Chapter 18
Retribution
In the course of time, when arrangements had been made for their reception, a carriage was sent from Eichbourg to bring away the old farmer and his wife.
Their son was grieved to the heart when the time came for them to go, but their daughter-in-law had counted the days and hours until the time of their departure, and felt nothing but vindictive pleasure at being rid of them.
Her joy, however, received a severe check from a note which the coachman presented to her, in which the count informed her that she and her husband should pay all that had been stipulated for the support of her father-in-law and mother-in-law; and that the price of their living valued in money, according to the current market price, should be paid to them every quarter.
Realising her helplessness, she became violently angry and turned round to her husband, saying, “We are over-reached. If they had stayed here, it would not have cost us half as much.”
Her husband was secretly pleased to think that he was still permitted to help his parents in their old age, but he took good care not to show his joy before his wife.
The old people set off in the carriage the next morning, followed by the blessings of their son and the secret ill-wishes of their daughter-in-law.
But the unnatural conduct of this wicked woman was visited with the trouble which is always the lot of avarice and inhumanity.
Her secretly-cherished god was gold, and she had lent the bulk of her money to a merchant to use in his business, on his promise to pay her a large interest for the loan.
Her greatest pleasure was in making calculations, as to how much her money would amount to after a certain number of years, with all the interest and compound interest added.
Suddenly, however, these golden dreams received a rude awakening.
The manufacturer’s speculations proved unfortunate, and he shortly afterwards failed in business, and his goods were sold by order of the sheriff.
The news came as a thunder-stroke for the farmer’s wife, and from the moment that she heard of the catastrophe she had no repose.
Every day she kept running to the lawyers, or to her neighbours to complain of her hard lot, and the nights she spent in weeping and scolding her husband.
From the wreck of her fortune of ten thousand florins she received only a paltry hundred or two, and so deeply did she feel the loss of her money that she openly declared her wish to die.
The result of the continual worrying induced a fever which never left her.
When her husband wished to send for a physician she would not consent to it, and when, in spite of her objections, he at last sent for one, his wife in a passion threw the medicine he prescribed out of the window.
At last her husband saw that she was seriously ill, and he requested the minister of Erlenbrunn to come and see her.
The good old man visited her frequently and talked to her affectionately, in order to induce her to repent of her sins and to detach her heart from the things of this earth so that she might turn to God.
But this advice made her very angry.
She looked at the good man with utter astonishment.
“I do not know,” she said, “for what purpose the minister comes to preach repentance to me. He should have delivered such a sermon to the merchant who stole our money.
“Yes, there would have been some sense in that. As for me, I do not see that I have any reason for repentance. As long as I was able to go out I always went to church, and I have never failed to say my prayers.
“I have not ceased all my life to do my duty and to behave myself like a virtuous housewife. I defy any living soul to slander me.
“And of all the poor people who have come to my door, not one can complain that I sent them away without giving them something. Now, I should like to know how anyone can behave better!”
The venerable pastor saw that she was justifying herself before God, and he tried, by adopting a more direct tone, to lead her to contrition.
He showed to her that she loved money more than anything else in the world, and that the love of money was idolatry.
He showed her that the bursts of anger in which she had indulged were heinous sins before God, that she had totally failed in the most beautiful of all Christian virtues—filial affection; that by her greed for money she had made her husband unhappy, cruelly driven away the poor orphan Mary, and even turned away her husband’s parents, those whom she ought to have cherished as if they were her own.
He showed her also that, with a fortune like hers, a little piece of bread given to a poor man to get rid of him did not fulfil the duties which God expected of her, that in spite of all her boasting of going to church, she was none the better of it, for her prayers had come from a heart unwarmed by love, and could not ascend to the throne of God.
In this faithful way did he talk to her, but only with the result of making her burst into a fit of passionate sobbing.
The illness from which she suffered was a long and trying one.
She spent whole nights coughing, and yet the ruling passion of avarice was so strong that she would scarcely take sufficient nourishment to sustain her.
No consoling thought came to her to mitigate her suffering. She was utterly unwilling to resign herself to God and to submit to His will.
The good minister tried in every imaginable way to bring her to a better frame of mind.
During the last days of her life, she was occasionally a little softened in her manners, but she never evinced any true repentance.
In the flower of her age, she died, a sad instance of the effects of avarice, passion, and love of the world.✿