"My first inquiry the next morning was for the old woman. She was gone,
I learned, and the Fraeulein was already with the stranger in her room.
'Anna Maria's education is beginning,' I said with a sigh, and ate my
rye porridge less cheerfully than usual. Yesterday lay behind me like a
confused dream, and Susanna's presence in the house oppressed me with
the weight of a mountain. Soon I heard Anna Maria's metallic voice in
the corridor; she was speaking French, so speaking to Susanna at all
events. I caught only a few disconnected words, before she knocked at my
door, and came into the room with the young girl.
"'We wish to say good-morning to you, aunt,' she began pleasantly. I
gave a searching glance at Susanna; a pair of great tears still hung on
her lashes, but the laugh--which was her element--lay hidden in the
dimples of her cheeks and shone from her beautiful eyes, as if only
waiting an opportunity to break forth.
"She wore her black travelling-dress of yesterday, but Anna Maria had
tied a woollen wrap about her shoulders. In spite of that, the sight of
her was like a ray of sunshine.
"'I would like to ask, Aunt Rosamond,' said Anna Maria, 'if you have
some little duty for Susanna, and beg you to let her profit, in the
future, by your skill in needlework. I have been examining her--she can
do nothing!'
"'Certainly, Anna Maria!' I was glad to have, in a certain degree, a
slight claim on the girl. 'Do you like knitting, Susanna?' I asked.
"She laughed and shook her head. 'Oh, no, no! I grow dizzy when I see
knitting always round and round.'
"Anna Maria did not seem to hear this answer. 'Fraeulein von Hegewitz
will teach you netting and plain knitting,' she said; 'with me you shall
learn to understand the mysteries of housekeeping. And now we will have
breakfast, and then begin at once. Klaus has been in the field for a
long time already,' she added; 'the first grass is to be cut to-day.'
"And they went. Susanna tripped along, with hanging head, behind Anna
Maria. 'Is she pursuing the right method with this child?' I wondered.
'With her energy she will destroy all at once, all the results of former
education; but it surely is not possible. God help her to the right
way!'
"Later, as I was taking my walk through the garden, I saw Susanna coming
along by the pond; she did not walk, she actually flew, with
outstretched arms, as if she would press to her heart the green tops of
the old trees, the golden sunshine, and all the birds singing so
jubilantly to-day, and all nature. Her short skirts were flying, the
woollen wrap had disappeared, and her white shoulders emerged like wax
from the deep black of her dress. Indescribably charming she looked,
thus rushing along; she must have escaped somehow from Anna Maria. Close
by my hiding-place she stood still, and looked up at the blue sky; then,
singing lightly, she stooped, picked a narcissus and fastened the white
flowers in her bosom, and then put her hand into her dress pocket, and
drew out something which she put quickly into her mouth, but which did
not interfere with her singing, for now as she went on she trilled the
words:
'Batti, batti, o bel Masetto
la tua povera Zerlina.'
"I followed her slowly, and observed lying in the path a little object
wrapped in white paper, which she had evidently lost. 'A bonbon! Well,
that is the height of folly!' said I, taking it up in vexation. 'One
could not expect anything different from such bringing up.' And as I
unwrapped the thing, I found in it a French motto, a more sugary and
frivolous one than which could scarcely have been composed in the time
of Louis XIV., supposing that bonbon mottoes were known at that time.
'If Anna Maria knew of this, with her pure, maidenly mind!' I thought,
shaking my head. 'Oh, Klaus, for my part, I wish your bird of paradise
were in the moon, at any rate not here.' I overtook her at the next turn
of the path, where there was a red thorn in the splendor of full bloom;
it bent its branches almost humbly under this superabundance of rosy
adornment, at which Susanna was looking admiringly.
"'Oh, how charming!' she cried, as she saw me. 'Oh, how wonderfully
beautiful!' And the purest joy shone from her eyes. How did that accord
with the bonbon motto?
"In that moment I resolved not to lose confidence in the girl's
character, and at every opportunity to help lift the young spirit into
higher regions. I have honestly striven to fulfil this promise. I may
testify to it to myself--not so violently, not in so dictatorial and
severe a manner as Anna Maria did I proceed; not like Klaus either. Ah,
me--Klaus! Those first eight weeks in general! Ah, if I only knew how to
describe the time which now followed! There is so little to say, and yet
such an immense change was brought about in our house.
