She turned half away from him and began to pluck the flowers.
“Are these flowers for me?” he asked, hesitatingly.
“Are they not for Miss Frederica?”
“Oh no, let them be for me!” he besought, kneeling at her side.
Again his voice had such a plaintive ring in it—almost like that of a begging child.
She handed him the violets without looking up. Then he clasped her round the waist and held her close to him. She did not resist, but closed her eyes and breathed heavily. Then she felt that he kissed her—over and over again—on the eyes, on the mouth, meanwhile calling her by her name, with incoherent words, and then kissing her again. They called to him from the garden; he let her go and ran down the mound. The horses stamped, the young man sprang quickly into the carriage, and it rolled away. But as he was closing the carriage door he was so maladroit as to drop the bouquet; only a single violet remained in his hand.
“I suppose it’s no use offering you this one, Miss Frederica?” he said.
“No, thanks; you may keep that as a memento of your remarkable dexterity,” answered Miss Hartvig; he was in her black books.
“Yes—you are right—I shall do so,” answered Max Lintzow, with perfect composure.—Next day, after the ball, when he put on his morning-coat, he found a withered violet in the button-hole. He nipped off the flower with his fingers, and drew out the stalk from beneath.
“By-the-bye,” he said, smiling to himself in the mirror, “I had almost forgottenher!”
In the afternoon he went away, and then hequiteforgot her.
The summer came with warm days and long, luminous nights. The smoke of the passing steamships lay in long black streaks over the peaceful sea. The sailing-ships drifted by with flapping sails and took nearly a whole day to pass out of sight.
It was some time before the Pastor noticed any change in his daughter. But little by little he became aware that Rebecca was not flourishing that summer. She had grown pale, and kept much to her own room. She scarcely ever came into the study, and at last he fancied that she avoided him.
Then he spoke seriously to her, and begged her to tell him if she was ill, or if mental troubles of any sort had affected her spirits.
But she only wept, and answered scarcely a word.
After this conversation, however, things went rather better. She did not keep so much by herself, and was oftener with her father. But the old ring was gone from her voice, and her eyes were not so frank as of old.
The Doctor came, and began to cross-question her. She blushed as red as fire, and at last burst into such a paroxysm of weeping, that the old gentleman left her room and went down to the Pastor in his study.
“Well, Doctor, what do you think of Rebecca?”
“Tell me now, Pastor,” began the Doctor, diplomatically, “has your daughter gone through any violent mental crisis—hm—any—”
“Temptation, do you mean?”
“No, not exactly. Has she not had any sort of heartache? Or, to put it plainly, any love-sorrow?”
The Pastor was very near feeling a little hurt. How could the Doctor suppose that his own Rebecca, whose heart was as an open book to him, could or would conceal from her father any sorrow of such a nature! And, besides—! Rebecca was really not one of the girls whose heads were full of romantic dreams of love. And as she was never away from his side, how could she—? “No, no, my dear Doctor! That diagnosis does you little credit!” the Pastor concluded, with a tranquil smile.
“Well, well, there’s no harm done!” said the old Doctor, and wrote a prescription which was at least innocuous. He knew of no simples to cure love-sorrows; but in his heart of hearts he held to his diagnosis.
The visit of the Doctor had frightened Rebecca. She now kept still stricter watch upon herself, and redoubled her exertions to seem as before. For no one must suspect what had happened: that a young man, an utter stranger, had held her in his arms and kissed her—over and over again!
As often as she realized this the blood rushed to her cheeks. She washed herself ten times in the day, yet it seemed she could never be clean.
For what was it that had happened? Was it of the last extremity of shame? Was she now any better than the many wretched girls whose errors she had shuddered to think of, and had never been able to understand? Ah, if there were only any one she could question! If she could only unburden her mind of all the doubt and uncertainty that tortured her; learn clearly what she had done; find out if she had still the right to look her father in the face—or if she were the most miserable of all sinners.
Her father often asked her if she could not confide to him what was weighing on her mind; for he felt that she was keeping something from him. But when she looked into his clear eyes, into his pure open face, it seemed impossible, literally impossible, to approach that terrible impure point and she only wept. She thought sometimes of that good Mrs. Hartvig’s soft hand; but she was a stranger, and far away. So she must e’en fight out her fight in utter solitude, and so quietly that no one should be aware of it.
And he, who was pursuing his path through life with so bright a countenance and so heavy a heart! Should she ever see him again? And if she were ever to meet him, where should she hide herself? He was an inseparable part of all her doubt and pain; but she felt no bitterness, no resentment towards him. All that she suffered bound her closer to him, and he was never out of her thoughts.
