Hammer and Anvil Part 33

"But you cannot always go on correcting their exercises."

"I do not know; it seems to me as if I should always do it."

"Even when they are learning Latin and Greek?"

"I learn Latin with them now; why should I not learn Greek too?"

"Greek is so desperately hard; I tell you, Paula, the irregular verbs--no human creature can learn them unless it be gymnasium professors, and I never can believe that they are exactly men."

"That is one of your jokes, which you must not let Benno hear: he wants to be a teacher."

"I think I will get that notion out of his head."

"Do not do so. Why should he not be a teacher if he has a liking for it, and talent enough? I do not know anything more delightful than to teach any one something which I believe to be good and useful to him.

And then it is a good position for one in Benno's circ.u.mstances. I have heard it said that when one makes no great pretensions, he can soon secure a modest sufficiency. My father, it is true, has other views: he would like Benno to be a physician or naturalist. But these are expensive professions to learn; and although my father always takes a hopeful view--but I am not sure that he always does."

Paula bent her head over her sketching-board, and went on with her drawing more a.s.siduously than ever; but I saw that once or twice she raised her handkerchief to her eyes. It gave me pain to see it. I knew what anxiety, and that too well-founded, Paula felt for her father's health, whom she loved devotedly.

"Fraulein Paula," I said.

She did not correct me this time--perhaps did not hear me.

"Fraulein Paula," I said again, "you must not cherish such gloomy thoughts. Your father is not so ill: and then you would not believe what a race the Zehrens are. Herr von Zehren used to call the steuerrath a weakling, and yet he might take an undisputed place among those who account themselves robust men; but Herr von Zehren himself was a man of steel, and yet he once told me that his youngest brother was a match for two like him. And you see a strong const.i.tution is everything, Doctor Snellius says, and so I say too."

"To be sure, if _you_ say so----"

Paula looked up, and a melancholy smile played about her beautiful lips.

"You mean that a miserable scarecrow, such as I sit here, has no business to be talking about strength?"

"O no; I know how strong you were before you were ill; and how soon you would be strong again, if you would take proper care of yourself, which you do not always do. For example, you ought never to be sitting here without some wrappings, and you have let the coverlid fall off your lap; but----"

"But----?" said I, obediently drawing up the coverlid over my knees.

"I mean that it is not quite right to say that a strong const.i.tution is everything. Kurt there is certainly the strongest of the boys, and yet Oscar can read, write, and cipher as well as he, though Kurt is nine years old, and Oscar only seven."

"But you see Oscar is your favorite."

"That is not kind of you," Paula said.

She said it gently and pleasantly, without a trace of offence, and yet I felt the blood rush to my cheeks. I felt as though I had struck a defenceless child.

"No, it was not at all kind," I said, with warmth; "it was a very unfeeling speech; I do not know how I could say it. But clever boys have always been held up to me as models, and the comparison always carried with it so many disagreeable allusions to myself, that the blood always rises to my head when I hear them talked about. It always makes me think how stupid I am."

"You ought not to call yourself stupid."

"Well then, that I know so little; that I have learned so very little."

"But that is n.o.body's fault but yours--that is, supposing it to be really the case."

"It is the case," I answered. "It is frightful how little I know. To say nothing at all about Greek, which I maintain to be too hard, and only invented by teachers on purpose to torment us, my Latin does not amount to much, and that is certainly my fault, for I have seen how Arthur, who I don't believe is a bit cleverer than I am, could get along with it very well when he tried. Your English books, in which you read so much, might all be Greek for me; and as for French--perhaps I can still conjugate _avoir_ and _etre_, but I doubt it. And yesterday, when Benno could not get his exercises right, and asked me, and I told him he must get them right himself--I don't mind telling you that I had not the slightest notion how to begin them--and when he afterwards got them right by himself, I felt shamed by a boy eleven years old; just as I have felt ashamed before Dr. Busch, our professor of mathematics, whenever, as he always did, he wrote under my work, 'Thoroughly bad,'

or 'Quite remarkably bad,' or 'Very well copied,' or some such maliciousness."

While I thus remorsefully confessed my shortcomings, Paula looked steadily at me with her great eyes, from time to time shaking her head, as if she could not believe her ears.

"If this is really so----"

"Why do you always say 'if,' Paula? Little as I have learned, I have at least learned to tell the truth, and I would never attempt a falsehood with you."

The maiden blushed to her blond tresses.

"Forgive me," she said; "I did not mean to wound you; although I can scarcely believe that you--that you spent so ill your time at school. I only meant to say that you must make it good again; you must make up for that lost time."

"Easily said, Paula! How am I to begin? Benno knows more French, geography, and mathematics than I, and he is only eleven years old, and next month I am twenty."

Paula pushed the drawing-board away from her upon the table, and leaned her head upon her hand, apparently in order better to ponder over so desperate a case. Suddenly she raised her head and said:

"You must speak to my father."

"What shall I tell him?"

"All that you have told me."

"He will not be able to help me either."

"He will, be sure. You do not know how much my father knows. He knows everything--understands everything."

"That I well believe, Paula; but how can that help me? He can give me no part of his knowledge, even if he were so kind as to wish it."

"True, he cannot do that; you must work yourself; but how to work the best, and how to succeed the soonest, he knows, and will tell you if you ask him. Will you?"

"Yes, I will; but----"

"No--no 'buts.' I am not to say 'if,' so you must not say 'but.' Will you?"

"Yes."

As to utter this "yes" required some determination on my part, I spoke it in a firm loud voice. Paula folded her hands and bent her head, as if she were inwardly praying that my resolution might be blessed.

Everything was calm around; only a bird twittered, and the red sunset-rays glanced through the twigs. It may have been a remnant of weakness which still clung to me, but a strange and solemn feeling possessed me. It was as though I were in a temple, and had just p.r.o.nounced a solemn vow by which I broke away from my entire past, and devoted myself to a new life and to new obligations. And while thus thinking I gazed with fixed eyes at the dear maiden, who sat still, her hands folded, her thoughtful head bent--gazed until the tears came into my eyes, and trees, sunlight, and maiden were lost behind a misty veil.

At this moment clear voices came ringing from the garden; it was Paula's brothers, who had finished their task in the house, and now were joyously hurrying to their favorite spot where they were certain of finding their sister. Paula gathered up her drawing materials, and was spreading a sheet of tissue-paper over her drawing, when the boys came bounding up the hill at full speed to us.

"I am first!" cried little Oscar, springing into his sister's arms.

"Because we let you," said Kurt, jumping upon my knee.

"Let's see, Paula," said Benno, laying his hand upon his sister's arm.

Paula threw back the tissue-paper. Benno looked attentively at the drawing, and then carefully compared it with the original. Kurt jumped down from my knee to examine his sister's work too. Even Oscar stuck his curly head from under her arm to see what was going on. It was a charming group, the three boys cl.u.s.tered around the sister, now turning their bright eyes upon me, and then fixing them on the picture.