Bimbi | Page 9

trembling
all over,--for she was a very gentle girl, and fierce feeling terrified
her,--"August, do not lie there. Come to bed; it is quite late. In the
morning you will be calmer. It is horrible indeed, and we shall die of
cold, at least the little ones; but if it be father's will--"
"Let me alone," said August through his teeth, striving to still the storm
of sobs that shook him from head to foot. "Let me alone. In the
morning!--how can you speak of the morning"
"Come to bed, dear," sighed his sister. "Oh, August, do not lie and look
like that! you frighten me. Do come to bed."
"I shall stay here."
"Here! all night!"
"They might take it in the night. Besides, to leave it NOW!"
"But it is cold! the fire is out."
"It will never be warm any more, nor shall we."
All his childhood had gone out of him, all his gleeful, careless, sunny
temper had gone with it; he spoke sullenly and wearily, choking down
the great sobs in his chest. To him it was as if the end of the world had
come.
His sister lingered by him while striving to persuade him to go to his
place in the little crowded bedchamber with Albrecht and Waldo and
Christof. But it was in vain. "I shall stay here," was all he answered her.
And he stayed--all the night long.
The lamps went out; the rats came and ran across the floor; as the hours
crept on through midnight and past, the cold intensified and the air of

the room grew like ice. August did not move; he lay with his face
downward on the golden and rainbow-hued pedestal of the household
treasure, which henceforth was to be cold forevermore, an exiled thing
in a foreign city, in a far-off land.
Whilst yet it was dark his three elder brothers came down the stairs and
let themselves out, each bearing his lantern and going to his work in
stone yard and timber yard and at the salt works. They did not notice
him; they did not know what had happened.
A little later his sister came down with a light in her hand to make
ready the house ere morning should break.
She stole up to him and laid her hand on his shoulder timidly.
"Dear August, you must be frozen. August, do look up! do speak!"
August raised his eyes with a wild, feverish, sullen look in them that
she had never seen there. His face was ashen white; his lips were like
fire. He had not slept all night; but his passionate sobs had given way to
delirious waking dreams and numb senseless trances, which had
alternated one on another all through the freezing, lonely, horrible
hours.
"It will never be warm again," he muttered, "never again!"
Dorothea clasped him with trembling hands. "August! do you not know
me?" she cried in an agony. "I am Dorothea. Wake up, dear-- wake up!
It is morning, only so dark!"
August shuddered all over.
"The morning!" he echoed.
He slowly rose up on to his feet.
"I will go to grandfather," he said very low. "He is always good;
perhaps he could save it."
Loud blows with the heavy iron knocker of the house-door drowned his
words. A strange voice called aloud through the keyhole:--
"Let me in! Quick!--there is no time to lose! More snow like this, and
the roads will all be blocked. Let me in! Do you hear? I am come to
take the great stove."
August sprang erect, his fists doubled, his eyes blazing.
"You shall never touch it!" he screamed; "you shall never touch it!"
"Who shall prevent us?" laughed a big man who was a Bavarian,
amused at the fierce little figure fronting him.
"I!" said August. "You shall never have it! you shall kill me first!"

"Strehla," said the big man as August's father entered the room, "you
have got a little mad dog here; muzzle him."
One way and another they did muzzle him. He fought like a little
demon, and hit out right and left, and one of his blows gave the
Bavarian a black eye. But he was soon mastered by four grown men,
and his father flung him with no light hand out from the door of the
back entrance, and the buyers of the stately and beautiful stove set to
work to pack it heedfully and carry it away.
When Dorothea stole out to look for August, he was nowhere in sight.
She went back to little 'Gilda, who was ailing, and sobbed over the
child, whilst the others stood looking on, dimly understanding that with
Hirschvogel was going all the warmth of their bodies, all the light of
their hearth.
Even their