"Such delicious beer-soup! I know a poor, wretched boy who would be awfully glad to have such delicious beer-soup."
My little boy looks with great interest at Auntie, who is swallowing her soup with eyes full of ecstatic bliss:
"Where is he?" he asks.
Aunt Anna pretends not to hear.
"Where is the poor boy?" he asks again.
"Yes, where is he?" I ask. "What"s his name?"
Aunt Anna gives me a furious glance.
"What"s his name, Aunt Anna?" asks my little boy. "Where does he live?
He can have my beer-soup with pleasure."
"Mine too," I say, resolutely, and I push my plate from me.
My little boy never takes his great eyes off Aunt Anna"s face.
Meanwhile, she has recovered herself:
"There are many poor boys who would thank G.o.d if they could get such delicious beer-soup," she says. "Very many. Everywhere."
"Yes, but tell us of one, Auntie," I say.
My little boy has slipped down from his chair. He stands with his chin just above the table and both his hands round his plate, ready to march off with the beer-soup to the poor boy, if only he can get his address.
But Aunt Anna does not allow herself to be played with:
"Heaps of poor boys," she says again. "Hun-dreds! And therefore another little boy, whom I will not name, but who is in this room, ought to be ashamed that he is not thankful for his beer-soup."
My little boy stares at Aunt Anna like the bird fascinated by the snake.
"Such delicious beer-soup!" she says. "I must really ask for another little helping."
Aunt Anna revels in her martyrdom. My little boy stands speechless, with open mouth and round eyes.
I push my chair back and say, with genuine exasperation:
"Now, look here, Aunt Anna, this is really too bad! Here we are, with a whole lot of beer-soup, which we don"t care about in the least and which we would be very glad to get rid of, if we only knew someone who would have it. You are the only one that knows of anybody. You know a poor boy who would dance for joy if he got some beer-soup. You know hundreds. But you won"t tell us their names or where they live."
"Why, what do you mean?"
"And you yourself sit quite calmly eating two whole helpings, though you know quite well that you"re going to have an omelette to follow. That"s really very naughty of you, Aunt Anna."
Aunt Anna chokes with annoyance. My little boy locks his teeth with a snap and looks with every mark of disgust at that wicked old woman.
And I turn with calm earnestness to his mother and say:
"After this, it would be most improper for us ever to have beer-soup here again. We don"t care for it and there are hundreds of little boys who love it. If it must be made, then Aunt Anna must come every Sat.u.r.day and fetch it. She knows where the boys live."
The omelette is eaten in silence, after which Aunt Anna shakes the dust from her shoes. She won"t have any coffee today.
While she is standing in the hall and putting on her endless wraps, a last doubt arises in my little boy"s soul. He opens his green eyes wide before her face and whispers:
"Aunt Anna, where do the boys live?"
Aunt Anna pinches him and is shocked and goes off, having suffered a greater defeat than she can ever repair.
V
My little boy comes into my room and tells me, with a very long face, that Jean is dead. And we put all nonsense on one side and hurry away to the Klampenborg train, to go where Jean is.
For Jean is the biggest dog that has lived for some time.
He once bit a boy so hard that the boy still walks lame. He once bit his own master. He could give such a look out of his eyes and open such a mouth that there was no more horrible sight in the world. And then he would be the mildest of the mild: my little boy could put his hand in his mouth and ride on his back and pull his tail.
When we get there, we hear that Jean is already buried.
We look at each other in dismay, to think how quickly that happens! And we go to the grave, which is in the grounds of the factory, where the tall chimneys stand.
We sit down and can"t understand it.
We tell each other all the stories that we know of Jean"s wonderful size and strength. The one remembers this, the other that. And, as each story is told, the whole thing becomes only more awful and obscure.
At last we go home by train.
Besides ourselves, there is a kind old gentleman in the compartment, who would like to make friends with my little boy. But the boy has nothing to talk about to the kind old gentleman. He stands at the window, which comes just under his chin, and stares out.
His eyes light upon some tall chimneys:
"That"s where Jean is buried," he says.
"Yes."
The landscape flies past. He can think only of _that_ and see only _that_ and, when some more chimneys appear, he says again:
"That"s where Jean is buried."
"No, my little friend," says the kind old gentleman. "That was over there."
The boy looks at him with surprise. I hasten to rea.s.sure him: