The Glassblower Read Online Free PDF

help. Will you promise me that?” he asked, fixing her with his gaze.
    She turned away. Something in her fought against the very idea of making such a promise, harmless though it may have been. Instead she said, “We’ll manage somehow.” Although it sounded vague, she didn’t want Peter to feel responsible for them, for her in particular. She squeezed his arm, gave him a friendly nod, and then walked back into the house. For a moment she toyed with the idea of creeping upstairs to bed. All this talking wore her out, and she was tired of having to pretend to be in charge the whole time. Why didn’t the others notice? But then she pulled herself together—she could hardly leave her sisters sitting downstairs on their own.

    “What did Peter want?” Ruth burst out before Johanna had even closed the door.
    All at once Johanna felt butterflies in her stomach. Strange. She had stood in the doorway just like this, back on that fateful Monday. She pulled herself together before the grief could settle on her shoulders again like a black shawl. They had to talk about their future. There was no getting around it.
    “Peter said that he would like to buy Father’s tools and the stock of glass, but unfortunately it’s not what he needs.”
    “Maybe one of the other glassblowers will buy up the stock?” Marie asked.
    Ruth sighed. “I don’t kno w . . . It wouldn’t seem right to me to just get rid of it all like that. It makes everything seem so final.”
    “But that’s just what I mean!” Marie said, raising her voice. “Now that Father’s gone, we won’t be blowing any more glass.” She put her hand to her mouth. “Whatever will become of us?”
    Johanna didn’t know what to say. Ever since Father had died, she had thought a good deal about how they would cope. She had put on a brave face for Peter, but in truth her confidence was as hollow as the glass beads that half the village made and sold.
    Without someone in the house to blow the glass, they had nothing to live on. Without someone to blow the glass, they wouldn’t grind the stoppers, paint the labels, or pack the wares. Those few skills that they had were of no use at all.
    “Tomorrow I’ll go to Sonneberg to sell the last few things that we have. It’s just some jars and tubes, and it won’t fetch much, but we can live off that for a while. We can’t rely on people bringing us food forever after all.” Johanna looked at Ruth, who seemed to be off in a daydream somewhere, and decided to speak plainly. There was no sense trying to soften the blow. “I’ve looked in every nook and cranny in Father’s room, but it looks like he didn’t put aside any savings. Putting in the gas pipes probably cost him everything he had.” She bit her lip. It was still so hard to believe.
    “Maybe the gasworks will give us that money back if we tell them we aren’t using the gas?” Marie asked quietly.
    Ruth frowned. That was typical of Marie. “You can’t really believe that! Don’t you remember that their men had to spend three days digging a trench to lay the pipes? That’s where the money went. We can’t just turn up and ask for it back!” She nonetheless cast a glance at Johanna with a glimmer of hope in her eyes.
    Her older sister shook her head. “They won’t hear of it. No, we’ll just have to use whatever Friedhelm Strobel gives us to get by until something turns up.”
    The hope in Ruth’s eyes died away. “If only we had a man about the house to help us! Someone who could take over Father’s bench and lamp.”
    “And who would that be?” Johanna laughed bitterly. “The other glassblowers all have their own work to take care of. And anyway—how would we pay him, whoever it was?”
    Marie looked as though she wanted to say something, but she kept quiet for fear of being told off again.
    “We’ll have to hope that someone takes us on as hired hands. If the Widow Grün can work that way, then so can we,” Johanna said. They could hear