Frederik van Eeden
The Quest
XIII
It was evening, and they were nearing Germany. The dwellings on the river-banks no longer looked fresh and bright colored, but faded and dirty. Then they came to a poor, shabby-looking town, with rusty walls, and grey houses inscribed with flourishing black letters.
The boats went up the stream to lie at anchor, and the custom-house officers came. Then Marjon, rousing up from the brown study into which Johannes' last question had plunged her, said:
"We must sing something, Jo. Only think! Your Aunt's money will soon be gone. We must earn some more."
"Can we do it?" asked Johannes.
"Easy. You just furnish the words and I'll take care of the music. If it isn't so fine at first, that doesn't matter. You'll see how the money rains down, even if they don't understand a thing."
Marjon knew her public. It came out as she said it would. When they began to sing, the brusque customs collectors, the old skipper, and other ships' folk in the boats lying next them, all listened; and the stokers of the little tugboat stuck their soot-begrimed faces out of the machine-room hatch, and they, also, listened. For those two young voices floated softly and harmoniously out over the calmly flowing current, and there was something very winning in the two slender brothers – something fine and striking. They were quite unlike the usual circus-people. There was something about them which instantly made itself felt, even upon a rude audience, although no one there could tell in what it consisted, nor understand what they were singing about, nor even the words.
At first they sang their old songs —The Song of the Butterfly, and the melancholy song that Marjon had made alone, and which Johannes, rather disdainfully, had named The Nurse-Maid's Song, and also the one Marjon had composed in the evening, in the boat. But when Marjon said, "You must make something new," Johannes looked very serious, and said:
"You cannot make verses – they are born as much as children are."
Marjon blushed; and, laughing in her confusion, she replied: "What silly things you do say, Jo. It's well that the dark woman doesn't hear you. She might take you in hand."
After a moment of silence, she resumed: "I believe you talk trash, Jo. When I make songs the music does come of itself; but I have to finish it off, though. I must make– compose, you know. It's exactly," she continued, after a pause, "as if a troop of children came in, all unexpected – wild and in disorder, and as if, like a school-teacher, I made them pass in a procession – two by two – and stroked their clothing smooth, and put flowers in their hands, and then set them marching. That's the way I make songs, and so must you make verses. Try now!"
"Exactly," said Johannes;'"but yet the children must first come of themselves."
"But are they not all there, Jo?"
Gazing up into the great dome of the evening sky, where the pale stars were just beginning to sparkle, Johannes thought it over. He thought of the fine day he had had, and also of what he had felt coming into his head.
"Really," said Marjon, rather drily, "you'll just have to, whether you want to or not – to keep from starving."
Then, as if desperately alarmed, Johannes went in search of pencil and paper; and truly, in came the disorderly children, and he arranged them in file, prinked them up, and dealt them out flowers.
He first wrote this:
"Tell me what means the bright sunshine,
The great and restless river Rhine,
This teeming land of flocks and herds —
The high, wide blue of summer sky,
Where fleecy clouds in quiet lie.
To catch the lilt of happy birds.
"The Father thinks, and spreads his dream
As sun and heaven, field and stream.
I feast on his creation —
And when that thought is understood,
Then shall my soul confess Him good,
And kneel in adoration."
Marjon read it, and slowly remarked, as she nodded: "Very well, Jo, but I'm afraid I can't make a song of it. At least, not now. I must have something with more life and movement in it. This is too sober – I must have something that dances. Can't you say something about the stars? I just love them so! Or about the river, or the sun, or about the autumn?"
"I will try to," said Johannes, looking up at the twinkling dots sprinkled over the dark night-sky.
Then he composed the following song, for which Marjon quickly furnished a melody, and soon they were both singing:
"One by one from their sable fold
Came the silent stars with twinkling eyes,
And their tiny feet illumed like gold
The adamantine skies.
"And when they'd climbed the domed height —
So happy and full of glee,
There sang those stars with all their might
A song of jubilee."
