The Harvard Classics Shelf of Fiction - German Part 47

Lena watched all this eagerly. "Just look, Botho, how the stream rushes through among the posts." But actually it was neither the pier nor the water flowing through, that attracted her attention, but the two boats that were moored there. She coquetted with the idea and indulged in various trifling questions and references, and only when Botho remained deaf to all this did she express herself more plainly and declare that she wanted to go boating.

"Women are incorrigible. Incorrigible in their light-mindedness. Think of that Easter Monday! Just a hair's breadth ..."

"And I should have been drowned. Certainly. But that is only one side of the matter. There followed the acquaintance with a handsome man, you may be able to guess whom I mean. His name is Botho. I am sure you will not think of Easter Monday as an unlucky day? I am more amiable and more gallant than you."

"There, there.... But can you row, Lena?"

"Of course I can. And I can steer and raise a sail too. Because I was near being drowned, you think I don't know anything? But it was the boy's fault, and for that matter, any one might be drowned."

And then they walked down the pier to the two boats, whose sails were reefed, while their pennants with their names embroidered on them fluttered from the masthead.

"Which shall we take," said Botho, "the _Trout_ or the _Hope_?"

"Naturally, the _Trout_. What have we to do with _Hope_?" Botho understood well enough that Lena said that on purpose to tease him, for in spite of her delicacy of feeling, still as a true child of Berlin she took pleasure in witty little speeches. He excused this little fling, however, and helped her into the boat. Then he sprang in too.

Just as he was about to cast off the host came down the pier bringing a jacket and a plaid, because it would grow cold as the sun went down.

They thanked him and soon were in the middle of the stream, which was here scarcely three hundred paces wide, as it flowed among the islands and tongues of land. Lena used her oars only now and then, but even these few strokes sufficed to bring them very soon to a field overgrown with tall gra.s.s which served as a boatbuilder's yard, where at some little distance from them a new boat was being built and various old leaky ones were being caulked and repaired.

"We must go and see the boats," said Lena gaily, taking Botho's hand and urging him along, but before they could reach the boat builder's yard the sound of hammer and axe ceased and the bells began to ring, announcing the close of the day's work. So they turned aside, perhaps a hundred paces from the dockyard into a path which led diagonally across a field, to a pine wood. The reddish trunks of the trees glowed wonderfully in the light of the sinking sun, while their tops seemed floating in a bluish mist.

"I wish I could pick you a pretty bunch of flowers," said Botho, taking Lena's hand. "But look, there is just the gra.s.sy field, all gra.s.s and no flowers. Not one."

"But there are plenty. Only you do not see them, because you are too exacting."

"And even if I were, it is only for your sake."

"Now, no excuses. You shall see that I can find some."

And stooping down, she searched right and left saying: "Only look, here ... and there ... and here again. There are more here than in Dorr's garden; only you must have an eye for them." And she plucked the flowers diligently, stooping for them and picking weeds and gra.s.s with them, until in a very short time she had a quant.i.ty both of attractive blossoms and of useless weeds in her hands.

Meanwhile they had come to an old empty fisherman's hut, in front of which lay an upturned boat on a strip of sand strewn with pine cones from the neighboring wood.

"This is just right for us," said Botho: "we will sit down here. You must be tired. And now let me see what you have gathered. I don't believe you know yourself, and I shall have to play the botanist. Give them here. This is ranunculus, or b.u.t.tercup, and this is mouse's ear.

Some call it false forget-me-not. False, do you hear? And this one with the notched leaf is taraxac.u.m, our good old dandelion, which the French use for salad. Well, I don't mind. But there is a distinction between a salad and a bouquet."

"Just give them back," laughed Lena. "You have no eye for such things, because you do not love them, and the eyes and love always belong together. First you said there were no flowers in the field, and now, when we find them, you will not admit that they are really flowers. But they are flowers, and pretty ones too. What will you bet that I can make you something pretty out of them."

"I am really curious to see what you will choose."

"Only those that you agree to. And now let us begin. Here is a forget-me-not, but no mouse's ear--forget-me-not, but a real one. Do you agree?"

"Yes."

"And this is speedwell, the prize of honor, a dainty little blossom.

