Part 1 (2/2)

She laughed at his absent-mindedness; it was getting worse and worse. But what was he thinking of? Business?--surely not. But perhaps he wanted to write a novel, a tale? Why should he not try his hand at that for once in a way? That was something quite different from sending short chatty accounts of one's journey to one of the papers. And of course he would be able to do it. People who had not half the education, not half the knowledge, not half the aesthetic refinement of feeling he had wrote quite readable books.

She talked brightly and persuasively to him, but he shook his head with a certain resignation: nonsense, neither novels nor any other kind of writing. And he thought to himself: it is always said that a piece of work is like a child--that is to say, only a truly great piece of work, of course. Was the work he and his wife created work in that sense? Work that would exist eternally? He suddenly found things to censure severely in her picture, which he had politely admired only the day before.

She got quite frightened about it. Why was he so irritable to-day?

Was he going to develop nerves at the finish? Yes, it was evident, the warm air of the south did not suit him, he had lost his briskness, looked so tired. There was nothing for it, her husband was more to her than her picture, she would leave off her painting at once.

And that was what happened. They went away, travelled from one place to another, from one hotel to another, along the lakes, over the frontier, until they made a somewhat longer stay high up among the Alps in Switzerland.

Instead of lying under a palm-tree he lay in the shadow of a fir--now his wife was painting--and followed the movements of her brush with his eyes over the top of his open book.

She was busily painting, for she had discovered a delightful subject. That green alpine meadow, with its wealth of flowers as variegated as they could possibly be and the backs of the brown cows with the sun s.h.i.+ning on them, was as full of charm as the Garden of Eden on the first day of creation. In her eagerness to see she had pushed her broad-brimmed hat back, and the warm summer sun was burning little golden spots on her delicate cheeks and the narrow bridge of her finely shaped nose. She held the brush that she had dipped into the green on her palette up against the green of the meadow in order to compare the two, and blinked with half-closed eyes to see if she had got the colour right.

At that moment a sound made her start--it was half a growl of displeasure at the disturbance, half a murmur of approval. Her husband had risen and was looking at a couple of children who had approached them noiselessly. They were offering rhododendrons for sale, the girl had a small basket full of them, the boy was carrying his nosegay in his hand.

What exceedingly pretty creatures they were, the girl so blue-eyed and gentle, the boy a regular little scamp. The woman's heart swelled.

She bought all the rhododendrons from them, even gave them more than they asked for them.

That was a stroke of great luck for the little Swiss boy and girl--just think, to get more than they had asked for. They blushed with happiness, and when the strange lady asked them questions in a kind voice, they commenced to chatter ingenuously.

She would have to paint _those_ children, they were really too delightful, they were a thousand times more beautiful than the most beautiful landscape.

Paul Schlieben looked on with a strange uneasiness whilst his wife painted the children, first the big girl and then the small boy. How intently she gazed at the boy's round face. Her eyes were brilliant, she never seemed to be tired, and only paused when the children grew impatient. All her thoughts turned on the painting. Would the children come again that day? Was the light good? Surely there would not be a storm to prevent the children from coming? Nothing else was of any interest to her. She displayed great zeal. And still the pictures turned out bad; the features were like theirs, but there was no trace of the child-mind in them. He saw it clearly: those who are childless cannot paint children.

Poor woman! He looked on at her efforts with a feeling of deep compa.s.sion. Was not her face becoming soft like a mother's, lovely and round when she bent down to the children? The Madonna type--and still this woman had been denied children.

No, he could not look on at it any longer, it made him ill. The man bade the children go home in a gruff voice. The pictures were ready, what was the good of touching them up any more? That did not make them any better, on the contrary.

That evening Kate cried as she used to cry at home. And she was angry with her husband. Why did he not let her have that pleasure?

Why did he all at once say they were to leave? She did not understand him. Were the children not sweet, delightful? Was it because they disturbed him?

”Yes,” was all he said. There was a hard dry sound in his voice--a ”yes” that came with such difficulty--and she raised her head from the handkerchief in which she had buried it and looked across at him. He was standing at the window in the carpeted room of the hotel, his hands resting on the window-ledge, his forehead pressed against the pane. He was gazing silently at the vast landscape before him, in which the mountaintops covered with snow that glowed in the radiance of the setting sun spoke to him of immortality. How he pressed his lips together, how nervously his moustache trembled.

She crept up to him and laid her head on his shoulder. ”What is the matter with you?” she asked him softly. ”Do you miss your work--yes, it's your work, isn't it? I was afraid of that. You are getting tired of this, you must be doing something again. I promise you I'll be reasonable--never complain any more--only stop here a little longer, only three weeks longer--two weeks.”

He remained silent.

”Only ten--eight--six days more. Not even that?” she said, bitterly disappointed, for he had shaken his head. She wound her arms round his neck. ”Only five more--four--three days, please. Why not? Those few days, please only three days more.” She positively haggled for each day. ”Oh, then at least two days more.”

She sobbed aloud, her arms fell from his neck--he must allow her two days.

Her voice cut him to the heart. He had never heard her beg like that before, but he made a stand against the feeling of yielding that was creeping over him. Only no sentimentality. It was better to go away from there quickly, much better for her.

”We're going away to-morrow.”

And as she looked at him with wide-open horror-struck eyes and pallid cheeks, the words escaped from his lips although he had not intended saying them, drawn from him by a bitterness that he could not master any longer:

”They are not yours!”

<script>