It was a success. Their fresh young voices were floating and gliding and intertwining like two bright garlands, or two supple fishes sporting in clear water, or two butterflies fluttering about each other in the sunshine. The brown old skipper grinned, and the grimy-faced stokers looked at them approvingly. They did not understand it, but felt sure it must be a merry love-song. Three times – four times through – the children sang the song. Then, little by little, the night fell. But Johannes had still more to say. The sun, and the splendid summer day that had now taken its leave, had left behind a sweet, sad longing, and this he wanted to put upon paper. Lying stretched out on the deck, he wrote the following, by the light of the lantern:
"Oh, golden sun – oh, summer light,
I would that I might see thee bright
Thro' long, drear, winter days!
Thy brightest rays have all been shed —
Full soon thy glory will have fled,
And cold winds blow;
While all dear, verdant ways
Lie deep in snow."
As he read the last line aloud, his voice was full of emotion.
"That's fine, Jo!" said Marjon. "I'll soon have it ready."
And after a half-hour of trying and testing, she found for the verses a sweet air, full of yearning.
And they sang it, in the dusk, and repeated the former one, until a troupe of street musicians of the sort called "footers" came boisterously out of a beer-house on the shore, and drowned their tender voices with a flood of loud, dissonant, and brazen tones.
"Mum, now," said Marjon, "we can't do anything against that braying. But never mind. We have two of them now —The Star Song and The Autumn Song. At this rate we shall get rich. And I'll make something yet out of The Father Song; but in the morning, I think – not to-night. We've earned at least our day's wages, and we can go on a lark with contented minds. Will you go, Jo?"
"Marjon," said Johannes, musingly, hesitating an instant before he consented, "do you know who Pluizer is?"
"No!" said Marjon, bluntly.
"Do you know what he would say?"
"Well?" asked Marjon, with indifference.
"That you are altogether impossible."
"Impossible? Why?"
"Because you cannot exist, he would say. Such beings do not and cannot exist."
"Oh, he must surely mean that I ought only to steal and swear and drink gin. Is that it? Because I'm a circus-girl, hey?"
"Yes, he would say something like that. And he would also call this about the Father nothing but rot. He says the clouds are only wetness, and the sunshine quiverings, and nothing else; that they could be the expression of anything is humbug."
"Then he would surely say that, too, of a book of music?" asked Marjon.
"That I do not know," replied Johannes, "but he does say that light and darkness are exactly the same thing."
"Oh! Then I know him very well. Doesn't he say, also, that it's the same thing if you stand on your head or on your heels?"
"Exactly – that is he," said Johannes, delighted. "What have you to say about it?"
"That for all I care he can stay standing on his head; and more, too, he can choke!"
"Is that enough?" asked Johannes, somewhat doubtfully.
"Certainly," said Marjon, very positively. "Should I have to tell him that daytimes it is light, and night-times it is dark? But what put you in mind of that Jackanapes?"
"I do not know," said Johannes. "I think it was those footers."
Then they went into the deck-house where Keesje was already lying on the broad, leather-cushioned settee, all rolled up in a little ball, and softly snoring; and this cabin served the two children as a lodging-house.
XIV
On the second day they came to the great cathedral which, fortunately, was then not yet complete, and made Johannes think of a magnificent, scrag-covered cliff. And when he heard that it was really going to be completed, up to the highest spire, he was filled with respect for those daring builders and their noble creation. He did not yet know that it is often better to let beautiful conceptions rest, for the reason that, upon earth, consummated works are sometimes really less fine and striking than incomplete projects.
And when at last, on the third evening, he found himself among the mountains, he was in raptures. It was a jovial world. Moving, over the Rhine in every direction were brightly lighted steamboats laden with happy people, feasting and singing. Between the dark, vine-covered mountains the river reflected the rosy, evening light. Music rang on the water; music came from both banks. People were sitting on terraces, under leafy bowers, around pretty, shining lamps – drinking gold-colored wine out of green goblets; and the clinking of glasses and sound of loud laughter came from the banks. And, singing as they stepped, down the mountains came others, in their shirt sleeves, carrying their jackets on alpenstocks over their shoulders. The evening sky was aflame in the west, and the vineyard foliage and the porphyry rocks reflected the glowing red. Hurrah! One ought to be happy here. Truly, it seemed a jolly way of living.