In the daily duties of the household Rebecca was as punctual and careful as ever. But in everything she did he was present to her memory. Innunmerable spots in the house and garden recalled him to her thoughts; she met him in the door-ways; she remembered where he stood when first he spoke to her. She had never been at the King’s Knoll since that day; it was there that he had clasped her round the waist, and—kissed her.
The Pastor was full of solicitude about his daughter; but whenever the Doctor’s hint occurred to him he shook his head, half angrily. How could he dream that a practised hand, with a well-worn trick of the fence, could pierce the armor of proof with which he had provided her?
If the spring had been late, the autumn was early.
One fine warm summer evening it suddenly began to rain. The next day it was still raining; and it poured incessantly, growing ever colder and colder, for eleven days and nights on end. At last it cleared up; but the next night there were four degrees of frost. [Note: Réaumur.]
On the bushes and trees the leaves hung glued together after the long rain; and when the frost had dried them after its fashion, they fell to the ground in multitudes at every little puff of wind.
The Pastor’s tenant was one of the few that had got their corn in; and now it had to be threshed while there was water for the machine. The little brook in the valley rushed foaming along, as brown as coffee, and all the men on the farm were taken up with tending the machine and carting corn and straw up and down the Parsonage hill.
The farm-yard was bestrewn with straw, and when the wind swirled in between the houses it seized the oat-straws by the head, raised them on end, and set them dancing along like yellow spectres. It was the juvenile autumn wind trying its strength; not until well on in the winter, when it has full-grown lungs, does it take to playing with tiles and chimney-pots.
A sparrow sat crouched together upon the dog-kennel; it drew its head down among its feathers, blinked its eyes, and betrayed no interest in anything. But in reality it noted carefully where the corn was deposited. In the great sparrow-battle of the spring it had been in the very centre of the ball, and had pecked and screamed with the best of them. But it had sobered down since then; it thought of its wife and children, and reflected how good it was to have something in reserve against the winter.—Ansgarius looked forward to the winter—to perilous expeditions through the snow-drifts and pitch-dark evenings with thundering breakers. He already turned to account the ice which lay on the puddles after the frosty nights, by making all his tin soldiers, with two brass cannons, march out upon it. Stationed upon an overturned bucket, he watched the ice giving way, little by little, until the whole army was immersed, and only the wheels of the cannons remained visible. Then he shouted, “Hurrah!” and swung his cap.
“What are you shouting about?” asked the Pastor, who happened to pass through the farm-yard.
“I’m playing at Austerlitz!” answered Ansgarius, beaming.
The father passed on, sighing mournfully; he could not understand his children.—Down in the garden sat Rebecca on a bench in the sun. She looked out over the heather, which was in purple flower, while the meadows were putting on their autumn pallor.
The lapwings were gathering in silence, and holding flying drills in preparation for their journey; wad all the strand birds were assembling, in order to take flight together. Even the lark had lost its courage and was seeking convoy voiceless and unknown among the other gray autumn birds. But the sea-gull stalked peaceably about, protruding its crop; it was not under notice to quit.
The air was so still and languid and hazy. All sounds and colors were toning down against the winter, and that vas very pleasant to her.
She was weary, and the long dead winter would suit her well. She knew that her winter would be longer than all the others, and she began to shrink from the spring.
Then everything would awaken that the winter had laid to sleep. The birds would come back and sing the old songs with new voices; and upon the King’s Knoll her mother’s violets would peer forth afresh in azure clusters; it was there that he had clasped her round the waist and kissed her—over and over again.
He was bound many miles westward, right out to the sea-coast, to unearth a sow’s ear which he had buried in the good times.
It was now late autumn, and food was scarce.
When you see one raven, says Father Brehm, you need only look round to discover a second.
But you might have looked long enough where this wise old raven came flying; he was, and remained, alone. And without troubling about anything or uttering a sound, he sped on his strong coal-black wings through the dense rain-mist, steering due west.
But as he flew, evenly and meditatively, his sharp eyes searched the landscape beneath, and the old bird was full of chagrin.
Year by year the little green and yellow patches down there increased in number and size; rood after rood was cut out of the heathery waste, little houses sprang up with red-tiled roofs and low chimneys breathing oily peat-reek. Men and their meddling everywhere!
He remembered how, in the days of his youth—several winters ago, of course—this was the very place for a wide-awake raven with a family: long, interminable stretches of heather, swarms of leverets and little birds, eider-ducks on the shore with delicious big eggs, and tidbits of all sorts abundant as heart could desire.
Now he saw house upon house, patches of yellow corn-land and green meadows; and food was so scarce that a gentlemanly old raven had to fly miles and miles for a paltry sow’s ear.
Oh, those men! those men! The old bird knew them.
He had grown up among men, and, what was more, among the aristocracy. He had passed his childhood and youth at the great house close to the town.
