Dame Care Part 21

Then it was Leo's turn, who treated them to one of his most racy anecdotes, but the gayety would not come back again.

The rain splashed against the window panes with a hollow sound, the shadow of black clouds filled the room. It was as if the gray Dame was gliding through the air and touching the laughing young faces with her wings, so that they looked serious and old.

Only when Elsbeth opened the piano and began a merry dance the frozen gayety recommenced.

Paul stood in a corner and gazed at the merrymaking. They left him quite to himself, only now and then a shy glance met him.

The twins were flying round the room, their curls were loose, and a wild light sparkled in their eyes.

"Let them romp about," thought Paul, "they must return to misery soon enough." But that there was no misery for them never occurred to him.

When Elsbeth was replaced at the piano by somebody else, she came towards him and said, "You are very much bored, are you not?"

"Oh no," he said. "Everything is still so new to me."

"Be merry," she pleaded; "we only live once."

And at that moment Leo came rushing up to her, seized her round the waist, and danced away with her.

"Nevertheless, she is still a stranger to you," thought Paul.

As she pa.s.sed him again she whispered to him, "Go into the next room; I have something to tell you."

"What can she mean to tell me?" he thought; but he did as he was told.

Half hidden by the curtain, he waited, but as she did not come, every minute the bitterness of his soul increased. He remembered his beautiful speeches about the peat-culture and Heine's "Buch der Lieder," and shrugged his shoulders contemptuously over his own stupidity. He felt as if he had grown years older and maturer in the course of this one afternoon.

And then the questions suddenly arose within him, "What business have you here? What are all those merry people, who laugh and want to please each other, and live thoughtlessly from one day to another--what are all those to you? You were a fool, a miserable fool, when you thought that you had a right to be merry; that you, too, could be what they are."

The ground burned under his feet. He felt as if he were committing a sin by remaining a minute longer in this place.

He slipped out into the hall, where his cap hung.

"Tell my sisters," he said to the servant who was waiting there, "that I am going home to order a carriage for them."

And he breathed as if relieved when the door closed behind him.

The storm had abated: a soft rain came drizzling from the sky, the wind blew refreshingly over the heath, and at the verge of the horizon, where the evening glow paled away, the sheet-lightning of the far-distant thunder-storm shot from fiery, glowing clouds.

As if the wild hunters were behind him, he ran across the rain-soaked road to the wood, whose branches closed above his head with a peaceful murmur. The damp moss sent out its perfume, and sparkling drops fell from the needles of the fir-trees.

When he stepped out onto the heath, and saw the dark outline of his home before his eyes, he stretched out his arms, and cried out into the storm:

"Here is my place--here I belong, and I shall be a rogue if ever again I try to find my happiness among strangers. I swear here that I will reject all vanities and foolish hankerings. I know now what I am, and what is unfit for me shall be lost to me. Amen."

So he took leave of his youth and of his youthful dreams.

CHAPTER XIII.

When he awoke next morning he found his mother sitting near his bed.

"You up already?" he asked, wonderingly.

"I have not been able to sleep," she said, in her low voice, which always sounded as if she were asking pardon for what she said.

"Why not?" he asked.

She did not answer, but stroked his hair and smiled at him sadly. Then he knew that the twins had been telling tales, and that it was grief for him which did not let her rest.

"It was not so bad, mother," he said, consolingly; "they made fun of me a little, nothing more."

"Elsbeth, too?" she asked, with big, anxious eyes.

"No, not she," he replied, "but--" he was silent and turned to the wall.

"But what?" asked his mother.

"I don't know," he answered, "but there is a 'but' in it--"

"You wrong her, perhaps," said his mother, "and look, she sent you this by the girls." She drew from her pocket a long object which was carefully wrapped in tissue-paper.

In it was a flute, made of black ebony, with sparkling silver keys.

Paul blushed with shame and joy; but his joy soon vanished, and after he had looked at the instrument for a while he said, softly, "What must I do with it now?"

"You must learn to play it," answered his mother, with a touch of pride.

"It is too late," he replied, shaking his head sadly; "there are other things for me to do." He felt as if he had been made to drag something dead out of its grave.

"Well, it seems that you cut a nice figure yesterday," said his father, when they met at the breakfast-table.

He quietly smiled to himself, and his father muttered something about lack of feeling of honor.

The twins had big dreamy eyes, and when they looked at each other a blissful smile crossed their faces. They, at least, were happy.

Weeks pa.s.sed. The harvest was got in unharmed, thanks to Paul's untiring care. It was a better year than it had been for a long time. But his father was already calculating how he could use the profits for his peat speculation.

He bragged on in his usual manner, and the less Mr. Douglas seemed to pay attention to the proceedings, the more he boasted at the inns about the advantage of his partnership.

Having once consented to swindle, he had to outvie every lie by a new and bigger one. Mr. Douglas might be as patient as he liked; the abuse which was made of his name at last became too much for him.

It was one morning towards the end of August that Paul, who was working in the yard with Michel Raudszus, saw the tall figure of their neighbor walking across the fields straight to the Haidehof.

He was startled--that could not bode any good.