Rosshalde (13 page)

He did not answer. Lying on his side, he raised his eyes and looked up at her. She looked back at him in surprise. His eyes seemed strangely questioning and grave.

No fever, she thought with relief.

“Would you like something to eat now?”

Pierre shook his head feebly.

“Isn't there something I can bring you?”

“Water,” he said softly.

She brought him water, but he took only a sip, then he closed his eyes again.

Suddenly the piano rang out from next door, filling the room with great waves of sound.

“No!” he cried out. “No! Leave me alone!”

He held both hands over his ears and burrowed his head in the pillow.

With a sigh, Frau Veraguth went to her room and asked Albert to stop playing. Then she came back and sat at Pierre's bedside until he dozed off again.

That evening it was very still in the house. Veraguth was absent, Albert was disgruntled at not being able to play the piano. They went to bed early. Frau Veraguth left her door open so as to hear Pierre if he needed anything during the night.

Chapter Twelve

O
N HIS RETURN FROM TOWN
that night, Veraguth had made his way stealthily past the house, on the alert for a lighted window, an opening door, or a voice that would tell him his darling was still sick and suffering. Finding all quiet and asleep, he felt his fear fall from him like a heavy wet garment, and was deeply thankful as he lay in bed awake. Shortly before he finally fell asleep, he smiled to think how little it took to cheer a dejected heart. Everything that tormented him and weighed him down, the whole dismal sodden burden of his life turned to nothing, became light and insignificant beside his loving anguish over his child, and no sooner had that dark shadow receded than everything looked brighter and his whole life seemed bearable.

Next morning he awoke in good spirits and went to the manor house at an unusually early hour. Gratified to find Pierre still blissfully asleep, he breakfasted alone with his wife—Albert was not up yet. For years Veraguth had not appeared at Frau Adele's table at this hour, and she eyed him with almost distrustful surprise as he asked her matter-of-factly but with friendly good humor for a cup of coffee and shared her breakfast as in the old days.

At length he noticed her uneasiness and realized how unusual it was for him to appear at this time of day.

“I'm so glad,” he said, in a voice that reminded his wife of better years. “I'm so glad the little fellow seems to be on the mend. It has only just come to me that I was seriously worried about him.”

“Yes,” she agreed, “I wasn't at all pleased with him yesterday.”

He played with his silver coffee spoon and gave her an almost mischievous look, a faint reflection of the boyish gaiety—suddenly erupting and soon passing—which was one of the qualities that had most endeared him to her in times gone by; a fragile glow which only Pierre had inherited.

“Yes,” he began cheerfully, “it's really a blessing. And now I can finally discuss my latest plans with you. I think you ought to take both boys to St. Moritz this winter for a long stay.”

She looked down uncertainly.

“And you?” she asked. “Do you mean to paint up there?”

“No, I won't go with you. I'm going to leave you all to yourselves for a while, and take a trip. I'm planning to leave here in the fall and close up the studio. I'll give Robert a vacation. It's entirely up to you, you can spend the winter here at Rosshalde if you like. I wouldn't advise it. Better go to Geneva or Paris, and don't forget St. Moritz, it will be good for Pierre.”

She looked up at him, perplexed. “You're joking,” she said incredulously.

“Oh no,” he said with a half-melancholy smile. “I've lost the habit. I'm serious and you've got to believe me. I'm going on an ocean voyage. I shall be away for some time.”

“An ocean voyage?”

She tried hard to collect her thoughts. His suggestions, his hints, his cheerful tone—all this was unaccustomed and made her distrustful. But suddenly the words “ocean voyage” aroused an image: she saw him boarding a ship, followed by porters with suitcases; she remembered the posters of steamship companies and the Mediterranean cruises she herself had taken, and in a moment she understood it all.

“You're going with Burkhardt!” she cried.

He nodded. “Yes, I'm going with Otto.”

