Rosshalde (18 page)

For Pierre, a bad day was beginning. He slept a good deal of the time with fixed open eyes until a new wave of pain awakened him. He tossed furiously about in his bed, clenched his little fists, and pressed them into his eyes; his face was at times deathly white, at times flaming red. And then he began to scream in helpless rage at the intolerable torment; he screamed so long and so pitifully that his father, pale and crushed, had to leave the room because he could bear it no longer.

He sent for the doctor, who came twice that day and in the evening brought a nurse with him. A little later Pierre lost consciousness, the nurse was sent to bed, and father and mother watched through the night with the feeling that the end could not be far off. The child did not stir and his breathing was irregular but strong.

But Veraguth and his wife both thought of the time when Albert had been seriously ill and they had cared for him together. And they both felt that important experiences cannot be repeated. Gently and rather wearily, they spoke to one another in whispers across the sickbed, but not a word of the past, of Albert's illness. The similarity in the situations struck them as ghostlike, they themselves had changed, they were no longer the same persons who then as now had watched and suffered together, bowed over a deathly sick child.

Meanwhile, Albert, oppressed by the unspoken anxiety and creeping dread in the house, had been unable to sleep. In the middle of the night he tiptoed half dressed to the door, came in, and asked in an excited whisper whether there was something he could do to help.

“Thank you,” said Veraguth, “but there's nothing to do. Go to bed and keep your health.”

But when Albert had gone, he said to his wife: “Go in with him for a while and comfort him.”

She gladly complied and she felt that it had been kind of him to think of it.

Not until morning did she incline to her husband's pleas and go to bed. At daybreak the nurse appeared and relieved him. There had been no change in Pierre.

Irresolutely Veraguth crossed the park, he had no desire to sleep. But his burning eyes and a slack, stifled feeling in his skin warned him that he had better. He bathed in the lake and asked Robert to make coffee. Then in the studio he looked at his study of the woods. The painting was brisk and fresh, but it was not really what he had been aiming at, and now it was all up with his projected picture and he would never paint again in Rosshalde.

Chapter Seventeen

F
OR SOME DAYS
there had been no change in Pierre. Once or twice a day he would be taken with spasms and onslaughts of pain; the rest of the time he lay with senses dimmed in a half sleep. The warm weather had worn itself out in a series of storms, and under a steady drizzle the garden and the world lost their rich summer radiance.

At last Veraguth had spent a night in his own bed and slept. The last few days he had gone about in feverish weariness, and now as he was dressing with the window open, he suddenly became aware of the dismal cold. He leaned out the window and, shivering slightly, breathed in the rainy air of the lightless morning. There was a smell of wet earth and of approaching fall, and he, who ordinarily was keenly alive to the signs of the seasons, reflected with surprise that this summer had vanished for him almost without trace, as though unperceived. It seemed to him that he had spent not days and nights but whole months in Pierre's sickroom.

He threw on his raincoat and went over to the house. Informed that the child had wakened early but had dropped off to sleep again an hour before, he kept Albert company at breakfast. Albert took Pierre's illness very much to heart and, though he tried not to show it, suffered from the subdued hospital atmosphere, the dejection and anxiety about him.

When Albert had gone to his room to busy himself with his schoolwork, Veraguth went in to see Pierre, who was still asleep, and took his place by the child's bedside. Sometimes, in recent days, he had wished that the end would come quickly, if only for the sake of the child, who had not spoken a word in heaven knows how long and who looked so exhausted and aged, as though he himself knew he was beyond help. Yet Veraguth was unwilling to miss an hour, he clung to his post at the sickbed with jealous passion. Oh, how often little Pierre had come to him and found him tired or indifferent, deep in his work or lost in care, how often his mind had been far away as he held this thin little hand in his and he had scarcely listened to the child's words, each one of which had now become an inestimable treasure. That could never be made good. But now that the poor child lay in torment, facing death alone with his spoiled, defenseless little heart, now that he was condemned to experience in the space of a few days all the numbing pain, all the anguish of despair with which illness, weakness, growing older, and the approach of death terrify and oppress a human heart, now he wished to be with him always and always. He must not be absent and missed if ever a moment came when the child should want him, when he might be of some little help to him or show him a little love.

