dead child with moans and kisses and
pleadings and endearments; and by and by she rose up almost exhausted
with her outpourings of passionate emotion, and clenched her fist and
lifted it toward the sky, and her tear-drenched face grew hard and
resentful, and she said:
“For nearly two weeks I have had dreams and presentiments and warnings
that death was going to strike what was most precious to me, and day and
night and night and day I have groveled in the dirt before Him praying
Him to have pity on my innocent child and save it from harm--and here is
His answer!”
Why, He had saved it from harm--but she did not know.