Iolanthe's Wedding Part 17

You don't believe me? You shake your head? Oh, my dear man, I am speaking from experience. Alas, alas! If I could tell you--but why shouldn't I? Night is falling outside, the November storm is howling, and to-day I celebrated the advent of my thirtieth grey hair--quite the atmosphere for conjuring up a picture of light, spring and youth.

Let me close my eyes, and you listen to me like a good little boy. I want to tell you of my first love. Do you know who my first love was? A goose-herd, a real, out-and-out gooseherd. I am not joking. I have wept bitter tears over the wrong he did me, and that when I had long been a grown-up, highly respectable young lady.

To be sure, when he first set my heart afire, I was still of the age when my highest ideal of happiness was to go barefoot. I was eight years old, he ten. I was the daughter of the lord of the castle, he, the son of our smith.

Mornings, when I took breakfast on the verandah with my mother and big brother, he used to pa.s.s by with his geese and disappear in the direction of the pasture. At first he stared up at us with nave astonishment, it never occurring to him to raise his cap. Then my brother impressed it upon him that it was proper to give the family a decent greeting, and from that time on he always called up a "Good mornin' to you" like a lesson learned by heart and with a long sweep of his cap.

If my brother happened to be in a good humour, I received permission to take a roll down to him, and he always s.n.a.t.c.hed it out of my hand with a certain greedy anxiety, as if there were danger of my withdrawing it at the last moment.

What did he look like? I can still see him as if he were right there in front of me. His straight flaxen hair hung down over his sunburned cheeks like a thatched roof, with his blue eyes peering from underneath, jolly and cunning. He wore his ragged trousers rolled up over his knees, and always carried an osier switch, into which, along the green bark, he had cleverly cut white spirals.

It was upon this switch that my childish covetousness first fastened itself. How fascinating to hold in my hand a marvellous piece of work like that, so different from all my toys! And when I pictured to myself being allowed to chase geese with it and to go barefoot, the pinnacle of earthly happiness had been reached.

And it was this same switch that brought us into human contact. One morning at breakfast, as I saw him going by so cheerily, I could no longer restrain my desire. I furtively put together the pieces of the roll spread with honey that I was eating and asked hurriedly to be excused, and ran after him.

When he saw me coming, he stopped and looked at me wonderingly. But as soon as he caught sight of the roll in my hand, a gleam of comprehension shot into his eyes.

"Will you give me your switch?" I asked.

"Why?" he asked back, and put one foot up to rub the calf of his other leg.

"Because I want it," I said defiantly, then added more gently, "I'll give you my roll spread with honey for it."

He let his eyes rest longingly on the piece of deliciousness, and then finally observed. "No, I have to have it for the geese, but I'll cut another one like it for you."

"Can you do that?"

I was all astonishment.

"Oh, that's nothing," he pooh-poohed. "I can make flutes, too, and jumping jacks."

I was so completely carried off my feet that I handed him the roll on the spot. He bit into it with gusto, and, not honouring me with another glance, he drove his feathered flock off before him.

I looked after him, envy in my heart. _He_ was allowed to shepherd geese, but _I_ had to go up to Mademoiselle and learn French. Yes, I thought, how unequal fortune's favours are.

That evening he brought me the switch he had promised to make. It was even more beautiful than I had dared to hope in my wildest dreams.

There were the white spirals that had so fascinated me in the original, and more than that, the b.u.t.t-end was topped with a k.n.o.b, on which a human countenance--whether mine or his, I could not unriddle--was depicted by two dots and two dashes at right angles.

From that time on we were friends. I shared with him all the goodies that fell to me, the spoiled little darling, from every side. In return, he bestowed upon me the artistic products of his skilful fingers, reed pipes, little boxes, houses, toy utensils, and, best of all, his famous jumping jacks.

Our meetings took place every evening behind the goose coops, and there we exchanged gifts. I looked forward the whole day to these meetings, my thoughts constantly engaged by my young hero. I saw him on the sunny pasture lying in the gra.s.s, blowing his reed pipes, while I was torturing myself with horrid vowels. And the yearning grew ever stronger within me to partake of that bliss which is called minding geese.

When I told him of my feelings, he burst out laughing.

"Why don't you come along, then?" he said.

That tipped the scales, and without a second's reflection, "All right,"

I said, "I'll go along to-morrow."

"Don't forget to bring something to eat along," my friend forewarned me.

Luck was with me. Mademoiselle's headache came at the very opportune moment, and the French lesson was dispensed with. Feverish with joy and excitement, I sat at the breakfast table waiting for him to go by. My pockets were stuffed with goodies of all sorts, which I had wheedled out of Mademoiselle, and beside me lay the switch, which I looked forward to swinging that day in the strict fulfilment of my duty.