"Whether Susanna Mattoni ever missed her old nurse, I did not know. When
she awoke on that first morning and found Anna Maria by her bed instead
of the little actress, to inform her that the latter had left the house,
great tears had streamed from her eyes. Anna Maria had said: 'Be
reasonable, Susanna, and do not make a request that I cannot grant.' And
Susanna had replied, with an inimitable mingling of childishness and
pride: 'Have no fear, Fraeulein von Hegewitz, I never ask a second time!'
"Anna Maria told me about it later, years afterward. Indeed, there was
no slight amount of pride in that little head.
"Anna Maria began the practical education with the thoroughness peculiar
to her in everything. With her iron constitution, her need of bodily
activity, she had no suspicion that there were people in the world for
whom such activity might be too much. Susanna had to go through kitchen
and cellar, Susanna was initiated into the mysteries of the great
washing, and Susanna drove with her, afternoons, in the burning heat
into the fields, in order to explore the agricultural botany. Anna
Maria's face showed a glimmer of happiness; she now had some one to whom
she was indispensable, so she thought.
"And Klaus? Klaus had never in his life sat so constantly in his room as
now; he went into the garden-parlor seldom or never, and only at
mealtimes came to look into the sitting-room or out on the terrace. And
then his eyes would rest on Susanna with a strange expression, anxiously
and compassionately it seemed to me. He said not a word against Anna
Maria's management.
"'Aunt Rosamond,' the latter said sadly to me one day, 'I fear Susanna's
being here is a burden to Klaus; he is quiet, depressed, and not at all
as he used to be.'
"'Why _that_ cause, Anna Maria?' said I. 'Klaus does seem out of humor,
that is true, but may it not be something else? Farmers have a new cause
for vexation every day, and are never at a loss for one.'
"'Ah, no, Aunt Rosamond!' she replied. 'There has not been the prospect
of such a harvest for years; it is a pleasure to go through the fields.'
"And Susanna, the breath of whose life was laughing? She wandered about
like a dreamer. How often, when she sat opposite me in the sewing-room,
her hands dropped in her lap, and she went to sleep, like an overweary
child. And I let her sleep, for on the pale little face the marks of the
unwonted manner of life were only too perceptible. Once Klaus came into
the room, as she sat there, fallen asleep, like little Princess
Domroeschen, only, instead of the spindle, the netting-needle in her
hand. He came nearer on tip-toe, and looked at her, his arms at his
sides. Then he asked softly:
"'Do you not think she looks wretchedly, aunt?'
"'The altered mode of life, Klaus,' I answered, 'the strange food,
the----'
"'Say the over-exertion, aunt,' he broke in; 'that would be nearer the
truth. Poor little one!'
"'Why do you not say so to Anna Maria, Klaus? I, too, think that too
much is required in this early rising and continually being on the
feet.'
"He grew very red, bit his lips, and shrugged his shoulders in place of
an answer, and left me before I had time to speak further.
"Susanna, moreover, never uttered a word of complaint; but it would
happen that Anna Maria had to seek her, seek for hours without finding
her, and that Klaus very quietly remarked, 'She must have run away!' But
she would appear again suddenly, with bright eyes and red cheeks, to be
sure; she had gone astray in the wood, she said, or gone to sleep in the
garden. Sometimes she would shut herself into her dull room, and open
the door to no knocks. Once, as she pulled her handkerchief quickly out
of her pocket, a paper of bonbons fell to the floor. Anna Maria, who
despised all sweetmeats, confiscated it at once; I can still see the
look of punishment she gave the blushing girl. We were all sitting on
the terrace, just after supper; Klaus had been reading aloud from the
newspaper, and this was usually a moment when Susanna waked from her
dreaming; her shining eyes were fixed on Klaus, and a rosy gleam spread
over the pale face. Klaus held the good old 'Tante Voss,' and read aloud
every little story which alluded to Berlin; that habit was now quietly
introduced, whereas he had formerly read only certain political news,
that he might talk about it with Anna Maria.
"The falling bonbon package broke right into a report from the
opera-house, where Sontag had sung with wild applause. Klaus let the
paper drop, observed Anna Maria's look and the gesture with which she
laid the unlucky package beside her, and saw Susanna's confusion.
"'Show me the package, Anna Maria,' he asked; and unwrapping one of the
bonbons in colored paper, he said, 'Ah! these are miserable things
indeed; they must taste splendidly!' He smiled as he said this, and the
smile put Susanna beside herself.
"'I--I do not eat them at all!' she cried, 'I only have them for the
little children who come to the fence there below; they are pleased with
them, I know, for nothing was more beautiful to me when I was a child
than a bonbon!'
