She turned away from me, a.s.sumed her old position, stared fixedly at the ceiling, and became absorbed in thought.
"Why do you use the word dust?" she began presently.
"By the word dust I mean chiefly that which has been, but which now having become disintegrated, floats about and settles in vacant places."
She remained silent a little while.
"I have read of dust which carries the poison from putrified matter. You do not mean that, I suppose?"
There was neither irony nor anger in the tone, so I failed to understand at what she was aiming.
"That depends on where the dust falls, my dear lady; in healthy human beings it only creates a cloud of mist, prejudices which prevent them from seeing clearly; if there be stagnation this dust will oftentimes collect an inch thick, until the machinery is thoroughly clogged."
She turned toward me with more vivacity than she had yet shown, and leaning on the arm of her chair brought her face nearer to mine.
"How did you happen upon this idea?" asked she. "Is it because you have seen how much dust there is in this house?"
I admitted that I had seen this.
"And yet the chambermaid and Stina do nothing else but clean away the dust, and I did nothing else either at first. I cannot understand it. At home at my mother"s, there was nothing I heard so much about as dust.
She was always busied about father with a damp cloth; he was constantly annoyed because she would disturb his books and papers. But she insisted that he gathered more dust than any one else. He never left his study that she was not after him with a clothes-brush. And later it came to be my turn. I was like my father, she said I acc.u.mulated dust, and I never could dust well enough to satisfy her. I was so weary of dust that when I married a Paradise seemed in prospect because I thought I should escape this annoyance and have some one to dust for me. But therein I was greatly in error. And now I have given it up. It is of no use. I evidently have no talent for getting rid of dust."
"And so it is very singular," she continued, as she sank back in her chair, "that you too should come with this talk about dust."
"I hope I have not hurt your feelings?"
"How can you think--?" and then, in the calmest, most innocent voice in the world, she added: "It would not be easy to hurt the feelings of any one who had lived nine years with Albert."
I became greatly embarra.s.sed. What possible good could it do for me to become entangled in the affairs of this household? I did not say another word. She too sat, or rather reclined in her seat, for a long time in silence, drumming with her fingers on the arms of her chair. Finally I heard, as from far away, the words: "b.u.t.terfly dust is very beautiful, though." And then some time afterward there glided forth from the midst of a long chain of thought which she did not reveal, the query, "refracted rays--the various prismatic colors--?" She paused, listened, rose to her feet; she had heard Atlung"s step in the front room.
I also rose.
[4] Fru corresponds to the German Frau, and means Mrs.--Translator.
CHAPTER IV.
The door was thrown wide open, and Atlung came lounging in. This tall, slender man, in these capacious clothes that showed many a trace of the factories he had been visiting, bore in his face, his movements, his bearing, the unconcerned ease of several generations.
The gray eyes, beneath the invisible eyebrows, blinked a little when he saw me, and then the long face broadened into a smile. His superb teeth glittered between the full, short lips, as he exclaimed: "Is that you!"
He took both my hands between his hard, freckled ones, then dropping one of them threw his arm around his wife"s waist. "Was not _that_ delightful, Amalie? What? Those days in Dresden, my dear?"
When he had relaxed his hold, he made eager inquiries about myself and my journey,--he knew I was to make a short trip abroad. Then he began to tell me what occupied _him_ the most, and meanwhile he strolled up and down the room, took up one article between his fingers, handled it, then took up another. He did not hold any little thing as others do with the extreme tips of his fingers; he firmly grasped it in his hand so that his fingers closed over it. In conversation, too, it was just the same: there was a certain fullness in the way he took up each subject and flung it away again at once for something else.
His wife had left the room, but returned very soon and invited us to dinner. Just at that moment Atlung was sauntering past the piano, on which was open a new musical composition, whose character he described in a few words. Then he began to play and sing verse after verse of a long song. When he was through, his wife again reminded him of the meal.
This probably first called his attention to her presence in the room.
"See here, Amalie, let us try this duet!" he cried, and struck up the accompaniment.
Looking at me with a smile, she took her place at his side and joined in the song. Her somewhat veiled, sweet soprano blended with his rich baritone, just as I had heard it nine years before. The voices of both had acquired that deeper, fuller meaning which life gives when it has meaning itself; their skill, on the other hand, was about the same as of old.
Any one who but a moment before might perhaps have found it difficult to understand how these two had come together, only needed to be near them while they sang. A lyric abandonment of feeling was common to both, and where there was any difference of sentiment they were perfectly content to waive it. They floated onward like two children in a boat, leaving the dinner behind them to grow cold, the servants to become impatient, the guest to think what he pleased, and the order of the house and their own plans for the day to be upset.
