Frederik van Eeden
The Quest
XI
Since that first night in the dunes with Windekind, Johannes had slept many a time in the open air, and he did not see why he should not now do so. He would lie down under the wagon, upon some hay. He was tired, and so would sleep well.
But sleep did not come to him very promptly. Adventures in the world of people proved to be even more exciting than those in Windekind's land of elves. He was full of the important and unusual situation in which he was placed; the strange human life that surrounded him claimed his attention. Above him, feet were shuffling over the wagon floor, and he could see the people crawling around one another inside the warm, dirty wagons. He was obliged to listen to the talking, singing, laughing and quarreling that frequently broke out here and there. A solitary ocarina continued to whistle awhile; then all was still.
It grew cold. He had with him only a thin cloak of Aunt Seréna's; and, as a horse-blanket could not be spared, he found a couple of empty oat-bags; but they were too short.
When all were asleep, and he was still lying awake, shivering, his spirits already inclined to droop, he heard the door of the wagon open. A voice called him, in a whisper. Johannes scrambled out into sight, and recognized Marjon's dark sister.
"Why don't you come in here, Kiddie?" she asked.
The truth was that Johannes, above all else, feared the closeness and the fleas. But he would not offer these insulting reasons, so he replied – intending to be very courteous and praiseworthy: "But that would not do for me – to be with you!"
Now, formality is not a very strong point in a house-wagon. In the very stateliest, a curtain does indeed sometimes define two sleeping-rooms at night, thus denoting regard for the proprieties. But in most cases the custom is to do as do the birds which change their suits but once a year, and not too much, at that; and as do the mice which also have no separate bedrooms.
"Aw! Come, Boy! You're silly. Just come on! It's all right."
And when Johannes, perplexed and very bashful, hesitated, he felt a fat, heavy arm around his neck, and a soft, broad, cold mouth upon his cheek.
"Come on, Youngster! Don't be afraid. Surely you are not so green! Hey? It's time for me to make you wiser."
Now there was nothing Johannes had learned more to value than wisdom, and he never willingly neglected a chance of becoming wiser. But this time there came to him a very clear idea of the existence of an undesirable wisdom.
He had no time to deliberate over this wonderful discovery; for, happily, there came to the help of his immature thoughts a very strong feeling of aversion, so that for once he knew betimes what he ought to do.
He said loudly, and firmly: "I will not! I rest better here." And he crept back under the wagon. The swarthy jade appeared not to like that, for she uttered an oath as she turned away, and said: "Clear out, then!" Johannes did not take it greatly to heart, although it did appear to him unfair. He slept, however, no more than before; and the sensation of the recent touches, and the wretched odor of poor perfumery which the woman had brought with her, remained with him, to his distress.
As soon as it began to grow light, the door of the wagon was again opened. Johannes, surprised, looked up. Marjon came softly out in her bare feet, with an old purple shawl thrown over her thin little shoulders. She went up to Johannes and sat down on the ground beside him.
"What did she do?" she asked, in a whisper.
"Who?" asked Johannes, in return. But that was from embarrassment, for he well knew whom she meant.
"Now, you know well enough. Did you think I was sleeping? Did she give you a kiss?"
Johannes nodded.
"Where? On your mouth?"
"No. On my cheek."
"Thank God!" said Marjon. "You will not let her do it again? She is a common thing!"
"I could not help it," said Johannes.
Marjon looked at him thoughtfully a few moments, with her clear, light grey eyes.
"Do you dare steal?" she asked then, abruptly.
"No," said Johannes. "I dare to, but it's wrong."
"Indeed it isn't!" said Marjon, very emphatically. "Indeed, it is not! It's only a question of who from. Stealing from one another is mean, but from the public is allowable. I must not steal from that woman any more than from Lorum. But you may steal from the huzzy, if you only dared."
"Then can you steal from me, too?" asked Johannes. Marjon looked at him in sudden surprise, and gave a pretty laugh, showing her white, even teeth.
