Strife and Peace | Page 6

she required, therefore Susanna, in her twentieth year, looked about her for a better situation.
From the confined situation in which Susanna spent such a weary life, she was able to see one tree behind a fence, which stretched out its branches over the street. Many a spring and summer evening, when the rest of the inhabitants of the house were abroad on parties of pleasure, sate Susanna quietly by the little slumbering Hulda, within the little chamber which she had fitted up for herself and her sister, and observed with quiet melancholy from her window the green tree, whose twigs and leaves waved and beckoned so kindly and invitingly in the wind.
By degrees the green leaves beckoned into her soul thoughts and plans, which eventually fashioned themselves into a determined form, or rather an estate, whose realisation from this time forth became the paradise of her soul and the object of her life. This estate was a little farm in the country, which Susanna would rent, and cultivate, and make profitable by her own industry and her own management. She planted potatoes; she milked cows and made butter; she sowed, she reaped; and the labour was to her a delight; for there, upon the soft grass, under the green, waving tree, sate the little Hulda, and played with flowers, and her blue eyes beamed with happiness, and no care and no want came near her.
All Susanna's thoughts and endeavours directed themselves to the realising of this idea. The next step towards it was the obtaining a good service, in which, by saving her wages, she could obtain a sum of money sufficient to commence her rural undertaking. Susanna flattered herself, that in a few years she could bring her scheme to bear, and therefore made inquiries after a suitable situation.
There were this year among the visitors at the watering-place of Gustafsberg, which lay near to Uddevalla, a Norwegian Colonel and his lady. He was lame from a paralytic stroke, and had lost the use of his speech and of his hands. He was a large man, of a fierce, stern exterior; and although he seemed to endure nobody near him but his wife, and perpetually demanded her care, still it was evidently not out of love. And although his wife devoted herself unweariedly and self-denyingly to his service, still this evidently was not from love either, but from some other extraordinary power. Her own health was visibly deeply affected, and violent spasms often attacked her breast; but night or day, whenever it was his will to rise, it was her patient, bowed neck around which his arm was laid. She stood by his side, and supported him in the cold shower-bath, which was intended to re-awaken his dormant power of life, at the same time that it destroyed hers. She was ever there, always firm and active, seldom speaking, and never complaining. By the painful contraction of her countenance alone, and by the peculiarity of laying her hand upon her heart, it could be seen that she suffered. Susanna had an opportunity of seeing all this, and admiration and sympathy filled her breast. Before long she was fortunate enough to assist the noble lady, to offer to her her strong youthful arm as support, and to watch over the sick man when his wife was compelled to close her eyes from fatigue. And fortunately the invalid endured her. Susanna was witness of the last horrible scenes by the death-bed of the Colonel. He seemed to make violent efforts to say something, but--he could not. Then he made signs that he wished to write something; but his fingers could not hold the pen. Then presented itself a horrible disquiet on his distorted features. With that his wife bowed herself over him, and with an expression of the greatest anxiety, seized one of his hands and whispered--"Give me only a sign, as answer! Tell me! Tell me! does he yet live?"
The sick man riveted upon her a strong gaze, and--bowed his head. Was this an assenting answer, or was it the hand of death which forbad an answer? No one could tell, for he never again raised his head. It was his last movement.
For many days afterwards a quick succession of spasmodic attacks seemed to threaten the widowed lady with approaching death. Susanna watched incessantly beside her, and felt herself happy in being able to watch over her and to serve her. Susanna had conceived an almost passionate devotion for Mrs. Astrid; such as young girls often feel for elderly, distinguished women, to whom they look up as to the ideal of their sex. And when Mrs. Astrid returned to Norway, Susanna kissed with tears her little Hulda, but yet felt herself happy to follow such a mistress, and to serve her