Petitions

was coming on, snow fell early, the winter begins very early here; well, so there he sat sometimes on wet stones and at other times in the snow. In the night he groaned with pain, and in the morning he was many a time uncertain whether to go or not, but always overcame his reluctance and went. Mother clung to him and didn’t want to let him go, so he, apparently grown timid because his limbs wouldn’t obey him, allowed her to go with him, and so mother began to get pains too. We often went out to them, to take them food or merely to visit them, or to try to persuade them to come back home; how often we found them crouching together, leaning against each other on their narrow seat, huddled up under a thin blanket which scarcely covered them, and round about them nothing but the grey of snow and mist, and far and wide for days at a time not a soul to be seen, not a carriage; a sight that was, K. , a sight to be seen! Until one morning father couldn’t move his stiff legs out of bed at all, he wasn’t to be comforted, in a slight delirium he thought he could see an official stopping his carriage beside Bertuch’s just at that moment, hunting all along the fence for him and then climbing angrily into his carriage again with a shake of his head. At that father shrieked so loudly that it was as if he wanted to make the official hear him at all that distance, and to explain how blameless his absence was. And it became a long absence, he never went back again, and for weeks he never left his bed. Amalia took over the nursing, the attending, the treatment, did everything he needed, and with a few intervals has kept it up to this day. She knows healing herbs to soothe his pain, she needs hardly any sleep, she’s never alarmed, never afraid, never impatient, she does everything for the old folks; while we were fluttering round uneasily without being able to help in anything she remained cool and quiet whatever happened. Then when the worst was past and father was able again to struggle cautiously out of bed with one of us supporting him on each side, Amalia withdrew into the background again and left him to us.”