But now, whenever he passed over the house, he soared high into the air, so as not to be recognized. For when he saw a female figure down in the garden, he thought it was the young lady of the house, wearing powdered hair and a white head-dress; whereas it was in reality her daughter, with snow-white curls and a widow’s cap.
Had he enjoyed his life among the aristocracy? Oh, that’s as you please to look at it. There was plenty to eat and plenty to learn; but, after all, it was captivity. During the first years his left wing was clipped, and afterwards, as his old master used to say, he was uponparole d’honneur.
This parole he had broken one spring when a glossy-black young she-raven happened to fly over the garden.
Some time afterwards—a few winters had slipped away—he came back to the house. But some strange boys threw stones at him; the old master and the young lady were not at home.
“No doubt they are in town,” thought the old raven; and he came again some time later. But he met with just the same reception.
Then the gentlemenly old bird—for in the meantime he had grown old—felt hurt, and now he flew high over the house. He would have nothing more to do with men, and the old master and the young lady might look for him as long as they pleased. That they did so he never doubted.
And he forgot all that he had learned, both the difficult French words which the young lady taught him in the drawing-room, and the incomparably easier expletives which he had picked up on his own account in the servants’ hall.
Only two human sounds clung to his memory, the last relics of his vanished learning. When he was in a thoroughly good humor, he would often say, “Bonjour, madame!” But when he was angry, he shrieked, “Go to the devil!”
Through the dense rain-mist he sped swiftly and unswervingly; already he saw the white wreath of surf along the coast. Then he descried a great black waste stretching out beneath him. It was a peat moor.
It was encircled with farms on the heights around; but on the low plain—it must have been over a mile [Note: One Norwegian mile is equal to seven English miles.] long—there was no trace of human meddling; only a few stacks of peat on the outskirts, with black hummocks and gleaming water-holes between them.
“Bonjour, madame!” cried the old raven, and began to wheel in great circles over the moor. It looked so inviting that he settled downward, slowly and warily, and alighted upon a tree-root in the midst of it.
Here it was just as in the old days-a silent wilderness. On some scattered patches of drier soil there grew a little short heather and a few clumps of rushes. They were withered; but on their stiff stems there still hung one or two tufts—black, and sodden by the autumn rain. For the most part the soil was fine, black, and crumbling—wet and full of water-holes. Gray and twisted tree-roots stuck up above the surface, interlaced like a gnarled net-work.
The old raven well understood all that he saw. There had been trees here in the old times, before even his day.
The wood had disappeared; branches, leaves, everything was gone. Only the tangled roots remained, deep down in the soft mass of black fibres and water.
But further than this, change could not possibly go; so it must endure, and here, at any rate, men would have to stint their meddling.
The old bird held himself erect. The farms lay so far away that he felt securely at home, here in the middle of the bottomless morass. One relic, at least, of antiquity must remain undisturbed. He smoothed his glossy black feathers, and said several times, “Bonjour, madame!”
But down from the nearest farm came a couple of men with a horse and cart; two small boys ran behind. They took a crooked course among the hummocks, but made as though to cross the morass.
“They must soon stop,” thought the raven.
But they drew nearer and nearer; the old bird turned his head uneasily from side to side; it was strange that they should venture so far out.
At last they stopped, and the men set to work with spades and axes. The raven could see that they were struggling with a huge root which they wanted to loosen.
“They will soon tire of that,” thought the raven.
But they did not tire, they hacked with their axes—the sharpest the raven had ever seen—they dug and hauled, and at last they actually got the huge stem turned over on its side, so that the whole tough net-work of roots stood straight up in the air.
The small boys wearied of digging canals between the water-holes. “Look at that great big crow over there,” said one of them.
They armed themselves with a stone in each hand, and came sneaking forward behind the hummocks.
The raven saw them quite well. But that was not the worst thing it saw.
Not even out on the morass was antiquity to be left in peace. He had now seen that even the gray tree-roots, older than the oldest raven, and firmly inwoven into the deep, bottomless morass—that even they had to yield before the sharp axes.
And when the boys had got so near that they were on the point of opening fire, he raised his heavy wings and soared aloft.
But as he rose into the air and looked down upon the toiling men and the stupid boys, who stood gaping at him with a stone in each hand, a great wrath seized the old bird.
He swooped down upon the boys like an eagle, and while his great wings flounced about their ears, he shrieked in a terrible voice, “Go to the devil!”
The boys gave a yell and threw themselves down upon the ground. When they presently ventured to look up again, all was still and deserted as before. Far away, a solitary blackbird winged to the westward.
