As they approached, Paul saw behind the fence bright colored dresses flitting through the shrubs and heard the giggling of merry girls"
voices. His uncomfortable feeling was considerably augmented by this.
In the veranda Mr Douglas received them with a merry laugh. He pinched the sisters" cheeks, slapped him on the shoulder, and said,
"Well, young knight, to day we are going to win our spurs."
Paul turned his cap in his hand and broke into a silly laugh, at which he felt angry with himself.
"Now _allons_ to the ladies!" cried Mr Douglas, taking the sisters one on each arm, while he himself had to trot behind them.
The giggling came nearer and nearer. Gay men"s voices were intermingled with it--he felt as if he were going to be beheaded. And then a sort of veil came over his eyes, indistinctly he saw the crowd of strange faces, which seemed to stare at him from the clouds. His speeches about the turf-culture came to his mind, but there was nothing to be done with them at this moment.
Then he saw Elsbeth"s face rise in the mist. She wore a brooch of blue stones and smiled at him kindly. In spite of this smile she never had appeared so strange to him as at that moment.
"Mr Paul Meyerhofer, the companion of my childhood," she said, taking his hand, and leading him round. He bowed to all sides, and had a vague feeling that he was making himself ridiculous.
"Eh, there is my pattern boy," the cousin"s merry voice called out, and all the ladies giggled.
Then he was asked to sit down and was offered a cup of coffee.
"Mamma has gone to lie down a little," Elsbeth whispered to him, "she is not quite well to day."
"Isn"t she?" he said, and smiled in a silly manner Cousin Leo had gathered a circle of young ladies round himself, and told them a story about a young lawyer who had been so fond of sweets that, seeing a bag _pralines_ which he was not allowed to have, he had been crystallized into a sugar loaf. They almost died with laughter over this.
"Oh, if only I could tell such stories," thought Paul to himself and, as nothing better occurred to him, he ate one piece of cake after the other.
Ihe sisters had immediately been laid hold of by several strange gentlemen, they laughed boldly in their faces while the quickest repartees flowed from their mouths.
The sisters suddenly appeared to him like beings from a higher world.
"Now we are going to play a nice game, ladies," said Cousin Leo putting one knee across the other, and leaning back negligently in his arm chair. "The game is called "Proposing." The ladies walk about singly and the gentlemen, too. The gentleman asks the lady he meets, "_Est ce que vous m"armez?_" and the lady either answers "_Je vous adore_"--then she is his wife--or she silently refuses him. He who receives the most refusals receives a nightcap, which he has to wear during the rest of the whole evening."
The ladies thought this game very amusing, and all rose to set to work directly Paul rose, too, though he would have liked best to remain in his dark corner.
"What can those foreign words be?" he asked himself, he would have liked to inquire of one of the gentlemen, but he was ashamed to betray his ignorance and so to disgrace his sisters. Elsbeth had gone away with the other girls, he would have liked best to confide in her.
He went after the others, quite depressed, but when he saw the first lady coming towards him his anxiety was so great that he quickly left the path and hid in the thickest shrubs.
There was a little wilderness there, as if it might have been in the deepest part of the wood Nettles and ferns raised their slender stalks, and the uncanny wolf"s milk was competing for supremacy with the burdock. In the midst of this tangled undergrowth he crouched down, put his elbows on his knees, and meditated.
"So that was what people called amusing themselves? It was a good thing that he should learn it for once, but like it he could not. Anyhow, it was nicer at home, and, besides, who could know whether the servants had finished weeding in time--whether the peat had not been piled up too damp? There was much to do at home, while he was lingering about here, entering into silly games like a fool. If it had not been for Elsbeth--but, indeed, what good was she to him? As she smiled at him so she smiled at them all, and if Cousin Leo began with his jokes how bold he was, how he flattered them all. Oh the world is bad, and they are all false--all, all!"
He heard his name being called from the path, but he pressed himself the closer into his hiding place. Here at least he was sheltered from mockery. An oppressive sultriness was in the air, sleepy buzzing drones were creeping about on the ground. A thunder storm seemed at hand.
"It"s all the same to me," thought Paul, "I have nothing to lose and--the winter rye is in."
It had grown quiet outside--from the distance the clatter of gla.s.ses, gla.s.s plates, and teaspoons could be heard, and from time to time it was intermingled with a suppressed laugh.
Paul drew in his breath. The longer he remained in his hiding place the more dejected he felt, at last he appeared to himself like a school boy who hides to escape his master"s punishment. The smell of the weeds became more intense and more unbearable, an unpleasant moisture came up from the damp ground, like a pale fog it rose before his eyes Steel blue clouds rolled up in the sky, the thunder began to resound afar.
"That"s what they call pleasure," thought Paul.
There was a rustling in the branches. Heavy drops came splashing down on the leaves, then Paul crept out of his hiding place like a criminal.
Shouts of laughter--welcomed him from the veranda.
"There comes August" one of the gentlemen called out, softly. He had been in Berlin and had seen the circus there, and the others joined him.
"My honored guests," cried Leo, climbing on a chair," this pattern boy, called Paul Meyerhofer, has in the most inconsiderate manner withdrawn from the verdict of the a.s.sembly. As he foresaw, in his feeling of unworthiness, that most of the refusals would be gathered upon his undignified head, he has in most reprehensible cowardice--"
"I don"t know why you speak so badly of me," said Paul, hurt, for he took everything seriously.
A fresh peal of laughter answered him
"I make the proposition to confer the nightcap on him as a punishment for his crime, and to form a jury for this purpose."
"If you please, I"ll take the cap without that," Paul answered, irritated. By this time he had only to open his mouth to call forth fresh mirth.
Solemnly he was crowned with the nightcap.
"I must look very funny, after all," he thought, for they were all dying with laughter. Only his sisters did not laugh, blushing deeply, they looked down in their laps, and Elsbeth looked it him with embarra.s.sment, as if she wanted to ask his pardon.
"August," was again softly whispered from the circle of gentlemen.
Immediately after, the thunder storm broke forth
In troops they all took refuge in the house. The young ladies turned pale, most of them were afraid of the thunder, one even fainted.
Leo proposed they should form a circle, and that each of them should tell a story, he who did not know any had to give a forfeit.
They agreed to this. The order of precedence was appointed by lot, and one of the gentlemen made the beginning with a merry student"s anecdote, which he declared he had experienced himself. Then it was the turn of some young girls, who preferred to pay forfeits, and then he himself was called out.
The gentlemen cleared their throats mockingly, and the girls nudged each other and giggled. Then anger overpowered him, and, knitting his brow, he began at random,
"Once upon a time there was some one who was so ridiculous that people had only to look at him when they wanted to laugh to their hearts content. He himself did not know how this was, for he had never laughed in his life."
There was a deep silence all round. The smiles froze on their faces, first one and then the other looked down upon the ground.
"Go on," cried Elsbeth, nodding to him gently. But a feeling of shame came over him that he thus dared to show his innermost self to these strange people.
"I can"t go on," he said, and rose.
This time no one laughed, and for a while there was only a deep, oppressive silence, and then the girl who had been chosen to collect the forfeits came up to him and said, with a polite courtesy,
"Then you must pay a forfeit."
"Willingly," he answered, and detached his watch from the chain.
"An uncomfortable fellow," he heard one of the young gentlemen say low to his neighbor. It was he who had first called up that nickname.