Paul now began to help with the farming. He faithfully kept the vow
which he had made on the morning of his confirmation. He worked like
the meanest of his servants, and when his mother begged him to spare
himself, he kissed her hand and replied, “You know we have a great deal
to make good.”
In the evening, when the servants had retired to rest and the twins had
frollicked till they fell asleep, mother and son often sat together for
hours and planned and calculated; but when some resolution had ripened
within them and a gleam of hope shone from their eyes, it often happened
that they would suddenly start and let their heads droop with a sigh;
but neither of them gave utterance to that which weighed on their minds.
About this time Frau Elsbeth began to age rapidly. Long, deep furrows
lined her face, her chin became very prominent, and silver streaks
appeared in her hair. Only from the depths of her sorrowful eyes one
could still see how beautiful she had once been.
“Yes, you see, I am quite an old woman now,” she said to her son one
morning, as she combed her hair before the looking-glass, “and luck has
never yet come.”
“Hush, mother, what else am I here for?” he answered, though he did not
feel hopeful at all.
Then she smiled sadly, stroked his cheeks and his brow, and said, “Yes,
you certainly look as if you had caught luck in its flight! but I won’t
speak like this,” she continued; “what should I do without you?”
Such moments of overflowing love had to satisfy them for a long time,
for often months passed by without mother or son daring to say any
loving words to each other; their hearts were too sorrowful.
The twins meanwhile grew up--two frolicksome, apple-cheeked tomboys,
for whom no tree was too high, no ditch too deep. Their curly brown hair
fell over their foreheads in a thousand little ringlets, and beneath
them two pairs of eyes peeped out, as full of mischief and as sparkling,
both with shyness and impudence, as if a stray sunbeam were laughing out
of black forest depths.
The laughter of these two resounded from morning to night through the
lonely Howdahs, and the quietness when they were at school or running
about in the open fields was the more oppressive.
It was all the same to the twins whether there was sunshine or storm
in the house; their heads were always full of tricks, and when at times
their father’s storming grew too insupportable and they deemed it more
prudent to, hide behind the stove, they made up for it there by pinching
one another’s legs.
They were devoted to Paul, which, however, did not prevent them from
quietly claiming as their property the best morsels from his plate, the
whitest sheets of paper from his writing-case, and the finest buttons
off his trousers, for they used to steal like magpies.
He was very anxious about them, for he feared they would become wilder
and wilder, especially as his mother grew more tired and despondent,
and left matters to take their own course. But he began his educational
experiments at the wrong end. His warnings were of no avail, and once as
he was in the middle of a beautiful sermon one of them suddenly jumped
on his knee, pulled his nose, and called out to his sister, “Fanny, he
is getting a beard.”
Then the other one climbed after her, and both of them tried who could
pinch him the most. But when he got seriously angry with them, they
began to sulk, and said, “Fie, we won’t speak to you any more.”
He had not seen Elsbeth again since the day of their confirmation,
though a whole year had elapsed meanwhile.
It was said she had been sent to town to learn there how to move in
society. This word had given his heart a pang; he scarcely knew what it
meant, but he vaguely felt that she was farther and farther removed from
him.
But it happened one day about Easter-tide that he had to work on a piece
of ground which lay removed from the other fields and far away at the
edge of the wood. He was sowing the seed himself, and a servant with two
horses went harrowing after him.
He wore a big seed-cloth round his shoulders, and watched with quiet
pleasure how the grains sparkled like a golden fountain as they sank
into the earth. Then it seemed to him that he saw something bright
between the dark trunks of the trees, rocking up and down like a cradle
suspended in the air. But he scarcely allowed himself time to notice it,
for sowing is the kind of work which requires all one’s attention.
At length the pause for breakfast came. The servant sat down on a sack
of corn, but he himself, feeling hot, went towards the wood to be in the
shade.
He threw a passing glance at the suspended cradle, and thought, “That
must be a hammock;” but he little cared who was lying in it.
Then suddenly it seemed to him as if he heard his name called.
“Paul, Paul!” It sounded sweet and familiar, and in a soft, clear voice,
which he seem to know.
He started and looked up.
“Paul, do come here,” the voice called again.
He turned hot and cold, for now he well knew who it was.
He cast a shy look at his working-suit, and began to untie the knots of
his seed-cloth; but it slipped round to the back of his neck, so that he
could not reach it.
