"How should I be?"--Then he begins fumbling about at a sack of flour, tying and untying the string with his bony fingers; then when he has made sure that he is no longer wanted, he withdraws once more into his dark corner.
Martin"s face beams. "There"s a faithful soul for you, Johannes--28 years of service, eh! And always industrious and conscientious."
"By the bye, what does he do?"
Martin looks confused. "Well--look here--eh--hard to say--position of trust--eh--faithful soul, faithful soul."
"Does the faithful soul still occasionally prig something from the flour-sacks?" asks Johannes laughing.
Martin shrugs his shoulders impatiently and mutters something about "28 years of service," and closing an eye.
"He seems still to owe me a grudge," says Johannes, "for having discovered the hiding place to which he had carried his hardly-stolen little h.o.a.rd."
"You will persist in being prejudiced against him," answers Martin, "just like Trude too--you are unjust towards him,--most unjust."
Johannes laughingly shakes his head; then he points to a door leading to a newly erected part.i.tion.
"What"s that?"
Martin moves about uneasily. "My office," he then stammers, and, as Johannes attempts to open the door, he runs up to him and catches him back by his coat-tails.
"I beg of you," he mutters, "do not cross that threshold. Not to-day--nor any other day.--I have my reasons." Johannes looks at him in vexation. "Since when have you secrets from me," he feels impelled to ask, but his brother"s trustful, pleading look closes his lips, and arm in arm they leave the mill together.
Evening has come.--The great wheel is at rest, and with it the host of smaller ones.--Silence is over all the mill and only in the distance the rushing water of the weir sings its monotonous song. Here of course--in front of the house--the mill-brook is quiet and peaceful, as though it had nothing in the world to do but to carry water-lilies and to mirror the setting sun in its depths. Like a golden-red, dark-edged streamer it winds along between the straggling thicket of alders, in which a choir of nightingales are just clearing their throats and, all unconscious of their superior merit, are about to commence a singing compet.i.tion with the frogs down there. The three human beings who are henceforth to pa.s.s their days together in this blossoming, song-laden solitude have already become lovingly intimate. They sit on the veranda around the white-spread supper-table, the food upon which has to-day found little appreciation, and their gaze is full of intense content.
Martin rests his head on his hands and draws great clouds of smoke from his short pipe, from time to time emitting a sound which is something of a laugh, something of a growl.
Johannes has quite buried himself in the ma.s.s of foliage and lets the tendrils of the wild vine play about his face. They tremble and flutter with his every breath.
Trude has pushed her head deep into her collar and is looking furtively across at the two brothers, like a high-spirited child that would like to get into mischief but first wants to make quite sure that no one is watching. This silence is evidently not to her taste, but she is already too well schooled to break it. Meantime she amuses herself by making little pellets of bread and shooting them, unnoticed by either of the brothers, into the midst of the herd of sparrows hopping about the veranda, with greedy intent. There is one in particular, a little, dirty fellow, who beats all the others" cunning and alertness. As soon as a grain of food comes rolling along he spreads both wings, screams like mad, and while fighting he endeavors to get it away by beating his wings, so that he can take possession of it comfortably while the others are still wildly hacking at each other. This maneuver he repeats four or five times, and always successfully, till one of his comrades finds out his trick and does it still better.
This gives Trude a fit of laughing which she tries to suppress by stuffing her handkerchief into her mouth and holding her breath till she gets quite blue in the face--Then when she finds it absolutely impossible to contain herself any longer, she jumps up to get away, but before she reaches the door, her laughter bursts forth and she disappears into the darkness of the pa.s.sage, screaming loudly with delight.
Both brothers are roused from their dreaming.
"What"s up?" asks Johannes, startled. Martin shakes his head as he looks after his young, foolish wife whose tricks he well knows; then after a time he takes his brother"s hand and says, pointing to the door:
"Well--does she look as if she would oust you?"
"No, indeed," answers Johannes with a somewhat uneasy laugh.
