again.
Do you think I don’t know why you were opening the window? Whenever you come into my room you open it, unasked.
I just wanted to . . .
You don’t think, child. I suppose your idea is that my room stinks? Is that what you want to show me? I stink, do I? Shall I tell you something, stupid girl? Old age comes, it will come to you too and it rots you away. Mother raised herself in her bed, rocking on her knees, looking as if she might tip forward and off the bedhead first. And she was laughing, the laughter was burbling out of her throat, physically hurting Helene. I’ll tell you a secret. If you don’t come into the room it doesn’t stink. Simple, eh? Mother’s laughter was not malicious now, just carefree, relieved. Helene stood there undecided. She was trying to make sense of the words. What’s the matter? Off you go, or do you want to leave me stinking, you pitiless girl?
Helene went away.
And close the door behind you! she heard her mother calling after her.
Helene closed the door. She put her hand on the banisters as she went downstairs. How familiar they seemed to her; she felt almost happy to think of these banisters leading her so safely down to the ground floor.
Downstairs, Helene found Martha sitting in their father’s armchair. She was helping Mariechen to mend sheets.
Helene and Martha thanked Aunt Fanny for her help over the legacy in a long letter full of detailed accounts of the weather and descriptions of their everyday life in the town of Bautzen. They told her that they had made a second sowing of winter salad greens in the garden behind the house and next day it would be time to sow overwintering cabbage varieties. No one would expect a flower garden to be kept going in times like these, but they did it for love. Although the water rates were rising in an alarming way, they had managed to keep the flower bed in front of the house from drying up all summer. Late summer meant a lot of outdoor work. Now Helene had cut off all the rose leaves and burned them. They had made a copper brew to spray the roses against rust, and a lime and sulphur brew to ward off mildew. The Michaelmas daisies were in full flower. They just weren’t sure when to put in flowering bulbs: Mariechen said now was the time to plant scilla and daffodils, tulips and hyacinths, but last year they had planted those bulbs early and they had frozen during the winter. They liked spinach and lamb’s lettuce very much, and had sown plenty for the winter, for no one could say when the general situation would improve. Last year, after all, they had printed small calendars for the coming year on a little press that had been standing idle in the workshop, fully operational but covered up, and now they were colouring them in by hand in the evenings. They hoped very much that the calendars would sell at the autumn fairs, or at the latest at the Christmas fair in winter. Thank goodness, they wrote, the Christmas market was reserved for local traders, or the hill farmers would force down prices. People had to look out for themselves these days. Only yesterday they had designed a little calendar with texts quoting rustic lore and maxims giving good advice. The provincials here liked to be exhorted to be virtuous in the sight of God, and it increasingly seemed to Helene, she added, that agreement on such matters was what created a sense of community here in Lusatia, bringing consolation and giving courage. And what could be more important these days than confidence and hope? What, for instance, did her aunt think of such precepts as: moderation and hard work are the best doctors; work sharpens the appetite and moderation prevents its wrongful satisfaction? People so often confuse education and good conduct with etiquette and will forgive a boy’s prank more easily than anything offending against the usual forms of social intercourse. The surest way to spoil a young man is to lead him to value those who think as he does more highly than those who think otherwise. A resolution cannot be more certainly thwarted than by being frequently uttered.
These reflections appeared to Helene and Martha like the yearning of their own graceful souls for the heaven of Berlin, and they hoped for nothing more