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Meanwhile the Haidehof was thriving more splendidly from year to year; the debt to Douglas was paid off, the crops flourished, and in the meadows thorough-bred cattle were feeding. The whole place was to be rebuilt. The house, stables, and barn all were to be thoroughly renewed. And one spring there came a crowd of workmen of all kinds into the yard.
The resolution to use all his strength to bring the neglected Haidehof into good repute became stronger and stronger. The brothers one day should be able to say of him: "He has been of some good, after all, even if he could not follow us in our brilliant careers." Yes; the brothers! How tall and distinguished they had grown meanwhile.
The old house-keeper, who had formerly managed the Erdmanns' establishment, and who after they were married had emigrated to the Haidehof, had to go into the kitchen to make coffee and waffle cakes, and as their father did not know what to talk about to his daughters, he abused Paul and his sons-in-law.
"He has turned me out out." Unspeakable misery had descended on the Haidehof. The father lay in the parlor, on his sickbed, and groaned and complained and cursed the hour of his birth. In milder moments he seized his wife's hand with tearful eyes, and asked her forgiveness for having united her fate to his ruined life, and promised to make her rich and happy in future. Rich above all things, rich.
He replied, with a deep blush, "My father would not do that," and felt much ashamed. She cast a glance towards the Haidehof, which lay scarcely a hundred yards from the road. The red fence shone in the sunshine, and even the gray half-ruined barns looked more cheerful than usual. "Your house looks very nice," she said, shading her eyes with her left hand.
So she had ceased to suffer: the pale, kind woman who had watched over the Haidehof like a good angel, and whom his heart had clung to all his life. Now that she was dead the way was free to ruin and crime. And Elsbeth?
Having once consented to swindle, he had to outvie every lie by a new and bigger one. Mr. Douglas might be as patient as he liked; the abuse which was made of his name at last became too much for him. It was one morning towards the end of August that Paul, who was working in the yard with Michel Raudszus, saw the tall figure of their neighbor walking across the fields straight to the Haidehof.
But when he spoke harshly to them for the first time, and they looked up at him with a pained, humble glance, like two penitent Magdalenes, he was so much overcome by pity that he folded them weeping in his arms, and said, "Compose yourselves, children; all will yet be well." He was under the firm conviction that the two Erdmanns would not let the day pass without coming to the Haidehof.
Since the middle of the day a long row of carriages had passed the Haidehof, and old Meyerhofer, who did not like staying at home when anything was going on, had suddenly been overcome by a fit of kindness, and called out to his womenfolk to get ready as quickly as possible; he would sacrifice himself and take them to the festivity.
Then it seemed to him as if he saw Elsbeth's face vanishing in mist over his head, then it was night again round him.... At the first streak of dawn a sad procession went across the autumnal heath, on the way to Helenenthal. Two miserable wagons crept slowly, one behind the other. In them was found room for all that remained of the Haidehof.
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