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But as she waxed warmer and more elated over her visions of the future, Nikolai sat doubtful, and softly beating a measure with his foot. All this about the shop might be right enough. His mother must surely understand it, she who had been at the Veyergangs', and had now, moreover, talked to the Consul himself.
It really seemed as if all the celebrity she had acquired during all these years, all her fidelity, all her prestige as nurse at the Veyergangs, was to vanish at one stroke into thin air!
And on the few occasions in the year that Barbara visited the boy it was not so easy for her to come now that the Veyergangs lived in their country house all the year round she could see for herself how well-cared-for and clean he was, and how strictly he was kept.
It was a matter of course that the warning was given in the most appreciative and considerate, although firmly decisive manner. The whole circle of Mrs. Veyergang's acquaintance agreed that they had all expected that the Veyergangs would really one day part with that pampered creature!
Besides she could often come out and see him, at least once a month! he could promise her that on the Veyergangs' behalf, and it was very kind of them now they lived such a long way out of town. Dr. Schneibel talked both kindly and severely, both good-naturedly and sharply: he was almost like a father.
It was not, however, without a certain amount of enthusiasm that she now unfolded her plans for the little business, and how she should procure credit, a little at each place; she still had acquaintances at the shops in the neighbourhood, from the time she was at the Veyergangs'. Afterwards it was only to sell out, pay for the old, get new again; it all went round like a winch!
Veyergang fortunate in having such a treasure in the house, and sighed over her own inability to find just such another. But how unfortunate it was Mrs. Scheele was extremely sorry they had just engaged another nurse! "Fancy!" exclaimed Mrs. Scheele, when her husband came down from his office, "there is a revolution at the Veyergangs', and that high and mighty Nurse Barbara has got her dismissal.
Yes, he need not sit and look at her with open mouth. What else was she turned out of the Veyergangs' house for, where she had been so important, if it was not because Nikolai had lifted his hand against the Consul-General's Ludvig. Oh yes, he might wonder as much as he liked, but that was why she had been driven out helpless into the world, from comfortable circumstances.
In the summer she accompanied the Consul-General's family to a bathing-place. There Barbara wheeled the perambulator with the two children in it along the shore, and more than once the Veyergangs were flattered by the exclamations of passers-by: "What a fine-looking nurse!" But there were difficulties with her, too fits of melancholy to which she completely gave way.
It was nothing less than that it was her fixed, resolute purpose to offer herself to others who would appreciate her better than the Veyergangs did. She directed her wrathful steps straight to Scheele, the magistrate's house: they had four children, and were looking for a nurse.
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