Johannes and Marjon bade their long ark farewell, and went ashore. It saddened Johannes to leave the dear boat, for he was still a sentimental little fellow, who promptly attached himself by delicate tendrils to that which gave him happiness. And so the parting was painful.
They now began the work of earning their livelihood. And Keesje's idle days were over, as well. They put his little red jacket upon him, and he had to climb trees, and pull up pennies in a basin.
And the children had to sing their songs until they lost their charm, and Johannes grew weary enough with them.
But they earned more – much more than Markus with his scissors-grinding. The big, heavily moustached, and whiskered gentlemen, the prettily dressed and perfumed ladies, sitting on the hotel terraces, looked at them with intolerable arrogance, saying all kinds of jesting things – things which Johannes only half understood, but at which they themselves laughed loudly. But in the end they almost all gave – some copper, some silver – until the friséd waiters, in their black coats and white shirt-fronts, crossly drove them away, fearing that their own fees might be diminished.
Marjon it was who dictated the next move, who was never at a loss, who dared the waiters with witty speeches, and always furnished advice. And when they had been singing rather too much, she began twirling and balancing plates. She spoke the strange tongue with perfect fluency, and she also looked for their night's resting-place.
The public – the stupid, proud, self-satisfied people who seemed to think only of their pleasure – did not wound Marjon so much as they did Johannes.
When their snobbishness and rudeness brought tears to his eyes, or when he was hurt on account of their silly jests, Marjon only laughed.
"But do not you care, Marjon?" asked Johannes, indignantly. "Does it not annoy you that they, every one of them, seem to think themselves so much finer, more important, and fortunate beings than you and I, when, instead, they are so stupid and ugly?"
And he thought of the people Wistik had shown him.
"Well, but what of it?" said Marjon, merrily. "We get our living out of them. If they only give, I don't care a rap. Kees is much uglier, and you laugh about it as much as I do. Then why don't you laugh at the snobs?"
Johannes meditated a long time, and then replied:
"Keesje never makes me angry; but sometimes, when he looks awfully like a man, then I have to cry over him, because he is such a poor, dirty little fellow. But those people make me angry because they fancy themselves to be so much."
Marjon looked at him very earnestly, and said:
"What a good boy you are! As to the people – the public – why, I've always been taught to get as much out of 'em as I could. I don't care for them so much as I care for their money. I make fun of them. But you do not, and that's why you're better. That's why I like you."
And she pressed her fair head, with its glossy, short-cut hair, closer against his shoulder, thinking a little seriously about those hard words, "no foolishness."
They were happy days – that free life, the fun of earning the pennies, and the beautiful, late-summer weather amid the mountains. But the nights were less happy. Oh! what damp, dirty rooms and beds they had to use, because Fair-people could not, for even once, afford to have anything better. They were so rank with onions, and frying fat, and things even worse! On the walls, near the pillows, were suspicious stains; and the thick bed-covers were so damp, and warm, and much used! Also, without actual reason for it, but merely from imagination, Johannes felt creepy all over when their resting-place was recommended to them, with exaggerated praise, as a "very tidy room."
Marjon took all this much more calmly, and always fell asleep in no time, while Johannes sometimes lay awake for hours, restless and shrinking because of the uncleanliness.
"It's nothing, if only you don't think about it," said Marjon, "and these people always live in this way."
And what astonished Johannes still more in Marjon was that she dared to step up so pluckily to the German functionaries, constables, officers, and self-conceited citizens.