But till they grew to be men—aye, even to their dying day—they were firmly convinced that the Evil One himself had appeared to them out on the black morass, in the form of a monstrous black bird with eyes of fire.
But it was only an old raven, flying westward to unearth a sow’s ear which it had buried.
Ola did not hear.
“He’s quite as deaf as Aunt Maren,” thought Hans. “You’re kicking up the dust!” he shouted, louder.
“Oh, I beg your pardon!” said Cousin Ola, and lifted his feet high in air at every step. Not for all the world would he do anything to annoy his brother; he had too much on his conscience already.
Was he not at this very moment thinking of her whom he knew that his brother loved? And was it not sinful of him to be unable to conquer a passion which, besides being a wrong towards his own brother, was so utterly hopeless?
Cousin Ola took himself sternly to task, and while he kept to the other side of the way, so as not to make a dust, he tried with all his might to think of the most indifferent things. But however far away his thoughts might start, they always returned by the strangest short-cuts to the forbidden point, and began once more to flutter around it, like moths around a candle.
The brothers, who were paying a holiday visit to their uncle, the Pastor, were now on their way to the Sheriff’s house, where there was to be a dancing-party for young people. There were many students paying visits in the neighborhood, so that these parties passed like an epidemic from house to house.
Cousin Hans was thus in his very element; he sang, he danced, he was entertaining from morning to night; and if his tone had been a little sharp when he declared that Ola was kicking up the dust, it was really because of his annoyance at being unable, by any means, to screw his brother up to the same pitch of hilarity.
We already know what was oppressing Ola. But even under ordinary circumstances he was more quiet and retiring than his brother. He danced “like a pair of nut-crackers,” said Hans; he could not sing at all (Cousin Hans even declared that his speaking voice was monotonous and unsympathetic); and, in addition to all this, he was rather absent and ill-at-ease in the society of ladies.
As they approached the Sheriff’s house, they heard a carriage behind them.
“That’s the Doctor’s people,” said Hans, placing himself in position for bowing; for the beloved one was the daughter of the district physician.
“Oh, how lovely she is—in light pink!” said Cousin Hans.
Cousin Ola saw at once that the beloved one was in light green; but he dared not say a word lest he should betray himself by his voice, for his heart was in his throat.
The carriage passed at full speed; the young men bowed, and the old Doctor cried out, “Come along!”
“Why, I declare, that was she in light green!” said Cousin Hans; he had barely had time to transfer his burning glance from the light-pink frock to the light-green. “But wasn’t she lovely, Ola?”
“Oh yes,” answered Ola with an effort.
“What a cross-grained being you are!” exclaimed Hans, indignantly. “But even if you’re devoid of all sense for female beauty, I think you might at least show more interest in—in your brother’s future wife.”
“If you only knew how she interests me,” thought the nefarious Ola, hanging his head.
But meanwhile this delightful meeting had thrown Hans into an ecstatic mood of amorous bliss; he swung his stick, snapped his fingers, and sang at the pitch of his voice.
As he thought of the fair one in the light-green frock—fresh as spring, airy as a butterfly, he called it—the refrain of an old ditty rose to his lips, and he sang it with great enjoyment:
“Hope’s clad in April green—Trommelommelom, trommelommelom,Tender it’s vernal sheen—Trommelommelom, trommelommelom.”
This verse seemed to him eminently suited to the situation, and he repeated it over and over again—now in the waltz-time of the old melody, now as a march, and again as a serenade—now in loud, jubilant tones, and then half whispering, as if he were confiding his love and his hope to the moon and the silent groves.
Cousin Ola was almost sick; for, great as was his respect for his brother’s singing, he became at last so dog-tired of this April-green hope and this eternal “Trommelommelom” that it was a great relief to him when they at last arrived at the Sheriff’s.
The afternoon passed as it always does on such occasions; they all enjoyed themselves mightily. For most of them were in love, and those who were not found almost a greater pleasure in keeping an eye upon those who were.
Some one proposed a game of “La Grace” in the garden. Cousin Hans rushed nimbly about and played a thousand pranks, threw the game into confusion, and paid his partner all sorts of attentions.
Cousin Ola stood at his post and gave his whole mind to his task; he caught the ring and sent it off again with never failing precision. Ola would have enjoyed himself, too, if only his conscience had not so bitterly upbraided him for his nefarious love for his brother’s “future wife.”
When the evening began to grow cool the party went in-doors, and the dancing began.
Ola did not dance much at any time, but to-day he was not at all in the humor. He occupied himself in observing Hans, who spent the whole evening in worshipping his lady-love. A spasm shot through Ola’s heart when he saw the light-green frock whirl away in his brother’s arms, and it seemed to him that they danced every dance together.
At last came the time for breaking up. Most of the older folks had already taken their departure in their respective carriages, the young people having resolved to see each other home in the delicious moonlight.