"She said this so touchingly and childishly, in spite of her excitement,
that Klaus begged for her hand as if in atonement.
"'Susanna, you might poison the village children with this bad stuff. I
will get some other bonbons for you that will taste good to you
yourself.'
"Anna Maria rose, apparently indifferent, put the dish of fragrant
strawberries which she had been hulling for preserving on the great
stone table, and went slowly down the steps into the garden. When she
came up again, an hour had passed, and the moon appeared over the gabled
roof and shone brightly into her proud face.
"'Where is Susanna?' she asked. The child had just gone down to the
garden, and Klaus was smoking a pipe in peace of mind. She seated
herself quietly in her place and looked out over the moonlit tree-tops
into the warm summer night. Then she said suddenly:
"'May I say something to you, Klaus?'
"'Certainly, Anna Maria,' he replied.
"'Then do not give Susanna any bonbons; that is, do not contradict me so
directly when I have occasion to reprove her.'
"Klaus sat bolt upright in his wooden chair. 'Anna Maria,' he began, 'I
don't think you can complain of my having found fault with or revoked
any regulation of yours with regard to Fraeulein Mattoni; although'--he
stopped, and knocked the ashes from his pipe against the flagstones.
"'Did I do anything with Susanna which displeased you?' she asked.
"But she got no answer, for just then the subject of discussion flew up
the steps, and sat down again, modestly, in her place. Anna Maria rose,
took a shawl from her shoulders, and wrapped it about the girl who was
breathing very fast. 'You are heated, Susanna, you might take cold.'
Klaus now smoked the faster, and on saying good-night held out both
hands to Anna Maria; but she placed hers in them only lightly.
"Ah, yes, the first omens, slight and scarcely noticeable! Perhaps they
would have escaped my eyes if I had not had, from the very first, a
foreboding of coming evil. I do not know if Susanna received the
promised bonbons. Probably not; and after that episode everything went
on in the usual course, until there came a day full of unforeseen
events, full of developments, which placed us all at once in the most
dreadful entanglements.
"It was an oppressively hot day, just in the middle of the harvesting.
In the court-yard and in the house a veritable deathly stillness
reigned, and not even a leaf on the trees stirred under the scorching
midday sun. I sat in one of the deep window-niches of the great hall
which lies on the garden side of the house and opens out on the terrace.
Here it was endurable, for the heat could not easily penetrate the thick
walls, and the tall elms which shaded the terrace, and the wild-grape
which covered it with its luxurious festoons, made a cool, green, dim
light. Even now the garden-parlor is my favorite retreat during the warm
weather. At that time, however, there was no carved-oak furniture here,
nor was there a gay mosaic pavement on the terrace; the white varnished
chairs and the couches covered with red-flowered chintz answered the
same purpose, as did the worn old sandstone flags with which the terrace
was paved, in whose crevices grass and all sorts of weeds sprung up
picturesquely; and the heavy gray sandstone railing had quite as feudal
a look as the artistic wrought-iron balustrade there now, and, to tell
the truth, pleased me better. Some of us have such an affection to the
old things; but that is pardonable, I think.
"So I was sitting in the garden-parlor, and growing a little dreamy, as
I still like to do, and listening abstractedly to Anna Maria's voice as
she went over her accounts, half aloud, in the sitting-room close by.
Klaus was in the fields again, for the first wheat was to be brought in
to-day, and I was waiting for Susanna to come for a sewing lesson, but
in vain. She must be asleep, I thought, half content to think so, for
the heat fairly paralyzed my will-power. And so a long time passed, till
a heavy step sounded on the stone flags outside, and immediately after
Klaus, dusty and red with heat, came in and threw himself wearily into
the nearest chair.
"'Where is Susanna?' he asked, wiping his hot forehead with his
handkerchief.
"'She is sleeping, probably,' I replied.
"'Are you sure of that, Aunt Rosamond?'
"'No, Klaus, but I think it may be assumed with tolerable certainty. I
know her.'
"'It is strange,' he remarked; 'I could have sworn I saw her vanish in
the Darnbitz pines a little while ago.'
"'For Heaven's sake!' I cried incredulously. 'Impossible! in this heat!
It is half an hour's walk from here!'
"'So I said to myself; but the gait, all the motions, the small,
black-robed figure--indeed, I rode across the field at once, but of
course nothing was to be heard or seen then.'
"'I will wager she is sleeping quietly up-stairs in her canopied bed, or
staring at the "Mischief-maker,"' said I jestingly.
