The prospect of the journey to Frankfort filled Albert with boyish glee.
He was not thinking of his career—he did not clearly think of
anything—he was happy because of the prospective change in his life. He
had often heard his father tell of his visits to that beautiful
city—the “_Weltstadt_”, his father had called it—the city where kings
were once crowned and where his king, the great Goethe, was born—of the
wonderful Fair, of the Roemer, of the Zeil. Albert had never seen a
large city and was restive with anticipation.
He was in high spirits. His mother had never seen him so animated, so
boyishly happy. He romped and danced and sang like a joyous child. His
excitement was so great that he could neither read nor write nor talk
coherently. He paced up and down the house, rambled through the streets,
restless with eagerness.
In the meanwhile the winter was drawing to a close. Hedwiga, alone in
that overheated hovel, sat knitting and brooding and thinking of Albert.
He was the first ray of sunshine in her desolate life. He had often
spoken to her of things she did not understand but that made him even
more alluring. Only at rare moments she caught flashes, like that of
meeting clouds, and then darkness again. She had heard her aunt prattle
about love which had always been meaningless to her. But Albert’s sweet
amorous words she understood. When she looked at his half-closed eyes,
at his dishevelled hair, at his sensitive lips, she became more
restless—she often quivered—and craved his touch, and yet when his
hands came in contact with her arms she trembled with shrinking
fear—shrinking and yet yielding. After he had kissed her that
afternoon, in the warm dusk of the hut, her fear was gone. She longed
for his arrival, to be seized in his arms, to have his lips against
hers. Even in his absence her lips quivered as she thought of him and
her eyes closed. He had a peculiar way of placing the tips of his
sensitive fingers upon her shoulders, barely touching them, as if he
were fingering the strings of a violin, and gazing into her face
pensively, almost mysteriously, and then letting his fingers glide over
her thinly covered arms—sending a delicious shiver through her whole
being—and slowly, creepingly, letting them slide until they reached her
wrists, then her hands, then her moist fingers, which almost
involuntarily, helplessly became entwined with his, her eyes staring
blindly, upward, at his face. No one could whisper such sweet little
secrets in her memory. The tears that often sprang to her eyes were
never bitter; she felt happier when they came.
Her aunt had of late been alarmed about her. She seemed to have grown
thinner, with a peculiar flush in her cheeks. When Aunt Graettel at
first made some veiled reference to her health, she laughed merrily and
said she had never felt as well as now. One day Aunt Graettel overheard
a stifled cough and told her niece that it might be best to have that
Zorn boy stop his visits and she forthwith prepared a concoction of
herbs. Hedwiga shoved the tonic away with a fierceness the Witch had
never suspected in her and said if Albert stopped coming she would throw
herself into the river.
But Albert’s joy at the approach of his journey was so great that he
failed to notice the peculiar lustre in the girl’s eyes. He was bubbling
over with delight. Did she not think it was wonderful? He was going to
the _Weltstadt_, where mere were theatres and picture galleries and a
great library and cafés and grand boulevards and—and he stopped for
want of words. Did she not think it was wonderful?
“And there are so many pretty girls in Frankfort?” she returned, with a
sad smile and a strange glitter in her eyes.
No, he swore he was not thinking of girls. Besides, no one was as pretty
as his Lorelei, his Hedwiga.
“You are not crying?”
He shrank back half a step and looked puzzled.
No, she was not crying. She wiped her tears away and was smiling. And
presently he was reading a poem he had written the other night. He
recited the verses—they were meant for her . . .
No, no, she did not wish to cry, but her tears flowed against her will.
He stowed the verses away and was consoling her. Wouldn’t it be
wonderful when he came back after he had seen the world! His arms were
stealing around her, her lips yielded so willingly, her tears flowed so
freely! Tears beget tears, and soon his emotions stirred. He did not
know why, but his tears flowed, too, mingling with hers and, with heart
beating against heart, the fires of youth blazed in one
conflagration—_Dann schlagen zusammen die Flammen_!
She was soon sobbing as if her heart would break.
“Why do you cry?” he asked.
She did not know why she was sobbing. There was really no occasion for
grief. Was he not going to Frankfort to see the world—the great,
wonderful world?
“Just think, _liebste_! No more dry text books, no more mathematics, no
more stupid lessons in accounting, no more school! Just think of freedom
all day and all night, and I shall be able to read and read and read and
walk and walk through the boulevards and write—Oh, Hedwiga!” He pressed
her to his breast with frantic ecstasy. “I’ll write wonderful tragedies
and songs and I will—”
Words failed to express all his hopes and plans and desires. He was
dizzy from the flood of thoughts that rushed upon him.
She was sobbing no longer. Her hands limply in her lap, her tear-stained
face composed, her shoulders relaxed and stooped forward, she stared
blankly in front of her, looking without seeing, her great eyes wide
open and full of heart-rending sadness.
“Will you write to me?”
“Will I write to you? As often as the post will carry my letters. I’ll
tell you all about the wonderful things in Frankfort. By the way, father
said the streets in Frankfort are lighted at night—light enough to
read—rows of great lanterns in the streets! Wouldn’t you like to see
Frankfort?”
A sob was her only reply.
“But you will come to Frankfort. I’ll be in the banking business there,
and I will send for you, sweetheart mine.”