But when the last galop was over, the hostess would not hear of the young ladies going right out into the evening air, while they were still warm with dancing. She therefore decreed half an hour for cooling down, and, to occupy this time in the pleasantest manner, she begged Cousin Hans to sing a little song.
He was ready at once, he was not one of those foolish people who require pressing; he knew quite well the value of his talent.
There was, however, this peculiarity about Hans’s singing, or rather about its reception, that opinion was more than usually divided as to its merits. By three persons in the world his execution was admired as something incomparable. These three persons were, first, Cousin Ola, then Aunt Maren, and lastly Cousin Hans himself. Then there was a large party which thought it great fun to hear Cousin Hans sing. “He always makes something out of it.” But lastly there came a few evil-disposed people who asserted that he could neither sing nor play.
It was with respect to the latter point, the accompaniment, that Cousin Ola always cherished a secret reproach against his brother—the only shadow upon his admiration for him.
He knew how much labor it had cost both Hans himself and his sisters to get him drilled in these accompaniments, especially in the three minor chords with which he always finished up, and which he practised beforehand every time he went to a party.
So, when he saw his brother seated at the piano, letting his fingers run lightly and carelessly over the key-board, and then looking up to the ceiling and muttering, “What key is it in again?” as if he were searching for the right one, a shiver always ran through Cousin Ola. For he knew that Hans had mastered three accompaniments, and no more—one minor and two major.
And when the singer, before rising from the piano, threw in these three carefully-practised minor chords so lightly, and with such an impromptu air, as if his fingers had instinctively chanced upon them, then Ola shook his head and said to himself, “This is not quite straightforward of Hans.”
In the mean time his brother sang away at his rich repertory. Schumann and Kierulf were his favorites, so he performed“Du bist die Ruh,” “My loved one, I am prison’d” “Ich grolle nicht,” “Die alten bösen Lieder,” “I lay my all, love, at thy feet,” “Aus meiren grossen Schmerzen mach’ ich die kleinen Lieder”—all with the same calm superiority, and that light, half-sportive accompaniment. The only thing that gave him a little trouble was that fatal point,“Ich legt’ auch meine Liebe, Und meinen Schmerz hinein;”but even of this he made something.
Then Ola, who knew to a nicety the limits of his brother’s musical accomplishment, noticed that he was leaving the beaten track, and beginning to wander among the keys; and presently he was horrified to find that Hans was groping after that unhappy “Hope’s clad in April green.” But fortunately he could not hit upon it, so he confined himself to humming the song half aloud, while he threw in the three famous minor chords.
“Now we’re quite cool again,” cried the fair one in light green, hastily.
There was a general burst of laughter at her eagerness to get away, and she was quite crimson when she said good-night.
Cousin Ola, who was standing near the hostess, also took his leave. Cousin Hans, on the other hand, was detained by the Sheriff, who was anxious to learn under what teachers he had studied music; and that took time.
Thus it happened that Ola and the fair one in the light green passed out into the passage at the same time. There the young folks were crowding round the hat-pegs, some to find their own wraps, some to take down other people’s.
“I suppose it’s no good trying to push our way forward,” said the fair one.
Ola’s windpipe contracted in such a vexatious way that he only succeeded in uttering a meaningless sound. They stood close to each other in the crush, and Ola would gladly have given a finger to be able to say something pleasant to her, or at least something rational; but he found it quite impossible.
“Of course you’ve enjoyed the evening?” said she, in a friendly tone.
Cousin Ola thought of the pitiful part he had been playing all evening; his unsociableness weighed so much upon his mind that he answered—the very stupidest thing he could have answered, he thought, the moment the words were out of his lips—“I’m so sorry that I can’t sing.”
“I suppose it’s a family failing,” answered the fair one, with a rapid glance.
“N-n-no,” said Ola, exceedingly put out, “my brother sings capitally.”
“Do you think so?” she said, drily.
This was the most astounding thing that had ever happened to Ola: that there could be more than one opinion about his brother’s singing, and that she, his “future wife,” did not seem to admire it! And yet it was not quite unpleasant to him to hear it.
Again there was a silence, which Ola sought in vain to break.
“Don’t you care for dancing?” she asked.
“Not with every one,” he blurted out.
She laughed: “No, no; but gentlemen have the right to choose.”
Now Ola began to lose his footing. He felt like a man who is walking, lost in thought, through the streets on a winter evening, and who suddenly discovers that he has got upon a patch of slippery ice. There was nothing for it but to keep up and go ahead; so, with the courage of despair, he said “If I knew—or dared to hope—that one of the ladies—no—that the lady I wanted to dance with—that she would care to—hm—that she would dance with me, then—then—” he could get no further, and after saying “then” two or three times over, he came to a stand-still.
