'Well, Robbie, you have found a nice little companion.'
What did it all mean? The deep lines gathered again above Johannes's
dark childlike eyes, and he looked about him in bewilderment and alarm.
A man dressed in black sat near him, looking at him with cold, grey
eyes.
'So you want to see the Book of Books? I am surprised that your father,
whom I know for a pious man, should not have put it into your hands
before now.'
'You do not know my father; he is far, far away.'
'Indeed! Well, it is the same thing. Look here, my little friend! Read
this diligently; it shall show you the way of life----'
But Johannes had already recognised the Book. This was not what he
wanted. No, something very different. He shook his head.
'No, no! that is not what I mean. I know this Book. This is not it.'
He heard exclamations of surprise, and felt the looks which were fixed
on him from all sides.
'What? What do you mean, little man?'
'I know this book. It is the book men believe in. But there is not
enough in it--if there were, there would be peace and goodwill among
men. And there is none. I mean something different--something which no
one can doubt who sees it; in which it is written, precisely and
clearly, why everything is as it is.'
'How is that possible? Where can the boy have picked up such a notion?'
'Who taught you that, my little friend?'
'I am afraid that you have read some wicked books, child, and are
talking like them.'
Thus spoke the various voices. Johannes felt his cheeks burning--his
eyes were dim and dazzled--the room turned round, and the huge flowers
on the carpet swayed up and down. Where was the little mouse who had so
faithfully helped him that day in the school-room? He wanted her badly.
'I am not talking like any book, and he who taught me what I know is
worth more than all of you together. I know the language of flowers and
animals, and am friends with them all. And I know too what men are, and
how they live. I know all the fairies' secrets and the wood-sprites';
for they all love me--more than men do.'
Oh Mousey, Mousey!
Johannes heard sounds of disapprobation and laughter behind him, and all
sides. There was a singing and roaring in his ears.
'He seems to have read Hans Andersen's tales.'
'He is not quite right in his head.'
The man opposite to him said: 'If you know Andersen, my little man, you
ought to have more of his reverence for God and His Word.'
'For God!' He knew that word, and he remembered Windekind's teaching.
'I have no reverence for God. God is a great Petroleum-lamp which leads
thousands to misery and misfortune.'
There was no laughter now, but a terrible silence, in which horror and
amazement might be felt on all sides. Johannes was conscious of piercing
looks, even at his back. It was like his dream of the night before. The
man in black stood up and took him by the arm. This hurt him and almost
crushed his courage.
'Listen to me, youngster: I do not know whether you are utterly ignorant
or utterly depraved, but I suffer no ungodly talk here. Go away, and
never come in my sight again, I advise you. I will keep an eye on what
becomes of you, but you never more set foot in this house. Do you
understand?'
Every face was cold and hostile as he had seen them in his dream.
Johannes looked about him in anguish.
'Robinetta--where is Robinetta?'
'Ay indeed! You would contaminate my child! Beware if you ever dare to
come here again!' And the cruel grip led him down the echoing
passage--the glass door slammed--and Johannes found himself outside,
under the black driving clouds.
He did not turn round, but stared straight before him as he slowly
walked away. The sad furrows above his eyes were deeper, and did not
smooth out again.
The Redbreast sat in a lime hedge looking after him. He stopped and
gazed back, but did not speak; but there was no longer any confidence in
the bird's timid sharp little eyes, and when Johannes took a step
nearer, the quick little creature shot away in hasty flight.
'Away, away! Here is a man!' piped the sparrows who were sitting in a
row on the garden path, and they fluttered away in all directions. Even
the open blossoms laughed no more, but looked grave and indifferent, as
they do to all strangers. Still Johannes did not heed these signs, but
only thought how cruelly he had been hurt by those men; it was as
though a cold hard hand had been laid on his inmost secret soul. 'They
shall believe me yet!' thought he. 'I will fetch my little key and show
it to them.'
'Johannes, Johannes!' called a tiny voice. There was a bird's nest in a
holly bush and Wistik's big eyes peeped out over the edge of it. 'Where
are you off to?'
'It is all your fault!' said Johannes. 'Leave me in peace.'
'What took you to talk with men? Men can never understand you. Why do
you tell men such things? It is most foolish.'
'They laughed at me, and hurt me. They are detestable creatures! I hate
them.'