“Do come as you are,” called out the voice; and now he could see how
the upper part of her body raised itself from the hammock, while a book,
bound in red and gold, glided from her hands and fell to the ground.
Hesitatingly he approached, trying secretly to wipe his boots in the
moss, for the soil of the fields was sticking to them.
She on her part had only this moment perceived that her feet and white
stockings showed beneath her dress, and hastily tried to cover them with
the shawl which had been put round her shoulders. But she could not pull
it from under her arms, and she could think of nothing better than to
crouch down quickly so that she looked like a hen, while the hammock
swayed to and fro.
Perhaps she might have had the intention to impress him a little with
her elegance and freshly-acquired social education, but now, as fate
would have it, she did not look at him less blushingly or shyly than he
at her.
On his side he observed nothing of her state of mind; he only saw that
she had grown very beautiful, that her hair was twisted up into a very
aristocratic knot, and that the bow at her bosom trembled slightly on
her rounded form. It was quite clear to him that she had now grown into
a lady.
A long while elapsed before either of them spoke a word.
“Good-day,” she said, at last, with a little laugh, and stretched out
her right hand to him, for she soon saw that she had the best of it.
He was silent and smiled at her.
“Help me to pull out my shawl,” she continued.
He did so.
“That’s it; now turn round.”
He did that, too.
“Now it’s all right.” She had made herself comfortable, thrown the shawl
quickly over her feet again, and was looking up at him roguishly through
the meshes of the hammock. “It’s really delightful to be with you
again,” she said; “you are the best of them all. Have you also been
longing for me?”
“No,” he answered, truthfully.
“Oh, get away with you!” she replied, and, pouting, tried to turn over
to the other side; but the hammock began to sway too much again, so she
laughed and remained lying as she was.
He wondered inwardly at her being so merry. He never heard any one laugh
like that, except the twins, and they were children. But this laugh gave
him back his self-possession, for he felt instinctively how much older
than she he had grown during the interval.
“I suppose you have been very happy all this time?” he asked.
“Thank God, yes!” she replied. “Mamma is always rather delicate, but
that is all.” A shadow passed over her face, but disappeared again the
next moment, and then she chatted on: “I have been in town--oh dear,
what I have gone through there! I must tell you about it at the first
opportunity. I have had dancing lessons. I have also had admirers--you
can fancy that! They serenaded me under my windows, sent me anonymous
bouquets, and verses, too--original verses! There was a student, among
others, with a white-braided coat, and a green, white, and red cap; oh,
he understood it! The things he would say to you! Afterwards he
engaged himself to Betty Schirrmacher, one of my friends, but quite in
secret--nobody knows it but myself.”
Paul breathed freely again, for the student had already begun to make
him uncomfortable.
“And were you not vexed?” he asked.
“Why?”
“At his being fickle to you.”
“No; we are above such things,” she replied, shugging her shoulders.
“Oh, you know--they are all stupid boys in comparison with you!”
He felt quite frightened at the idea of calling a student a stupid boy,
and, above all, in comparison with him.
“My brother is no stupid boy,” he retorted.
“I don’t know your brother,” she said, with philosophic calmness;
“perhaps he is not. Oh, I have grown ever so much older,” she went
on. “I took literature lessons, and from that I learned many beautiful
things.”
Tormenting envy awoke in him.
“Do pick up that book.”
He did so.
“Do you know that?”
In gold letters he read on the red cover the words, “Heine’s Buch der
Lieder” (Heine’s Book of Songs), and shook his head sadly.
“Ah, then you don’t know anything! Oh, how much there is in that book! I
must lend it to you. There, read that; it teaches one a great deal. And
after reading it for a little while one generally begins to cry.”
“Is it so sad, then?” he asked, looking at the cover with shy curiosity.
“Yes, very sad; as beautiful and as sad as--as--It only speaks of love,
of nothing else; but you feel such a great longing overpower you, and
that you would like to fly off to the Ganges, where the lotus blossoms,
and where--” She stopped, and then she laughed merrily and said, “Oh,
that is too stupid; is it not?”
“What?”
“What I am chattering about.”
“No; I could listen to you for my whole life.”
“No! could you? Oh, you know--it is so cosey here; I feel so secure when
you are near me,” and she stretched herself out in the net-work as if
she wanted to lean her head on his shoulder.
A strange feeling of happiness and peace came over him, such as he had
not felt for a long time.
“Why do you look away?” she asked.
