Hammer and Anvil Part 32

Was it really myself? Had my gloomy soul departed during my long sickness, and given place to a purer, brighter spirit? Be it as it might, it was sweet--almost too sweet to last. But I would keep it as long as I could, as one holds fast the refrain of some lovely melody. I did not move, I did not open my eyes, when I heard by a slight rustling in the room that my faithful guardian was making his preparations for the night.

How could I do otherwise than rest sweetly, so richly blessed; than rest calmly, so faithfully guarded?

CHAPTER V.

In the shady garden, especially reserved for the use of the superintendent and his family, there was at the farthest corner a little garden-house, which stood upon the old city-wall, and in the family rejoiced in the pompous name of _Belvedere_, because from it a charming view might have been had, over the ramparts, of a large part of the strait and a still larger part of the island, if one could only have opened the windows. But the window-frames were very old, and rotten and warped with age; the sashes were narrow, and the regular pattern they once presented could scarcely now be discerned in the small, lead-set panes of stained gla.s.s which had once belonged to an adjacent chapel, now in ruins. The house was to a certain extent a ruin, as the wood of which it was built had not entirely resisted for so many years the influences of the sun, the rain, and the sea-breeze; and it was in consequence but seldom used, far more rarely than the s.p.a.ce immediately in front of it, which was, in reality, the summer residence of the family, where they pa.s.sed the best part of the time in fine weather.

This spot fully deserved their preference. On a level with the garden-house and the crest of the wall, and thus considerably higher than the rest of the garden, it was reached by a refres.h.i.+ng breeze from the near sea, while but rarely did a ray of the noon sun pierce the thick foliage of the old plane-trees that surrounded it. The s.p.a.ces between the trunks of these trees were filled up with the green wall of a living hedge, which added to the cosy, secluded character of the spot, and threw into bold relief the figures of six _hermae_ of sandstone. Two round pine tables, painted green, stood on either side, with the needful chairs, and invited to work or to reverie.

Of the two persons who were sitting here one fine afternoon in August, about a fortnight after I had been able to leave my room, the one was occupied--if day-dreaming may be called an occupation with the other; while the other was really diligently at work. The dreamer was myself; and a light covering, which, despite the warmth of the day, was thrown across my lap, seemed meant to indicate that I was still a convalescent, to whom dreaming is allowed and work forbidden; while the other was a young maiden of about fourteen years, and her work consisted in drawing a life-size head _a deux crayons_ upon a sketching-board. During her work she frequently raised her eyes from her sketching-board to me, and if I must name the subject of my dreams, I must confess that it was these eyes of hers.

And indeed one did not need to be twenty years old, and a convalescent, and in addition precisely the one upon whom these eyes were so often fixed with that peculiar look at once decisive and doubtful, piercing and superficial, which the painter casts upon his model--I say one did not need to be either of these, let alone all three at once, to be fettered by these eyes. They were large and blue, with that depth in them which has a surface on which play every emotion of feeling, every glancing light and pa.s.sing shadow, and which yet remains in itself something unfathomable. Once already, and that not so long before, I had looked into eyes that were unfathomable, at least for me, but how different were these! I felt the difference, and yet was not able precisely to define it. I only knew that these eyes did not confuse and disquiet me, did not kindle me into a flame to-day to chill me as with ice to-morrow; but that I could gaze into them again and again as one gazes into the clear sky, full of blissful calm, and no wish, no desire awakens within us, unless it be the longing to have wings.

What possibly may have caused these large deep eyes of the maiden to appear larger and deeper, was the circ.u.mstance that they were by far the chief beauty of her face. Some said the only beauty; but I could not at that time agree with this opinion. Her features were indeed not perfectly regular, and certainly not at all what is called striking, but there was nothing ign.o.ble about them; on the contrary, all was refined and full of character, at once bright and thoughtful, designed in soft yet well-marked lines. Especially did this apply to the mouth, which seemed to speak even when the lips were shut. And this bright, intelligent, rather pale face was inclosed by two thick plaits of the richest blond hair, which, as was then the fas.h.i.+on, commenced at the temples and were carried under the ears to the back of the head--almost too heavy a frame, one would have said, for the delicate head, which was usually inclined a little forward or to one side. This att.i.tude, combined with her usual seriousness of expression, gave the maiden an appearance of being several years older than she really was. But work and care soon brush away the first l.u.s.tre of youth; and she, though hardly more than a child, knew what work was but too well, and over her young life care had already cast its gloomy shadow.

CHAPTER VI.

At this moment, however, a smile played over her serious face. She looked over her sketching-board at me and said: "You can get up, if you wish."

"Have you finished?" I asked, availing myself of the permission, and going behind her chair. "Why, you are still at work on the eyes. How can you have so much patience?"

"And you so much impatience?" she asked in return, quietly going on with her drawing. "You are just like our little Oscar. When he has planted a bean, five minutes afterwards he digs it up again to see if it has grown at all."

"But he is only seven years old."

"Old enough to know that beans do not grow so fast as that."

"You always find fault with Oscar, and after all he is your pet."

"Who says so?"

"Benno told me so yesterday, in strictest confidence. I was not to tell you."

"Then you ought not to have told me."

"But he is right."

"No, he is not right. Oscar is the smallest, and therefore I must look after him the most. Benno and Kurt can get along without me."

"Except their exercises, which you correct for them."

"Now take your seat again."

"I may speak, may I not?"

"Certainly."

I had taken my seat, but several minutes pa.s.sed while I sat silently watching her work. A ray of the evening sun, which pierced the thick foliage of the great plane, fell upon her head and surrounded it with an aureole.

"Fraulein Paula," I said.

"Paula," she answered, without looking up.

"Paula, then."

"Well?"

"I wish I had a sister like you."

"You have a sister."

"But she is so much older than I, and never cared much for me; and now she of course will have nothing more to do with me."

"Where did you say that she lives?"

"On the Polish frontier. She has been married, these ten years, to an officer in the customs. She has a number of children."

"Then she has enough to do with them; you must not be angry with her."

"I am not angry with her; I hardly know her; I believe I should pa.s.s her by if I met her on the street."

"That is not well; brothers and sisters should hold together. If I thought that ten or twenty years hence I should meet Benno or Kurt or my little Oscar on the street and they would not know me, I should be very unhappy."

"They would know you, even if fifty years had pa.s.sed."

"I should be an old woman then; but I shall never be so old."

"Why not?"

"By that time the boys will have long been men, and will have wives and children, and my father and my mother will long have been buried, and what should I then do in the world?"

"But you will marry too."

"Never," she replied.

Her voice was so serious, and her great blue eyes that looked over the board at my forehead, which she was then drawing, had so grave an expression, that I could not laugh, as I at first felt disposed to do.

"Why?" I inquired.

"When the boys can do without me, I will be too old."