'No, Johannes; you love them.'
'No, no!'
'If you did not, it would not vex you so much to find yourself different
from them; it could not matter to you what they say. You must learn to
care less.'
'I want my key. I want to show it to them.'
'You must not do that; and they would not even then believe you. Of what
use would it be?'
'I want my little key from under the rose-bush. Do you know where to
find it?'
'Yes, certainly; by the pool you mean? Yes, I know it.'
'Then take me there, Wistik.'
Wistik clambered up on Johannes's shoulder and showed him the way. They
went on and on, all the day; the wind blew, and heavy rain fell from
time to time, but towards evening the clouds ceased driving, and packed
into long grey and gold bars. When they reached the sand-hills which
Johannes knew so well, his heart was sad within him, and he whispered
again and again, 'Windekind, Windekind!'
There was the rabbit-hole, and the sand-hill where he had fallen asleep.
The grey reindeer-moss was soft and damp, and did not crack under his
feet. The roses were all over, and the yellow evening-primroses with
their faint oppressive scent opened their cups by hundreds. Higher yet
grew the tall mulleins with their thick woolly leaves. Johannes looked
carefully to espy the small russet leaves of the wild rose.
'Where is it, Wistik? I do not see it.'
'I know nothing of it,' said Wistik. 'You buried the key, not I.'
Where the rose-tree had stood there was a plot covered with yellow
Oenotheras staring heedlessly at the sky. Johannes questioned them, and
the mullein too; but they were much too proud, for their tall stems rose
far above his head; so he asked the little three-coloured pansies on the
sandy ground. However, no one knew anything of the wild rose. They were
all new-comers this summer, even the mullein, arrogant and tall as it
was.
'Oh! where is it? where is it?'
'Have you too deceived me?' cried Wistik. 'I expected it; it is always
so with men.'
And he let himself slip down from Johannes's shoulder, and ran away
among the broom. Johannes looked about him in despair--there stood a
tiny wild rose-bush.
'Where is the big rose-bush?' asked Johannes; 'the big one which used to
stand here?'
'We never talk with human creatures,' said the shrub.
That was the last thing he heard; everything remained silent. Only the
broom-shrubs sighed in the light evening breeze.
'Am I then a man?' thought Johannes. 'No! it cannot be, it cannot be! I
will not be a man! I hate men!'
He was tired and sick at heart. He lay down at the edge of the meadow,
on the soft grey moss which gave out a strong, damp scent.
'Now I cannot find my way back, and shall never see Robinetta again.
Shall I not die if I have not Robinetta? Shall I live and grow to be a
man--a man like those others who laughed at me?'
On a sudden he saw once more the two white butterflies which came flying
towards him from the side where the sun was setting. He watched them
anxiously; would they show him the way? They fluttered over his head,
sometimes close together and sometimes far apart, flitting about as if
in whimsical play. By degrees they went farther and farther from the
sun, and vanished at last over the ridge of the sand-hills towards the
wood, where only the topmost boughs were now red in the evening glow
which blazed out brightly from beneath the long dark levels of cloud.
Johannes rose and went after them, but as they flew up over the first
trees he saw that a black shadow followed them and overtook them with
noiseless flight. The next instant they were gone. The black shade
pounced swiftly down on them, and Johannes in terror covered his face
with his hands.
'Well, my little friend, what have you to cry about?' said a sharp
mocking voice close at hand. Johannes had seen a big bat coming towards
him, but when he now looked up a little black dwarf not much taller than
himself was standing on the sand-hill. He had a large head with big ears
which stuck out dark against the bright evening sky; a lean shape and
thin legs. Johannes could see nothing of his face but the small
twinkling eyes.
'Have you lost anything, my little fellow? Can I help you seek it?' said
he. But Johannes shook his head in silence.
'Look here. Would you like to have these?' he began again, opening his
hand. In it Johannes saw something white which still moved a little.
This was the two white butterflies, their crushed and broken wings
quivering in their death-struggle. Johannes shuddered as though some one
had blown against the nape of his neck, and he looked up in alarm at the
strange being.
'Who are you?' he asked.
'You would like to know my name? Well, call me Pluizer[1]--simply
Pluizer. I have other prettier names, but you would not understand them
yet.'
'Are you a man?'
