It was in the month of June on a sunny Sunday afternoon.
Trumpet music sounded softly out of the wood. A great festival was to be
held there to-day. A wandering band had consented to be hired to give
a concert. The country people had come from far and wide, and even the
squires had not refused to participate in it, for such a thing did not
often happen in this quiet part of the world.
Since the middle of the day a long row of carriages had passed the
Haidehof, and old Meyerhofer, who did not like staying at home when
anything was going on, had suddenly been overcome by a fit of kindness,
and called out to his womenfolk to get ready as quickly as possible; he
would sacrifice himself and take them to the festivity.
The twins, who had already for a long time been standing at the
window, looking out with eager sparkling eyes, broke out into a loud
demonstration of joy. Frau Elsbeth gave them a quiet smile and turned to
Paul, who sat silently in his corner and went on cutting little sticks
to tie up the flowers, as if all this did not concern him at all. “Will
you not come, too?” she asked.
“Paul can drive,” cried Meyerhofer, carelessly.
He thanked them and said that his coat was too shabby, and also he
wanted to look after the workmen, who were to come at sunset. The next
morning haymaking was to begin.
The twins looked at him, laid their heads together, and giggled; then,
when he went towards the door, they hung round him, and Katie whispered,
“Listen; we know something.”
“Well, what is it?”
“Something nice,” said Greta, mysteriously.
“Out with it.”
“Elsbeth Douglas has come home again.”
And breaking out into merry laughter they ran away.
Paul at first felt very angry that they dared to mock him; then he
sighed and smiled, and wondered why his heart had suddenly begun to beat
so loudly.
Half an hour later his family drove away.
“Do join us soon,” his mother called down to him from the carriage, and
Katie getting into it whispered into his ear,
“I believe they will be there, too.”
Now he stood quite alone in the deserted courtyard. The servants had
gone to the fields to milk--no human being was to be seen far and wide.
The ducks in their pool had put their heads under their wings, and the
kennel-dog snapped sleepily at the flies.
Paul seated himself on the garden fence and gazed towards the wood, at
the edge of which gay light dresses flitted to and fro, while now and
then there was a bright glitter, when the sunbeams were reflected in the
harness of the waiting carriage-horses.
The evening came; he was still undecided whether he should venture to
follow his family.
A thousand reasons occurred to him which made his staying at home
absolutely necessary, and when it was quite clear to him that he ought
to remain at home and not go anywhere else he put on his Sunday coat and
went to the festival.
It began already to grow dusk as he walked across the sweet-scented
heather. His heart was weighed down with secret fear. He did not dare
to think out the cause, but as he walked past the juniper-bush, beneath
which he once had whistled his most beautiful song to Elsbeth, a pain
shot through his breast as if he had been stabbed.
He stopped and reconsidered whether it would not be better to turn back.
“My coat is much too shabby,” he said to himself; “I can’t show myself
in any decent society.” He took it off and looked at it on all sides.
The back was getting shiny at the seams; at the elbows there was a dull
silver gloss, and the border on the flaps of the breast even showed a
little fringe.
“It won’t do with the best will in the world,” he said, and then he sat
down beneath the juniper-bush and dreamed how smart and elegant he
would look if only he could afford a new coat. “But that won’t be yet
a while,” he continued; “first Max and Gottfried must have permanent
places, and Greta and Katie must have the ball-dresses they wish for,
and mother’s arm-chair must be newly done up--” and the more he thought
the more other things came to his mind which had a prior claim.
Then again he saw himself in a brand-new black suit, patent-leather
shoes on his feet, a fashionable tie round his neck, entering the
dancing-room with a careless, distinguished air, while Elsbeth smiled at
him very respectfully.
Suddenly he started from his dreams. “Oh, fie! what a fop I am growing!”
he scolded himself. “What have I to do with patent-leather shoes and
fashionable ties? And now I will just go in my old coat to the wood.
Besides, it has almost grown dark,” he added, prudently.
Louder sounded the trumpets, and through the branches of the fir-trees
joyful laughter met his ears.
A turfy spot in the wood had been selected for the principal scene of
the festival. In the middle of it stood the platform for the musicians,
on the right the tent of the village innkeeper, who sold sour beer and
sweet cake, and on the left a place for dancing was fenced off, the
entrance to which cost a groschen more, as one might read on a white
board.
Round about in a big circle tables and benches had been placed where the
different families enjoyed the supper they had brought with them, and
through it all a jubilant, giggling, staring crowd was pressing, eager
for either love or a good hand-to-hand fight.
