Hertha was not feeling happy. She had built such high hopes on Leo's
return, that it was only natural that she should be disappointed. How
she had thought about him, prayed and worked for him! and now she had
to retire into the background. His teasing wounded her; his demand that
she should obey him seemed almost an insult, and since her stepmother
had migrated to the dower-house, Hertha thought seriously of leaving
Halewitz altogether. She had written three letters already to her
guardian, asking to be taken away, but had torn them up. Then, it would
not be easy to separate herself from this spot of green earth, where
the sun seemed to shine brighter and hearts to be kindlier than
anywhere else in the world.
Nobody, not even grandmamma, suspected anything of these struggles
going on in her heart; they came, and then were over as if they had
never been. They were a luxury reserved for lonely musing hours; at
rosy sunset, or by pale moonlight, in the glorious drowsy solitude of
the forest and on dew-glittering meadow paths. They began of
themselves, but ceased at the sound of a human voice. She derived from
them a painful joy, a defiance that longed to be conquered and cling to
some one, a thirst for battle which she only wished to end in a slowly
bleeding, prostrate martyrdom.
The reaction was a wild whirl through house and courtyard. As before,
she would romp and skip about to her heart's content, fraternizing with
all the live stock, and as she no longer might superintend the milking,
she slept, from pique, till the sun was high in the heavens.
Elly trotted obediently in her wake as she had always done. Only
sometimes, when her friend's pranks were a little too much for her, did
she strike and go to grandmamma with complaints, for which Hertha gave
her a scolding, and she became her abject slave once more.
For the rest, grandmamma took care that the trees did not grow into the
sky. Now that there was nothing more to do in the gardening or the
housekeeping line, there was time for reading French in the morning,
doing fancy-work, and practising drawing-room pieces on the piano.
After that was over, one was free to go for walks, to bathe, or to loaf
as much as one pleased.
It was a sultry, steamy evening at the beginning of September. The
river lay softly gleaming like a mirror of molten silver. Blue-black
clouds rose on the horizon, which now and then opened with a faint
flash, unanswered by any echo of thunder. On the wooded rising ground
above the river the glossy, fat red pony, half harnessed to his small
governess-cart, was standing, flapping with tail and mane at the
midges, which to-day seemed more impertinent in their onslaughts than
usual. Occasionally he sent forth a pathetic neigh in the direction of
the bank, where the white awning of a swimming-bath glimmered above the
woolly heads of the bulrushes. From inside came those long-drawn
shrieks, half frightened, half joyous, in which young women-folk
indulge when disporting themselves in the water.
It was some time before the canvas-covered door opened and Hertha
appeared, glowing-red, still steaming from the damp, warm air within.
She jumped on to the landing-stage, that oscillated violently, while
Elly, always rather pale, but still whiter after bathing, poked her
delicate little nose out guardedly, waiting till Hertha should have
left the dangerous plank. Not till then did she become fully visible.
Near the swimming-bath a light rowing-boat danced on the dark water. It
could not have been used for a long time, and had been left neglected,
to its own devices. The seats were missing, the rudder had been torn
out, and at the bottom, between its thin ribs, a muddy whirlpool
gurgled up at its every motion.
"What a pity the nice boat should not be used!" said Hertha, and sprang
into it. The dirty water spurted up and sprinkled her face, but she did
not mind that. Laughing, she tucked her skirts up above her knees; her
shoes and stockings were still in her hand, and her legs, firm, round,
and softly moulded like pilasters of Parian marble, stood out from the
black background.
Then she squatted on the steerer's seat--the only one there was--put
her footgear in safety, and seemed as if she were quite prepared to
stay there.
Elly looked alarmed. "Oh dear I what are you going to do?" she cried,
tripping about on the steps of the landing-stage. "Do come back and be
good!" The exhortation "be good" she had retained from her childhood.
Hertha clasped her hands behind her head and stared into the distance,
dumbly weaving fancies. Out into the current, circling with the eddies,
swept ever onwards away to the wide ocean--into the blue immensity,
that was what she longed for at this moment.
Then drawing herself erect, she asked, "I say, how does the boat come
here?"
"Leo used to keep it years ago, lying on the sandbank, so that he could
get over by it quickly to Uhlenfelde and the Isle of Friendship," Elly
informed her.
The Isle of Friendship! A double romance cast its halo about the little
island, with its hazel-nut bushes, and high-arched coronet of alders
and birches above, which, like the curly head of some drowned giant,
reared itself from the water and looked fiercely across to the other
side. A tiny morsel of white masonry gleamed through the sombre density
of the foliage. That must be the temple of which the country-folk with
superstitious awe whispered mysterious legends into each other's ears.
In ancient times the island had been the scene of heathen sacrifices.
It was said that the terrible stone was still to be seen from which the
Druid priest had spurted the blood of the slain victim towards heaven.
And when on dark nights you passed the island, you saw, even now,
figures swathed in long white robes crouching in the branches of the
alders. In more modern times, the two friends had invoked the old
spirit, and brought it back to life. And people related, besides, that
on either side of the mossy sacrificial stone they had each opened a
vein of the other, and drank the warm blood; that they had composed
hymns to the white statue, and burnt incense before it, so that red
fire was seen rising nightly into the sky. Hertha had heard all this
from Elly's lips at school, and it had fired her imagination. The
romances of her history-primers, the heroes of which had long ago been
cast away as rubbish with her old exercise and composition books, lived
again, a decade later, in her soul, glowing and glorious with mystery.
Before she knew Halewitz at all, she had pined to see the Isle of
Friendship, and as, thanks to grandmamma's anxious vigilance, she had
not been allowed to set foot on it yet, the very thought of it
possessed a magic which filled her with the same sweet thrills which
had been her delight in twilight hours at school.
She got up, and stretched out her arms longingly. If only she might get
across!
At that instant her eye caught sight of an oar lying horizontally along
the edge of the boat and wedged into it, but the twin oar was missing.
An audacious plan began to take shape in her mind. She remembered to
have seen an old key hanging up inside the bathing-house, which
apparently belonged to the boat. She would make Elly fetch it.