Part 1 (2/2)

and ”Marions” as ideals and protect their ”Henris” and ”Ernestes”

from the trite and trivial? These last remind one of M'sieu Henri or M'sieu Erneste just about like our castle embankments remind one of filthy water.

Goethe was a courageous man: Gretchen, Klarchen----

But I, in the Hartenstraat!

However, I am not writing a romance; and even if I should write one, I don't see why I shouldn't publish it as a true story. For it is a true story, the story of one who in his youth was in love with a sawmill and had to endure this torture for a long time.

For love is torture, even if it is only love for a sawmill.

It will be seen that the story is going to be quite simple, in fact too frail to stand alone. So here and there I am going to plait something in with the thread of the narrative, just as the Chinaman does with his pigtail when it is too thin. He has no Eau de Lob or oil from Maca.s.sar--but I admit that I have never found at Maca.s.sar any berries which yielded the required oil.

To begin, in the Hartenstraat was a book-shop and circulating library. A small boy with a city complexion stood on the step and seemed to be unable to open the door. It was evident that he was trying to do something that was beyond his strength.

He stretched out his hand towards the door k.n.o.b repeatedly, but every time he interrupted this motion either by stopping to pull unnecessarily at a big square-cut collar that rested on his shoulders like a yoke, or by uselessly lifting his hand to screen an ingenuous cough.

He was apparently lost in the contemplation of the pictures that covered the panes of gla.s.s in the door, turning them into a model chart of inconceivable animals, four-cornered trees and impossible soldiers. He was glancing continually to one side, like a criminal who fears that he is going to be caught in the act. It was manifest that he had something in view which must be concealed from pa.s.sers-by, and from posterity, for that matter. His left hand was thrust under the skirts of his little coat, clutching convulsively at something concealed in his trousers pocket. To look at him one would have thought that Walter contemplated a burglary, or something of the kind.

For his name was Walter.

It is a fortunate thing that it occurred to me to relate his history; and now I consider it my duty to report that he was entirely innocent of any burglarious or murderous intentions.

I only wish I could clear him of other sins as easily as this. The object he was turning and twisting in his left breeches pocket was not a house-key, nor a jimmy, nor a club, nor a tomahawk, nor any infernal machine: It was a small piece of paper containing fourteen stivers, which he had raised on his New Testament with Psalms at the grocer's on the ”Ouwebrug”; and the thing that held him fast on the Hartenstraat was nothing more or less than his entrance into the magic world of romance. He was going to read ”Glorioso.”

Glorioso! Reader, there are many imitations, but only one Glorioso. All the Rinaldos and Fra Diavolos are not to be mentioned in the same breath with Glorioso, this incomparable hero who carried away countesses by the dozen, plundered popes and cardinals as if they were ordinary fallible people, and made a testament-thief of Walter Pieterse.

To be sure, Glorioso was not to blame for this last, certainly not. One ought to be ashamed to be a hero, or a genius, or even a robber, if on this account one is to be held responsible for all the crimes that may be committed years afterwards in the effort to get possession of one's history.

I myself object to any accusation of complicity in those evil deeds that are committed after my death in quenching the thirst for knowledge of my fate. Indeed, I shall never be deterred from a famous career merely by the thought that some one may sell the New Testament to get hold of the ”Life and Deeds of Multatuli.”

”You rascal, what are you loitering around here for? If you want anything, come in; if you don't, make yourself scarce.”

And now Walter had to go in, or else abandon his cherished Glorioso. But the man who bent over the counter and twisted himself like a crane to open the door and snarl these words at our young hero did not have a face that advised anything like turning back. He was angry. At first Walter had not had the courage to go in; now he did not dare to turn back. He felt himself drawn in. It was as if the book-shop swallowed him.

”Glorioso, if you please, M'neer, and here----” He drew that infernal machine from his pocket. ”And here is money----”

For he had learned from his schoolmates, who had infected him with this craving for romance, that at the circulating library strangers must deposit a forfeit.

The shopman seemed to regard himself as ”sufficiently protected”

by the sum produced. He took down a small volume, which was greasy and well worn, and bore both within and without the traces of much unclean enjoyment.

I am certain that the ”Sermons of Pastor Splitvesel,” which stood undisturbed on the top shelf and looked down contemptuously on the literature of the day, would have been ashamed to bring their spotless binding into contact with so much uncleanliness. But it is not difficult to remain clean in the upper row. I find, therefore, that the ”sermons” were unjust; and the same is true of many sermons.

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