The concert was already finished, the dancing had begun; on the firm,
trodden-down moss the couples circled round breathless and stumbling.
The glow of the sunset lay on the open space, while the wood bordering
it was already buried in darkness. Here were the farm-servants and
maids from the neighboring hamlets; even the coachmen had left their
carriages, because it would have broken their hearts to have looked on
at these love-makings from the distance. Every bush, every small tree
seemed alive, and out of the darkness came low, amorous tittering.
Shyly, like a criminal, Paul slunk round the festive scene. A fear of
strangers had always been his peculiarity, but never yet had his heart
fluttered so anxiously as at this moment.
“Is Elsbeth there?” Nowhere in all the crowd were there any traces of
the inmates of the White House, but then his family also seemed to
have disappeared without leaving any trace. Once he thought the cooing
laughter of the twins caught his ear, but the next moment the noise had
drowned it.
Twice he had already made the round; then suddenly--his heart threatened
to stop from surprise and rapture--he saw, quite close before him, his
mother and father sitting in peaceful intercourse at the same table with
the Douglas family.
His father rested his elbows on the table, and, red with excitement,
talked eagerly to Mr. Douglas. The broad-shouldered giant with the bushy
gray beard listened to him silently, at times nodding and smiling to
himself. The slender, delicate figure with the sunken cheeks and the
blue rings round her eyes, who leaned wearily against the trunk of a
tree and clasped his mother’s hand with her thin white fingers, that was
his godmother, who had always seemed to him like an angel from the other
world. But next to her--next to her, the lady in the modest gray dress,
her fair hair simply combed back--
“Elsbeth! Elsbeth!” cried a voice within him; and then suddenly a wall
of clouds sank down between him and her, and froze his innermost soul,
and veiled his eyes with a damp mist.
Opposite to her sat a gentleman with a saucy-looking fair mustache, and
still more saucy blue eyes, who bent towards her familiarly, while a
smile flitted over her quiet face.
“She will marry that man,” he said to himself, with a conviction which
seemed to be more than a jealous foreboding. With the clear-sightedness
of love he had understood that these two natures harmonized and must
seek each other. And perhaps they had already found one another while he
himself wasted his days in idle dreams.
He stood there as if stunned, and scrutinized the man who suddenly had
rendered it clear to him what he had lost--lost, indeed, without ever
having possessed it.
How could he ever have dared to compare himself to this man that, to a
hair, was the ideal man of whom he had always dreamed?
Bold and energetic and triumphant (that’s what he had meant to be one
day), exactly like the strange young man who looked at Elsbeth with his
frivolous smile. He also wore patent-leather boots and a fashionable
colored necktie, and his suit was made of the finest shining black
cloth.
Almost for an hour Paul stood there without daring to move from his
position, devouring Elsbeth and her vis-à-vis with his eyes.
The night came. He scarcely perceived it. Long rows of lanterns were
lighted, and shed forth an uncertain light on the gay crowd.
“How well I am hidden,” thought Paul, and was glad of the darkness into
which he had crept. He did not see that two men came walking towards him
and were occupying themselves close to him with something on the ground.
Then suddenly, not ten steps away from him, a purple red flame flared up
and flooded all around in a sea of dazzling light.
He wanted to take refuge quickly in the shade of a tree, but it was too
late.
“Isn’t that Paul standing there?” called out his mother.
“Where?” asked Elsbeth, turning with curiosity.
“Boy, why are you hanging about in the dark?” shouted his father.
Then he had to come out, in spite of all; and burning with shame, his
cap in his hand, he stood before Elsbeth, who leaned her head on her
hand and looked up at him smilingly.
“Yes, that’s what he always is: a real sneaker,” said his father, giving
him a clap on the shoulder, and the unknown young gentleman pushed his
hair from his forehead and smiled half good-naturedly, half ironically.
Then old Douglas rose, went up to him, and seized both his hands. “Hold
up your head, young friend,” he called out, with his lion’s voice. “You
have no reason to lower your eyes--you, least of all the world. He who
can at the age of twenty do what you do is a capital fellow and need not
hide himself. I won’t make you conceited, but just ask who could bear
comparison with you. You, perhaps, Leo?” He turned to the young fop, who
answered, with a merry laugh,
“You must make the best of me as I am, dear uncle.”
“If only there was anything in you to make the best of, you
good-for-nothing!” replied Douglas. “This, you must know, is my nephew,
Leo Heller, a new edition of ‘Fritz Triddlefitz.’”
