Problematic Characters Part 16

Then he slowly emptied his gla.s.s, throwing back his head, until his eye looked straight at the full-cheeked angel in the stucco ornaments of the ceiling; and placing the gla.s.s again on the sideboard, he went to the window; turning his back to the company, as if he did not wish to interrupt their conversation any further.

The presence of the old servant and the fiery wine had loosed the tongues once more, and made the glances bolder. They chatted, apparently quite at ease, about indifferent things, until Oswald reminded Melitta of her promise to show him to-day the cottage in the forest.

"Did I promise?" asked Melitta. "Well, then I suppose I have to do it, although I am almost sorry for it, for you do not believe in my saint, and are therefore not worthy to enter into my chapel."

"Your saint?"

"The great lady of Milo. I must tell you now also how great my enthusiasm was for the deity. After my return home, the memory of the beautiful statue in the Louvre pursued me so persistently that I did not rest till I had procured an excellent copy from Paris. But as I did not dare to set up my saint here in the house, I had her carried to the cottage in the forest, which thus became a forest-chapel. Whenever visitors come to Berkow, the key is lost; when I am alone I spend days and nights there, especially when the world has annoyed me more than ordinarily; or when I desire to be rather alone, than to have such company as I do wish to have."

"I should not have expected such hypochondriacal caprices in you."

"Why not?"

"Because you look--can look so good and so cheerful."

"And do you not know that cheerful eyes weep most readily?"

"I should not like to see you weep for anything in the world; I believe I should forget how to laugh forever."

And again their glances met and their souls kissed each other.

"Well then, come!"

"We shall have a thunder-storm," said old Baumann, from his window, without turning round.

"We shall be there long before it comes up," replied Melitta, who had already risen. "And if you are not more afraid of a thunder-storm than I am--or are you afraid?"

Oswald smiled.

"Then that shall not keep us. Besides, I do not see a trace of a thunder-storm," she said, in the door of the garden room.

At the same moment a blue shadow swept over the garden, and a few swallows flew past the door, twittering and almost grazing the ground.

"Had we better not go?" said Melitta, who had already crossed the threshold, turning back to Oswald.

"I am not afraid of the storm," replied Oswald, not looking at the sky, but into her eyes.

"And the forest is so beautiful after a storm," said Melitta. "Good-by, Baumann! When the carriage comes from Grenwitz, send it over to the forester. Tell the coachman to report at the cottage."

Baumann looked after the two until Melitta's white dress had disappeared in the bushes.

Seeing him stand there on the threshold of the house, the tall old man with his white beard and scarred face, crossing his strong arms on his broad chest, and thoughtfully looking with his bright, truthful eyes into the distance, one would have imagined a better guardian could not be found. But alas! the house was empty; the beloved mistress had gone away, into the storm-threatening twilight, with the stranger, a man whom she did not know yesterday! And he, the faithful servant, sighed deeply as he went slowly back to the supper-room, with bent head, and then began to clear the table. "The gracious gifts of heaven scarcely touched!" he murmured. "I do not like that. When young people are not hungry, they have mischief brewing. And the wine hardly tasted! There is the bottle more than half full ... and to-morrow it is unfit for the table ... to-morrow." The old man sat down by the table and rested his careworn gray head in his wrinkled hand. "But young people don't think of to-morrow. To-morrow the young gentleman with the soft voice and the large blue eyes is back again at Grenwitz, and who knows where the day after to-morrow finds him? But old Baumann is here--to-morrow and the day after to-morrow, and when the guests are gone the house looks very differently, and when they sweep it they find ... Yes, yes--old Baumann sees what no one else sees, and hears what no one else hears. Ah!

Baumann, I wish I were dead! ah, Baumann, why did you carry me that day out of the fire? Now she says; I am not afraid of the thunder-storm! and Baumann! don't send the carriage for us. Hm, hm! I ought not to have consented; I ought to have taken her aside and said to her: Look here, child, so and so; think of this and that! ... But when I see the little one so happy, so cheerful--as in those days when she was riding her pony, a little girl of twelve, and she said: Please, please, dear Baumann, let us have a race now; why, I never could say no to her, and away we went as fast as the creatures would run. She had the same big, brilliant eyes again to-night, and she looked just as rosy and fresh again! Poor, poor child! Yes, yes. You wanted to see if all the windows are properly closed; it is only on account of the thunder-storm!"

