Cornelli

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Autumn had come, and all the fruit trees in Mr. Hellmut’s garden were laden with gorgeous fruit. Bright red apples and golden pears were shining through the green branches; dark blue plums, honey sweet, fell here and there from the deeply weighted trees. Whoever passed the garden had to stand still and look, full of wonder, at this great abundance, and many a person was tempted to leap over the hedge and get one of the golden pears as a prize.

Cornelli, staring in front of her, was sitting on the bench under the hazel nut tree. Matthew was just approaching from the stable; he wore his best coat, and one could see that something special was going on.

“Do you want to come with me, Cornelli?” he asked, walking over to the bench where she was sitting. “I am just going to harness the horses. Your father is coming at eleven o’clock and I am going to drive down to the lake to meet him. Come with me! Our brown fellows will be sure to trot well, for they have had a long rest. Come along! It will be fun, I know.”

Cornelli shook her head.

“No?” said Matthew with disappointment. “I was sure you would not let slip a chance of driving gaily out into the bright morning to meet your father. Shall I get you down some pears? No pears, either?” Matthew went away, shaking his head. “If our master only had half a dozen boys and as many girls, how nice it would be here on the place. Then such splendid pears would not be hanging sad and forgotten on the trees.” Then he added, in a murmur: “Not even to care about driving with such horses!”

Soon afterwards, Mr. Maelinger arrived, for it was time for Cornelli’s lessons. Most of the time the teacher sat beside his pupil shaking his head. He really needed all his patience to endure the total indifference she showed in all her tasks. To-day it was again the same.

The two hours passed, and the carriage which was bringing home her father had just driven up in front of the house. Mr. Maelinger was filled with astonishment, for his pupil, instead of jumping up happily and running away to greet her father, looked shyly through the window and did not budge.

“You can go, Cornelli; your father is here! We have finished our work,” he said, and with these words departed.

Cornelli had heard her father coming into the house and had heard the ladies’ joyful words of welcome. She crushed a tear that had begun to trickle down her cheek and went over to the room where her father had just entered.

“How are you, child? Have you come at last?” the father called gaily to her. “But how strange you look, Cornelli!” he went on with a changed voice. “What is it?” Cornelli had silently given him her hand and was shyly looking down.

“What has happened to you? How odd you look! I hardly know you any more! Push away all that gypsy-like hair from your face! Why don’t you look at me pleasantly? Why do you keep looking away? For months I have been looking forward to this home-coming to my little daughter, who, I had hoped, would have gained much. So this is the way I am to find you, Cornelli.”

Full of sorrow and anger, the father was gazing at the little girl. She had turned away and had not said a word. Her face, half hidden by the horrible hair strands, seemed to be covered by a gray cloud which threatened to break out in a violent rain.

“We shall talk it all over later, Frederick,” said the cousin. “Let us first enjoy and celebrate the happy hour of your return and let us keep all troublesome thoughts away.” With these words, Miss Dorner led her cousin to the dining room, where the table was festively set with all the good dishes Esther knew were her master’s favorites.

The Director’s thoughts, however, were so troubled that even the festive meal could not dispel them. He barely touched the food that was offered, for he could not take his eyes off his only child. She sat in front of him with bowed head, and only now and then looked up at him, quite shyly. The meal did not go through in a very festive spirit. It was noticeable that Mr. Hellmut had to force himself to the few words he spoke. His thoughts were elsewhere and were of a very disturbing nature. He got up from the table, as soon as possible, and hurried away.

“He is going over to the works,” said Miss Dorner to her friend, following him with her eyes. Cornelli, too, had left the room as soon as her father had gone. “I think it has upset him more than I thought it would. He has to give vent to his excitement a little, and I hope that seeing the workmen over there will help him to get over his impression. I hope he will hear there many new and pleasant things—of much work and good business. It is hard for him to carry on his endless work for the sake of such a child, don’t you think so? But it can’t be changed.”

After a while the Director came back again. He did not look much soothed or pleasantly surprised by what he had just heard. The ladies now sat down again to drink a cup of coffee with him.

“They have spoiled many things for me over there,” said the Director, sitting down beside them. “Even if it should mean considerable loss, I can bear it, but I cannot stand the way Cornelli has changed. What a frightful sight she is, and how dumb and stupid she has grown. She did not show the slightest sign of pleasure at my coming and has not said a single word since then. She has hardly even looked at me and only sits there as if her existence were a real misfortune—I cannot stand it. What has happened to the child?” In his excitement Mr. Hellmut jumped up and paced about the room.

“Nothing has happened to the child; at least, we know of nothing, do we, Betty?” said Miss Dorner. “We have both tried to teach her good manners, for we found that she lacked them sadly. We did it chiefly on your account. Sorry as I am to say it, Frederick, I have to tell you that the child’s disposition is so terribly obstinate one can hardly do anything with her. The more we fought against it and tried to bring her on the right path, the worse it got and the more she would insist on having her way.