“Uncle, I’ll have my revenge.”
“Be quiet, you scoundrel.”
“Uncle, I’ll wager twenty glasses which of us lies under the table
first.”
“That’s what he calls respect.”
“Uncle, you are pinching me.”
“Be quiet; just look at this young farmer, twenty years old, who keeps
the whole farm going.”
“Well, Mr. Douglas, _I_ count for something, too,” cried Meyerhofer,
with a somewhat lengthened face.
“No offence to you,” the former answered; “but you have so much to do
with your company you naturally cannot bother about such trifles.”
Meyerhofer bowed, flattered, and Paul felt ashamed for him, for he well
understood the irony of these words.
Mrs. Douglas, smiling, beckoned him to come to her. She seized his hand
and stroked it. “You have grown tall and good-looking,” she said, in her
weak, kind voice, “and you have a beautiful beard.”
“But do call him ‘_Du_,’” interrupted his mother, who seemed to be much
easier in her mind than usual. “Paul, ask your godmother.”
“Yes--I entreat you,” said Paul, stammering and blushing anew.
“God bless you, my son,” said Mrs. Douglas; “you have deserved it,” and
then her head again sank against the trunk of the tree.
Paul stood behind the bench and did not know what to do. For the first
time since he was grown up he happened to find himself in strange
society.
His glance met Elsbeth’s, who, resting her head on her hand, looked
round at him.
“I suppose you won’t say ‘How do you do’ to me at all?” she added,
mischievously.
The familiar “_Du_” gave him courage. He stretched his hand out to her,
and asked how she had fared during all this long time.
A shade of sadness flitted across her face. “Not well,” she said,
softly; “but more of that later on when we are alone.”
She made room at her side, and said, “Come.” And as he sat down near her
his elbow touched her neck. Then a thrill went through his body, such as
he had never felt in all his life.
Leo Heller shook hands with him across the table, and said, laughing,
“To our good friendship, you pattern boy, you!”
“I am, unfortunately, not worthy to be taken for a pattern boy,” he
answered, innocently.
“Then be glad; I am not one, either. Nothing is more disgusting to me
than such a pattern boy.”
“Why, then, did you call me so?”
Leo looked at him quite surprised. “Oh, you seem to take everything
literally,” he said.
“Pardon me, I am so little accustomed to joking,” he replied, and a
blush of shame rose to his face. In turning towards Elsbeth he saw that
she was gazing at him with a strangely earnest, searching look. Then a
sudden feeling of bliss rose in his soul. He felt here was one who did
not think him stupid or ridiculous, who understood his nature and the
laws according to which it manifested itself.
While the three were silent his father, at the other end of the table,
continued to expound the plans of his company to Mr. Douglas.
“And if you trust me, sir--but no, you need not even do that--I mean to
say, if you will not frivolously forfeit your own chance--one must never
stand in the way of one’s chance, sir--if you have only just a little
spirit of enterprise--oh, then, yes, then, you know, there are hundreds
and thousands to be earned; the moor is inexhaustible--why let others
grow rich in your stead, sir? On through darkness to light; that’s my
device. I will strive and fight to the last breath; it is not my own
interest which is at stake. It seems to me to be a question for the
welfare of humanity. The aim is to win this barren soil for cultivation,
to give new life-blood to this whole district, to change the poverty of
this country into prosperity--to be a benefactor to humanity, sir.”
And in this tone he swaggered on.
Then suddenly he came quite close to Douglas, as if he wanted to put a
pistol to his head, crying,
“Then will you take shares in it sir?”
Douglas caught a glance from his wife, who quietly pointed towards Frau
Elsbeth, and made him a beseeching sign; then he said, half amused, half
angry, “I don’t mind.”
Paul was again ashamed, for he read in Douglas’s face that for him it
was only a question of the fun of throwing a few hundred thalers out of
the window. He himself knew, too well, that no sensible man could take
his father’s plans in earnest.
“Have you not seen our girls, Paul?” asked his mother, who now seemed no
less constrained than he.
No; he had not seen them anywhere.
“Do go and look about for them; they have gone to the dancing-ground.
Tell them not to be too wild, or else they will catch cold.”
Paul rose.
“I will go with you,” said Elsbeth.
“May I not come too, little cousin?” asked cousin Leo.
“You had better remain here,” she answered, lightly, whereupon he
declared he should be obliged to kill himself for grief.
“A merry bird,” said Paul, with a sigh of envy, as he walked at her side
through the crowd.