"Oh, my boy," growls Martin, scratching his bushy head, "what a lot of worry I have been through!--I tossed about in my bed a long night when I thought of you! I mean on account of the wrong I might be doing you."--Then after a time--"And yet when I look at her--she is so fair--so innocent--say yourself, my boy, could I possibly help loving her? When I saw her--ah--why it was all over with me.--In so many ways she reminded me of you--merry, and bright-eyed and full of mischief, just like you.--Of course she was a child and has remained one to the present day--Charmless and wild and playful as a child.--And I tell you--she wants holding in tighter--her spirits run away with her.--But that is just how I love her to be"--a tender look brightens his features--"and if I rightly think it over, I would not even miss one of her ridiculous doings. You know I always must have some one to watch over--formerly I had you, now she is the one."
After relieving his feelings in this manner, he once more becomes silent.
"And are you happy?" asks Johannes.
Martin hides himself in a thick cloud of smoke, and from out of that he mutters after a time:
"Well, that depends!"
"On what?"
"On your not being angry with her."
"I angry with her?"
"Well, well, you needn"t make excuses!"
Johannes does not reply. He will soon convince his brother of better things--and closing his eyes, he buries his head once more in the waving foliage. A gleam of light causes him to look up. Trude is standing on the threshold, holding a lamp and looking ashamed of herself. Her charming, childlike face is bathed in a red glow and the drooping lashes cast long, semi-circling shadows on her full cheeks.
"What a ridiculous creature you are!" says Martin, stroking her ruffled hair tenderly.
"Won"t you go to rest, Johannes?" she asks with great seriousness, though there is still the sound of suppressed laughter in her voice.
"Good-night, brother!"
"Wait, I am coming too!"
Johannes shakes hands with his sister-in-law, while she turns her face aside with a furtive smile.
Martin takes the lamp from her and precedes his brother up the stairs.
At the top he takes his hand and gazes silently and deeply into his eyes, like one who cannot yet contain his happiness; then he softly closes the door.
Johannes sighs and stretches himself, pressing both hands to his breast. His heart is heavy for very joy. He feels as if he must go after his brother and relieve his feelings by a few loving, grateful words, but already he hears his steps downstairs in the entrance. It is too late. But his mind must be calmer before he can attempt to sleep.
He puts out the lamp and pushes open a window. The night air cools his brow.--How soothing it is--how it wafts peace!
He bends over the window-ledge, whistles a song to himself and looks out into the night. The apple-tree beneath him is in full bloom--a waving sea of blossoms. How often as a child he has climbed up there, how often, tired with play, he has leant, dreaming, against its trunk, while its rustling leaves told him fairy stories. And when in autumn a gust of wind swept through the branches, it brought down a shower of rosy-cheeked apples, which fell almost into his lap.--What ecstasy that was! How many things enter one"s thoughts as one whistles! Each note awakens a new song, each melody conjures up new reminiscences. And with the old songs there returns the old longing and flies on b.u.t.terfly"s wings through a vast empire between the moon and the morning sun!--
And as he looks down upon the earth melting into darkness, he sees how a window is softly opened and an upturned face bends far out. From out of a pale, gleaming oval, framed in a background of shadowy hair, two dark eyes glanced up at him, slyly and mischievously.
Abruptly he stops whistling; then a teasing laugh greets his ears, and his sister-in-law"s merry voice cries: "Go on, Johannes!"
And when he will not do her bidding, she points her own lips and attempts a few very imperfect notes.
Then Martin"s deep ba.s.s voice becomes audible in the house, saying in a tone of paternal reproof:
"None of your nonsense, Trude! Let him sleep!"
"But he doesn"t sleep," she answers, pouting like a scolded child. Then the window is shut. The voices die away.
Johannes laughingly shakes his head and goes to bed, but he cannot sleep. Those flowers prevent him which Trude has placed at his bed-side, and the leaves of which hang right over the edge of the bed.
Pale bluish bunches of lilac and the nebulous white stars of narcissi are mingled together. He turns round, kneels up in bed and buries his face in the flowery depths. Fondly the leaflets kiss his eye-lids and his lips.
Suddenly he listens. From underneath the floor, as it were from the bowels of the earth, comes a quiet laugh. It is soft as a breath of wind pa.s.sing over the gra.s.s, but so merry, so full of happiness.
He listens, hoping to hear it again, but all is still. "Crazy little body, you," he says amused, then falls back upon his pillow and drops to sleep smiling.