“What have we not said against this terrible disfigurement! And all for nothing! The more we said, the more Cornelli would pull her hair into her eyes. So I gave it up, for I saw that only physical punishment would help in such a case and I wanted to leave that to you; I did not come into your house for that. I do not even dare to decide if that would help. I have really never in all my life seen such a stubborn child. I shall certainly admire anybody who can bring her to rights.”

The director had marched up and down the room with restless steps. Now he suddenly stood still.

“But good gracious!” he exclaimed, “there must certainly be a way to help a child of ten years. Are there no means except chastisement to bring up a young creature like her? What an abominable thought! I will not believe such a thing! Can you give me no advice? What could I do? Ladies surely know how to educate a little girl. Something simply has to be done right away. I am to blame for my neglect and for leaving her too long in the wrong hands. Oh, what would my Cornelia say if she could see her child?” Mr. Hellmut threw himself down in his chair and put his hands before his face.

“Please calm yourself, Frederick! It is not your fault at all, for you can’t fight against her disposition,” the cousin said soothingly. “We have thought of a way of helping the child. You might send her to a boarding school in town where there are a great many children and young girls. Children often help each other by rubbing up against one another and by noticing each other’s faults and mistakes.”

“Do you think that this might help Cornelli?” asked the father doubtfully. “Cornelli is not used to being rubbed against and laughed at.”

“For that reason it would make a still deeper impression on her,” answered the cousin. “You can believe me when I say that this may be the only means to break her obstinacy, and I am not sure that even this will help. If such a school can’t break her will, nobody on earth can reform her; you can believe me, Frederick.”

“She is still very young to be sent away from home,” said the father, full of pity. “But I fear that you are right. She could not get better here, only worse, and so it will probably have to be. Do you know of a boarding school you could recommend?”

The cousin answered that she knew of one, and offered to take the necessary steps as soon as she was again at home. Miss Dorner hoped in vain that her cousin’s humor would change and that he would become again the merry and sociable companion of old days. He tried with all his might to be entertaining when they met at table; but he always had to glance at his little girl, who sat at her place dumb and seemingly afraid even to glance about her. A deep shadow always came across his features, and one could see that it was hard for him to mingle in the general conversation.

Miss Dorner at last had enough of his unfriendly attitude. As a last means to break it and to shake him up a little, she said to him on the third day after his arrival: “It seems to me, Frederick, that you are too much occupied even to remember your duties as a host. We are thinking of going back to town. Are you willing?”

“I understand your decision absolutely,” Mr. Hellmut answered politely. “You are right in telling me that I am the most unpleasant host that could be found, but I hope you understand that the change in Cornelli has spoiled everything for me and has only filled me with the thought of how to help her. I hope very much that you will visit my house again at a pleasanter time. You can order the carriage whenever you want it.”

The cousin had not expected this answer. “You go entirely too far, Frederick,” she said angrily. “How can a man sacrifice everything and change all his ideas for the sake of such a child?”

“You seem to forget that it is my Cornelia’s and my only child,” answered the Director. “But we shall not talk about it any more, because we could not understand each other. I am so grateful for your goodwill that I do not want to cause you any anger at the end.”

Two days later the carriage stood before the door. Both ladies stepped in and Mina stepped in after them. The latter had known so well how to make herself liked by them that they were taking her to town, for Mina had wished to become a maid in the city to get away from country people. One of the ladies was to take her as chambermaid, but it had not been settled yet which of them would do so.

Esther was terribly indignant because Mina was leaving a good house for no reason whatsoever. Since Esther had been managing in the Director’s home she had always felt the honor of the house to be her own. Full of resentment, she was standing behind her master, who was shaking hands as a last farewell.

Miss Mina was looking towards the other side, where Cornelli stood: “Won’t you even give me your hand? This is not very friendly of you. That is just the way you are,” she said to the child in a low voice.

Now Esther broke forth: “Miss Mina,” she called out as loudly as she could, “please be so kind as to tell the ladies on the trip who left the dusty marks on the sofa by standing on it. They were not from a child’s shoe.”

Mina blushed a deep scarlet and Miss Dorner, full of astonishment, looked at her glowing face. She expected a fitting retort, but none came.

“Go ahead, Matthew,” Miss Dorner ordered excitedly. She did not desire a further explanation.

Mr. Hellmut had moved away.

Cornelli now took Esther’s broad hand inside both her own and pressed it hard. A ray of joy flitted over her features, the first after a long, long time. “Oh, I am so glad that you said that, Esther; I am more glad than you can think,” she said eagerly. “If you had not said that, they would have thought all their lives that I had done it and denied it. But how does Mina know who did it?”

“She knows, because she did it herself,” Esther replied.