In their singing there was no energy, no school, no delicate finish of style of this simple number, which, moreover, they were doubtless singing for the first time; but there was a smooth, lazy, happy gliding over the melody. The light coloring of the voices blended together like a caress; and there was a charm in the way it was done.
They sang verse after verse, and the longer they continued the better they sang together, and the more joyously. When finally they were through and the wife, with her somewhat labored step, walked into the dining-room on my arm, and Atlung sauntered on before to give Stina the key to the wine-cellar, there was no longer any question in Fru Atlung"s eyes, only joy, mild, beautiful joy, and her husband warbled like a canary bird.
We sat down to table while he was still out, we waited an interminable time for him; either he had not found Stina or she had not understood him: he had gone himself to the cellar and had returned so covered with dust and dirt that we could not help laughing. His wife, however, paused in the midst of her laughter, and sat silent while he changed his clothes and washed.
He swallowed spoonful after spoonful of the soup in greedy haste, regained his spirits when his first hunger was satisfied, and began to talk in one unbroken stream, until suddenly, while carving the roast, he inquired for the boys. They had had their dinner; they could not wait so long.
"Have you seen the boys?" he asked.
"Yes," I replied, and I spoke of their extreme artlessness, and what a strong likeness I thought one bore to his and the other to his wife"s family.
"But," he interposed, "it is unfortunate that both families have comparatively too much imagination; there is an element of weakness in it, and the boys have inherited their share from both families. A very sorrowful occurrence took place here about a fortnight since. A little playfellow was drowned in the fish-pond. What the boys have made out of this--of course, with Stina"s aid--is positively incredible. I was thinking about it to-day. I have not said anything, for after all it was extremely amusing, and I did not want to spoil their intercourse with Stina. But, indeed, it is most absurd. See here, Amalie, it would almost be better to send them away to school than to let them run wild in this way and get into all kinds of nonsense."
His wife made no reply.
I wanted to divert his attention, and inquired if he had read Spencer"s "Essay on Education."
Then he became animated! He had just settled himself to eat, but now he forgot to do so; he took a few bites and forgot again. Indeed, I should judge we sat over this one course a whole hour, while he expatiated on Spencer. That I who had asked if he had read the book in all probability had read it myself, did not trouble him in the least. He gave me a synopsis of the book, often point after point, with his own comments.
One of these was that even if as Spencer desires, pedagogics was introduced into every school, as one of its most important branches--most people would nevertheless lack the ability to bring up their own children; for teaching is a talent which but few possess. He for his part proposed to send the boys, as soon as they were old enough, to a lady whom he knew to possess this talent and who also had the indispensable knowledge. She was an enthusiastic disciple of Spencer.
He spoke as though this were a matter long since decided upon; his wife listened as though it were an old decision. I was much surprised that she had not told me of it when we were talking about the children a little while before.
I do not now remember what theme we were drifting into when Atlung suddenly looked at his watch.
"I had entirely forgotten Hartmann! I should have been in town! Yes, yes--it is not yet too late! Excuse me!"
He threw down his napkin, drank one more gla.s.s of wine, rose and left the room. His wife explained apologetically that Hartmann was his attorney; that unfortunately there was no telegraphic communication between the gard and the town, and that unquestionably there was some business that must be settled within an hour or thereabout.
It would take an hour at least to drive to town, if for nothing else than to spare the horse; at least an hour there; and then an hour and a half back, for no one would drive such a long distance equally fast back and forth with the same horse. I sat calculating this while I finished eating, and became aware at the same time that my coming was most inopportune. Therefore I resolved that after coffee I too would take my leave.
We had both finished and now rose from the table. My hostess excused herself and went out into the kitchen, and I who was thus left alone thought I would look round the gard.
When I got out on the steps in front of the porch, I was met by a burst of loud laughter from the boys, immediately followed by a word which I should not have thought they would take in their mouths, to say nothing of shouting it out with all their might, and this in the open yard. The elder boy called it out first, the younger repeated it after him.
They were standing up on the barn bridge, and the word was addressed to a girl who stood in the frame shed opposite them, bending over a sledge. The boys shouted out yet another word, and still another and another, without cessation. Between each word came peals of merriment.
It was clear that they were being prompted by some one inside of the barn door. The girl made no reply; but once in a while she looked up from her work and glanced over her shoulder--not at the boys but at some one behind the barn where the carriage-shed was situated.
Then I heard the sound of bells from that direction. Atlung came forth, dressed for his trip and leading his horse. Great was the alarm of the boys when they saw their father! For they suddenly realized, though perhaps not distinctly, what they had been shouting,--at least they felt they had been making mischief for some one.
"Wait until I get home, boys," the father shrieked, "and you shall surely both have a whipping."
He took his seat in his sledge and applied the lash to his horse. As he drove past me, he looked at me and shook his head.