It is fair to say that Johannes was afraid of such people. A railway official with a gruff, surly voice; a policeman with his absolutely inexorable manner; a puffed-out, strutting peacock of an officer, looking down upon the world about him, right and left; a red-faced, self-asserting man, with his moustache trained up high, and with ring-covered fingers, calling vociferously for champagne, and appearing very much satisfied with himself, – all these Marjon delighted to ridicule, but Johannes felt a secret dread of them. He was as much afraid of all these beings as of strange, wild animals; and he could not understand Marjon's calm impudence toward them.
Once, when a policeman asked about their passport, Johannes felt as if all were lost. Face to face with the harsh voice, the broad, brass-buttoned breast, and the positive demand for the immediate showing of the paper, Johannes felt as if he had in front of him the embodied might of the great German Empire, and as if, in default of the thing demanded, there remained for him no mercy.
But, in astonishment, he heard Marjon whisper in Dutch: "Hey, boy! Don't be upset by that dunce!"
To dare to say "that dunce," and of such an awe-inspiring personage, was, in his view, an heroic deed; and he was greatly ashamed of his own cowardice.
And Marjon actually knew how, with her glib tongue and the exhibition of some gold-pieces, to win this representative of Germany's might to assume a softer tone, and to permit them to escape without an inspection.
But it was another matter when Keesje, seated upon the arm of a chair, behind an unsuspecting lieutenant, took it into his little monkey-head to reach over the shining epaulet, and grasp the big cigar – probably with the idea of discovering what mysterious enjoyment lay hidden in such an object. Keesje missed the cigar, but caught hold of the upturned moustache, and then, perceiving he had missed his mark, he kept on pulling, spasmodically, from nervous fright.
The lieutenant, frightened, tortured, and in the end roundly ridiculed, naturally became enraged; and an enraged German lieutenant was quite the most awful creature in human guise that Johannes had ever beheld. He expected nothing less than a beginning of the Judgment Day – the end of all things.
The precise details of that scrimmage he was never able to recall with accuracy. There was a general fracas, a clatter of iron chairs and stands, and vehement screeching from Keesje, who behaved himself like murdered innocence. From the lieutenant's highly flushed face Johannes heard at first a word indicating that he was suspected of having vermin. That left him cold, for he had been so glad to know that up to this time he had escaped them. Then he saw that it was not the shrieking Keesje, but Marjon herself, who had been nabbed and was being severely pommeled. She had hurriedly caught up the monkey, and was trying to flee with him.
Then his feelings underwent a sudden change, as if, in the theatre of his soul, "The Captivity" scene were suddenly shoved right and left to make place for "A Mountain View in a Thunder-storm."
The next moment he found himself on the back of the tall lieutenant, pounding away with all his might; at first on something which offered rather too much resistance – a shining black helmet – afterward, on more tender things – ears and neck, presumably. At the same time he felt himself, for several seconds, uncommonly happy.
In a trice there was another change in the situation, and he discovered himself in a grip of steel, to be flung down upon the dusty road in front of the terrace. Then he suddenly heard Marjon's voice:
"Has he hurt you? Can you run? Quick, then; run like lightning!"
Without understanding why, Johannes did as she said. The children ran swiftly down the mountain-side, slipped through the shrubbery of a little park, climbed over a couple of low, stone walls, and fled into a small house on the bank of the river, where an old woman in a black kerchief sat peacefully plucking chickens.
Johannes and Marjon had continually met with helpfulness and friendliness among poor and lowly people, and now they were not sent off, although they were obliged to admit that the police might be coming after them.
"Well, you young scamps," said the old woman, with a playful chuckle, "then you must stay till night in the pigsty. They'll not look for you there; it smells too bad. But take care, if you wake Rike up, or if that gorilla of yours gets to fighting with him!"
So there they sat in the pigsty with Rike the fat pig, who made no movement except with his ears, and welcomed his visitors with short little grunts. It began to rain, and they sat as still as mice – Keesje, also, who had a vague impression that he was to blame for this sad state of things. Marjon whispered:
"Who would have thought, Jo, that you cared so much for me? I was afraid this time, and you punched his head. It was splendid! Mayn't I give you a kiss, now?"