“Yes; but nothing more,” she replied.
“Do you like him?”
“Certainly; very much.
“She will marry him, after all,” Paul meditated.
All around people screamed and shouted. A lantern had caught fire, and
a troop of young fellows endeavored to tear it from the cord. Flaming
pieces of paper were flying through the air, and the liquid was spirted
in all directions.
Elsbeth put her arm in his and bent her head on his shoulder. Again that
blissful thrill which he could not explain ran through him.
“There, now I am safe,” she said, in a whisper. “Come to the wood
afterwards, Paul, I have so much to tell you; there we shall be
undisturbed.”
And as she said this he felt quite anxious, out of pure joy.
They had come to the dancing-place. The trumpets resounded, and the
dancers were spinning round and round.
“Shall we dance, too?” she asked, smiling.
“I cannot,” he answered.
“That does not matter,” she said; “for those sort of things Leo does
well enough.”
His foolish dreams which he had had under the juniper-bush to-day
occurred to him.
“So it is with everything that I fancy to myself,” he thought. “I have
still one of your books, Elsbeth,” he said then.
“I know, I know,” she answered, looking up at him with a smile.
“Pardon me that I--”
“Oh, what a fidget you are,” she jested. “Leo meanwhile has ruined my
whole library for me, and wants me now to replenish it for him, because
he has nothing more to read.”
Leo, and still Leo over again.
“Have you read much that is beautiful in it?” she asked him.
“Once I knew everything by heart.”
“And now?”
“Now? Oh, good heavens, I have so much to think of in every-day
life--they won’t fit into my head any longer.”
“Nor into mine, either, Paul. It is because we have seen too much of
life; poetry is lost to us.”
“To you, too?”
She sighed. “My poor mother,” she said.
“What is it?”
“You see, for five years I have been sick-nurse; there are many sad
hours, and when the night-light burns, and one’s eyes hurt with watching
so much, and outside the storm rattles the shutters, many thoughts come
to one about life and death, about love and loneliness--well, in short,
one makes a book of poetry in one’s own head and does not read other
people’s any more. But come away from this noise; I should like to ask
you so much, and here one can hardly hear one’s own voice.”
“Directly,” he said; “I only wanted--”
His eyes wandered searchingly over the dancing-ground, then he heard a
man’s voice behind him, saying:
“Just look at those two little minxes, mad after men.”
Instinctively he turned round, and saw the brothers Erdmann, whom he had
not met for years. They had meanwhile been at an agricultural college
and become grand gentlemen.
“We’ll have fun with them,” said the other.
Thereupon they laughingly mixed among the dancers.
Immediately after, Paul, too, saw his sisters. Their mass of brown curls
hung loose about their faces, their cheeks were aflame, their bosoms
heaved, and their eyes looked wild and eager for love.
“How happy they look--the sweet creatures,” said Elsbeth.
Paul gave them a little sermon. They scarcely heeded him, but looked
over his shoulders, giggling. And when he turned round he saw the two
Erdmanns, who had hidden behind the musicians’ platform and were making
clandestine signs to them.
The twins by this time had escaped him, and the Erdmanns disappeared as
well.
“Come away from here,” said Elsbeth.
He consented, but remained as if rooted to the ground.
“What is the matter?” she asked.
He passed his hand across his brow; he could not get those contemptuous
words which he had overheard out of his head. The sisters were young,
merry, inexperienced, nobody looked after them; if they should lower
themselves in any way, if they--an icy shudder passed through him.
And he, who had vowed to be their faithful guardian, he was going after
his own pleasure, he--
“Come to the wood,” Elsbeth pleaded again.
“I can’t,” he gasped.
She looked at him wonderingly.
“I must--my sisters--nobody is with them. Do not be angry.”
“Take me back to the table,” she said.
He did so. Neither spoke a word.
Five minutes later he came upon his sisters, who, arm in arm with the
Erdmanns, were trying to slip off to the wood.
“Where are you going?” he asked, stepping between them.
They lowered their eyes in embarrassment, and Katie stammered,
“We--wanted to go for a little walk.”
The brothers Erdmann took the tone of good-fellowship, shook hands with
him heartily, and wished most ardently to renew the friendship of their
youthful days. Behind his back they shook their fists at him.
“You will go at once to your mother,” he said to the twins, and as they
began to sulk he took their arms and drew them away. The table was half
deserted. The Douglas family had left the festival.
Then he went into the wood and reflected on what Elsbeth might have
wished to tell him.
But it was not to be--something always came between them.