"'And now, aunt,' began Klaus again, 'I have a piece of news which will
please you as it has me; but I do not know if Anna Maria--But then, it
is nearly three years since that painful affair!'
"As he spoke he took a letter from the pocket of his linen coat, and
looking at it said: 'Stuermer is back again, indeed has been for two
weeks; I do not understand----'
"At that instant something fell clattering to the floor, and in the
door-way stood Anna Maria, white as a corpse. In questioning alarm her
eyes were fixed on Klaus's lips. I had never seen the strong-willed girl
thus. Klaus sprang up and went toward her; I heard her say only the one
word 'Stuermer.'
"'He is here, Anna Maria,' replied her brother; 'does that startle you
so?'
"She shook her head, but her looks belied her.
"'I have just received this note,' continued Klaus, and he read as
follows:
"'MY DEAR OLD FRIEND:
"'I landed here again two weeks ago, for the longing for home
finally overcame me; and when one has wandered about for three
years, it is time, for various reasons, to return to the
ancestral home. I come from--but I will tell you all that when
I see you. I have already been twice before your door, to say
good-day, but--I am meanwhile of the opinion that the past
should not interfere with our old friendly relations. I
certainly came off conqueror! It will not be hard for Anna
Maria to receive an old friend, which I have never ceased to
be, and which I shall always endeavor to remain. May I come,
then? To-morrow morning, after church, I had intended to make a
call, if you permit it. My compliments to the ladies.
"'Ever yours,
"'EDWIN STUeRMER.'
"A deep pink flush had mounted to Anna Maria's cheeks as he read, and at
the words 'I certainly came off conqueror! It will not be hard for Anna
Maria to receive an old friend,' there was a quiver of pain on her
delicate lips. When Klaus finished, she had quite recovered her
self-possession. 'I shall be glad to see Edwin Stuermer again,' she said
clearly; 'ask him to eat a plate of soup with us.'
"'That is lovely of you, Anna Maria!' cried Klaus, rejoiced. 'The poor
fellow has gotten over it, it is to be hoped; meeting again for the
first time is naturally somewhat painful, but you have done nothing so
bad. How could you help it that he loves you, and you not him? Splendid
old fellow, he----'
"Anna Maria's eyes wandered with a strange expression over the green
trees outside; she kept her lips tightly closed, as if making an effort
to repress a cry, and was still standing thus when Klaus sat down at the
writing table near by, to answer Stuermer's note.
"'Where is Susanna?' she asked at last.
"'She must be asleep,' I replied.
"She turned and left the room.
"'Klaus,' I said, going up to him, 'it seems to me a dangerous
experiment for Stuermer to return here.'
"'Why, aunt?' he asked; 'Anna Maria certainly does not love him; and he?
Bah! If he were not sure of his heart, he would not come; he simply
declares himself cured!'
"'Are you so sure that Anna Maria does not love him?'
"He looked at me, as if to read in my face whether or no I had lost my
senses. 'I don't understand that, aunt,' he replied, shaking his head.
'If she loves him she would have married him; there was nothing in the
world to hinder. For Heaven's sake, aunt, don't see any ghosts. I am so
inexpressibly glad to have a man again in the neighborhood with whom one
can talk about something besides the harvest and the weather.'
"Yes, yes! He was right, of course. I did not know myself at that moment
how the thought had really come to me.
"And Klaus rode into the field again, and I sat waiting for Susanna;
round about, the deepest silence, only a couple of flies buzzing about
on the window-panes; an hour slipped away, and yet another. Why, why,
the hands of the clock were pointing all at once at half-past six; I had
had a nap, as ailing old maids have a right to do occasionally. The
sinking sun was now peeping, deep golden, through the trees; one such
impertinent ray had waked me. Had Susanna been here? I rose and went to
my room, and then across to Susanna's: it was impossible that she should
still be sleeping.
"No, the room was empty. The sun flooded it for a moment with a crimson
light, and made it seem almost cosey; or was it the bunches of flowers
all about on the tables and stands? Even the 'Mischief-maker' had a
garland of corn-flowers hung over the frame, and a sunbeam falling
obliquely on her full lips lit them up with a crimson light. No trace of
Susanna; her black gauze fichu lay on the floor in the middle of the
room; on the sofa, half-hidden in the cushions, was a note. I drew it
out--old maids are allowed to be curious--and my eyes fell on a bold
handwriting which, to my surprise, read as follows:
"'Three o'clock this afternoon, in the Dambitz pines!'