“You could ask her,” said the fair one.
Her bracelet had come unfastened, and its clasp was so stiff that she had to bend right forward and pinch it so hard that she became quite red in the face, in order to fasten it again.
“Would you, for example, dance with me?” Ola’s brain was swimming.
“Why not?” she answered. She stood pressing the point of her shoe into a crack in the floor.
“We’re to have a party at the Parsonage on Friday—would you give me a dance then?”
“With pleasure; which would you like?” she answered, trying her best to assume a “society” manner.
“A quadrille?” said Ola; thinking: “Quadrilles are so long.”
“The second quadrille is disengaged,” answered the lady.
“And a galop?”
“Yes, thank you; the first galop,” she replied, with a little hesitation.
“And a polka?”
“No, no! no more,” cried the fair one, looking at Ola with alarm.
At the same moment, Hans came rushing along at full speed. “Oh, how lucky I am to find you!—but in what company!”
Thereupon he took possession of the fair one in his amiable fashion, and drew her away with him to find her wraps and join the others.
“A quadrille and a galop; but no more—so so! so so!” repeated Cousin Ola. He stood as though rooted to the spot. At last he became aware that he was alone. He hastily seized a hat, slunk out by the back way, sneaked through the garden, and clambered with great difficulty over the garden fence, not far from the gate which stood ajar.
He struck into the first foot-path through the fields, fixing his eyes upon the Parsonage chimneys. He was vaguely conscious that he was getting wet up to the knees in the long grass; but on the other hand, he was not in the least aware that the Sheriff’s old uniform cap, which he had had the luck to snatch up in his haste, was waggling about upon his head, until at last it came to rest when the long peak slipped down over his ear.
“A quadrille and a galop; but no more—so so! so so!—“—It was pretty well on in the night when Hans approached the Parsonage. He had seen the ladies of the Doctor’s party home, and was now making up the accounts of the day as he went along.
“She’s a little shy; but on the whole I don’t dislike that.”
When he left the road at the Parsonage garden, he said, “She’s dreadfully shy—almost more than I care for.”
But as he crossed the farm-yard, he vowed that coy and capricious girls were the most intolerable creatures he knew. The thing was that he did not feel at all satisfied with the upshot of the day. Not that he for a moment doubted that she loved him; but, just on that account, he thought her coldness and reserve doubly annoying. She had never once thrown the ring to him; she had never once singled him out in the cotillion; and on the way home she had talked to every one but him. But he would adopt a different policy the next time; she should soon come to repent that day.
He slipped quietly into the house, so that his uncle might not hear how late he was. In order to reach his own and his brother’s bedroom he had to pass through a long attic. A window in this attic was used by the young men as a door through which to reach a sort of balcony, formed by the canopy over the steps leading into the garden.
Cousin Hans noticed that this window was standing open; and out upon the balcony, in the clear moonlight, he saw his brother’s figure.
Ola still wore his white dancing-gloves; he held on to the railing with both hands, and stared the moon straight in the face.
Cousin Hans could not understand what his brother was doing out there at that time of night; and least of all could he understand what had induced him to put a flower-pot on his head.
“He must be drunk,” thought Hans, approaching him warily.
Then he heard his brother muttering something about a quadrille and a galop; after which he began to make some strange motions with his hands.
Cousin Hans received the impression that he was trying to snap his fingers; and presently Ola said, slowly, and clearly, in his monotonous and unsympathetic speaking voice: “Hope’s clad in April green—trommelommelom, trommelommelom;” you see, poor fellow, he could not sing.
It was by the merest chance that Monsieur and Madame Tousseau came to Saint-Germain-en-Laye in the early days of September.
Four weeks ago they had been married in Lyons, which was their home; but where they had passed these four weeks they really could not have told you. The time had gone hop skip-and-jump; a couple of days had entirely slipped out of their reckoning, and, on the other hand, they remembered a little summer-house at Fontainebleau, where they had rested one evening, as clearly as if they had passed half their lives there.
Paris was, strictly speaking, the goal of their wedding journey, and there they established themselves in a comfortable littlehôtel garni. But the city was sultry and they could not rest; so they rambled about among the small towns in the neighborhood, and found themselves, one Sunday at noon, in Saint-Germain.
“Monsieur and Madame have doubtless come to take part in the fête?” said the plump little landlady of the Hôtel Henri Quatre, as she ushered her guests up the steps.
The fête? They knew of no fête in the world except their own wedded happiness; but they did not say so to the landlady.
They soon learned that they had been lucky enough to drop into the very midst of the great and celebrated fair which is held every year, on the first Sunday of September, in the Forest of Saint-Germain.
