Years passed away.
Paul grew up a quiet, unpretending boy, with a shy look and awkward
behavior.
Generally he kept apart, and, while he took care of the twins, would sit
for hours working at some wood-carving without saying a single word. He
was what one calls in his part of the country “fussy:” a nature inclined
to worry about details and brooding anxiously by himself.
He had no intercourse with any boys of his age, not even in school. Not
that he avoided them on purpose; on the contrary, he liked to help
them, and more than one used to copy, in the morning before prayers, his
arithmetic problems or his German composition; but their interests were
not his, and therefore he could not befriend them.
He also got an abundance of thrashings; especially from the brothers
Erdmann--two saucy, wild-eyed fellows, loved and feared as the strongest
and most daring--he had much to suffer. They were inexhaustible in
the invention of new tricks which imbittered his life: they threw his
copy-books on the top of the stove, filled his satchel with sand, and
let his cap, in which they put a stick for a mast, float down the river
like a boat. Most of these injuries he bore patiently; only once or
twice a blind fury came over him. Then he bit and scratched like a
madman, so that even those companions who were much stronger than he
wisely took to flight. The first time one of the boys had called his
father a drunkard, and another time they wanted to lock him up in a dark
cow-shed with a little girl.
Afterwards he was ashamed, and came of his own accord to beg pardon.
Then they only laughed at him the more, and the hardly-won respect was
lost again.
Learning went on with great difficulty. The task for which his comrades
hardly needed fifteen minutes he required an hour or two to finish. On
the other hand, his handwriting was like copper-plate and there never
was a mistake in his sums.
All the same, no work seemed done well enough to satisfy himself, and
often his mother surprised him as he got up at night on the sly, because
he was afraid that what he had learned by heart had escaped his memory.
That he should go to a better school, like his brothers, was not to be
thought of. His mother had for some time cherished the plan of
letting him follow the two elder ones as soon as they had passed their
examination, for it pained her mother’s heart that he should be behind
the others; but in the end she gave in, and that was certainly for the
best.
Paul himself had never expected anything else. He considered himself as
a creature totally subordinate compared to his brothers, and had long
since given up trying ever to be like them. When they came home for
their holidays--velvet caps on their wavy hair, many-colored ribbons
on their breasts, for they belonged to some forbidden school
corporation--he looked up to them as to beings from a higher world.
Eagerly he listened when they began to talk to each other about Sallust
and Cicero, and the tragedies of Aeschylus--and they liked to speak
about them a great deal, if only to impress him. But the object of his
highest admiration was the thick book, on the first page of which was
written “Table of Logarithms,” and which from the first page to the last
contained nothing but figures--figures in long, close rows, the mere
sight of which made him giddy. “How learned he must be, to have all that
in his head,” he said to himself, caressing the cover of the book, for
he imagined that they had to do no less than learn all those figures by
heart.
The brothers were unusually affable and condescending to him; when they
wished to have anything in the house, when they desired a saddled
horse or an extra stiff glass of grog, they always addressed him
confidentially, and he felt highly honored to be allowed to help them.
As regards farming matters, he was as well acquainted with them as if
he were the master of the house himself; to them were devoted all his
efforts and his care.
What was it that had made him so prematurely serious?
Was it the helplessness of his lonely mother, who had initiated him so
early into all her cares? Was it the brooding, striving spirit, ever
looking to the future, which was peculiar to him?
Very often when he sat musing, his elbows leaning on the table--in his
manners, too, he was quite like a grown-up person--his mother stroked
his hair, and said,
“Let us see a bright face, my boy; be glad that you have no cares yet.”
Oh, he had cares enough! Care cleaved to him like his own flesh and
blood: whether the hen which had strayed to-day would be found again
to-morrow; whether the ointment which his father had brought from the
town yesterday would agree with a dun-colored horse; whether the hay
had been dry enough before it was turned; and how the starlings in the
gutter on the roof would bring up their little ones without the cat
getting at them.
And he had to care about everything. Care had been born with him; only
for himself he never took any care.
The older and more reasonable he grew, the deeper, too, grew his
understanding of the mismanagement which his father had allowed to
prevail, and often a deep sigh came from his breast: “Oh, if I were only
big already!” The fear of his father’s wrath did not let him express
his anxieties, and if ever he dared to speak his mind to his mother, she
looked with fearful eyes all around the room, and said, anxiously, “Be
quiet.”
And yet his father saw very well whither his son’s thoughts tended. He
had given him the nickname of “Cotquean,” and jeered at him whenever
he saw him. That naturally was in his good moments; in his bad ones he
thrashed him with the yard measure, with the handle of the whip, with
the straps of the harness--with whatever was nearest his hand. Paul
feared his hand itself most of all, the blows of which hurt more than
all the sticks in the world. His father had a strange manner of boxing
his ears. He flung his hand into his face with the knuckles outward, so
that the nails and joints left bruises on his cheeks. This kind of blow
he called his “cheek-comforter,” and when he intended beating Paul he
called out to him in the most affable tone, “Come here, my son, I want
to comfort you.”
When he had received his beating he used to run out trembling onto the
heath in shame and pain, and while he made faces and drummed with his
fists, to choke down his tears, he whistled.
In whistling he manifested not only all his longings, his childish
dreams, but also his anger and indignation. The feelings for which his
uncouth mind did not find any expression, for which he lacked words or
even thoughts, he dared in this loneliness to pour forth unchecked by
means of whistling. So his depressed, timid soul found an outlet. Whole
symphonies he executed, shrill and harsh at the beginning, growing
softer and softer, and at last melting away in sadness and resignation.
Nobody guessed the art he practised by himself, and how much consolation
and exultation he owed to that same art--not even his mother.
Since he had seen her break into tears, one winter’s night, as he,
without heeding her, had softly whistled to himself--since that time
he left off as soon as she came near him; he thought it hurt her. What
power was given him in those sounds he little knew.
Only at times he was proud--looking towards the White House--that he
had after all learned to whistle; and when some melody seemed to him
especially good, he thought within himself, “Who knows if you would
laugh at me if you were to hear this?”
But never had he met any of them again.