Ah, there he was coming. His blue eyes glanced up at me slily as he bellowed his "Good mornin' to you" at us; and the instant I could slip away without attracting attention I was off after him.

"What have you brought along?" was his first question.

"Two little ginger cakes, three cervelat sandwiches, a roll cut in two with sardelles between, and a piece of gooseberry pie," said I, spreading out my glories.

He fell upon them at once, while I with carefully concealed glee proudly drove the geese along.

After pa.s.sing through the fir woods, the first part of which was somewhat familiar to me from my previous walks, we came to regions less and less well known. Stunted undergrowth rose on each side of the way, making an uncanny thicket, and then, all of a sudden, the broad, boundless heath opened up to my vision.

Oh, how lovely it was, how lovely! As far as the eye reached, a sea of gra.s.s and gaily coloured flowers. Molehills covered with turf stretched away in long rows like motionless waves. The hot air quivered, fairly dancing on the breezy heath, while the buzzing of the bees made the accompaniment. And high up in the deep blue heavens stood the golden sun.

At the edge of the woods was a marsh with gleaming puddles of greyish yellow, thickish water. The refuse of the geese floated on the surface, and roundabout on the ground--so moist that great bubbles gushed up between the clumps of gra.s.s--were thousands of fine tracks of the geese's feet, making the whole spot look like a patterned rug.

This was the flock's paradise. Here we made halt, and while the geese settled themselves comfortably in the puddles, we chased about on the heath, shouting and laughing, caught yellow b.u.t.terflies, and picked blueberries.

Then we played husband and wife. Elsie, the tamest of the geese, was our child. We kissed and whipped the poor creature almost to death, but it finally succeeded, after prodigious efforts, in making its escape from our clutches. Next, I prepared the meals for my husband. I untied my white ap.r.o.n, spread it on the ground for a tablecloth, and placed on it the remnants of the food I had brought along. He sat down to the repast pompously, and when I saw the rapidity with which he finished up one bit after the other, I nearly jumped out of our little home for joy.

The hours pa.s.sed as in a dream. Higher and higher rose the sun, until its rays came burning down on us perpendicularly. My head began to spin, and a dull la.s.situde came over me. Also, I experienced considerable hunger, but my spouse had already consumed everything. The inside of my mouth was dry, my lips were feverish. To cool them, I held moist blades of gra.s.s against them.

Suddenly, from beyond the woods, from way far away, came the ringing of a bell. I knew what it meant. It was the summons to the midday meal, which called me to table, too. And if they missed me! Oh, G.o.d, what would become of me?

I threw myself on the gra.s.s and began to cry bitterly, while my companion, meaning to comfort me, pa.s.sed his rough hands over my face and neck.

Suddenly I jumped up and made a dash for the woods, as though pursued by the furies. It must have been about two hours that I strayed about in the undergrowth crying. Then I caught the sound of voices calling my name, and a few moments later I was in my brother's arms.

The next morning my poor friend appeared in the part of abductor and seducer before the high criminal court of the lord of the manor. He seemed to take it for granted that he was to be the scapegoat and was in for a flogging, and he made not the slightest attempt to s.h.i.+ft part of the blame from himself. He accepted the chastis.e.m.e.nt my brother inflicted upon him with the greatest calm. Then he rubbed his aching back against a porch column, smiling dolefully, and, after that, hastily made off, while I, sobbing aloud, rolled on the floor.

From that day on I loved him. I plotted a thousand wiles and schemes for meeting him secretly. I nabbed edibles like a magpie, so that he might regale himself with the fruits of my pilferings. I fairly oppressed him with the profusion of fond attentions, with which I tried to wipe out of existence those frightful blows of my brother's whip.

He accepted my love calmly and rewarded me for it by a devotion that was moving and an appet.i.te that was sound.

Fate separated us six months later.

My mother had been ailing for some time, and the physician now recommended her living in the south. She put the estate entirely in my brother's charge and moved to the Riviera, taking me along.

Nine years were to elapse before I came back home. The return was sadder than ever I should have dreamed. In Berlin, where I had lived after my mother's death, a tricky nervous trouble had taken hold of me and kept me confined to bed for many weeks. The doctors wrestled with death and saved my life, but the blooming young girl had become a pale weak shadow. My physician recommended the country and pine-needle baths, and so I was bundled on to the train and transported to my brother's estate.

I must have presented a pretty pitiful spectacle, because when I reached the house and was lifted out of the carriage, I saw tears in the old domestics' eyes.

It is a peculiar feeling to know you are back home again after long wanderings, especially if you have gone through as much trouble as I had. A rare softness takes hold of you, and you try to blot out forever the joy and the suffering imposed by an alien world. You try to be a child again and conjure up long lost magic out of the grave.