The young couple were highly delighted with their good hap. It seemed as though Fortune followed at their heels, or rather ran ahead of them, to arrange surprises. After a delicious tête-à-tête dinner behind one of the clipped yew trees in the quaint garden, they took a carriage and drove off to the forest.
In the hotel garden, beside the little fountain in the middle of the lawn, sat a ragged condor which the landlord had bought to amuse his guests. It was attached to its perch by a good strong rope. But when the sun shone upon it with real warmth, it fell a-thinking of the snow-peaks of Peru, of mighty wing-strokes over the deep valleys—and then it forgot the rope.
Two vigorous strokes with its pinions would bring the rope up taut, and it would fall back upon the sward. There it would lie by the hour, then shake itself and clamber up to its little perch again.
When it turned its head to watch the happy pair, Madame Tousseau burst into a fit of laughter at its melancholy mien.
The afternoon sun glimmered through the dense foliage of the interminable straight-ruled avenue that skirts the terrace. The young wife’s veil fluttered aloft as they sped through the air, and wound itself right round Monsieur’s head. It took a long time to put it in order again, and Madame’s hat had to be adjusted ever so often. Then came the relighting of Monsieur’s cigar, and that, too, was quite a business; for Madame’s fan would always give a suspicious little flirt every time the match was lighted; then a penalty had to be paid, and that, again, took time.
The aristocratic English family which was passing the summer at Saint-Germain was disturbed in its regulation walk by the passing of the gay little equipage. They raised their correct gray or blue eyes; there was neither contempt nor annoyance in their look—only the faintest shade of surprise. But the condor followed the carriage with its eyes, until it became a mere black speck at the vanishing-point of the straight-ruled interminable avenue.
“La joyeuse fête des Loges” is a genuine fair, with gingerbread cakes, sword-swallowers, and waffles piping hot. As the evening falls, colored lamps and Chinese lanterns are lighted around the venerable oak which stands in the middle of the fairground, and boys climb about among its topmost branches with maroons and Bengal lights.
Gentlemen of an inventive turn of mind go about with lanterns on their hats, on their sticks, and wherever they can possibly hang; and the most inventive of all strolls around with his sweetheart under a great umbrella, with a lantern dancing from each rib.
On the outskirts, bonfires are lighted; fowls are roasted on spits, while potatoes are cut into slices and fried in dripping. Each aroma seems to have its amateurs, for there are always people crowding round; but the majority stroll up and down the long street of booths.
Monsieur and Madame Tousseau had plunged into all the fun of the fair. They had gambled in the most lucrative lottery in Europe, presided over by a man who excelled in dubious witticisms. They had seen the fattest goose in the world, and the celebrated flea, “Bismarch,” who could drive six horses. Furthermore, they had purchased gingerbread, shot at a target for clay pipes and soft-boiled eggs, and finally had danced a waltz in the spacious dancing-tent.
They had never had such fun in their lives. There were no great people there—at any rate, none greater than themselves. As they did not know a soul, they smiled to every one, and when they met the same person twice they laughed and nodded to him.
They were charmed with everything. They stood outside the great circus and ballet marquees and laughed at the shouting buffoons. Scraggy mountebanks performed on trumpets, and young girls with well-floured shoulders smiled alluringly from the platforms.
Monsieur Tousseau’s purse was never at rest; but they did not grow impatient of the perpetual claims upon it. On the contrary, they only laughed at the gigantic efforts these people would make to earn—perhaps half a franc, or a few centimes.
Suddenly they encountered a face they knew. It was a young American whom they had met at the hotel in Paris.
“Well, Monsieur Whitmore!” cried Madame Tousseau, gayly, “here at last you’ve found a place where you can’t possibly help enjoying yourself.”
“For my part,” answered the American, slowly, “I find no enjoyment in seeing the people who haven’t money making fools of themselves to please the people who have.”
“Oh, you’re incorrigible!” laughed the young wife. “But I must compliment you on the excellent French you are speaking to-day.”
After exchanging a few more words, they lost each other in the crowd; Mr. Whitmore was going back to Paris immediately.
Madame Tousseau’s compliment was quite sincere. As a rule the grave American talked deplorable French, but the answer he had made to Madame was almost correct. It seemed as though it had been well thought out in advance—as though a whole series of impressions had condensed themselves into these words. Perhaps that was why his answer sank so deep into the minds of Monsieur and Madame Tousseau.
Neither of them thought it a particularly brilliant remark; on the contrary, they agreed that it must be miserable to take so gloomy a view of things. But, nevertheless, his words left something rankling. They could not laugh so lightly as before, Madame felt tired, and they began to think of getting homewards.
