Next Sunday the harvest festival was celebrated in the church. Paul sat in his corner, and listened to the tones of the organ and the vicar sending up praise and thanksgiving to Heaven. The sun shone through the painted windows in a thousand bright colors, just as it did on the day when he and Elsbeth were confirmed; but there, too, sad and sombre in her ash-colored garments, stood the gray woman, still gazing down upon him with her big, hollow eyes.
"I, too, am celebrating a harvest festival to-day, the harvest festival of my youth," he thought, "but mine is scarcely a too happy one."
The service was at an end. With a triumphant song the organ dismissed the joyful worshippers, who crowded together under the yews in the shady church-yard to shake hands and congratulate each other.
As Paul came down the steps he saw Elsbeth only a few paces before him, on the arm of her betrothed.
She seemed older, and looked pale and delicate. When her look met his she turned a shade paler still.
He trembled all over, but his eyes did not quit her face. In confusion he raised his cap; and at the same place where fifteen years ago they had spoken the first words to one another, they now pa.s.sed each other in silence and like strangers.
CHAPTER XX.
"Whatever is the matter with father?" said Frau Kate Erdmann to Frau Greta Erdmann, as they were both driving along the road on the way to visit their old home and take the opportunity at the same time of telling their brother all that weighed on their minds.
The old man stood crouched up in a corner behind the barn, and was busying himself over a heap of straw which lay there. When he heard the rattle of the dog-cart he stopped in alarm and rubbed his hands like some one who wished to appear unconcerned.
The two sisters looked at each other, and Greta said,
"We must give Paul a hint of this."
Oh, they had become very reasonable, these two wild girls! not less so inwardly than outwardly; their truant brown curls were combed smoothly behind their ears, and the sparkling eyes had a weary look in them, as though they now knew how it feels to sit in a lonely room and cry one"s heart out.
Frau Kate, indeed, had three strapping boys, and
Frau Greta had already hopes of a fourth; and every one knows "Maternity renders weary."
Paul was not at home; he was working on the moor; but their father came towards them with a cunning laugh, swinging his crutch, and crying out, "Can"t I run again like a youth?"
Frau Kate expressed her admiration and Frau Greta agreed with her.
"It goes first-rate," he laughed; "the day before yesterday I even went as far as Helenenthal."
They looked at him in surprise, and almost in terror, for since he was forced to leave it he had never been there again.
"How were you received?" asked Frau Greta.
"Who? What? Oh, you think perhaps I went for a neighborly visit? You are real geese! I would sooner be the guest of your watch-dog and try to take his mutton-bone away."
"But what did you do there, then?"
"I peeped through the gate and looked at the clock and then I came home again. How long do you think it takes me to walk there? just guess."
They had no idea.
"An hour and a half, just like a professional runner.... Indeed," he looked down meditatively, "if one had anything to carry, it might take two."
"And you went only to find that out?"
"That was all, my love, that was all!" and his eye sparkled meaningly.
Then they seated themselves in the veranda, which Paul had had erected before the door, on the model of the White House. The old house-keeper, who had formerly managed the Erdmanns" establishment, and who after they were married had emigrated to the Haidehof, had to go into the kitchen to make coffee and waffle cakes, and as their father did not know what to talk about to his daughters, he abused Paul and his sons-in-law.
To-day he did it less from absolute love of abuse than from old habit; his thoughts seemed to be wandering somewhere else, and while he spoke he wriggled on his chair with uncomfortable activity.
"Let us go in," said Kate; "we must look after household matters a little, and the wind is blowing us away here."
"There will be a storm to-night," said Greta. And then they both turned round terrified, for the laugh which the old man gave sounded so very strange.
"Let there be a storm," he said, a little embarra.s.sed; "that won"t matter at all. There are storms in married life too, sometimes, are there not?"
In Kate"s face there lurked something of her old mischievous look, but Greta drew down the corners of her mouth, as if she were going to cry.
She seemed not quite to have got over the last.
"Yes, autumn will be early this year," she said, with a touch of melancholy.
The old man whistled "Wenn die Schwalben Heimwarts Ziehn" (When the Swallows Homeward Fly), and Katie said:
"Let autumn come; the barns are full."
"Thank G.o.d!" t.i.ttered the old man, "they are full."
The sisters put their arms round each other, and pressing their foreheads against the window panes, looked out into the sunny yard, from which clouds of dust were whirling to the sky....
At dusk Paul came home, black as a n.i.g.g.e.r, for the peat-dust, which the wind had been blowing about, had settled on his beard and face.
He mutely shook hands with his sisters, looked sharply into their eyes, and said, "You shall tell me all about it afterwards."
Greta looked at Kate, and Kate looked at Greta; then they suddenly laughed aloud, and, seizing him by both shoulders, danced about the room with him.
"You will make yourselves black, children," he said.
"My sweetheart is a chimney-sweep," hummed Greta; and Kate sang the second verse, "My sweetheart comes from the n.i.g.g.e.r"s land."
Then they kissed him and ran to the looking-gla.s.s to see whether the kiss had left a mark.
When he had gone out to make himself tidy, Greta said, "It"s funny that he has only to look at one and all is right again."
And Kate added, "But he is more silent himself to-day than ever."
"Paul, be good," they said, caressingly, as they sat together at the supper-table; "we may only come here on such rare occasions!... show us a friendly face."
"Have you forgotten what day it is?" he answered, stroking their hair.
They started, for their first thought was of the anniversary of their mother"s death, but they breathed freely again, for that fell near Midsummer-day.