Part 47 (1/2)

Lena watched all this eagerly. ”Just look, Botho, how the stream rushes through among the posts.” But actually it was neither the pier nor the water flowing through, that attracted her attention, but the two boats that were moored there. She coquetted with the idea and indulged in various trifling questions and references, and only when Botho remained deaf to all this did she express herself more plainly and declare that she wanted to go boating.

”Women are incorrigible. Incorrigible in their light-mindedness. Think of that Easter Monday! Just a hair's breadth ...”

”And I should have been drowned. Certainly. But that is only one side of the matter. There followed the acquaintance with a handsome man, you may be able to guess whom I mean. His name is Botho. I am sure you will not think of Easter Monday as an unlucky day? I am more amiable and more gallant than you.”

”There, there.... But can you row, Lena?”

”Of course I can. And I can steer and raise a sail too. Because I was near being drowned, you think I don't know anything? But it was the boy's fault, and for that matter, any one might be drowned.”

And then they walked down the pier to the two boats, whose sails were reefed, while their pennants with their names embroidered on them fluttered from the masthead.

”Which shall we take,” said Botho, ”the _Trout_ or the _Hope_?”

”Naturally, the _Trout_. What have we to do with _Hope_?” Botho understood well enough that Lena said that on purpose to tease him, for in spite of her delicacy of feeling, still as a true child of Berlin she took pleasure in witty little speeches. He excused this little fling, however, and helped her into the boat. Then he sprang in too.

Just as he was about to cast off the host came down the pier bringing a jacket and a plaid, because it would grow cold as the sun went down.

They thanked him and soon were in the middle of the stream, which was here scarcely three hundred paces wide, as it flowed among the islands and tongues of land. Lena used her oars only now and then, but even these few strokes sufficed to bring them very soon to a field overgrown with tall gra.s.s which served as a boatbuilder's yard, where at some little distance from them a new boat was being built and various old leaky ones were being caulked and repaired.

”We must go and see the boats,” said Lena gaily, taking Botho's hand and urging him along, but before they could reach the boat builder's yard the sound of hammer and axe ceased and the bells began to ring, announcing the close of the day's work. So they turned aside, perhaps a hundred paces from the dockyard into a path which led diagonally across a field, to a pine wood. The reddish trunks of the trees glowed wonderfully in the light of the sinking sun, while their tops seemed floating in a bluish mist.

”I wish I could pick you a pretty bunch of flowers,” said Botho, taking Lena's hand. ”But look, there is just the gra.s.sy field, all gra.s.s and no flowers. Not one.”

”But there are plenty. Only you do not see them, because you are too exacting.”

”And even if I were, it is only for your sake.”

”Now, no excuses. You shall see that I can find some.”

And stooping down, she searched right and left saying: ”Only look, here ... and there ... and here again. There are more here than in Dorr's garden; only you must have an eye for them.” And she plucked the flowers diligently, stooping for them and picking weeds and gra.s.s with them, until in a very short time she had a quant.i.ty both of attractive blossoms and of useless weeds in her hands.

Meanwhile they had come to an old empty fisherman's hut, in front of which lay an upturned boat on a strip of sand strewn with pine cones from the neighboring wood.

”This is just right for us,” said Botho: ”we will sit down here. You must be tired. And now let me see what you have gathered. I don't believe you know yourself, and I shall have to play the botanist. Give them here. This is ranunculus, or b.u.t.tercup, and this is mouse's ear.

Some call it false forget-me-not. False, do you hear? And this one with the notched leaf is taraxac.u.m, our good old dandelion, which the French use for salad. Well, I don't mind. But there is a distinction between a salad and a bouquet.”

”Just give them back,” laughed Lena. ”You have no eye for such things, because you do not love them, and the eyes and love always belong together. First you said there were no flowers in the field, and now, when we find them, you will not admit that they are really flowers. But they are flowers, and pretty ones too. What will you bet that I can make you something pretty out of them.”

”I am really curious to see what you will choose.”

”Only those that you agree to. And now let us begin. Here is a forget-me-not, but no mouse's ear--forget-me-not, but a real one. Do you agree?”

”Yes.”

”And this is speedwell, the prize of honor, a dainty little blossom.

That is surely good enough for you. I do not even need to ask. And this big reddish brown one is the devil's paintbrush, and must have grown on purpose for you. Oh yes, laugh at it. And these,” and she stooped to pick a couple of yellow blossoms, that were growing in the sand at her feet, ”these are immortelles.”

”Immortelles,” said Botho. ”They are old Frau Nimptsch's pa.s.sion. Of course we must take those, we need them. And now we must tie up our little bouquet.”