Just as they turned to go down the long street of booths in order to find their carriage, they met a noisy crew coming upward.
“Let us take the other way,” said Monsieur.
They passed between two booths, and emerged at the back of one of the rows. They stumbled over the tree-roots before their eyes got used to the uncertain light which fell in patches between the tents. A dog, which lay gnawing at something or other, rose with a snarl, and dragged its prey further into the darkness, among the trees.
On this side the booths were made up of old sails and all sorts of strange draperies. Here and there light shone through the openings, and at one place Madame distinguished a face she knew.
It was the man who had sold her that incomparable gingerbread—Monsieur had half of it still in his pocket.
But it was curious to see the gingerbread-man from this side. Here was something quite different from the smiling obsequiousness which had said so many pretty things to her pretty face, and had been so unwearied in belauding the gingerbread—which really was excellent.
Now he sat crouched together, eating some indescribable mess out of a checked pocket-handkerchief—eagerly, greedily, without looking up.
Farther down they heard a muffled conversation. Madame was bent upon peeping in; Monsieur objected, but he had to give in.
An old mountebank sat counting a handful of coppers, grumbling and growling the while. A young girl stood before him, shivering and pleading for pardon; she was wrapped in a long water-proof.
The man swore, and stamped on the ground. Then she threw off the water-proof and stood half naked in a sort of ballet costume. Without saying a word, and without smoothing her hair or preening her finery, she mounted the little steps that led to the stage.
At that moment she turned and looked at her father. Her face had already put on the ballet-simper, but it now gave place to a quite different expression. The mouth remained fixed, but the eyes tried, for a second, to send him a beseeching smile. The mountebank shrugged his shoulders, and held out his hand with the coppers; the girl turned, ducked under the curtain, and was received with shouts and applause.
Beside the great oak-tree the lottery man was holding forth as fluently as ever. His witticisms, as the darkness thickened, grew less and less dubious. There was a different ring, too, in the laughter of the crowd; the men were noisier, the mountebanks leaner, the women more brazen, the music falser—so it seemed, at least, to Madame and Monsieur.
As they passed the dancing-tent the racket of a quadrille reached their ears. “Great heavens!—was it really there that we danced?” said Madame, and nestled closer to her husband.
They made their way through the rout as quickly as they could; they would soon reach their carriage, it was just beyond the circus-marquee. It would be nice to rest and escape from all this hubbub.
The platform in front of the circus-marquee was now vacant. Inside, in the dim and stifling rotunda, the performance was in full swing.
Only the old woman who sold the tickets sat asleep at her desk. And a little way off, in the light of her lamp, stood a tiny boy.
He was dressed in tights, green on one side, red on the other; on his head he had a fool’s cap with horns.
Close up to the platform stood a woman wrapped in a black shawl. She seemed to be talking to the boy.
He advanced his red leg and his green leg by turns, and drew them back again. At last he took three steps forward on his meagre shanks and held out his hand to the woman.
She took what he had in it, and disappeared into the darkness.
He stood motionless for a moment, then he muttered some words and burst into tears.
Presently he stopped, and said: “Maman m’a pris mon sou!”—and fell to weeping again.
He dried his eyes and left off for a time, but as often as he repeated to himself his sad little history—how his mother had taken his sou from him—he was seized with another and a bitterer fit of weeping.
He stooped and buried his face in the curtain. The stiff, wrinkly oil-painting must be hard and cold to cry into. The little body shrank together; he drew his green leg close up under him, and stood like a stork upon the red one.
No one on the other side of the curtain must hear that he was crying. Therefore he did not sob like a child, but fought as a man fights against a broken heart.
When the attack was over, he blew his nose with his fingers, and wiped them on his tights. With the dirty curtain he had dabbled the tears all over his face until it was streaked with black; and in this guise, and dry-eyed, he gazed for a moment over the fair.
Then: “Maman m’a pris mon sou”—and he set off again.
The backsweep of the wave leaves the beach dry for an instant while the next wave is gathering. Thus sorrow swept in heavy surges over the little childish heart.
His dress was so ludicrous, his body so meagre, his weeping was so wofully bitter, and his suffering so great and man-like——But at home at the hotel—the Pavillon Henri Quatre, where the Queens of France condescended to be brought to bed there the condor sat and slept upon its perch.
And it dreamed its dream—its only dream—its dream about the snow-peaks of Peru and the mighty wing-strokes over the deep valleys; and then it forgot its rope.
It uplifted its ragged pinions vigorously, and struck two sturdy strokes. Then the rope drew taut, and it fell back where it was wont to fall—it wrenched its claw, and the dream vanished.——Next morning the aristocratic English family was much concerned, and the landlord himself felt annoyed, for the condor lay dead upon the grass.