"Those _are_ Jean"s chimneys," I say.
And, while he is looking out again, I take the old gentleman to the further corner of the compartment and tell him the state of the case.
I tell him that, if I live, I hope, in years to come, to explain to the boy the difference between Petersen"s and Hansen"s factories and, should I die, I will confidently leave that part of his education to others.
Yes, even if he should never learn this difference, I would still be resigned. Today it is a question of other and more important matters.
The strongest, the most living thing he knew is dead. . . .
"Really?" says the old gentleman, sympathetically. "A relation, perhaps?"
"Yes," I say. "Jean is dead, a dog. . . ."
"A dog?"
"It is not because of the _dog_--don"t you understand?--but of _death_, which he sees for the first time: death, with all its might, its mystery. . . ."
"Father," says my little boy and turns his head towards us. "When do we die?"
"When we grow old," says the kind old gentleman.
"No," says the boy. "Einar has a brother, at home, in the courtyard, and he is dead. And he was only a little boy."
"Then Einar"s brother was so good and learnt such a lot that he was already fit to go to Heaven," says the old gentleman.
"Mind you don"t become too good," I say and laugh and tap my little boy in the stomach.
And my little boy laughs too and goes back to his window, where new chimneys rise over Jean"s grave.
But I take the old gentleman by the shoulders and forbid him most strictly to talk to my little boy again. I give up trying to make him understand me. I just shake him. He eyes the communication-cord and, when we reach the station, hurries away.
I go with my little boy, holding his hand, through the streets full of live people. In the evening, I sit on the edge of his bed and talk with him about that incomprehensible thing: Jean, who is dead; Jean, who was so much alive, so strong, so big. . . .
VI
Our courtyard is full of children and my little boy has picked a bosom-friend out of the band: his name is Einar and he can be as good as another.
My little boy admires him and Einar allows himself to be admired, so that the friendship is established on the only proper basis.
"Einar says . . . Einar thinks . . . Einar does," is the daily refrain; and we arrange our little life accordingly.
"I can"t see anything out of the way in Einar," says the mother of my little boy.
"Nor can I," say I. "But our little boy can and that is enough. I once had a friend who could see nothing at all charming in you. And you yourself, if I remember right, had three friends who thought _your_ taste inexcusable. Luckily for our little boy. . . ."
"Luckily!"
"It is the feeling that counts," I go on lecturing, "and not the object."
"Thanks!" she says.
Now something big and unusual takes place in our courtyard and makes an extraordinary impression on the children and gives their small brains heaps to struggle with for many a long day.
The scarlatina comes.
And scarlatina is not like a pain in your stomach, when you have eaten too many pears, or like a cold, when you have forgotten to put on your jacket. Scarlatina is something quite different, something powerful and terrible. It comes at night and takes a little boy who was playing quite happily that same evening. And then the little boy is gone.
Perhaps a funny carriage comes driving in through the gate, with two horses and a coachman and two men with bright bra.s.s b.u.t.tons on their coats. The two men take out of the carriage a basket, with a red blanket and white sheets, and carry it up to where the boy lives.
Presently, they carry the basket down again and then the boy is inside.
But n.o.body can see him, because the sheet is over his face. The basket is shoved into the carriage, which is shut with a bang, and away goes the carriage with the boy, while his mother dries her eyes and goes up to the others.
Perhaps no carriage comes. But then the sick boy is shut up in his room and no one may go to him for a long time, because he is infectious. And anyone can understand that this must be terribly sad.
The children in the courtyard talk of nothing else.
They talk with soft voices and faces full of mystery, because they know nothing for certain. They hear that one of them, who rode away in the carriage, is dead; but that makes no more impression on them than when one of them falls ill and disappears.
Day by day, the little band is being thinned out and not one of them has yet come back.
I stand at my open window and look at my little boy, who is sitting on the steps below with his friend. They have their arms around each other"s necks and see no one except each other; that is to say, Einar sees himself and my little boy sees Einar.
"If you fall ill, I will come and see you," says my little boy.
"No, you won"t!"
"I will come and see you."
His eyes beam at this important promise. Einar cries as though he were already ill.
And the next day he is ill.
He lies in a little room all by himself. No one is allowed to go to him.
A red curtain hangs before the window.
My little boy sits alone on the steps outside and stares up at the curtain. His hands are thrust deep into his pockets. He does not care to play and he speaks to n.o.body.
And I walk up and down the room, uneasy as to what will come next.
"You are anxious about our little boy," says his mother. "And it will be a miracle if he escapes."
"It"s not that. We"ve all had a touch of scarlatina."
But just as I want to talk to her about it, I hear a fumbling with the door-handle which there is no mistaking and then he stands before us in the room.
I know you so well, my little boy, when you come in sideways like that, with a long face, and go and sit in a corner and look at the two people who owe so much happiness to you--look from one to the other. Your eyes are greener than usual. You can"t find your words and you sit huddled up and you are ever so good.
"Mother, is Einar ill?"