And lo and behold, that morning he was rewarded. That morning Pierre opened his eyes, smiled at him, and said in a weak, tender voice: “Papa!”

The painter's heart beat stormily when at last he heard the voice which he had missed so long, which had become so thin and feeble, calling out to him and acknowledging him. It had been so long since he had heard that voice otherwise than moaning and muttering wretchedly in dull suffering, that he was terror-stricken with joy.

“Pierre, my darling!”

He bent down tenderly and kissed the smiling lips. Pierre looked fresher and happier than he had ever hoped to see him again, his eyes were clear and alert, the deep crease between the brows had almost disappeared.

“Are you feeling better, my angel?”

The little boy smiled and looked at him as though in surprise. His father held out his hand and into it the child put his little hand, which had never been very strong and was now so tiny and white and tired.

“Now you'll have your breakfast right away, and then I shall tell you stories.”

“Oh yes, about Mr. Larkspur and the birds,” said Pierre, and to his father it seemed a miracle that he should speak and smile and belong to him again.

He brought him his breakfast. Pierre ate willingly and even let himself be cajoled into a second egg. Then he asked for his favorite picture book. His father cautiously thrust one of the curtains aside, admitting the pale light of the rainy day, and Pierre tried to sit up and look at pictures. The effort seemed to give him no pain, he studied several pages attentively and greeted the beloved pictures with little cries of joy. Then he grew tired from sitting and his eyes began to hurt a little. He let his father lay him down again and asked him to read some of the verses, especially the one about Creeping Cucumber who goes to see Apothecary Mistletoe:

Apothecary Mistletoe,

Oh, help me with your ointments!

I cannot come, I cannot go,

I ache in all my jointments!

Veraguth was at pains to read as gaily and waggishly as possible, and Pierre smiled gratefully. But the verses seemed to have lost their old force, as though Pierre had grown years older since last hearing them. The pictures and verses kindled memories of many bright, laughing days, but the old joy and lightheartedness could not come again, and already, without knowing why, Pierre looked back into his childhood, which had still been reality days and weeks ago, with the yearning and sadness of an adult. He was no longer a child. He was an invalid from whom the world of reality had slipped away and whose soul, grown clairvoyant, already sensed the presence of lurking death on all sides.

Nevertheless, that morning was full of light and happiness after all the terrible days. Pierre was quiet and thankful and Veraguth against his will felt time and again the touch of hope. Wasn't it possible that the child would be spared after all? And then he would belong to him; to him alone!

The doctor came and stayed a long while at Pierre's bedside but did not torment him by asking him questions or examining him. It was only then that Frau Adele, who had shared the last night watch with the nurse, appeared. She was overwhelmed by the unexpected improvement, she held Pierre's hands so hard that it hurt him, and struggled to hold back the tears of relief that welled in her eyes. Albert, too, was allowed in for a little while.

“It's a miracle,” said Veraguth to the doctor. “Aren't you surprised?”

The doctor nodded and gave a friendly smile. He did not say no, but neither did he show any great enthusiasm. At once the painter was assailed by suspicion. He watched the doctor closely and saw that, even as his face smiled, the cold concentration and restrained anxiety were undiminished in his eyes. Afterward, he listened through the crack in the door to the doctor's conversation with the nurse, and although he could not understand a word, there seemed to be nothing but danger in the severe, earnest tone of his whispers.

At length he saw him to his carriage and asked at the last minute: “I gather you don't think much of this improvement?”

The ugly, self-controlled face turned back to him: “Be glad that he has a few good hours, the poor little tyke! Let's hope that it lasts a long while.”

There was no sign of hope to be read in his shrewd eyes.

Quickly, so as not to lose a moment, he returned to the sickroom. Frau Adele was telling the story of Sleeping Beauty; he sat down beside her and watched Pierre's features follow the story.

