The sight of Hilda seemed to Albert like a dream come true. Instead of
the girl of his fancy, however, he was met by a young lady with the
poise of one accustomed to drawing room manners. The girl of his memory
was an unsophisticated young girl of fifteen. And while she was cordial,
her cordiality lacked the intimacy he had hoped for.
His inner chafing made him regard everybody around him with misgiving.
With the hypersensitiveness of the dreamer he divined disparagement in
the glances of the smartly dressed people around him. He felt himself an
outsider, a mere poor relative. He wished to flee, and would have fled
but for the presence of his cousin.
But the more friendliness shown him the more restless he became. It was
not friendliness he wanted. He craved affection, not merely the formal
friendship of a host. And the people about him treated him as a guest,
yet differently from the other guests who were visiting the banker at
the time. The other guests were a lively group and indulged in dances,
games, and amusing pastimes, none of which engaged his interest. His
aunt encouraged him and gave him veiled hints about the amenities of
society and etiquette, and this exasperated him still more.
So instead of joining the gay circle he would repair to the seashore, a
short distance away, and spend hours watching the tide, with tumult in
his brain and bitterness in his breast.
One day at sunset he found himself alone on the seashore, a creeping,
soothing melancholy stealing over him. There were horizontal bars in the
west resembling a rustic fence, one plank of which was jagged and
broken, with tatters of gold and silver streaming from it, as if the sun
in its flight had forced its way through this barrier, leaving behind
fragments of its gorgeous raiment. For a while he sat and gazed with
rapture in his heart. He sat crouched like a Japanese Buddha, his eyes
screwed up, his elbows upon his knees, his head between his hands.
He yielded to the scene before him sensuously, his whole being immersed
in it. He gave himself to the fight and sounds as a voluptuary gives
himself to lust. He was scarcely conscious that he was thinking of Hilda
instead of the sunset. He thought she had been paying no attention to
him. And yet there was something about her that gave him hope . . .
Footsteps down the poplar lane. His heart beat fast. He knew they were
her footsteps; and she was alone. Had she seen him? She turned quickly
around and walked back. She walked rapidly with the unsteady gait of
fright.
“She hates me,” he murmured to himself. Perhaps? There was again a
flutter of hope. He had read a great number of romances and began to
reason, as if reason ever helped a lover solve the great problem. But he
reasoned both ways with equal conviction. She-loves-me and
she-loves-me-not are reached by the same route. He found his place of
vantage less enticing. The sunset and the restless sea lacked the
romantic interest of a moment before. His mind drifted in other
directions. He thought of his uncle, of his aunt, of the guests. Why did
he find himself out of joint with people around him? What was there that
made him rebellious in their midst? Why did he feel their faults so
keenly, so glaringly? Why was he not in sympathy with them? He had felt
out of place in Gunsdorf, in the Judengasse, and now he was feeling out
of place at his uncle’s house. His thoughts, his tastes, his
inclinations, his aspirations, were all Hellenic—there was not a
vestige of the Hebraic in him, he concluded. He did not yet realize that
these vagaries, this very world-weariness—the _Weltschmerz_—was
Hebraic, that what he thought emanated from the Acropolis, came from
Mount Carmel and from the plains of Sharon.
In the evening he found himself alone in his room, the silence of the
summer night around him. He was thought-weary. He had blown out the
candle and welcomed the darkness. A nightingale was singing somewhere in
the grove. He pushed the window further open. He caught the distant
sound of the waves breaking on the cliffs; it was the sweeping sound of
contending forces. A fire-fly was flitting around—intermittent
pin-pricks in the dark curtain before him. His fatiguing thoughts had
fled. His brain was a blank. He was only a child of the senses. Peace
gathered within him, the sweet peace of night and of silence. Emotions
possessed him—no, not emotions which stir conflict but those that
instill a conscious soothing, a slumbering sensuousness. He leaned back
in his chair by the window, unseeing, unthinking.
Gradually—in faint outline—the image of Hilda was before him . . .
There had been dancing earlier in the evening and he now saw Hilda
waltzing around the room, her firm little feet moving nimbly, a twinkle
in her roguish eyes as she flitted by and glanced over her partner’s
shoulder toward where he was seated. Confound it, why had he never
learned to dance!
He recalled the last time he had made an effort to learn to dance and
laughed at himself. He could now hear that little Frenchman count _un,
deux, trois—un, deux, trois_. The Frenchman shook his head and told him
he had no rhythm in his soul! If he had told him he had no rhythm in his
feet he could have forgiven him. Albert was in a rage and the French
dancing-master ran for his life, and later told everybody that Herr Zorn
was quite mad, quite insane.
Yes, he ought to learn to dance. He must learn the amenities of the
young, as Aunt Betty had hinted. In some ways he acted like a
middle-aged man—this was what Aunt Betty had said smilingly. Perhaps
this was the reason Hilda was acting so peculiarly in his presence, he
said to himself; she treated him as if he were middle-aged. He was too
agitated to sit still . . .
He jumped up from his seat and walked across the dark room. No, no, he
could not be like the others—he could not—those shallow-brained
parrots, repeating the same phrases, the same platitudes, the same inane
compliments to ladies—he could not bear these smug Philistines! But
Hilda——
A bird was singing. Yes, it was the melting notes of the nightingale. He
was again seated by the window, thoughtless, a delicious sensuousness
filling his whole being, his eyes resting on the shadow of the trees in
the light of the stars, the tranquility of the night possessed him . . .