"A while ago I could, but not now. Now you belong to me. But that woman has a lot of money and you have not."
"I have some money, too – fifty guldens. Aunt Seréna gave it to me."
Marjon drew in the air with her lips as if sipping something delicious. Her pale face shone with pleasure.
"Five little golden Teners! Is it truly so? But, Johannes, then we are well off! We'll have a good time with them. Shan't we?"
"To be sure," assented Johannes, recovering himself. "But I want to find Markus."
"That's good," said Marjon. "That's the best thing to do. We'll both go looking for him."
"Right away?" asked Johannes.
"No, you stupid! We should be nabbed in no time. We'll start in the evening. Then, during the night, we can get a good way off. I'll give you the signal."
It was morning – clear and cool, yet growing warmer with the early August sunshine. Everywhere over the dark heather the dew-covered cobwebs were shining like clusters of sparkling stars. The fires of the foregoing evening were still smouldering in the camp; and there was a smell of wood coals and of honey.
Johannes was well pleased. There was a glowing little flame also within himself. He felt that it was good to be alive, and a joy to strive. It was a long, strange day, but he was patient and happy in the thought of fleeing with Marjon. The dark woman was friendly toward him again. He was helping her in the circus the entire day, and had no chance to speak with Marjon. But now and then they gave each other a look full of complete understanding. That was delightful! Never before in his every-day life had Johannes experienced anything so delightful.
That evening there was an exhibition, and Marjon performed her tricks. Johannes felt very proud and important because he belonged to the troupe, and was looked upon by the public as an athlete or an equestrian. He might stand, in topboots and with a whip, at the entrance to the stall, but he must not perform a single trick, nor once crack his whip.
When it was good and dark, and everybody was asleep again, Marjon came to summon him. He could scarcely distinguish her figure; but he knew by a soft, grunting sound, that she carried Kees, her monkey, on her arm. She thrust her guitar into Johannes' hand, and said in a low tone: "Move on, now!"
They set out hastily and in silence, Marjon taking the lead. First they went by the highway; then they took a footpath along the river; and then, at a ferry, they softly unfastened a small boat, and pushed out into the current.
"Keep your wits about you, Jo, and be on the lookout!"
"We shall be overtaken," said Johannes, not quite at his ease.
"Are you afraid?"
"No, not afraid," said Johannes, although the truth was that he was trying not to be; "but where are we going to bring up? And how can we keep out of the way if a boat should come along? We have no oars!"
"I wish a boat would come. Then we'd go on with it."
"Where do you want to go, Marjon?"
"Well, over the frontier, of course. Otherwise they'll catch us.
"But Markus!"
"We'll find him, by and by – only come on now."
In silence the two children drifted out over the still, black water, which here and there bubbled past a floating log, or a barrel. Everything was mysterious. It was pitch dark, and there was no wind. The reeds, even, scarcely sighed. Keesje whined, complainingly, not liking the cold.
"But who is Markus, Marjon? Do you know?"
"You must not ask that, Jo. You must trust him. I do."
Then they heard a dull, fitfully throbbing sound that slowly drew nearer from the distance, and Johannes saw red and white lanterns ahead of them.
"A steamboat!" he cried. "What are we going to do now?"
"Sing!" said Marjon, without a moment's hesitation.
The boat came very gradually, and Johannes saw in the rear of her a long file of little lights, like a train of twinkling stars. It was a steam-tug with a heavy draught of Rhine-boats. It seemed to be panting and toiling with its burden, against the powerful current.
They stayed a boat's length away from the tug, but its long, unwieldy train – swinging out in a great curve at the rear – came nearer and nearer.
Marjon took her guitar and began to sing, and suddenly, with the sound of lapping water and throbbing engines, the music was ringing out in the still night – exquisite and clear. She sang a well-known German air, but with the following words:
"Tho' on dark depths of waters
I fear not and am strong,
For I know who will guard me
And guide me all life long."