That is surely good enough for you. I do not even need to ask. And this big reddish brown one is the devil's paintbrush, and must have grown on purpose for you. Oh yes, laugh at it. And these," and she stooped to pick a couple of yellow blossoms, that were growing in the sand at her feet, "these are immortelles."

"Immortelles," said Botho. "They are old Frau Nimptsch's pa.s.sion. Of course we must take those, we need them. And now we must tie up our little bouquet."

"Very well. But what shall we tie it with? We will wait till we find a strong gra.s.s blade."

"No, I will not wait so long. And a gra.s.s blade is not good enough for me, it is too thick and coa.r.s.e. I want something fine. I know what, Lena, you have such beautiful long hair; pull out one and tie the bouquet with that."

"No," said she decidedly.

"No? And why not? Why not?"

"Because the proverb says 'hair binds.' And if I bind the flowers with it you too will be bound."

"But that is superst.i.tion. Frau Dorr says so."

"No, the good old soul told me herself. And whatever she has told me from my youth up, even if it seemed like superst.i.tion, I have always found it correct."

"Well, have it so. I will not contradict you. But I will not have the flowers tied with anything else but a strand of your hair. And you will not be so obstinate as to refuse me."

She looked at him, pulled a long hair from her head and wound it around the bunch of flowers. Then she said: "You chose it. Here, take it. Now you are bound."

He tried to laugh, but the seriousness with which Lena had been speaking, and especially the earnestness with which she had p.r.o.nounced the last words, did not fail to leave an impression on his mind.

"It is growing cool," said he after a while. "The host was right to bring you a jacket and a plaid. Come, let us start."

And so they went back to the boat, and made haste to cross the stream.

Only now, as they were returning, and coming nearer and nearer, did they see how picturesquely the tavern was situated. The thatched roof sat like a grotesque high cap above the timbered building, whose four little front windows were just being lit for the evening. And at the same time a couple of lanterns were carried out to the veranda, and their weird-looking bands of light shone out across the water through the branches of the old elm, which in the darkness resembled some fantastically wrought grating.

Neither spoke. But the happiness of each seemed to depend upon the question how long their happiness was to last.

CHAPTER XII

It was already growing dark as they landed. "Let us take this table,"

said Botho, as they stepped on to the veranda again: "You will feel no draught here and I will order you some grog or a hot claret cup, shall I not? I see you are chilly."

He offered several other things, but Lena begged to be allowed to go up to her room, and said that by and by when he came up she would be perfectly well again. She only felt a trifle poorly and did not need anything and if she could only rest a little, it would pa.s.s off.

Therewith she excused herself and went up to the gable room which had been prepared in the meantime. The hostess, who was indulging in all sorts of mistaken conjectures, accompanied her, and immediately asked with much curiosity, "What really was the matter," and without waiting for an answer, she went right on: yes, it was always so with young women, she remembered that herself, and before her eldest was born (she now had four and would have had five, but the middle one had come too soon and did not live), she had had just such a time. It just rushed over one so, and one felt ready to die. But a cup of balm tea, that is to say, the genuine monastery balm, would give a quick relief and one would feel like a fish in the water and quite set up and merry and affectionate too. "Yes, yes, gracious lady, when one has four, without counting the little angel ..."

Lena had some difficulty in concealing her embarra.s.sment and asked, for the sake of saying something, for a cup of the monastery balm tea, of which she had already heard.

While this conversation was going on up in the gable room, Botho had taken a seat, not in the sheltered veranda, but at a primitive wooden table that was nailed on four posts in front of the veranda and afforded a fine view. He planned to take his evening meal here. He ordered fish, and as the "tench and dill" for which the tavern was famous was brought, the host came to ask what kind of wine the Herr Baron desired? (He gave him this t.i.tle by mere chance.)

"I think," said Botho, "Brauneberger, or let us say rather Rudesheimer would suit the delicate fish best, and to show that the wine is good you must sit down with me as my guest and drink some of your own wine."

The host bowed smilingly and soon came back with a dusty bottle, while the maid, a pretty Wendin in a woolen gown and a black head-kerchief, brought the gla.s.ses on a tray.

"Now let us see," said Botho. "The bottle promises all sorts of good qualities. Too much dust and cobweb is always suspicious, but this ...

Ah, superb! This is the vintage of '70, is it not? And now we must drink, but to what? To the prosperity of Hankel Ablage."