"How every possibility whirled through my head then! Klaus had seen
aright! But who, for Heaven's sake, had written this? With whom had
Susanna a meeting there! I thought and thought, and all manner of
strange ideas arose in my mind, and Susanna did not come; she had never
stayed away so long before. The supper-bell rang, and we three sat alone
again at the table, for the first time in a long while, and worried
about the girl. All the servants were questioned, and two lads sent
along the Dambitz road.
"I did not know if I ought to speak of the letter. I should have liked
to speak first to Susanna alone; so I decided to wait and not cause any
further disturbance. Anna Maria was noticeably indifferent, and thought
Susanna would certainly come soon, she had probably gone to sleep in the
wood. But she must have felt an inward anxiety, for her hands trembled
and her face was flushed with excitement.
"Klaus rose without having tasted anything. After a little we heard
again the sound of horse's hoofs on the pavement of the court; he was
riding out then to search for the missing one. Anna Maria mechanically
gave her orders for next day, and I walked alone through the dusky paths
in the garden. It was an unusually warm August evening; the moon was
rising in the east, the steel-blue sky above was cloudless, and from the
wood there came a light, refreshing breath of air. From the court came
the sound of men and maids singing, as they made merry after the hot
day's work. Ah! how many, many such evenings had I known here, and this
one brought back to me a precious memory of my youth, with all its
pleasure and all its suffering. Every tree, every bush I had known from
my earliest youth. Everything which life had brought to me was
associated with this little spot of ground. That feeling is known only
to one who can say to himself, 'Here on this spot you were born, here
will you live, and here will you die,' and it is a sweet feeling! So I
sat down in perfect content on a bench at the end of the garden, and in
my dim retreat rejoiced in all the beauty about me, yet at the same time
worrying about Susanna. Then I suddenly heard some one talking not far
from me:
"'And then don't look so sorrowful to-morrow, do you hear, Susy? And in
any case wear the white dress to church to-morrow; I have my reasons for
wishing it. And to-morrow afternoon I will come; it has been long
enough, I can certainly come to visit you for once. And don't let out
anything, darling. What will you answer if they ask you where you have
been so long?'
"'Nothing at all!' answered Susanna's voice defiantly. 'I do not like to
tell a lie, I shall not do it; but I shall not come to Dambitz again, it
is too far away for me.'
"'Very fine!' was the reply; and I now recognized the voice of the old
actress. 'I have walked about with you in my arms all night long many a
time, no step was too much for me; and you will not go an hour's
distance away for my sake? I think of nothing but you and your future; I
devise plans and take pains to make your lot happy; I take up my abode
in a wretched peasant's house with a shingle roof, and everlasting smell
of the stable only to be near you; I sew my eyes and fingers sore--and
you--?' And she broke out in violent sobbing, which, however, it seemed
to me, made no impression upon Susanna, for she remained still as a
mouse.
"'Go, Susy, be good,' the old woman began again. 'I have just given you
the pretty little dress to-day; look at it by and by and see how
carefully it is embroidered.' And now her voice sank to a whisper, and
immediately after Susanna's little figure ran quickly from the thicket
and passed close by me; she carried a white parcel in her hand, and her
round hat on her arm. I could distinctly see her flashing eyes and red
cheeks. I rose quickly, I _must_ speak before any one else saw her.
'Susanna!' I tried to call, but the name remained on my lips; for in the
path along which she flew stood, as if charmed thither, the tall figure
of a man, and Klaus's deep voice sounded in my ears:
"'Susanna! Thank God!'
"Had I heard aright? They were only three simple words, words which
perhaps every one would say to a person who had been missed and
anxiously sought. But here a perfect torrent of passion and anxiety
gushed forth, as hot and stifling as the summer night in which the words
were spoken.
"I sat down again and leaned my swimming head on my hand. 'My God,
Klaus, Klaus!' I stammered. 'What is to come of this? This child! Their
circumstances compare so unfavorably, he cannot possibly want to marry
her; what, then, draws him to her? What conflicts must arise if he
really thinks of it! God preserve him from such a passion! It is surely
impossible; it cannot, must not be! Oh, Susanna, that you had never come
to this house!'
"And round about me whispered the night-wind in the trees; the full moon
had risen golden, and bathed field and wood with a bluish light. And
Susanna is so young, and Susanna is so fair! Was it, then, strange if
Klaus loved her? What cared love and passion for all the considerations
which I had just brought up. And their--Oh, God! what would Anna Maria
say?
