She was lying on a couch, and, if left to herself, might have lain there for hours in that strange state of absolute prostration.But she was not alone, and gradually she realized it.Very slowly the re-beginning of life set in; the consciousness of her father's presence awakened her, as it were, from her dream of unmitigated pain.She sat up, put her arms round his neck, and kissed him, then for a minute let her aching head rest on his shoulder.
Presently, in a low but steady voice, she said: "What would you like me to do, father?""To come home with me now, if you are able," he said; "tomorrow morning, though, if you would rather wait, dear."But the idea of waiting seemed intolerable to her.The very sound of the word was hateful.Had she not waited two weary years, and this was the end of it all? Any action, any present doing, however painful, but no more waiting.No terrible pause in which more thoughts and, therefore, more pain might grow.Outside in the passage they met Mme.Lemercier, and presently Erica found herself surrounded by kind helpers, wondering to find them all so tearful when her own eyes felt so hot and dry.They were very good to her, but, separated from her father, her sorrow again completely overwhelmed her; she could not then feel the slightest gratitude to them or the slightest comfort from their sympathy.She lay motionless on her little white bed, her eyes fixed on the wooden cross on the opposite wall, or from time to time glancing at Fraulein Sonnenthal, who, with little Ninette to help, was busily packing her trunk.And all the while she said again and again the words which summed up her sorrow: "Mother is dead! Mother is dead!"After a time her eyes fell on her elaborately drawn paper of days.
Every evening since her first arrival she had gone through the almost religious ceremony of marking off the day; it had often been a great consolation to her.The paper was much worn; the weeks and days yet to be marked were few in number.She looked at it now, and if there can be a "more" to absolute grief, an additional pang to unmitigated sorrow, it came to her at the sight of that visible record of her long exile.She snatched down the paper and tore it to pieces; then sunk back again, pale and breathless.Fraulein Sonnenthal saw and understood.She came to her, and kissed her.
"Herzbluttchen," she said, almost in a whisper, and, after a moment's pause: "Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott."Erica made an impatient gesture, and turned away her head.
"Why does she choose this time of all others to tell me so," she thought to herself."Now, when I can't argue or even think! Asure tower! Could a delusion make one feel that anything is sure but death at such a time as this! Everything is gone--or going.
Mother is dead!--mother is dead! Yet she meant to be kind, poor Thekla, she didn't know it would hurt."Mme.Lemercier came into the room with a cup of coffee and a brioche.
"You have a long journey before you, my little one," she said; "you must take this before you start."Yes, there was the journey; that was a comfort.There was something to be done, something hard and tiring--surely it would blunt her perceptions.She started up with a strange sort of energy, put on her hat and cloak, swallowed the food with an effort, helped to lock her trunk, moved rapidly about the room, looking for any chance possession which might have been left out.
There was such terrible anguish in her tearless eyes that little Ninette shrunk away from her in alarm.Mme.Lemercier, who in the time of the siege had seen great suffering, had never seen anything like this; even Thekla Sonnenthal realized that for the time she was beyond the reach of human comfort.
Before long the farewells were over.Erica was once more alone with her father, her cheeks wet with the tears of others, her own eyes still hot and dry.They were to catch the four o'clock train;the afternoon was dark, and already the streets and shops were lighted; Paris, ever bright and gay, seemed tonight brighter and gayer than ever.She watched the placid-looking passengers, the idle loungers at the cafes; did they know what pain was? Did they know that death was sure? Presently she found herself in a second-class carriage, wedged in between her father and a heavy-featured priest; who diligently read a little dogs-eared breviary.
Opposite was a meek, weasel-faced bourgeois, with a managing wife, who ordered him about; then came a bushy-whiskered Englishman and a newly married couple, while in the further corner, nearly hidden from view by the burly priest, lurked a gentle-looking Sister of Mercy, and a mischievous and fidgety school boy.She watched them all as in a dream of pain.Presently the priest left off muttering and began to snore, and sleep fell, too, upon the occupants of the opposite seat.The little weasel-faced man looked most uncomfortable, for the Englishman used him as a prop on one side and the managing wife nearly overwhelmed him on the other; he slept fitfully, and always with the air of a martyr, waking up every few minutes and vainly trying to shake off his burdens, who invariably made stifled exclamations and sunk back again.
"That would have been funny once," thought Erica to herself."How I should have laughed.Shall I always be like this all the rest of my life, seeing what is ludicrous, yet with all the fun taken out of it?"But her brain reeled at the thought of the "rest of life." The blank of bereavement, terrible to all, was absolute and eternal to her, and this was her first great sorrow.She had known pain, and privation, and trouble and anxiety, but actual anguish never.Now it had come to her suddenly, irrevocably, never to be either more or less; perhaps to be fitted on as a garment as time wore on, and to become a natural part of her life; but always to be the same, a blank often felt, always present, till at length her end came and she too passed away into the great Silence.
