He arose quite happy the next morning, boyishly happy. He wrote a few
verses and felt happier still. Then he read his lines over and the music
of his own words made him jubilant. Dissatisfaction with his composition
never came to him until the day after; on the same day he was always
happy, always pleased with himself——
And his mood seemed contagious. Aunt Betty smiled upon him and Hilda,
too, suddenly seemed attentive. She even suggested a walk with him, and
on the way through the garden stooped to pluck a rose for him and then
plucked another, the stem of which she held between her teeth, the red
flower drooping over her chin. He found himself talking to her without
timidity, without constraint, and she, too, laughed and recalled little
pranks he played on her when she visited Gunsdorf. He reminded her that
she had been a little girl then, her hair like a loose skein of silk
hanging down her back and even remembered the color of her dress and the
ribbon she had worn in her hair. His voice seemed to caress every
garment of hers as he dwelt in detail upon her dress in those days and
her attire now. She blushed as her eyes met his. She felt as if he had
actually passed his hand over her dress as he contrasted her former
short dresses with her present long skirt. He kept at a respectful
distance from her but once or twice his sleeve came in contact with her
sleeve and he consciously shrank back half a step, and she was strangely
conscious of the momentary touch.
He talked freely, bubbling over. He was alone with her, just she and he.
He felt for a moment that there was nobody else on earth but the two of
them. And they were walking through the narrow paths, high hedges on
either side, the sunlight sifting through like the finest silvery
powder, birds twittering and chirping everywhere. At times she walked
ahead of him—when the path was too narrow for them to walk side by
side—the bit of neck between her coiled hair and the collar of her
dress a delicious magnet, her elastic yet vigorous step music to his
ears. He was deploring the fact that so few people in Hamburg were
interested in poetry. She agreed with him and that irritated him without
knowing why and he became cynical.
“The people in Hamburg care more for beer and _sauerkraut_ than for
Lessing and Goethe,” he was saying. “They lack romance—” Then he tossed
his head, with a spiteful smile on his lips, and added, “When Cupid
darted his arrow at the Hamburg women he struck them in the stomach
instead of the heart.”
Hilda walked on in silence. His witticism displeased her. He had made a
few slurring remarks about Hamburgers before. They were walking side by
side and he noticed the slight change in her face. She did not seem as
friendly as before.
“I was not referring to all Hamburgers,” he said in a jesting tone
emphasizing the _all_.
He wished to make some allusion to herself but could not. She suddenly
seemed so distant. He thought he detected anger in her eyes. Then he
attempted playfulness, but that seemed to annoy her still more. Women
were a capricious lot, he concluded. He was beginning to understand
women, he was persuading himself, without realizing that to understand
them was the surest means of being disliked by them.
When they returned to the house they found the family on the veranda.
Hilda rushed up to her mother as if she had lost her way and at last
found it. He again felt awkward.
He went to his room and finished the poem that he had begun the day
before and copied it in a neat hand and again went in search of Hilda.
He found her seated on the ground under a tree with a book in her lap.
He approached her without timidity and at first stood by her chatting,
then sat down beside her. Albert was a good talker when he had a
definite subject but lacked the art of polite social conversation. He
was at his best when attacking or praising someone or something. The
book in her hand was a peg on which to hang conversation, and he made an
attempt to look at it.
“Is the book so bad that you would not have anyone see it?” he teased
her as she declined to show it to him.
“No, it’s a good book,”—still holding it behind her as if to prevent
him from seizing it.
“By whom was it written?”
She shook her head negatively, a faint smile in her eyes.
“What’s the name?”
Her head again shook from side to side.
“What’s it about?”
“You are too young to know.” She laughed softly, her eyes contracting.
“Let’s talk of something more interesting—Rudolph, for instance.”
(Rudolph was one of the young men of whom Albert was jealous.)
She gave a short mischievous laugh.
He looked at her earnestly. He wondered why she was teasing him about
Rudolph. Her mobile features underwent expressions he could not
understand. Then he turned to her suddenly, with self-pity in his voice,
and said, “Why do you dislike me so much, Hilda?”
And before she had a chance to reply he added petulantly, “Everybody
here dislikes me—everybody!”
There was the peevishness of the vexed child in his voice, with a lump
of emotion in his throat.
Although he had not clearly thought of this before, no sooner had the
words escaped him than he believed them. He felt himself hated by all
around him.