Both were silent for a time. She sensed the significance of the announcement and was dismayed. Did he intend to leave her, to set her free? In any case, it was his first serious move in that direction and she was terrified to note how little emotion, how little alarm or hope she felt at the prospect, and no joy whatever. For him perhaps a new life was possible, for her it was not. She would have an easier time of it with Albert; she would win Pierre, yes; but she would always be a forsaken woman. She had thought of this possibility a hundred times, she had seen it as a promise of freedom and salvation; but now that it seemed as though the possibility might become reality, there was so much anxiety and shame and sense of guilt bound up with it that she lost hope and was capable of no desire. It should have happened sooner, she felt, in the days of storm and acute unhappiness, before she had learned resignation. Now it came too late, it was useless, it was no more than a line under finished business, a conclusion and bitter confirmation of everything she had concealed and only half admitted to herself; it no longer held a spark of new life.

Veraguth read his wife's controlled features attentively and he felt sorry for her.

“We'll give it a try,” he said appeasingly. “You'll live together undisturbed, you and Albert—and Pierre, too—for about a year, let's say. I thought it would be convenient for you, and it would certainly be a good thing for the children. It weighs on them a bit that … that we haven't managed our life so very well. And we ourselves ought to see things more clearly after a prolonged separation. Don't you think so?”

“Perhaps,” she said softly. “Your mind seems to be made up.”

“I've written Otto. It's not easy for me, you know, to leave you all for so long.”

“Pierre, you mean.”

“Yes, especially Pierre. I know you'll take good care of him. I can't expect you to speak to him very much about me. But don't let it be the same with him as with Albert.”

She shook her head in protest. “I wasn't to blame for that. You know I wasn't.”

Cautiously, he rested his hand on her shoulder, with awkward, long-unpracticed tenderness.

“Oh, Adele, let's not talk about blame. Let's say that I'm to blame for everything. I only want to make amends, nothing more. I'm only asking you not to let me lose Pierre if it can be helped. He is still a tie between us. Just see to it that his love for me isn't made too hard for him.”

She closed her eyes as though to guard herself against a temptation.

“But if you stay away so long…” she said hesitantly. “He's a child…”

“Of course. Let him go on being a child. Let him forget me if there's no other way. But remember, he's a pledge that I'm leaving with you and, remember, I must trust you very much to be able to leave him with you.”

“I hear Albert coming,” she whispered quickly. “He will be here in a moment. We shall talk some more later on. It's not as simple as you think. You give me freedom, more than I've ever had or wanted, and at the same time you give me a responsibility that deprives me of all sense of freedom. Let me think about it some more. You yourself didn't make this decision in an hour; give me a little time too.”

Steps were heard outside the door and Albert came in.

Surprised to see his father sitting there, he greeted him with constraint, gave Frau Adele a kiss, and sat down to breakfast.

“I have a surprise for you,” said Veraguth amiably. “You can spend your autumn vacation with Mama and Pierre wherever you like, and Christmas vacation too. I shall be away for several months.”

The boy could not conceal his joy, but he made an effort and said with enthusiasm: “Where are you going?”

“I don't know yet exactly. First I'm going to India with Burkhardt.”

“Oh, so far away? A school friend of mine was born there, in Singapore, I think. They still hunt tigers there.”

“I hope so. If I shoot one, I'll bring back the skin of course. But mostly I want to paint.”

“I should think so. I've read about a French painter who was somewhere in the tropics, on some island in the South Seas, I think … it must be wonderful.”

“That's just what I think. And in the meantime you will be happy and play a lot of music and ski. But now I'm going to see what the little fellow's doing. Don't get up.”

He was gone before anyone had answered.

“Sometimes Papa is marvelous,” said Albert in his joy. “A trip to India! I like that. That has style.”

His mother smiled with difficulty. Her balance had been shaken, she felt as though she were sitting on a limb that was being sawed off. But she smiled and composed a friendly expression; she was practiced at that.

The painter had gone into Pierre's room and sat down at his bedside. He quietly took out a little sketchbook and began to draw the little sleeper's head and arm. He had no wish to torment the child with sittings, but was resolved to sketch him as often and as well as possible in the days remaining, and so imprint him on his memory. With tender care he studied the beloved forms, the slope and parting of the delicate hair, the graceful nervous nostrils, the slender, inertly resting hand, and the willful, aristocratic line of the firmly closed mouth.