"Are you tipsy, there, or tired of life? What do you put yourself across the channel for – and without a light?" rang out over the water from one of the vessels.
"Help! Throw a line!" cried Marjon.
"Help! help!" cried Johannes, after her.
Then a rope came wabbling across their oarless craft. By good luck Johannes caught it, and pulled himself, hand over hand, up to the vessel. The helmsman, standing beside the great, high-arched rudder, looked overboard, with a lantern in his hand.
"What wedding do you hail from?"
Johannes and Marjon climbed into the boat and Marjon pushed off their own little shallop.
"Two boys!" exclaimed the helmsman.
"And a monkey!" subjoined Marjon.
Johannes looked round at her. By the light of the lantern he saw a little figure that he hardly recognized – a slip of a boy wearing a cap on his closely cropped head. She had sacrificed for the flight her silky blonde hair. Keesje's head was sticking up out of her jacket, and he was blinking briskly in the glare of the lantern.
"Oh, that's it! Fair-folk!" grumbled the skipper. "What's to become of that boat?"
"It knows the way home!" said Marjon.
XII
I will simply tell you, without delay, in order that you may be able to read what follows in peace of mind, that Johannes and Marjon became husband and wife ere the ending of the story. But at the time the old skipper pointed out to them a comfortable sleeping-corner in the deck-house of the long Rhine-boat, they had not the least idea of it. Being very tired, they were soon lying, like two brothers, in deep sleep, with Keesje, now warm and contented, between them.
When it grew light, the whole world seemed to have vanished. Johannes had been wakened by the rattling of the anchor-chains, and when he looked out, he saw on all sides nothing but white, foggy light; no sky, no shore – only, just under the little windows, the yellow river current. But he heard the striking of the town clocks, and even the crowing of cocks. Therefore the world was still there, as fine as ever, only hidden away under a thick white veil.
The boats lay still, for they could not be navigated. So long as the waters of the Rhine could not be seen frothing about the anchor-chains, so long must they wait for a chance to know the points of the compass. Thus they remained for hours in the still, thick white light, listening to the muffled sounds of the town coming from the shore.
The two children ran back and forth over the long, long vessel, and had a fine time. They had already become good friends of the skipper, especially since he had learned that they could pay for their passage. They ate their bread and sausage, peering into the fog in suspense, for fear that Lorum and the dark woman might be coming in a boat to overtake them. They knew that they could not yet be very far away from their last camping-place.
At last the mists grew thinner and thinner, and fled from before the shining face of the sun; and, although the earth still remained hidden beneath swirling white, up above began to appear the glorious blue.
And this was the beginning of a fine day for Johannes.
Sighing and groaning, as if with great reluctance, the tugboat began again its toilful course up the stream. The still, summer day was warm, the wide expanse of water sparkled in the sun, and on both sides the shores were gliding gently by – their grey-green reeds, and willows and poplars, all fresh and dewy, peeping through the fog.
Johannes lay on the deck, gazing at land and water, while Marjon sat beside him. Keesje amused himself with the tackle rope, chuckling with satisfaction every now and then, as he sprang back and forth, with a serious look, after a flitting bird or insect.
"Marjon," said Johannes, "how did you know so certainly yesterday that there was nothing to be afraid of?"
"Some one watches over me," said Marjon.
"Who?" asked Johannes.
"Father."
Johannes looked at her, and asked, softly:
"Do you mean your own father?"
But Marjon made a slight movement of her head toward the green earth, the flowing water, the blue sky and the sunshine, and said, with peculiar significance, as if now it was quite clear to her:
"No! I mean The Father."
"The Father Markus speaks about?"
"Yes. Of course," said Marjon.
Johannes was silent a while, gazing at the rapid flow of the water, and the slower and slower course of things according to their distance in the rear. His head was full of ideas, each one eager for utterance. But it is delightful to lie thus and view a passing country spread out under the clear light – letting the thoughts come very calmly, and selecting carefully those worthy of being clad in speech. Many are too tender and sensitive to be accorded that honor, but yet they may not be meanest ones.
