The clear warm sunshine of an early spring morning shone down on the
great city. Its bright rays fell into the room where Johannes lived, and
on the low ceiling danced and flickered a large patch of light reflected
from the rippling water in the canal. Johannes sat by the window in the
sunshine, looking out over the town. Its aspect was completely changed.
The grey fog was now a sheeny blue sun-mist, veiling the end of the long
streets and the distant towers. The slopes of the slate roofs shone like
silver. All the houses showed clear outlines and bright surfaces in the
sunshine; the pale blue atmosphere was full of glittering warmth. The
water seemed alive. The brown buds of the elm-trees were swollen and
shiny, and loudly-chirping sparrows fluttered among the branches. A
strange feeling came over Johannes as he sat looking out on it all. The
sunshine filled him with sweet vague emotion, a mixture of oblivion and
ecstasy. He gazed dreamily at the dancing ripples, the bursting
leaf-buds; he listened to the chirping of the birds. There was gladness
in their tune.
He had not for a long time felt so soft at heart, nor for many a day
been so happy.
This was the sunshine of old; he knew it well. This was the sun which of
yore called him forth--out into the garden where, under the shelter of a
low wall, he would stretch himself on the warm ground, where he might
for hours enjoy the light and heat, gazing before him at the grasses and
sods basking in the glow.
He was glad in that light; it gave him a safe home-like feeling, such as
he remembered long ago when his mother held him in her arms. He thought
of all he had gone through, but without either grieving or longing. He
sat still and mused, wishing nothing more than that the sun might
continue to shine.
'What are you about, mooning there?' cried Pluizer. 'You know I do not
approve of dreaming.'
Johannes looked up with absent, imploring eyes. 'Leave me alone for a
little longer,' said he; 'the sun is so good!'
'What can you find in the sun?' said Pluizer. 'It is nothing, after all,
but a big candle--sunlight or candlelight, it is all the same in the
end. Look at the patches of light and shadow in the street--they are
nothing more than the effect of a light which burns steadily and does
not nicker. And that light is really quite a small flame shining on a
quite small speck of the universe. Out there, beyond the blue, above and
beneath, it is dark,--cold and dark! It is night there, now and always.'
But his words had no effect on Johannes. The calm warm sunbeams had
penetrated him, bathed his whole soul--he was full of light and peace.
Pluizer carried him off to Doctor Cypher's cold house. For some time yet
the sunny images floated before his brain; then they slowly faded away,
and by the middle of the day all was dark again within him.
But when evening came he made his way through the town once more, the
air was soft and full of the vapourous odours of the past. Only the
fragrance was ten times stronger, and oppressed him in the narrow
streets. But as he crossed the open square he smelt the grass and leaves
from the country beyond. And overhead he saw the spring in the tranquil
little clouds and the tender rose of the western sky. The twilight shed
a soft grey mist, full of delicate tints, over the town. The streets
were quiet, only a grinding organ in the distance played a love-sick
tune; the houses stood out black against the crimson heavens, their
fantastic pinnacles and chimneys stretching up like numberless arms.
To Johannes it was as though the sun were giving him a kind smile as he
shed his last beams over the great city--kind, like the smile which
seals a pardon. And the warmth stroked Johannes's cheek with a caress.
Deep tenderness came over his soul, so great that he could walk no
farther, but lifted up his face to the wide heavens with a deep sigh.
The Spring was calling to him and he heard it. He longed to answer--to
go. His heart was full of repentance and love and forgiveness. He gazed
up with longing tears flowing from his sad eyes.
'Come, Johannes! do not behave so strangely; people are staring at you!'
cried Pluizer.
The long monotonous rows of houses stretched away on each side, gloomy
and repulsive--an offence in the soft atmosphere, a discord in the
voices of the Spring.
The folk were sitting at their doors and on the steps, to enjoy the
warmth. To Johannes this was a mockery. The squalid doors stood open and
the stuffy rooms within awaited their inhabitants. The organ was still
grinding out its melancholy tune in the distance.
'Oh, if I could but fly away--far away! To the sand-hills and the sea!'
But he must needs go home to the little garret room; and that night he
could not sleep.
He could not help thinking of his father, and of the long walks he had
been used to take with him, when he trotted ten yards behind, or his
father traced letters for him in the sand. He thought of the spots where
the violets grew under the brushwood, and of the days when he and his
father had hunted for them. All the night he saw his father's face just
as he had seen him in the evenings when he sat by his side in the
silence and lamplight, watching him and listening to the scratching of
his pen.
Every morning now he asked Pluizer when he might once more go home to
his father, and see the garden and the sand-hills again. And he
perceived now that he had loved his father more than Presto, or his
little room, for it was of him that he asked--
'Tell me how he is, and if he is not angry with me for staying away so
long.'
Pluizer shrugged his shoulders. 'Even if I could tell you, what good
would it do you?'
But the spring still called him, louder and louder. Night after night he
dreamed of the dark green moss and the downs, and the sunbeams falling
through the fine, fresh verdure.
'I can bear it no longer,' thought Johannes. 'I cannot stay.'
And as he could not sleep he softly got out of bed, went to the window,
and looked out on the night. He saw the drowsy, fleecy clouds slowly
sailing beneath the full moon, peacefully floating in a sea of pale
light. He thought of the downs far away, sleeping through the warm
night; how beautiful it must be in the low woods where none of the baby
leaves would be stirring, and where the air was smelling of damp moss
and young birch sprouts! He fancied he could hear the rising chorus of
frogs, sounding mysteriously from afar over the meadows, and the pipe of
the only bird which accompanies the solemn stillness--which begins its
song with such soft lament and breaks off so suddenly that the silence
seems more still than before. And it called to him--everything called to
him. He bowed his head on the window-sill and sobbed in his sleeve.
'I cannot, I cannot bear it! I shall die soon, if I do not get away!'
When Pluizer came to call him next day he was still sitting by the
window, where he had fallen asleep with his head on his arm.
The days went by, longer and warmer, and still there was no change. But
Johannes did not die, and had to bear his troubles.