Her attitude toward him changed instantly. Leaning forward, with the
book replaced in her lap so he could see it was “Herman and Dorothea”,
she said, “Oh, Albert, you only imagine things. Mother is very fond of
you, and so is father, only they don’t think you apply yourself to
business assiduously enough.”
Her beautiful sea-green eyes rested on his face sympathetically. She
looked at him as if to convince him she was not merely saying this to
soothe him.
“I know, I know, they all think me an idler, a good-for-nothing, a
worthless fellow.” His words came precipitately, passionately. “They
can’t see any good in anyone unless he is immersed in business—nothing
counts but business success. All I hear is money, money, money
everywhere!” He raised his hands as if he meant to shut out the sight of
money. “It rings in my ears from morning till night—it rings all over
Hamburg. It’s deafening—money! Nothing else interests anybody. Neither
literature nor music nor art of any sort. Money seems an end in itself.
Ah! It’s maddening—maddening! I am made to feel every moment that God
created all the beauty in the world—the green trees and the blooming
flowers and the foamy waves—and women’s beautiful eyes and their
luxuriant hair and their crimson lips (he was looking at her
yearningly)—with only one end in the scheme of creation—money! Oh, I
am disgusted with everything——.”
“You are morbid, Albert,” she said, looking straight at him and noting
the despondency in his dreamy countenance. Then she smiled and added,
“You are a Werther without a Charlotte.”
He felt the sting of her remark. To him her flippant retort was full of
meaning.
“Even you hate me,” he burst out.
He turned his face away.
“What makes you say such things?” she demanded.
“I can see it. You don’t act toward me as you do toward—” he tossed his
head without completing the sentence.
“As I do toward Rudolph,” she finished it for him with a light laugh.
Then she gazed at him for a moment and, shaking her head, said, “You
silly boy.”
“I don’t blame you—Rudolph is a shrewd business man and I am only a
clerk in your father’s bank—”
“So you think I am in love with Rudolph—”
“I know you hate me—”
“Why should I hate you?”
Her sparring with him cheered him even though his face was still sad. He
was happy to hear her contradict him. They soon drifted to “Herman and
Dorothea” and he began to talk of Goethe. He wished to read her the poem
he had just finished but he wondered if she would divine who had
inspired it. He persuaded himself he did not want her to know this. And
while he was battling with the idea his hand traveled to his pocket and
he withdrew the neatly copied verses.
He watched her face eagerly as her eyes wandered over the sheet. She
seemed to be reading every line over and over in order to grasp their
meaning.
He had hoped she would make some allusion to the subject described. He
had also hoped she might ask him for permission to keep the poem, but
not a word. Her eyes only contracted a bit, a faint deepening of color
on her cheeks, and she had suddenly again grown distant. He felt as if
she had unexpectedly stretched out her arm and forbade him to come near
her. He was conscious of the awkwardness of her silence. Her lips were
closed tightly as she would not open them for fear a word might drop.
“You think poetry mere drivel, don’t you?” he said as he awkwardly
replaced the poem into his pocket.
Her eyelashes rose, a silent look, but without a responsive syllable.
“At least you think _my_ poetry is drivel,” he soon added.
There was the faintest smile playing around her lips. Her silence and
smile seemed to him a challenge. His dormant pride, his sublime
confidence in his powers, suddenly made him boastful. There was fire in
his eyes.
“You just wait and I’ll show you all that my poems are no drivel. I’ll
make my songs ring throughout the land. Every man, woman, and child
shall read them. You may all laugh at me now—and Rudolph may jest about
me—but I’ll make them all listen to me some day—”
He looked at her face but could read nothing in it. The next moment he
became conscious of his boasting and felt ashamed of his utterances.
“Oh, I am a fool,” he burst out as if talking to himself. “You think me
a braggart, don’t you?” He touched her hand and looked beseechingly at
her.
She looked at him intently for a bare second.
“I am very unhappy,—I’ve always been unhappy. I am a little child
crying for the moon, and the moon is so far, far away and doesn’t even
know that a poor child is crying for it.”
There were unshed tears in his eyes.
“Why do you make yourself so unhappy?” she asked and stirred, with a
frown on her pretty face.
But he did not answer. He noticed the approach of Uncle Leopold and Aunt
Betty.
“Why so serious?” Aunt Betty asked, smiling and at the same time
studying Hilda’s face.
“We were discussing poetry,” she answered, rising.