Part 16 (2/2)
”No!” said the Hungarian, ”I didn't remark her. I knew of course that there were pretty girls here, but not that you knew them.”
”I know no one here. I'm here for the first time,” said I curtly, abstractedly.
We went to the hotel and dried and warmed ourselves and ordered the dinner. I looked at everything that, despite the rain, was to be seen of the little town, later so dear to me, - the pretty gables, the narrow little streets, glistening with water, the sombre elms creaking and groaning in the storm, the yellow raging sea. I also saw the house, in which I now live, and thought it a pretty, dignified little structure with its free-stone gable, and its tall windows.
After that we regaled ourselves with food and drink, and my companion said that after all I must surely have seen some good acquaintance of mine, some little friend or other - for I was so quiet, so abstracted and yet so merry.
That night I slept without dreams of any significance. But sleep itself had a character of gently elevating joy, and the morning found me without a semblance of the melancholy that so long had possessed me.
The weather had cleared, the wind gone down, the sky was blue. We decided to sail back early.
As we were leaving the hotel and stopping a moment in the vestibule, with the blue and white tiled marble flooring and the brown wooden ceiling, the young woman, who yesterday had stood upon the quay, came from the out-building and, running past us, went into the upper chamber. Again she looked me straight in the eyes and nodded cordially.
I was even more confounded than the day before. But nevertheless I had time to remark that she was very graceful and that she had fine and n.o.ble features and long, aristocratic hands. Her eyes were bright and had the clear l.u.s.tre that I had seen in only one pair of eyes, and an expression as though, together with me, they knew innumerable, unutterable secrets.
My Hungarian comrade now again saw my agitation and, moreover, the cause of it.
”Oh! was it she that you saw yesterday?” he cried out in French when the girl had pa.s.sed. ”Then I comprehend your dumbfoundedness.”
”Do you know her?” I asked.
”Certainly, she is one of the sights of the town. All the strangers know her.”
”Is this her home?”
”Of course! and not to the loss of the hotel-keeper. She's his daughter or his adopted daughter. But not interesting to me, because notoriously unapproachable.”
”What's her name?”
”Elsie - Elsie van Vianen, or Elsje as they say here.”
On our prosperous homeward voyage over the sunny sea I was even more quiet and even merrier than the night before.
XXII
As soon as I could make myself free for a day I went out sailing again.
I now knew the way and the water and took no one with me this time. At daybreak I left The Hague and was beyond the locks before eight o'clock. I had not mentioned my encounter to Lucia, but nevertheless I felt none of that secret sense of guilt of a married man, who feels himself charmed by a strange woman.
To-day it was a warm summer's day with a light eastern breeze blowing.
The great yellow sheet of water looked as peaceful and friendly as it had appeared wild and wicked the time before. The little waves sparkled in the sun and with sweetly soothing murmurings splashed against the little boat. The sh.o.r.es with their steeples and windmills lay rosy and placid round about me in perfect dream splendor. I was six hours on my way instead of three, as before, and they were hours full of light and sunny bliss. My little city lay as sweetly pensive in the bright glow of sunlight as a drifting isle of the blessed. The round, leafy, blue-gray crowns of the trees with the little belfry peaking out above them, appeared as if tranquilly floating above the sparkling silvery sheet of water -
”Du bist Orplid, mein Land!
Das ferne leuchtet -”
I sang. I smiled at the contrast between the meaningless and trivial life of the people, who presumably lived there, and the wondrous magic glory it all a.s.sumed through the power of my imagination. I meditated on the land Orplid - the youthful phantasy of Moricke - to which with a few measured words he was able to lend a deep, mysterious, glowing splendor, which has filled thousands, like myself, with a yearningly pa.s.sionate thrill of beauty, yes, with a real longing. Is not the dreamed Orplid that for so many s.h.i.+nes afar, more real than all the lands that waking we behold?
<script>