“Oh, oh! So she did it with her own feet,” Cornelli exclaimed. “It is better that she has gone then. We’d rather be left alone here, wouldn’t we, Esther, just you and I?”

“Yes, indeed,” said the cook, full of satisfaction. “Just tell your father that I do not mind double work, but that I do mind deceitful ways.”

Cornelli had not spoken to her father since he had come back. She was shy before him, because she realized that the sight of her displeased him. She was, however, quite sure that she could never change and always had to be like that. She was also certain that he would only abhor her more if he ever found out what was hidden under her locks of hair. She therefore went slowly and hesitatingly towards his room in order to give him Esther’s message. In former times she had always run to him gaily, whenever she had something to tell him. Since then things had changed.

“It will never again be that way,” she said to herself. The thought seemed to weigh so heavily on her that she suddenly stood still. At that moment her father opened the door in front of which she stood. “Oh, here you are, Cornelli,” he said delightedly. “Did you want to pay me a little visit? We have really hardly seen each other. Come in here! I was just going to get you, for I want to speak with you.”

Cornelli entered, not saying a word and avoiding her father’s glance.

“Come, Cornelli,” he said, leading her through the room and sitting down beside her. “I have something to tell you that will make you very happy. You have changed so much during my absence and so little to your advantage that something has to be done for your education. It is high time. I shall take you to a boarding school in town, where you can be with many other children and young girls. You will have the chance to learn many things from them and to make friends with many. You will be sure to change there, then you can return to bring your father joy. I cannot enjoy you now, for I do not know what ails you. It may be better after you get some education. I expect to take you away next week.”

Cornelli’s face became snow white from sudden terror. First she uttered no sound, but soon she burst into violent tears.

“Oh, Papa,” she sobbed, “leave me at home! I’ll be good. Oh, don’t send me to town to so many children! Oh, I can’t, I can’t. Oh, Papa, don’t send me away!”

Mr. Hellmut could not bear to see Cornelli’s tears and still less to hear her supplications. “But for her own good it has to be,” he said to himself to strengthen his resolution. Cornelli’s lamentations were too much for him and he rushed away.

Several hours later, the time had come for supper and he returned from the iron foundry.

Esther came to meet him: “Oh, I am glad that you have come, Director,” she said excitedly. “When I went up to Cornelli just now she was crying. I wanted her to taste some of the little plum cakes she usually likes so much, but the poor child only shrieked: ‘Oh, leave me here, leave me here!’ Oh, Mr. Hellmut, what if Cornelli should get sick and die?”

“Nonsense, Esther,” he returned; “children do not die from obstinacy.”

The master of the house had tried to speak harshly, but he did not quite succeed. He ran straight upstairs to Cornelli’s room and saw the child on her knees in front of the bed. Her head was pressed into the pillows and she cried as if her heart was breaking.

“Oh, don’t send me away, don’t send me away!” she cried as soon as he entered.

He saw that Cornelli was trembling all over from fear and excitement. “I cannot endure this,” he said to himself, and seizing his hat ran out of the house.

Martha was sitting in her peaceful little chamber, busy with her mending and thinking about Cornelli. She was wondering what would happen now that she was again left alone with her father. She wondered if the old days would come back, or if something new was going to be done for Cornelli’s education. The door was suddenly flung open and Mr. Hellmut entered.

“Oh, Martha, I do not know what to do,” he said to her in a perturbed manner. “You simply have to help me. You knew my wife and you know my child and love her; and besides, she is attached to you. Tell me what has come over her. Since when has she been so frightfully stubborn? Was the child always that way, or has she only grown more stubborn lately? Have you noticed how she has changed in my absence?”

“There is nothing so very much the matter with Cornelli, Mr. Hellmut. Cornelli is not an ill-natured child, I am sure of that. But won’t you take a seat, Director?” Martha interrupted her speech, placing a chair now here and now there for her visitor, who was running excitedly to and fro. But he refused, for he was too restless to settle down.

“It was really a very abrupt and sudden change for the child, and it was hard for her to have everything so different all at once,” Martha said. “Even an older child might have become shy under those conditions, and Cornelli is still very young. It is hard for a small plant to have too much done for it all at once and too suddenly; it has to have time to develop, and the better the plant the more carefully it should be tended.”

“I hope you are not trying to insinuate that it was not good for Cornelli to at last get into the right hands,” said Mr. Hellmut, standing still in the middle of the room. “I have to reckon it as a great blessing that she was thrown with ladies of culture and refinement, who could awaken in her everything that was good, noble and fine, and could teach her many things. My Cornelia would have done this herself, above all others, for she was in all those things the most striking example. The child has not a trace of her, not even in her looks; everything is lost that used to remind me of her.”

