The countess was indignant. “My dear Stöhr, spare me your spiritual wisdom! It suits only times of trouble. Pastoral consolations are not to my taste. It is not your proper task to preach truths to me, but to offer me agreeable illusions.”
One evening Frau von Febronius asked to see the countess. The latter went. But terror made her pale. She put on a hat, swathed her face in a veil and her hands in gloves. Sighing she sat down beside her sister’s bed, and carefully measured the distance, so as to be out of reach of the patient’s breath.
Frau von Febronius smiled indulgently. Her illness had smoothed the lines of petty care and sorrow from her face, and, among her white pillows, she looked strikingly like her daughter Letitia. “I’m sorry to trouble you, Marion,” she began, “but I must talk to you. There’s something that weighs on my mind, and I must confide in some one. The fact in question should be told to one who knows me, and should not be buried with me.”
“I beseech you, Elsie, my poor darling, don’t talk of graves and such things,” the countess exclaimed in a whining voice. “My appetite will be gone for a week. If you’ll only fling the medicine bottles out of the window, and tell all quacks to go to the devil, you’ll be well by day after to-morrow. And, for heaven’s sake, don’t make a confession. It reminds one of quite dreadful things.”
But Frau von Febronius went on: “It’s no use, Marion. I must tell you this. The reason I turn to you is because you’ve really been so very good and kind to Letitia, and because Hilde, sensible and faithful as she is, wouldn’t quite understand. Her notions are too conventional.”
In whispers she now related the story of Letitia’s birth. An illness of his earlier years had deprived her husband of the hope of posterity; but he had yearned for a son, a child. This yearning had finally silenced all scruples and all contradictory emotions to such an extent that he had chosen a congenial stranger to continue his race. He had persuaded her, his wife, whom he loved above all things, after a long struggle. Finally she had yielded to his unheard-of demand. But when the child was born, a progressive melancholy had seized upon her husband. It had become incurable, and under its control he had ruined his estate and in the end himself. He had felt nothing of the happiness he had expected. He had, on the contrary, always shown a contemptuous dislike of Letitia, and had avoided her as far as possible.