“Shall I tell you another?” Frau Adele asked.

“No,” he said rather wearily. “Later.”

She went to give orders in the kitchen and Veraguth took the boy's hand. They were both silent but from time to time Pierre looked up with a faint smile, as though glad that his father was with him.

“You're much better now,” Veraguth said tenderly.

Pierre flushed slightly, his fingers moved playfully in his father's hand. “You love me, Papa, don't you?”

“Of course I love you, sweetheart. You're my dear boy, and when you're well again we shall always be together.”

“Oh yes, Papa … Once I was in the garden and I was all alone, and none of you loved me any more. You must all love me and you must help me when it hurts again. Oh, it hurt so badly!”

His eyes were half closed and he spoke so softly that Veraguth had to lean close to his mouth to understand him.

“You must help me. I'll be good, always, you mustn't scold me. You won't ever scold me, will you? And you must tell Albert, too.”

His eyelids quivered and opened, but the look in his eyes was dark and his pupils were much too large.

“Sleep, child, sleep. You're tired. Sleep, sleep, sleep.”

Veraguth closed Pierre's eyes gently and hummed softly to him as he had sometimes done when he was a baby. And the child seemed to fall asleep.

An hour later the nurse came in to call Veraguth to table and relieve him at Pierre's bedside. He went to the dining room, silently and absently ate a dish of soup, scarcely hearing what was said around him. The child's tender, frightened, loving whispers echoed sweet and sad in his ears. Oh, how many hundreds of times he might have talked with Pierre like that, savoring the naive trust of his carefree love, and had neglected to do so.

Mechanically he reached for the carafe to pour himself water. And then his dream was shattered by a piercing scream from Pierre's room. All three jumped up with pale faces, the carafe was overturned, rolled over the table, and fell to the floor.

In an instant Veraguth was out the door and in Pierre's room.

“The ice bag!” cried the nurse.

He heard nothing. Nothing but that terrible, desperate scream which stuck in his consciousness as a knife in a wound. He rushed to the bed.

There lay Pierre as white as snow, his mouth hideously distorted; his emaciated limbs writhed in furious convulsions, his eyes stared in unreasoning horror. And suddenly he uttered another scream, wilder and louder than the last, and his body arched up so violently that the bedstead trembled; and then it slumped and rose up again, tense with pain and bent like a switch in the hands of an angry boy.

All stood helpless with horror, until the nurse's commands created order. Veraguth kneeled down by the bed and tried to prevent Pierre from hurting himself in his convulsions. Even so, the child's right hand struck itself bloody on the metal rim of the bed. Then he slumped, turned over on his stomach, bit silently into the pillow, and began to kick his left leg rhythmically. He lifted it, brought it down with a stamping movement, rested a moment, and then made the same movement again, ten times, twenty times, and on and on.

The women were at work making compresses, Albert had been sent away. Veraguth was still on his knees, looking on as the child's leg rose with uncanny regularity under the blanket, stretched out, and fell. There lay his child, whose smile only a few hours ago had been like sunshine and whose imploring, loving babbling had touched and enchanted his heart to its deepest depths. There he lay and was nothing more than a mechanically quivering body, a poor helpless bundle of pain and misery.

“We're here with you,” he cried in despair. “Pierre, child, we're here and trying to help you.”

But the path from his lips to the child's mind was cut off, his imploring words of comfort, his tender meaningless whisperings no longer penetrated the terrible loneliness of the dying child. He was far away in another world, wandering thirst-parched through a hell of torment and death, and there perhaps, in the valley of hell, was crying out for the very man who was kneeling by his side, who would gladly have suffered every torment to help his child.

They all knew that this was the end. Since that first terrifying scream so full of deep animal suffering, death had lurked in every window and doorway of the house. No one spoke of it, but all had recognized it, Albert, too, and the maids downstairs and even the dog, who ran around restlessly on the gravel walk, now and then letting out a frightened whimper. And though they all did what they could, boiled water, brought ice, and kept very busy, the fight was over, the hope had gone out of it.