When the Easter vacation came Reinhard journeyed home. On the morning
after his arrival he went to see Elisabeth.
"How tall you've grown," he said, as the pretty, slender girl advanced
with a smile to meet him. She blushed, but made no reply; he had taken
her hand in his own in greeting, and she tried to draw it gently away.
He looked at her doubtingly, for never had she done that before; but
now it was as if some strange thing was coming between them.
The same feeling remained, too, after he had been at home for some
time and came to see her constantly day after day. When they sat alone
together there ensued pauses in the conversation which distressed him,
and which he anxiously did his best to avoid. In order to have a
definite occupation during the holidays, he began to give Elisabeth
some instruction in botany, in which he himself had been keenly
interested during the early months of his university career.
Elisabeth, who was wont to follow him in all things and was moreover
very quick to learn, willingly entered into the proposal. So now
several times in the week they made excursions into the fields or the
moors, and if by midday they brought home their green field-box full
of plants and flowers, Reinhard would come again later in the day and
share with Elisabeth what they had collected in common.
With this same object in view, he entered the room one afternoon while
Elisabeth was standing by the window and sticking some fresh chick-weed
in a gilded birdcage which he had not seen in the place before. In the
cage was a canary, which was flapping its wings and shrilly chirruping
as it pecked at Elisabeth's fingers. Previously to this Reinhard's bird
had hung in that spot.
"Has my poor linnet changed into a goldfinch after its death?" he
asked jovially.
"Linnets are not accustomed to do any such thing," said Elizabeth's
mother, who sat spinning in her arm-chair. "Your friend Eric sent it
this noon from his estate as a present for Elisabeth."
"What estate?"
"Why, don't you know?"
"Know what?"
"That a month ago Eric took over his father's second estate by the
Immensee."[3]
[3] _i.e._ the 'Lake of the Bees'
"But you have never said a word to me about it."
"Well," said the mother, "you haven't yet made a single word of
inquiry after your friend. He is a very nice, sensible young man."
The mother went out of the room to make the coffee. Elisabeth had her
back turned to Reinhard, and was still busy with the making of her
little chick-weed bower.
"Please, just a little longer," she said, "I'll be done in a minute."
As Reinhard did not answer, contrary to his wont, she turned round and
faced him. In his eyes there was a sudden expression of trouble which
she had never observed before in them.
"What is the matter with you, Reinhard?" she said, drawing nearer to
him.
"With me?" he said, his thoughts far away and his eyes resting
dreamily on hers.
"You look so sad."
"Elisabeth," he said, "I cannot bear that yellow bird."
She looked at him in astonishment, without understanding his meaning.
"You are so strange," she said.
He took both her hands in his, and she let him keep them there. Her
mother came back into the room shortly after; and after they had drunk
their coffee she sat down at her spinning-wheel, while Reinhard and
Elisabeth went off into the next room to arrange their plants.
Stamens were counted, leaves and blossoms carefully opened out, and
two specimens of each sort were laid to dry between the pages of a
large folio volume.
All was calm and still this sunny afternoon; the only sounds to be
heard were the hum of the mother's spinning-wheel in the next room,
and now and then the subdued voice of Reinhard, as he named the orders
of the families of the plants, and corrected Elisabeth's awkward
pronunciation of the Latin names.
"I am still short of that lily of the valley which I didn't get last
time," said she, after the whole collection had been classified and
arranged.
Reinhard pulled a little white vellum volume from his pocket. "Here is
a spray of the lily of the valley for you," he said, taking out a
half-pressed bloom.
When Elisabeth saw the pages all covered with writing, she asked:
"Have you been writing stories again?"
"These aren't stories," he answered, handing her the book.
The contents were all poems, and the majority of them at most filled
one page. Elisabeth turned over the leaves one after another; she
appeared to be reading the titles only. "When she was scolded by the
teacher." "When they lost their way in the woods." "An Easter story."
"On her writing to me for the first time." Thus ran most of the
titles.
Reinhard fixed his eyes on her with a searching look, and as she kept
turning over the leaves he saw that a gentle blush arose and gradually
mantled over the whole of her sweet face. He would fain have looked
into her eyes, but Elisabeth did not look up, and finally laid the
book down before him without a word.
"Don't give it back like that," he said.
She took a brown spray out of the tin case. "I will put your favourite
flower inside," she said, giving back the book into his hands.
At length came the last day of the vacation and the morning of his
departure. At her own request Elisabeth received permission from her
mother to accompany her friend to the stage-coach, which had its
station a few streets from their house.
When they passed out of the front door Reinhard gave her his arm, and
thus he walked in silence side by side with the slender maiden. The
nearer they came to their destination the more he felt as if he had
something he must say to her before he bade her a long farewell,
something on which all that was worthy and all that was sweet in his
future life depended, and yet he could not formulate the saving word.
In his anguish, he walked slower and slower.
"You'll be too late," she said; "it has already struck ten by St
Mary's clock."
But he did not quicken his pace for all that. At last he stammered
out:
"Elisabeth, you will not see me again for two whole years. Shall I be
as dear to you as ever when I come back?"
She nodded, and looked affectionately into his face.
"I stood up for you too," she said, after a pause.
"Me? And against whom had you to stand up for me?"
"Against my mother. We were talking about you a long time yesterday
evening after you left. She thought you were not so nice now as you
once were."
Reinhard held his peace for a moment: then he took her hand in his,
and looking gravely into her childish eyes, he said:
"I am still just as nice as I ever was; I would have you firmly
believe that. Do you believe it, Elisabeth?"
"Yes," she said.
He freed her hand and quickly walked with her through the last street.
The nearer he felt the time of parting approach, the happier became
the look on his face; he went almost too quickly for her.
"What is the matter with you, Reinhard?" she asked.
"I have a secret, a beautiful secret," said Reinhard, looking at her
with a light in his eyes. "When I come back again in two years' time,
then you shall know it."
Meanwhile they had reached the stage-coach; they were only just in
time. Once more Reinhard took her hand. "Farewell!" he said,
"farewell, Elisabeth! Do not forget!"
She shook her head. "Farewell," she said. Reinhard climbed up into the
coach and the horses started. As the coach rumbled round the corner of
the street he saw her dear form once more as she slowly wended her way
home.
* * * * *