“You ought not to send your things to me, Mother. We have plenty to eat out there. You can make much better use of them here.”
How destitute she lies there in her bed, she, that loves me more than all the world. As I am about to leave, she says hastily: “I have two pairs of underpants for you. They are all wool. They will keep you warm. You must not forget to put them in your pack.”
Ah! Mother! I know what these underpants have cost you in waiting, and walking, and begging! Ah! Mother, Mother! how can it be that I must part from you? Who else is there that has any claim on me but you? Here I sit and there you are lying, and we have so much to say, that we could never say it.
“Good-night, Mother.”
“Good-night, my child.”
The room is dark. I hear my mother’s breathing, and the ticking of the clock. Outside the window the wind blows and the chestnut trees rustle.
On the landing I stumble over my pack which lies there already made up, because I have to leave early in the morning.
I bite into my pillow. I grasp the iron rods of my bed with my fists. I ought never to have come here. Out there I was indifferent and often hopeless;—I
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