"So can I."
"Now, now."
"And if I can"t, what does it matter? Nothing could be worse than my life is at present."
He made a sound of pity with his tongue. "Child, child," he said, "are we beating our wings again?"
"Oh, go away--leave me alone." And she warded him off with her elbows; she was not far from sobbing.
"Don"t begin the old game, Hertha; I haven"t done anything to you for a long time."
"No, that"s true," she replied, "you haven"t done anything to me, nothing at all either bad or good."
He stroked his beard meditatively. "As we are here, child, and it seems that we both can"t sleep, come and sit down. Sit down beside me; we may find lots to talk about."
She felt dimly, "Now I must defend myself." But how could she resist?
Already he had seized her by the shoulder and drawn her to the steps of the obelisk, where he had been sitting before.
"What am I to do here?" she asked, cowering down.
"Be sincere, out with it. You are not happy, my child?"
She shrugged her shoulders twice. "Not even _now_!" she said.
He suppressed a smile. "Come, confess.... What ails you? We have all remarked on the change in you. Grandmamma is beginning to worry about it. If you are fond of her, you will be sorry for that, eh?"
She shook her head, struggling with her tears. "I want to be fond of everybody--everybody."
"Yes, and don"t you see we are all anxious that you should be happy?
Don"t you understand _that_, you obstinate one?"
"Don"t, you only try to hurt me." And she thrust her elbows at him.
"I?" he asked. "Good Heavens! how?"
"You will speak to me always as if I were a child."
"And that hurts you?"
She was silent. Now was the time to tell him all that was in her heart.
The hour of reckoning had come.
But she felt as if her lips, had been sealed. There was a whirling and rushing in her head. She felt a sensation as of a douche of water falling from her crown over her limbs, and with a soft sigh she sank against the stone. He was afraid that faintness had attacked her; and supporting her with his left arm he bent his head down to hers. The moon lit up one half of her face, while of the other only the contour of the oval cheek showed faintly against the darkness.
"Be reasonable, sweet child," he begged.
She did not move, and he could contemplate her at his leisure. Here and there in the dusky ma.s.ses of her loose hair shone a high light like a glowworm, and a few dark strands waved in spiral form over the high smooth forehead. A line of care which he had not noticed before hovered at the corners of her softly curved mouth. Taken altogether, it was no longer the face of a child that lay there shining white in the moonlight; and, clearer than weeks before after the meeting at the inn, there awoke in his heart the self-reproach, "Here is the happiness which you will pa.s.s lightly by."
The dreamy sunny premonition, "It will be," dared no more arise out of his soul"s depths. What _had been_, held him in fetters. The past, of which he had delusively believed himself to be master long ago, ever stretched its spectre-like form in front of him with more threatening mien. It filled him at every pore with a dull repellant anguish.
Not for nothing had he come at midnight to set out here and brood over emotions, which would not exist if one tried to define them with names, but which suddenly overwhelm a man when he thinks that he is safest from them. Not for nothing had he foregone sleep, he who at daybreak must be up and at his work.
His heart went out in a tenderness that was half pain, to this nave immature being leaning against his arm, full of the unconscious cravings of youth. It seemed to him that in helping her he must help himself. He stroked her cheek with an unsteady hand.
"Come now, be good, sweet child," he said in a comforting tone.
"Speak ... unburden your heart."
She sighed heavily and turned her little head slightly towards his shoulder as if she would like to nestle there.
"Just the same as she was then," he thought--"shy and defiant, but completely melted by kindness."
She was still silent
"Look here," he said, "I live under the same roof with you, but of your life, of your past, I know absolutely nothing."
"You have never asked me about it," she replied.
"Would you have told me if I had?"
"Of course I would.... I will tell you now, this minute, if you like."
She disengaged herself from his arm; an eager blissful smile lit up her face.
"Of course I should like it. So fire away."
The expression, "fire away," did not please her. It seemed scarcely suitable to the solemnity of the occasion, but his interest so delighted her that she quickly forgot the jarring note.
"G.o.d knows," she said, "there isn"t much to tell, after all. So far I haven"t had many experiences, and what I have had are mostly stupid."
"Do you remember your mother?" he interposed, to give her an opening.
She cast her eyes up at the stars. "Yes, thank G.o.d!" she said. "I was nearly seven years old when she died. Ah! how I cried.... We lived in a big castle, amidst pure Poles. The castle was on a hill, and it had a colonnade leading down to the Weichsel, which was at the foot of the hill. She used to sit in the colonnade when it was warm, and the maids with red handkerchiefs on their heads carried shawls for her. And every minute she would say, "_Mnie jest zimno_," which means, "I am cold,"
and then they used to put another shawl over her. The long rafts glided by on the river below, and on Wednesdays and Sat.u.r.days the steamboat came. She always watched the steamboat till it was out of sight and not a puff of its smoke to be seen, and when it had quite disappeared she used to say, "_Podniescie mnie_," and that meant, "Lift me up." She wanted to see if she could catch another glimpse of it, standing up.
She had brown hair and a face like wax, with very big dark eyes. There were always drops of perspiration on her cheeks. She was not tall, but rather small, and she had thin arms; but that came from illness and from grief, and perhaps from ennui. For she said constantly, "I am very unhappy, and dreadfully dull.""
"And your father--where was he?" Leo asked.
Her face hardened into an expression of hate.
"I would rather not speak of my father," she answered; "he was bad....
Yes, he was bad, and I shall be bad too, for I am like him."
"Good gracious!" he remonstrated; "who put that nonsense into your head?"
"It isn"t nonsense," she replied, full of conviction; "have you never heard of Darwin?"
"Yes ... the man who says we are descended from monkeys and such-like--rot!" he was going to add, but checked himself in time.
"And then there is heredity, you know, about our all inheriting the qualities of our parents. Our science-master explained that to us. If your father is given to drink, then you will drink too."