“The professor in Vienna who examined her. He wore quite a cheerful face before her, and said, ‘If you are careful, you can live to a hundred years old,’ but afterwards he sent for me, and asked me, ‘Are you strong, young lady? Can you bear the truth?’ ‘I beg you to tell me all,’ I answered, ‘I must confide it to you,’ he said, ‘for you are the only one who nurses her.’ And then he told me that she might die any day--unless--and then he gave me a number of rules which she must observe about eating and drinking and climate and excitement, and much more. Since that day I tremble from morning to night, and tend her and watch and find no rest. Sometimes the feeling comes over me, and I say to myself, ‘You are young and want to enjoy life,’ and then I try to be merry and sing, but every note chokes me and I collapse again. Of course, I must show a cheerful face to mother, and to father as well.” “But why do you not confide in him?” he interrupted her. “Shall his life be poisoned as well?” she replied. “No, I had rather bear it alone than see him suffer, too. He has a happy nature, and loves her with all his soul--otherwise he is sometimes hasty and excitable, but to her he has never said an angry word--let him hope as long as he can--I will not undeceive him.” She leaned her head on her hands and stared straight before her. He remembered his mother’s fairy tale. “Dame Care--Dame Care,” he murmured to himself. “What do you say?” she asked, and looked at him with great, eager eyes, hungry for consolation. “Oh, nothing,” he replied, with a sad smile, “I wish I could help you.” “Who could do that?” “And yet perhaps I can,” he said, “you have only wanted somebody to confide in, you are not so badly off as you think--indeed, Dame Care has blessed you, too.” “What does that mean?” she asked And then he told her the beginning of that fairy tale which he had kept in his memory so well. “And how can one be freed from her blessings?” she asked. “I don’t know,” he replied, “mother never would tell me the end of the fairy tale. I don’t think, either, there is any deliverance. Such creatures as we are must renounce happiness of our own free will, and however near it may be to us we may not see it--something sad always comes between us and happiness. The only thing we can do is to watch over the happiness of others and to make them as happy as possible.” “But I should like to be a little happy myself,” she said, raising her eyes to him trustfully. “I wish I were as happy as you are,” he answered. “If only this anxiety were not always with me,” she complained. “Anxiety! you must let her be your friend, I have known her all my life, and when I did not know why I quickly found some reason. It is not so bad, either--if there were no anxiety, one would not know for what purpose one lives. But only think how contented you might be. You see nothing but merry faces surrounding you. Your mother feels happy in spite of all her sufferings, does she not?”