'Better and better! Well, I have arms and legs and a head--see what a
head--and the boy asks me whether lama man! Why, Johannes, Johannes!'
And the mannikin laughed with a shrill piercing note.
'How do you know who I am?' asked Johannes.
'Oh, that, to me, is a mere trifle. I know a great deal more than that.
I know whence you have come and what you came to do. I know a wonderful
deal--almost everything.'
'Ah, Master Pluizer----'
'Pluizer, Pluizer--without any fine words.'
'Then do you know anything----' but Johannes was suddenly silent. 'He is
a man,' thought he.
'Of the little key, do you mean? Why, to be sure!'
'But I did not think that any man could know about that.'
'Foolish boy! Besides, Wistik has told me all about it.'
'Then do you know Wistik too?'
'Oh yes! One of my best friends--and I have many friends. But I know it
without Wistik. I know a great deal more than Wistik. Wistik is a very
good fellow--but stupid, uncommonly stupid. Now, I am not! Far from it!'
And Pluizer tapped his big head with his lean little hand. 'Do you know,
Johannes,' he went on, 'what Wistik's great defect is?--but you must
never tell him, for he would be very angry.'
'Well, what is it?' said Johannes.
'He does not exist. That is a great defect, but he does not admit it.
And he says the same of me, that I do not exist. But that is a lie. I
not exist, indeed! What next, I wonder?'
And Pluizer put the butterflies into his satchel, and suddenly turning a
somersault stood before Johannes on his head. Then, with a hideous
grin, he stuck out a vile long tongue. Johannes, who did not feel at all
at his ease alone with this strange being in the growing dusk on the
deserted sand-hills, now fairly quaked with fear.
'This is a delightful manner of surveying the world,' said Pluizer,
still upside down. 'If you like I will teach you to do it. You see
everything much clearer, and more life-like.' And he flourished his
little legs in the air and waltzed round on his hands. As the red light
fell on his inverted face Johannes thought it perfectly horrible; those
little eyes twinkled in the glow and showed the whites at the lower edge
where it is not generally visible.
'You see, in this position the clouds seem to be the ground and the
earth the top of the world. It is just as easy to maintain that as the
converse. There is really no above or below. A very pretty place to walk
on those clouds must be!'
Johannes looked up at the long stretches of cloud. They looked to him
like a ploughed land, with red furrows, as though blood welled up from
it. Just over the pool yawned the gate of the cloud-grotto.
'Can any one go there and enter in?' he asked.
'What nonsense!' said Pluizer, suddenly standing on his feet again, to
Johannes's great relief, 'Nonsense! If you were there you would find it
just the same as here, and it would look as beautiful as that further on
again. But in those lovely clouds it is all foggy and grey and cold.'
'I do not believe you,' cried Johannes. 'Now I see you really are a
man.'
'Come, come! You do not believe me, my little friend, because I am a
man? And what sort of creature are you then, I should like to know?'
'O Pluizer! Am I, too, really a man?'
'What do you suppose? An elf? Elves are never in love.' And Pluizer
unexpectedly sat down on the ground at Johannes's feet with his leg
crossed under him, staring at him with a villainous grin. Johannes was
unutterably embarrassed and uncomfortable under his gaze, and wished he
could escape or become invisible. But he could not even take his eyes
off him. 'Only men fall in love, Johannes, d'ye hear! And so much the
better, or there would be none left by this time. And you are in love
like the best of them, although you are but a little fellow. Of whom
are you thinking at this moment?'
'Of Robinetta,' whispered Johannes, hardly above his breath.
'Whom do you most long for?'
'Robinetta.'
'Without whom do you think you could not live?' Johannes's lips moved
silently: 'Robinetta.'
'Well then, youngster,' grinned Pluizer, 'what made you fancy that you
could be an elf? Elves do not love the daughters of men.'
'But it was Windekind,' Johannes stammered out in his bewilderment. But
Pluizer flew into a terrible rage and his bony fingers gripped Johannes
by the ears.
'What folly is this? Would you try to frighten me with that
whippersnapper thing? He is a greater simpleton than Wistik--much
greater. He knows nothing at all. And what is worse, he does not exist
in any sense, and never has existed. I only exist, do you understand?
And if you do not believe me, I will let you feel what I am.' And he
shook the hapless Johannes by the ears.