"And I rose, quite depressed, to go to my room and collect my thoughts.
Klaus must have taken Susanna into the house long ago. Now Anna Maria
would ask where she had been. And she would not answer, as often before,
and Anna Maria would speak harsh words and Klaus walk restlessly about
the room! Nothing of all this. As I went slowly along the path I caught
sight of a dark figure on the stone bench under the linden. 'Anna
Maria?' I asked myself. 'Is she waiting here for Susanna?' She looked
fixedly out toward the dark country, and the moon made her face look
whiter than ever.
"'Anna Maria!' I called, 'Susanna has come back!' She sprang up
suddenly, hastily drawing her lace veil over her forehead; but I saw, as
I came nearer, that tears were shining in her eyes.
"'Have you been anxious?' I asked, and put my arm in hers, to support
myself, as we walked on.
"'Anxious?' she repeated questioningly. 'Yes--no,' she replied absently.
'Ah, you said Susanna has come? I knew perfectly well that she would,
aunt, she is so fond of roving about; that comes from the vagabond blood
of her mother, no doubt.'
"'Anna Maria!' I exclaimed, startled.
"'Certainly, Aunt Rose,' she repeated, 'it is in her, it ferments in her
little head and shines from her eyes. So often I have noticed when she
is standing by me or sitting opposite me, busied with some work, how her
looks wander away, in eager impatience; how only the consciousness 'I
must obey' compels her to stay still by me. Then she naturally makes use
of every opportunity to rush out, to lie down under some tree and forget
time and the present. Happy being, thus constituted, through whose veins
runs no slow, pedantic, duty-bound blood!'
"We were standing just at the bottom of the terrace, and I involuntarily
seized hold of the railing to steady myself. Was it Anna Maria who spoke
such words! Was not the whole world turned upside down then? And I saw
in the moonlight that her lips quivered and tears shone in her eyes. Had
Anna Maria something to regret in her life? And, like a flash of
lightning, Edwin Stuermer's handsome face came before my mind's eye.
"'Anna Maria,' I whispered, 'what did you say? Who--?' But I got no
further, for the sound of a woman's voice fell on our ears; so full, so
sweet and ringing the tones floated out on the summer night, so
strangely were time and tune suited to the words, that we lingered there
breathless. Anna Maria looked up toward the open window in the upper
story. 'Susanna!' she said softly.
'Home have I come, my heart burns with pain.
Ah, that I only could wander again!'
sounded down below.
"But what was the matter with Anna Maria? She fairly flew back into the
garden. I stood still and waited; the singing above had ceased. 'Anna
Maria!' I called. No answer. What an evening this was, to be sure! Anna
Maria, who took the most serious view of the world, who hated nothing
more than sentimentality and moonlight reveries, was running about in
the garden, moved to tears by a little song! They were all
incomprehensible to me to-day--Klaus, Susanna, and Anna Maria, but
especially the latter. How could I talk to her about Susanna to-day? I
had to keep my discovery to myself; the best thing I could do would be
to go up myself to Susanna and ask her, for we should hardly assemble
about the round table in the sitting-room this evening, and Anna Maria
would hardly be in the mood to read aloud the evening prayers as usual.
And Klaus? No, I would not see him at all; better to-morrow by daylight,
when he would be his old self again, when his voice would have lost its
sultry summer-night cadence, it was to be hoped. No more to-day, I had
had enough. I should not be able to sleep, as it was.
"And so I went, like a ghost, up the moonlit steps, and stole along the
corridor to Susanna's door, and knocked softly. No answer. I lifted the
latch and went in. The room was lighted only by the moon, and the heavy
odor of flowers came toward me; a pale ray shone just over the white
pillows of the bed and fell on Susanna's face. She was fast asleep; her
neck and arms glistened like marble. Should I wake her? She would surely
stifle in this air. I stole past her, opened a window, and set the
bunches of flowers out on the balcony. The room looked topsy-turvy, but
on the sofa was spread out with evident care the toilet for
to-morrow--the white dress, little shoes and stockings, even hat and
hymn-book for church.
"I closed the window again softly and stole out of the girl's room. Let
her sleep; in this enchanted moonlight it would be impossible to say
anything reasonable, I thought. Indeed, I reproached myself afterward
for not having waked her from her dreams, in order to have brought all
my old maid's prose to bear against all this flower-scented poetry. But
what would it have availed? For God Almighty holds in his hands the
threads of human destiny. It had to be thus."