Johannes first selected a stray thought.
"Is that your own idea?" he asked. Marjon was not quick with an answer, herself, this time.
"My own? No. Markus told me it. But I knew it myself, though. I knew it, but he said it. He drew it out of me. I remember everything he says – everything – even although I don't catch on."
"Is there any good in that?" asked Johannes, thoughtlessly.
Marjon looked at him disdainfully, and said:
"Jimminy! You're just like Kees. He doesn't know either that he can do more with a quarter than with a cent. When I got my first quarter, I didn't catch on, either, but then I noticed that I could get a lot more candy with it than with a cent. Then I knew better what to do. So now I treasure the things Markus has said – all of them."
"Do you think as much of him as I do?" asked Johannes.
"More," said Marjon.
"That cannot be."
Then there was another long pause. The boat was not in a hurry, neither was the sun, and the broad stream made even less haste. And so the children, as well, took plenty of time in their talking.
"Yes, but you see," Johannes began again, "when people speak of our Father, they mean God, and God is…"
What was it again, that Windekind had said about God? The thought came to him, and clothed in the old terms. But Johannes hesitated. The terms were surely not attractive.
"What is God, now?" asked Marjon.
The old jargon must be used. There was nothing better.
"… An oil-lamp, where the flies stick fast."
Marjon whistled – a shrill whistle of authority – a circus-command. Keesje, who was sitting on the foremast, thoughtfully inspecting his outstretched hind foot, started up at once, and came sliding down the steel cable, in dutiful haste.
"Here, Kees! Attention!"
Kees grumbled assent, and was instantly on the alert, for he was well drilled. His sharp little brown eyes scarcely strayed for one second away from the face of his mistress.
"The young gentleman here says he knows what God is. Do you know?"
Keesje shook his head quickly, showing all his sharp little white teeth in a grin. One would have said he was laughing, but his small eyes peered as seriously as ever from Marjon's mouth to her hand. There was nothing to laugh at. He must pay attention. That was clear. Goodies were bound to follow – or blows.
But Marjon laughed loudly.
"Here, Kees! Good Kees!"
And then he had the dainties, and soon was up on the mast, smacking aloud as he feasted.
The result of this affront was quite unexpected to Marjon. Johannes, who had been lying prone on the deck, with his chin in his hands, gazed sadly for a while at the horizon, and then hid his face in his folded arms, his body shaking with sobs.
"Stop now, Jo; you're silly! Cry for that!" said Marjon, half frightened, trying to pull his arms away from his face. But Johannes shook his head.
"Hush! Let me think," said he.
Marjon gave him about a quarter of an hour, and then she spoke, gently and kindly, as if to comfort him:
"I know what you wanted to say, dear Jo. That's the reason, too, why I always speak of The Father. I understand that the best; because, you see, I never knew my earthly father, but he must have been much better than other fathers."
"Why?" asked Johannes.
"Because I am much better than all those people round about me, and better than that common, dark woman who had another father."
Marjon said this quite simply, thinking it to be so. She said it in a modest manner, while feeling that it was something which ought to be spoken.
"Not that I have been so very good. Oh, no! But yet I have been better than the others, and that was because of the father; for my mother, too, was only a member of a troupe. And now it is so lovely that I can say 'Father' just as Markus does!"
Johannes looked at her, with the sadness still in his eyes.
"Yes, but all the meanness, the ugliness, and the sorrow that our Father permits! First, He launches us into the world, helpless and ignorant, without telling us anything. And then, when we do wrong because we know no better, we are punished, Is that fatherly?"
But Marjon said:
"Did you fancy it was not? Kees gets punished, too, so he will learn. And now that he is clever and well taught he gets hardly any blows – only tid-bits. Isn't that so, Kees?"
"But, Marjon, did you not tell me how you found Kees – shy, thin, and mangy – his coat all spoiled with hunger and beatings; and how he has remained timid ever since, because a couple of rascally boys had mistreated him?"
