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"She has taken a candle upstairs, mamma, but I've not taken off my boots, for there's a little calf, she says, in the stable, and she's going to show it me. May I go?" "Yes, but don't stay long," I said, my opinion of the sombre Lieschen improving considerably; and when they were out of hearing, "Now, Nora dear, tell me what frightened you so."
Nor, indeed, had she ever met anyone in the course of these visits. On the fatal night Lieschen was expected at the cottage. Mother and son waited at first hopefully, then anxiously, at last with some vague uneasiness at her non-appearance. It was now a quarter past eleven nearly an hour later than her usual time.
It was a strange apartment; full of books and tattered papers, and miscellaneous shreds of all conceivable substances, "united in a common element of dust." Glad would he have been to sit here philosophizing forever, or till the litter, by accumulation, drove him out of doors: but Lieschen was his right-arm, and spoon, and necessary of life, and would not be flatly gainsayed.
I had taken coffee with him and Weisheimer in the Kur garden, and we had enjoyed one another's company, when Stadl disappeared for a time. Weisheimer led me to the gambling-table to find him. Seldom have I witnessed a more horrible change of expression than that now stamped on the man who was a prey to the gambling mania. As a demon had possessed poor Lieschen, so now a demon possessed this man.
Lieschen went away with the mute blessing of his finger on one of her modest dimples; but, to his amazement, she returned in the evening. He gave her a lecture, to which she listened attentively, and came again in the morning. He was petrified.
Commanded to speak for herself, this Lieschen coloured and said demurely, 'I am in service here, sir, among good-hearted people, who will give me liberty to watch by you, for three hours of the afternoon and three of the early part of the night, if you will honour me. My father took her shoulder between finger and thumb, and slightly shook her to each ejaculation of his emphatic 'No! no! no! no!
Here it was that Gretchen, Lieschen, and Clarchen, in the cleanest of blue gowns, and stoutly but smartly shod, brought their invoices in a piece of clean paper, or folded in a blue handkerchief, and laid them, with fingers more or less worn and stubby from hard service, before the consul for his signature.
All the inhabitants of that part of the town agreed that in their waking hours the streets had been perfectly still. Nor were there any traces visible of a struggle having taken place. Lieschen might have been murdered elsewhere, and her corpse quietly deposited where it was found, as far as any evidence went. Wild and vague were the conjectures.
From where we sat we looked down on our late habitation; we could almost distinguish the landlord's slouching figure and poor Lieschen with a pail of water slung at each side as she came in from the well. "What a life!" I could not help saying. "Day after day nothing but work. I suppose it is not to be wondered at if they grow dull and stolid, poor things."
Lieschen went away with the mute blessing of his finger on one of her modest dimples; but, to his amazement, she returned in the evening. He gave her a lecture, to which she listened attentively, and came again in the morning. He was petrified.
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