Dame Care Part 17

"Once I knew everything by heart."

"And now?"

"Now? Oh, good heavens, I have so much to think of in every-day life--they won't fit into my head any longer."

"Nor into mine, either, Paul. It is because we have seen too much of life; poetry is lost to us."

"To you, too?"

She sighed. "My poor mother," she said.

"What is it?"

"You see, for five years I have been sick-nurse; there are many sad hours, and when the night-light burns, and one's eyes hurt with watching so much, and outside the storm rattles the shutters, many thoughts come to one about life and death, about love and loneliness--well, in short, one makes a book of poetry in one's own head and does not read other people's any more. But come away from this noise; I should like to ask you so much, and here one can hardly hear one's own voice."

"Directly," he said; "I only wanted--"

His eyes wandered searchingly over the dancing-ground, then he heard a man's voice behind him, saying:

"Just look at those two little minxes, mad after men."

Instinctively he turned round, and saw the brothers Erdmann, whom he had not met for years. They had meanwhile been at an agricultural college and become grand gentlemen.

"We'll have fun with them," said the other.

Thereupon they laughingly mixed among the dancers.

Immediately after, Paul, too, saw his sisters. Their ma.s.s of brown curls hung loose about their faces, their cheeks were aflame, their bosoms heaved, and their eyes looked wild and eager for love.

"How happy they look--the sweet creatures," said Elsbeth.

Paul gave them a little sermon. They scarcely heeded him, but looked over his shoulders, giggling. And when he turned round he saw the two Erdmanns, who had hidden behind the musicians' platform and were making clandestine signs to them.

The twins by this time had escaped him, and the Erdmanns disappeared as well.

"Come away from here," said Elsbeth.

He consented, but remained as if rooted to the ground.

"What is the matter?" she asked.

He pa.s.sed his hand across his brow; he could not get those contemptuous words which he had overheard out of his head. The sisters were young, merry, inexperienced, n.o.body looked after them; if they should lower themselves in any way, if they--an icy shudder pa.s.sed through him.

And he, who had vowed to be their faithful guardian, he was going after his own pleasure, he--

"Come to the wood," Elsbeth pleaded again.

"I can't," he gasped.

She looked at him wonderingly.

"I must--my sisters--n.o.body is with them. Do not be angry."

"Take me back to the table," she said.

He did so. Neither spoke a word.

Five minutes later he came upon his sisters, who, arm in arm with the Erdmanns, were trying to slip off to the wood.

"Where are you going?" he asked, stepping between them.

They lowered their eyes in embarra.s.sment, and Katie stammered, "We--wanted to go for a little walk."

The brothers Erdmann took the tone of good-fellows.h.i.+p, shook hands with him heartily, and wished most ardently to renew the friends.h.i.+p of their youthful days. Behind his back they shook their fists at him.

"You will go at once to your mother," he said to the twins, and as they began to sulk he took their arms and drew them away. The table was half deserted. The Douglas family had left the festival.

Then he went into the wood and reflected on what Elsbeth might have wished to tell him.

But it was not to be--something always came between them.

CHAPTER XI.

It was a midsummer night. The alder-tree sent forth its perfume. The moonlight lay in silver veils upon the earth. There was great rejoicing in the village. Tar-barrels were lighted, and the farm-servants and maids were dancing on the green. The flames sent their glare far over the heath, and the shrill sounds of the fiddle came sadly through the night.

Paul stood at the garden fence and looked out into the distance. The servants had gone to the midsummer-night's fire, and his sisters had not come home yet, either.

They had asked permission to visit the vicar's daughter Hedwig, their playmate, who was an unpretending, quiet girl, in whose company he gladly trusted them.

Now he thought he would wait till they had all come home.

The moonlight drew him out onto the heath. It lay there in midnight silence; only in the heather a linnet chirped from time to time, as if in its sleep. The wild-pinks bent their red heads, and the golden-rod shone as if it wanted to compete with the moonbeams. Slowly, with hesitating steps, he walked on, sometimes stumbling over a mole-hill or entangling himself in the tendrils of the plants. The dew sparkled before him in s.h.i.+ning drops. Thus he came to the region of the juniper-bushes, which looked more elf-like than usual.

The wood stood silent like a black wall, and the moonbeams rested on it like freshly-fallen snow. He found the place where years ago the hammock had hung; in the weird twilight the open s.p.a.ce showed through the dark branches. It drew him on and on. Like a palace of dazzling marble the White House, with its balconies and gables, rose before his eyes. Deep silence enshrouded the manor-house; only here and there a dog barked and relapsed into silence directly.

He stood before the trellised gate, not knowing how he had come there.

He grasped the bars with both hands and looked in. The wide yard lay yonder before him, bathed in the light of the moon; the big farm-wagons, which were ranged in a row before the stables, stood there in black outline; a white cat crept along the garden fence; everything else lay in deep sleep.

He walked on along the fence. On the ash-heap behind the forge lay some fragments of glimmering coals, which looked in the darkness like burning eyes. Here the garden began. High elm-trees bent their branches over him, and an overpowering perfume of laburnums and early roses floated through the trellis-work towards him. The gravel-strewn paths shone like silver threads through the branches, and the sundial, which had been the dream of his childhood, stood out darkly behind them.

The White House came nearer and nearer. Now he could almost look into the windows. Here, too, all seemed asleep.

He had read here and there in the Liederbuch, too, that the lover used to sing serenades to the queen of his heart on moonlight nights, to the accompaniment of either the guitar or mandolin if this was at all feasible. It had been thus in the beautiful days of chivalry, and in Spain or Italy might still be so. That occurred to him now, and he pictured to himself how it would look if he, Paul the simpleton, were to play the lute here as a knight-errant, crowing longing love-songs at the same time.

At this thought he laughed out loud, and then he remembered that he carried his instrument about with him everywhere. He seated himself on the gra.s.s, his back leaning against a post of the fence, and began to whistle--shyly and softly at first, then ever bolder and louder, and as usual when he was entirely given up to his feelings, he at last forgot everything around him.