“I don’t look away.”
“Yes, you do.... You must look at me. I like that.... You have such
earnest, faithful eyes. Oh, I know now what to compare those poems
with!”
“Well, with what?”
“With your whistling. That is also so--so--well, you know what I
mean.... Do you still whistle sometimes?”
“Very seldom.”
“And you have not learned to play the flute either, I suppose?”
“No.”
“Oh, fie! If you love me, you will learn it.... I will give you a
beautiful flute next time.”
“I have nothing to give you in return.”
“Oh yes--you shall give me all the songs which you play. And when
your heart is very sad ... well, only read that book; everything is in
there.”
Paul looked at it from all sides. “What a wonderful book it must be!” he
thought.
“And now tell me something about yourself,” she said. “What are you
doing? What are you working at? How is your dear mamma?”
Paul gave her a grateful glance. He felt he could speak to-day of all
that was in his heart; then it suddenly occurred to him that the pause
for breakfast was long over, and that the servant was waiting for him
with the horses. By noon he must finish, for after dinner the cart was
to drive to the town with a load of peat which he had had secretly cut.
“I must go to work,” he faltered.
“Oh, what a pity! And when will you have done?”
“At dinner-time.”
“I can’t wait so long as that or mamma will be uneasy. But in the next
few days do come and look here again--perhaps you’ll find me. Now I
shall lie here for another hour or so and watch you. It looks quite
splendid when you walk up and down in your big snowy white cloth and the
grain flies round you.”
He gave her his hand silently and went away.
“I shall leave the book here,” she called after him; “fetch it when you
have finished.”
The servant smiled knowingly when he saw him come, and Paul hardly dared
to raise his eyes to him.
Each time when he passed at his work the place where she was resting
in the wood she raised herself up a little and waved to him with her
pocket-handkerchief. About twelve o’clock she rolled up her hammock,
stepped to the edge of the wood, and called out a farewell to him
through her folded hands.
He took off his cap to thank her, but the servant looked the other way
and whistled softly, as if he had seen nothing.
During dinner that day his mother could not take her eyes from her son,
and when they were alone she went up to him, took his head in both her
hands, and said,
“What has happened to you, my boy?”
“Why?” he asked, with embarrassment.
“Your eyes sparkle so suspiciously.”
He laughed loudly and ran away; but when at supper she still looked at
him--inquiringly and sadly--he was sorry that he had not given her his
confidence, and went after her and confessed all that had happened to
him.
Then her haggard face suddenly lit up as by a ray of sunshine, and while
he crept away ashamed, with glowing cheeks, she looked after him with
moist eyes and folded her hands as if in prayer.
He sat up in his room till nearly midnight, his head leaning on his
hands. The mysterious book was lying on his knee; but he could not read
it, because his father had forbidden him to burn a light at night. He
had to wait till Sunday.
He was musing on how she had altered. If only she had not laughed so
often; her mirth estranged her from him, and the full blooming life by
which she was surrounded removed her far away into that distant country
where happy people live. And although she appeared as good and kind as
ever, she could not fail to despise him sooner or later because he was
nothing but a peasant, and stupid and awkward into the bargain.
A wild tumult of happiness, shame, and self-reproach raged within him,
for he thought he might have behaved in a much more dignified manner.
An unaccountable fear was mixed up with it all which almost choked
him, though in vain he racked his mind to find out whom this fear was
connected with.
The next afternoon he could see from the yard, where he was putting up
some poles, something white moving to and fro at the edge of the wood.
He set his teeth with pain and vexation, but could not make up his mind
to abandon his work.
For two days more the white was to be seen there--then it disappeared
altogether.
On Sunday morning he took the book of poems out of his box and went
with it towards the wood. At dinner-time he was still absent, and in the
evening the twins, who were playing at hide-and-seek on the heath, found
him whistling under a juniper-bush with the tears streaming down his
cheeks.
Thus he translated the “Buch der Lieder” into his own language.
* * * * *
A short time afterwards he heard that Mrs. Douglas had been ordered by
the doctor to make a prolonged stay in the South, and that Elsbeth would
accompany her thither.
“It is all right so,” he said to himself. “She will no longer haunt me,
then.” For a long time he was uncertain whether to send her book back or
not; he would have liked to keep it, but his conscience would not allow
him. He waited for a favorable opportunity of returning it till he heard
that they had gone. Then he was satisfied.