Marjon nodded, and said:
"There are rascals, and deucedly wicked boys, and very likely there is a Devil, also; but I am my Father's child and not afraid of Him, nor what He may do with me."
"But if He makes you ill, and lets you be ill-treated? If He lets you do wrong, and then leaves you to cry about it? And if He makes you foolish?"
Keesje was coming down from the mast, very softly and deliberately. With his black, dirty little hands he cautiously and hesitatingly touched the boy's clothes that Marjon was wearing. He wanted to go to sleep, and had been used to a soft lap. But his mistress took him up, and hid him in her jacket. Then he yawned contentedly, like a little old man, and closed his pale eyelids in sleep – his little face looking very pious with its eyebrows raised in a saintly arch. Marjon said:
"If I should go and ill-treat Keesje, he would make a great fuss about it, but still he would stay with me."
"Yes; but he would do the same with a common tramp," said Johannes.
Marjon shook her head, doubtfully.
"Kees is rather stupid – much more so than you or I, but yet not altogether stupid. He well knows who means to treat him rightly. He knows well that I do not ill-treat him for my own pleasure. And you see, Jo, I know certainly, ever so certainly – that my Father will not ill-treat me without a reason."
Johannes pressed her hand, and asked passionately:
"How do you know that? How do you know?"
Marjon smiled, and gave him a gentle look.
"Exactly as I know you to be a good boy – one who does not lie. I can tell that about you in various ways I could not explain – by one thing and another. So, too, I can see that my Father means well by me. By the flowers, the clouds, the sparkling water. Sometimes it makes me cry – it is so plain."
Then Johannes remembered how he had once been taught to pray, and his troubled thoughts grew calmer. Yet he could not refrain from asking – because he had been so much with Pluizer:
"Why might not that be a cheat?"
Suddenly Keesje waked up and looked behind him at Johannes, in a frightened way.
"Ah, there you are!" exclaimed Marjon, impatiently. "That's exactly as if you asked why the summer might not perchance be the winter. You can ask that, any time. I know my Father just for the very reason that He does not deceive. If Markus was only here he would give it to you!"
"Yes, if he was only here!" repeated Johannes, not appearing to be afraid of what Markus might do to him.
Then in a milder way, Marjon proceeded:
"Do you know what Markus says, Jo? When the Devil stands before God, his heart is pierced by genuine trust."
"Should I trust the Devil, then?" asked Johannes.
"Well, no! How could that be? Nobody can do that. You must trust the Father alone. But even if you are so unlucky as to see the Devil before you see the Father, that makes no difference, for he has no chance against sincere trust. That upsets his plans, and at the same time pleases the Father."
"Oh, Marjon! Marjon!" said Johannes, clasping his hands together in his deep emotion. She smiled brightly and said:
"Now you see that was a quarter out of my savings-box!"
Really, it was a very happy day for Johannes. He saw great, white, piled-up clouds, tall trees in the light of the rising sun, still houses on the river-banks, and the rushing stream – with violet and gold sparkling in the broad bends – ever flowing through a fruitful, verdant country; and over all, the deep, deep blue – and he whispered: "Father – Father!" In an instant, he suddenly comprehended all the things he saw as splendid, glorious Thoughts of the Father, which had always been his to observe, but only now to be wholly understood. The Father said all this to him, as a solemn admonition that He it was – pure and true, eternally guarding, ever waiting and accessible, behind the unlovely and the deceitful.
"Will you always stay with me, Marjon?" he asked earnestly.
"Yes, Jo, that I will. And you with me?"
Then Little Johannes intrepidly gave his promise, as if he really knew what the future held for him, and as if he had power over his entire unknown existence.
"Yes, dear Marjon, I will never leave you again. I promise you. We remain together, but as friends. Do you agree? No foolishness!"
"Very well, Jo. As you like," said Marjon. After that they were very still.
