"Ah!" cried she, pushing aside the hair from their brows, the better
to observe their features, "you thought to deceive your mother, did
you?"
"Pardon!" exclaimed both the young men.
Here Becker thought it necessary to interfere; and, summoning all the
courage he could muster to the task, said--
"Why should they not go? Is this the first expedition they have
undertaken?"
"No, it is not the first expedition they have undertaken, but it is
the first time their eyes and their looks betokened an eternal adieu.
It is the first time that I felt they were forsaking me for ever, and
it is the first time you ever addressed them with the words you just
now uttered."
Becker saw that it was useless to attempt to carry deceit any
further; he therefore withdrew his eyes from the piercing glance of
his wife. Willis, caught in the act, as it were, was completely thrown
off his guard, and had not a word to say for himself. Fritz and Jack
had again fallen on their knees, this time at the feet of their
mother.
"Ah! I begin to understand," she screamed, as she glanced around on
the scared group that surrounded her, like a wounded lioness whose
cubs were being carried off; "now the bandage begins to drop from my
eyes. A thousand inexplicable things dart into my mind. You are
sending the boys on an impracticable voyage to secure the safety of
their mother; but you did not think that in order to prolong my
existence for a few years, you would kill me instantly with grief!
What right have you to impose a remedy upon me that is a thousand
times worse than the malady? Have I ever complained? May my sufferings
not be agreeable to me? May I not like them? Is pain and suffering not
our lot from the cradle to the tomb? But I am not ill, I was never
better in my life than I am at this moment.
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