“Oh, Mr. Hellmut, if I might be allowed to say anything else, I would only add one word,” Martha replied calmly. “I have always found that a little love goes further than many good rules. I know that a young child can be frightened by harsh words more than grown-up people realize. Afterwards they cannot understand the cause of the shy behavior which is the result. Cornelli has not lost her mother’s eyes, only one cannot see them under her hanging fringes.”

“Yes, that’s it, Martha, this horrible disfigurement, this obstinacy which holds fast to it all. The shy, spiritless manner, the absolutely changed ways of the child hurt and worry me so. It takes away all my joy and all my courage and paralyzes all hope for the future. It has absolutely spoiled my life.”

The visitor had gotten more and more stirred up as he went on. “So I shall help her in the only way I know of: I shall send her to a boarding school. I just told her about it and she acted as if she were absolutely desperate. I simply cannot look upon her terrible despair. I actually feel as if my Cornelia could have no peace in Heaven if she heard her child’s supplications.”

“Oh, Director, if you could only keep Cornelli at home for a little while, so that she could calm down,” Martha said humbly. “Cornelli has had to go through so many new experiences lately that it would be good for her to stay quietly at home for a while. In the meantime you could get her more accustomed to the idea of leaving home, so that it would not scare her so dreadfully. I promise to do all I can too, Mr. Hellmut. I will tell her pleasant things about the school and the nice children that she might meet there.”

“That is a fine idea, Martha,” Mr. Hellmut said, a little more calmly. “Please do all you possibly can to make the idea pleasant and desirable to the child. Do not forget, Martha, that you are my only help.”

After these words Mr. Hellmut went away.

“Oh, the good kind Director!” said Martha, following him with her eyes. “What help can old, stupid Martha be to him, I wonder. But I shall certainly do whatever I can.”

Arrived at home, Mr. Hellmut went straight up to Cornelli’s room. She was still kneeling at her bed in the same attitude, and still crying bitterly.

“Get up, Cornelli, and stop crying,” he said. “I meant well with you, but you did not understand me. You shall stay at home for the present; later on you may feel differently about it. You can go to Martha to-morrow. Listen well to her words, for she is your best friend.”

Cornelli could not have heard a more consoling word. It sounded so hopeful after all the horrible news about going away.

“Can’t I go to Martha right away?” she said longingly.

“Yes, you can, Cornelli,” replied her father, “but you have not eaten anything yet.”

“That does not matter,” said Cornelli, already running down the stairs.

At last Cornelli was running again. She flew quickly up the little stairs and into Martha’s room.

“I have to go away, Martha, but not right away. Papa says that I have to go,” the child called out on entering. “Papa told me to come to you; I think it was because I cried all the time and he wanted me to stop. But I won’t stop, unless you promise to help me to stay at home. I do not want to go to all the strange children. I couldn’t stand it; oh, no, I couldn’t! Oh, it would be dreadful. Please help me, Martha, help me!” The terrible fear in Cornelli’s voice and the sight of her swollen eyes went straight to Martha’s heart.

“Come and sit down on your little stool the way you used to in the old times, Cornelli,” she said lovingly, “and I’ll tell you something that will help and console you. It has helped me, too, and still does when trouble comes. You see, Cornelli, I once had to go through a terrible sorrow just as great as yours is to-day. I had to give a child I loved back to God. So I cried, as loudly as you are crying and even louder: ‘No, I can’t do it, I can’t!’ The more I fought against it, the more terrible I felt, till in the end I even thought I should despair. So I cried out in my heart: ‘Can nobody help me?’ And then I suddenly knew who could do it. I knelt down and prayed to God: ‘Oh, give me help, for thou alone canst do it!’”

“Can I stay here if I pray like that, Martha? Will God help me right away?” asked Cornelli eagerly.

“Yes, He will surely help you the way He knows is best for you, Cornelli. If it should be good for you to go away and you ask your Father in Heaven for help, He will bless your life away from home, so that it won’t be as hard as you have feared. If you pray to Him, you will get the firm assurance that nothing will be hard for you, because you have His help in everything you do. God is sure to ordain everything in such a wise way that happiness will come to you in the end.”

“Did you have to give Him your child after all?” Cornelli wanted to know.

“Yes, God took it to Himself,” Martha answered.

“And could you get happy again, Martha?”

“Yes, yes. The pain was very great, but I was consoled by the thought of my child’s peace. I knew how many ills he had been spared. God gave me the assurance that He meant well with both of us. With that thought I could grow happy again.”

“I want to go home, now,” said Cornelli, suddenly getting up. It seemed as if something were drawing her away.

“Yes, go now, child, and think of what I told you!” said Martha,

“Yes, I will,” said Cornelli. She ran home quickly, because the desire to get to her room was urging her on.

Cornelli had never prayed so earnestly and heartily as she did that day. Kneeling beside her bed, she confided all her sorrow to her Father in Heaven, and begged Him to make her happy once more.

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