He seldom saw the child in bed, and never before had he seen him sleeping other than with childlike open lips. Observing the precocious, expressive mouth, he was struck by its resemblance to that of his own father, Pierre's grandfather, who had been a spirited and imaginative but passionately restless man. As he watched the child and sketched, he mulled over this meaningful game that nature plays with the features and destinies of fathers, sons, and grandsons, and the troubling, fascinating riddle of necessity and chance grazed the mind of this man who was not a thinker.

Suddenly the sleeper woke up and looked into his father's eyes, and again Veraguth was struck by the grave, unchildlike quality of that glance and that awakening. He had quickly put away his pencil and closed his sketchbook. Now he bent over the child, kissed him on the forehead, and said gaily: “Good morning, Pierre. Are you feeling better?”

The child smiled happily and began to stretch. Oh yes, he felt better, much better. Little by little, he remembered. Yes, yesterday he had been sick, he could still feel the menacing shadow of the ugly day. But now things were much better, he just wanted to lie in bed a little longer, to savor its warmth in quiet thankfulness, then he would get up and have breakfast and go out into the garden with Mama.

Veraguth went to get Mama. Pierre looked blinking toward the window; the bright joyful daylight was shining through the pale yellow curtains. Now here was a day that held out some promise, that was fragrant with every pleasure. How shallow and cold and heavy it had been yesterday! He closed his eyes in order to forget it, and felt smiling life stretching in his sleep-sluggish limbs.

And now his mother came in with an egg and a cup of milk, and his father promised him new colored crayons, and they were all loving and affectionate, happy to see him well again. It was almost like a birthday, and it didn't matter that there was no cake, because he wasn't really hungry yet.

As soon as he was dressed, in a fresh blue summer suit, he went to see Papa in the studio. He had forgotten yesterday's ugly dream, but there was still a faint, trembling echo of dread and suffering in his heart, and now he had to see and savor the sunshine and love around him, and make sure they were really there.

His father, who was measuring the frame for his new painting, was overjoyed to see him. But Pierre wasn't meaning to stay very long, he only wanted to say good morning and let himself be loved a little. Then he had to go on, to see the dog and the pigeons and Robert and take a look at the kitchen, and greet them all again and take possession of them again. Then he went out into the garden with Mama and Albert, and it seemed to him that a year had passed since he had lain there in the grass weeping. He didn't feel like swinging, but he put his hand on the swing. Then he went to see the shrubs and flower beds, and a dark memory as of a former life came to him, as though he had once been lost here among the flower beds, lost, forsaken, and disconsolate. Now everything was bright and alive again, the bees were buzzing and the air was light and joyful to breathe.

His mother gave him her flower basket to carry, she put in carnations and big dahlias, and meanwhile he made a separate bouquet, he would take it to his father later.

When they returned to the house, he was tired. Albert offered to play with him, but he wanted to rest a little first. Still holding Papa's bouquet, he sank deep into his mother's big wicker chair on the veranda. Feeling agreeably weary, he closed his eyes, turned toward the sun, and took pleasure in the red warm light shining through his lids. Then he looked happily down over his pretty, clean suit and held his glistening yellow shoes out into the sunlight, alternating right and left. He found it pleasant to sit so quietly and a little languidly in comfort and cleanliness; only the scent of the carnations was too strong. He set them down and pushed them across the table, as far as his arm would reach. He would have to put them in water soon, or else they would fade before Papa saw them.

He thought of his father with unusual tenderness. Now what had happened yesterday? He had gone to see him in the studio, Papa had been working and hadn't had time, he had been standing at his picture, alone and hard at work and a little sad. So far, he could remember everything exactly. But then what? Hadn't he met his father in the garden later on? He tried to remember. Yes, his father had been walking back and forth in the garden, alone and with a strange, unhappy face, he had wanted to call out to him … What had happened? Something horrid or frightening had happened yesterday, or he had heard about it yesterday, and he couldn't find it again.