The Song Of Songs Part 13

"When once we are out there!" she thought, and clenched her teeth to keep them from chattering.

The silence began to paralyse her thoughts. She would gladly have started a conversation, had she been able to think of a suitable beginning.

A baker's boy was walking ahead of them whistling.

"When we worked all night," said Fritz Redlich suddenly, "we always bought warm rolls. We might get some now."

Lilly became joyous again.

To be sure, had he said "we might steal some," she would have liked it better.

The baker's boy was not permitted to sell his rolls--just the right number for delivery had been doled out to him--but on the opposite side was an open shop.

When Lilly saw her hero reappear with a large bag in his hand, she had a pleasant sensation, as if they were beginning housekeeping together.

They now walked along gardens under a veritable shower of dew falling from the trees. Lilly shrugged her shoulders, and did not know what to do she felt so cold.

At last they were out in the open country.

Mats of silver-grey cobwebs, each weighted down with a burden of dew, were spread over the fields of high stubble. Yellow ridges of hills bounded the semicircle of the landscape, and in the distance rose the walls of the woods.

Lilly stretched her arms like a swimmer, and drew in through her open mouth five or six deep breaths.

"Aren't you feeling well?"

Lilly laughed.

"I must make up for all I've lost," she said. "I haven't _breathed_ for a whole year."

Feeling frozen still she began to run. He tried to keep pace, but soon fell behind, and panted after her, hopping rather than running.

When they reached the top of the first hill, the sun began to rise over the plain. The brushwood seemed to be on fire, and the cobwebs shone like silver. Each dew-drop became a glittering spark, a flame ran along each thread.

Lilly, warmed and excited from running, pressed her hands to her heaving breast, and stared into the sea of red with drunken eyes.

"Oh, look, look," she stammered, giving his face a questioning, searching glance.

She half expected him to recite odes, sing hymns, and play the harp.

He stood there trying to get his breath, to all appearances occupied exclusively with himself.

"Do recite something, Mr. Redlich," she begged. "A poem by Klopstock, or something else." She had not gotten up to Goethe in school.

He gave a short laugh, and replied:

"Catch me! Now that examinations are over German literature may go to the dogs for all I care."

Lilly felt ashamed and said nothing more, fearing the expression of such crude desires must make her culture appear half baked. When she looked up again, the glow was gone. The fields still sent up yellowish-red vapours to meet the climbing sun, whose effulgence hung coldly, almost indifferently, over the earth begging for light.

They walked on toward the woods.

He swung the paper bag. From either side of the road she gathered blackberries, which depended like bunches of glistening black beads from bushes overlaid with a film of cobwebs.

Some distance on, at the edge of the woods, they came upon a bench.

Without discussing it, they simply made for the seat. It was the place they needed.

Lilly felt a little oppression at her heart. Here she was finally to receive the revelations for which her soul languished; here she was to look into the heaven-gazing eyes of the young genius.

He opened the bag, and she laid her handkerchief filled with the blackberries alongside.

The work-bag containing the heavy revolver was deposited for the time being between the rounds of the bench. Lilly hollowed out the rolls, and filled them with blackberries, and the two breakfasted together very cosily.

The golden shimmer of early autumn poured its enchantment over them.

Lilly's brain grew heavy with longing and happiness. She could have sunk to the ground, and laid her forehead against his knees merely for support, because approaching fulfillment was more than she could bear.

He had removed his cap. A curly lock fell over his forehead down to his eyebrows, giving his face a sombre expression, as if he were challenging the whole world. This "genius lock" was the fashion among the boys of the last year high school and was especially cherished by those who did not aspire to the stylishness of belonging to a students' corps.

His gaze rested on the church towers of the old city, which resembled awkward, faithful, sleepy watchmen looking down on the wide-spreading cl.u.s.ters of house tops.

"Will you tell me what you are thinking about?" asked Lilly, bashfully admiring. The great moment--at last it had come.

He gave a short and somewhat mocking laugh.

"I am calculating how many ministers get their living in a nest like that, and how comfortable it is for a fellow if he just studies theology."

"Why don't you? Learning flows in on one from all sides."

"You don't understand," he reproved her gently. "Learning is not the chief thing. Conviction is. One must do everything for the sake of one's conviction, suffer want, suffer all sorts of privations. The city has six scholarships to bestow upon theological students, but I would rather chop my hand off than accept one. A man must take up the fight for his convictions, and that's what I'm going to do--day after to-morrow."

His small, short-sighted eyes sparkled. He stroked the genius lock from his forehead with a trembling hand.

Now she had him where she wanted him. Perhaps this was the very instant in which to hand him the revolver. But out of respect for the greatness of his mood, she deferred the matter for a while.

Taking a firmer hold of the bag in which the revolver was lying, she went into raptures as once before on the porch.

"Oh, Mr. Redlich, what is finer than such a fight? To dive into the waves of life! To spite the dark powers who control our destiny, and wrest our fortune from them, to come out of the struggle each time with greater strength, a more iron will. Can you conceive of anything more up-lifting?"

But this time, too, her adjuration failed to awaken an echo.

"Good heavens," he said, "on close inspection what after all is this much-vaunted fight? Everybody walks over you, in winter you lie in a cold bed, and all year round you have nothing to eat. Of course, I'm going to go into it, of course I am, but it's hard, yes, indeed, it's hard! If I had a scholarship I should feel much better."

"So that's all the joy you have in facing the world?"

"My dear young lady," he rejoined, "a fellow who starts out with nothing but a satchel of darned wash and a hundred-mark bill--where's he to get much joy from?"

"He's the very one!" Lilly exclaimed, eager to cast a ray of her own confidence into his heart. "When somebody is like you, with the mark of greatness on his face, then the world lies at his feet."

She described a semicircle with her right hand, taking in the entire plain, its green bushes and silvery streams and the city with its wreath of swelling gardens lying embedded in the fields like a lark's nest in a meadow. Lilly felt as if she were showing him a small copy of his future realm.