Oswald and Melitta hastened joyously, like children coming from school, out of the house through the green avenues to the gate, which led from the garden into the meadow. Behind the sloping meadow lay the forest.

Close by the gate, and for some distance along the garden, there was a pond, half bog, and here and there a few willows on the banks; for the waters of the brook were caught here by an old dam and turned around the court-yard, from which they ran merrily down through the village.

Even the meadow had become partly boggy, and in spring was often quite under water; now large stones served as a kind of rough bridge at the very wet places.

"The path is rather rustic for city gentlemen," said Melitta, skipping lightly, like a gazelle, from stone to stone; "we children of nature are accustomed to such things. I might have led you the longer way through the park and the forest, but you ought to learn to know also the dark sides of Berkow."

"Well, if this is a dark side of Berkow, I do not wish for the sunny sides," said Oswald, smiling, pausing on one of the stones and taking off his hat to wipe his forehead. For the air was oppressive, the blue shadows had pa.s.sed, the sun shot fiery rays from the edge of the forest, and they had been walking fast.

"Already tired?" said Melitta, also pausing and taking off her hat, so as to push her full brown hair backwards. "Come, the faster we run the sooner we shall be in the shade in the forest. I will count one, two, three, and he who gets there first----"

"Well?"

"Oh, we'll see. One, two, three--oh!"

Melitta had sprung from the stone upon which she stood on a lower one, and fell, with a cry of pain, on her knee. In a moment Oswald was by her side.

"Great G.o.d! What is the matter?"

"Oh, nothing, nothing! I have sprained my foot a little in jumping down; it will soon be over."

She rested on Oswald's arm, pale, and pressing her lower lip between her teeth to control her pain. But her color returned as she looked up at Oswald.

"Do not trouble yourself," she said--and her voice sounded sweeter than ever. "You have won the wager. Well! now I can walk again."

She was about to withdraw her arm from Oswald's arm, but he was not willing to let his captive escape so easily.

"You cannot walk without support, and will you not grant me the pleasure to render you this slight service?"

"I am only afraid the way is unpleasant enough to you; the sun is so burning. Oh!"

A false step made Melitta sink down once more.

"We shall have to stop here," she said.

"I will carry you the few steps to the wood. There you can at least rest in the shade."

Melitta smiled. "I am not as light as a doll."

"And I am not as weak as a girl of ten," answered Oswald, who seized Melitta around the waist, and lifting her up carried her safely, as the mother carries her child, on the last stones up to the edge of the forest, where the broad branches of the beeches gave shade and coolness. There he let her glide gently from his arms on the thick moss and remained standing before her. Melitta had no longer resisted as soon as the young man had boldly lifted her up; she felt very quickly that he was strong enough to carry her, and she thought it folly not to make the burden as easy as possible to him by clinging closely to his arms.

"How strong you are!" she said, now looking up at him with admiration.

Oswald's heart beat high, and his bosom rose, more from inner excitement than from the exertion. He still felt the elastic form which he had pressed in his arms, the soft hair playing around his face, and the sweet breath that had fallen upon his brow.

"Under such circ.u.mstances it would be difficult not to be strong," he said.

"But confess, it has tired you? Come and sit down here; there is room for more than two on this moss sofa."

Oswald sank down into the soft moss by the side of Melitta, who was leaning against the trunk of a beech-tree; he rested his head on his arm and looked thoughtfully in her cheerful face. Was the dream near the pond about to be fulfilled? Is the dear face about to bend down and to kiss him, as it did in the dream? Oswald was overcome by the strange feeling as if he had gone through all this once before; as if he knew the place from of old, the tall dark forest, from which came the pecking of a woodp.e.c.k.e.r, the meadow before him, with the red evening lights touching up the tall gra.s.s, the silent garden yonder, and from the green foliage the gray chateau of Melitta rising on high. He felt as if he had seen Melitta often in former years, as a boy, when he had been deep in a beautiful fairy tale, till at last the sweet princess stood bodily before him. And Melitta also must have felt something like it, for quite at her ease, as if he had been her brother or her husband, she took his hat off and pressed her delicate fragrant handkerchief repeatedly on his warm brow and on his blue dreamy eyes.

Oswald seized the white hand and pressed it to his lips.

"Your hand I must return, but the handkerchief I can really not give you back," he said.

"Then keep it as a souvenir of this hour. But now let us go on. It is quite a distance yet to the forest chapel, and the sky looks really threatening now."