Dame Care Part 10

He remembered very well.

"Now you can whistle, of course," she laughed; "at our age that is no longer an accomplishment--even I can do it," and she pointed her lips in a very funny manner.

He was sad that she spoke so slightingly of his art, and reflected whether it would not be better to give up whistling altogether.

"Why are you so silent?" she asked. "Are you tired, too?"

"Oh no, but you--eh?"

Yes; the walk through the sand and the noontide heat had tired her.

"Then come into our house and rest," he cried, with sparkling eyes, for he thought what joy his mother would feel at seeing her.

But she refused. "Your father is not kindly disposed towards us, mamma said, and that's why you may not come for a visit to Helenenthal. Your father would perhaps send me away."

He replied, with a deep blush, "My father would not do that," and felt much ashamed.

She cast a glance towards the Haidehof, which lay scarcely a hundred yards from the road. The red fence shone in the sunshine, and even the gray half-ruined barns looked more cheerful than usual.

"Your house looks very nice," she said, shading her eyes with her left hand.

"Oh yes," he answered, his heart swelling with pride, "and there is an owl nailed to the door of one of the sheds. But it shall become much nicer still," he added after a little while, seriously, "only let me begin to rule." And then he set to work to explain to her all his plans for the future. She listened attentively, but when he had finished she said again,

"I am tired--I must rest;" and she wanted to sit down on the edge of the ditch.

"Not here in the blazing sun," he cautioned her; "we'll look out for the first juniper-bush we can find."

She gave him her hand, and let him drag her wearily over the heath, which undulated with molehills like the waves on a lake, and near the edge of the wood there were some solitary juniper-bushes, which stood out like a group of black dwarfs above the level plain.

Under the first of these bushes she cowered down, so that its shadow almost entirely shrouded her slight, delicate figure.

"Here is just room enough for your head," she said, pointing to a mole-hill which was just within the range of shade.

He stretched himself out on the gra.s.s, his head resting on the mole-hill, his forehead covered by the hem of her dress.

She leaned back on the bush in order to find support in its branches.

"The needles don't p.r.i.c.k at all," she said; "they mean well by us. I believe we could pa.s.s through the Sleeping Beauty's hedge of thorns."

"You--not I," he answered, lifting his eyes to her from his rec.u.mbent position; "every thorn has p.r.i.c.ked me. I am no fairy prince, not even a simple Hans in luck, am I?"

"That will all come in time," she replied, consolingly, "you must not always have sad thoughts."

He wanted to reply, but he lacked the right words; and as he looked up, meditatively, a swallow flitted through the blue sky. Then involuntarily he uttered a whistle as if he wanted to call it, and as it did not come, he whistled again, and for a second and third time.

Elsbeth laughed, but he went on whistling--first without knowing how, and without reflecting why; but when one tone after the other flowed from his lips, he felt as if he had become very eloquent all of a sudden, and as if in this manner he could say all that weighed on his heart and for which in words he never could have found courage. All that which made him sad, all that which he cared about came pouring forth. He shut his eyes and listened, so to speak, to what the tones were saying for him. He thought that the good G.o.d in heaven spoke for him, and was relating all that concerned him, even that which he had never been clear about himself.

When he looked up he did not know how long he had been lying there whistling, but he saw that Elsbeth was crying.

"Why do you cry?" he asked.

She did not answer him, but dried her eyes with her handkerchief and rose.

Silently they walked side by side for a while. When they reached the wood, which lay thick and dark before them, she stopped and asked,

"Who has taught you that?"

"n.o.body," he said; "it came to me quite naturally."

"Can you also play the flute?" she went on.

No, he could not; he had never even heard it; he only knew that it was the favorite pastime of "old Fritz."

"You must learn it," she said.

He thought it would probably be too difficult for him.

"You should try all the same," she counselled him; "you must be an artist--a great artist."

He was startled when she said that; he scarcely dared to follow out her thoughts.

When they had reached the other side of the wood they separated. She went towards the White House and he went back. When he pa.s.sed the juniper-bush where they had both been sitting all seemed to him like a dream, and henceforth it always remained so to him. Two or three days elapsed before he dared to say anything of his adventure to his mother, but then he could contain himself no longer; he confessed everything to her.

His mother looked at him for a long time and then went out; but from that time she used to listen secretly to catch, if possible, some notes of his whistling.

The two children often walked home together, but such an hour as the one beneath the juniper-bush never came to them again.

When they pa.s.sed it they used to look at each other and smile, but neither of them dared to propose sitting down again beneath it.

There was also no further mention of the flute-playing between them, but Paul thought of it often enough in secret. It seemed to him like something divine, unheard of--like the science which taught the table of logarithms. Ah, if he had been clever and gifted like his two brothers; but he was only a dull, stupid boy, who might be glad if others allowed him to help them.

He often asked himself what such flute-playing sounded like, and what kind of people they were who were initiated into the mysteries of it. He formed a high opinion of them, and thought that they must always cherish high and holy thoughts, such as arose in his own mind occasionally when he was deeply absorbed in his whistling.

And then came the day when he was to see a flute-player face to face.

It was a dreary, stormy afternoon in the month of November. It began to get dark already as he left school and slowly walked along the village road to-go home. Issuing from the public-house, which used to be frequented by all the rogues of the neighborhood, wonderful sounds met his ear. He had never heard the like, but he immediately knew this must be a flute-player. Eagerly listening, he stopped at the door of the public-house. His heart beat loudly, his limbs trembled. The sounds were very much like his whistling, only much fuller and softer. "Such music the angels of G.o.d must make at His throne," he thought to himself.

Only one thing was inexplicable to him: how this flute-playing, which sounded so sad and plaintive, could come from such a place of ill-repute. The shouts and the clinking of gla.s.ses which sounded in between filled his soul with horror. Sudden rage seized him; if he had been tall and strong he would have sprung into the house and turned all these noisy and drunken people out into the street, so that the holy sounds should not be profaned.

At this moment the door was thrown open; a drunken workman reeled past him, an obnoxious odor issued forth. Louder still grew the noise; the tones of the flute could scarcely make themselves heard above it.

Then he took courage, and before the door was closed pressed through the narrow opening into the inner room of the public-house.

He stood there, squeezed behind an empty brandy-cask. n.o.body heeded him.

During the first few moments he could not distinguish anything.

The oppressive atmosphere and the noise had overwhelmed his senses, and the tones of the flute grew harsh and unmelodious, so that they hurt his ears.