In silence, Johannes accepted her offer. Then Marjon went on:
"But we were both of us stupid; I, because I forgot all about Kees, in the music; and you, because you let out about me.
"Let out about you!" exclaimed Johannes, in amazement.
"Certainly," said Marjon, "by shouting out that I was a girl!"
"Did I do that?" asked Johannes. It had quite slipped out of his mind.
"Yes," said Marjon, "and now we're in a pickle again! Other togs! You can't do that in these parts. That's worse than hitting a lieutenant over the head, and we mustn't do any more of that."
"Did he hit you hard?" asked Johannes. "Does it hurt still?"
"Oh," said Marjon, lightly, "I've had worse lickings than that."
That night, after dark, the old woman's son – the vine-dresser – released them from Rike's hospitable dwelling, and took them, in a rowboat, across the Rhine.
XV
Bright and early one still, sunny morning they came to a small watering-place nestled in the mountains. It was not yet seven o'clock. A light mist clung around the dark-green summits, and the dew was sparkling on the velvety green grass, and over the flaming red geraniums, the white, purple-hearted carnations, and the fragrant, brown-green mignonette of the park. Fashionably dressed ladies and gentlemen were drinking, according to advice, the hot, saline waters of the springs; and later, while the cheerful music played, they promenaded up and down the marble-paved esplanade.
Marjon sought such places; for in them more was to be earned. Already a couple of competitors were there before them – a robust man and his little daughter. Both of them were dressed in flesh-colored tights, and in spangled, black velvet knickerbockers; but oh, how dusty and worn and patched they were! The little girl was much younger than Marjon, and had a vacant, impudent little face. She walked on her hands in such a way that her feet dangled down over her black, curly pate.
Johannes did not enjoy this encounter. Marjon and he belonged to the better class of Fair-people. Their caps and jackets just now were not, it is true, quite so fresh and well brushed as formerly, but all that they had on was whole – even their shoes. Johannes still wore his suit, which was that of a young gentleman, and Marjon was wearing the velvet stable-jacket of a circus-boy. They paid no attention to the shabby Hercules and his little daughter.
In Marjon's case this was only from vexation because of the competition; in Johannes', he well knew, it was pride. He pitied that rough man with the barbarous face, and that poor, dull child-acrobat; but it was not to his taste that he should be thought their colleague and equal, by all these respectable watering-place guests.
He was so vexed he would not sing; and he walked dreamily on amid the flowers, with vague fancies, and a deep melancholy, in his soul. He thought of his childhood home, and the kitchen-garden; of the dunes, and of the autumn day when he went to the gardener's, at Robinetta's country home; of Windekind, of Markus, and of Aunt Seréna's flower-garden.
The flowers looked at him with their wide-open, serious eyes – the pinks, the stiff, striped zinias, and the flaming yellow sunflowers. Apparently, they all pitied him, as if whispering to one another: "Look! Poor Little Johannes! Do you remember when he used to visit us in the land of elves and flowers? He was so young and happy then! Now he is sad and forsaken – a shabby circus-boy who must sing for his living. Is it not too bad?"
And the white, purple-hearted carnations rocked to and fro with compassion, and the great sunflowers hung their heads and looked straight down, with dismay in their eyes.
The sunshine was so calm and splendid, and the pointed heads of the mignonette smelled so sweet! And when Johannes came to a bed of drooping blue lobelias that seemed always to have shining drops of dewy tears in their eyes purely from sympathy, then he felt so sorry himself for poor Little Johannes that he had to go and sit down on a bench to cry. And there, just as if they understood the situation – in the music tent, concealed by the shrubbery – the portly band-master and his musicians, in their flat, gold-embroidered caps, were playing, very feelingly, a melancholy folksong. Marjon, however, who persistently kept business in mind, was on the marble esplanade, deep in jugglery with plates and eggs and apples. Johannes saw it, and was a little ashamed of himself. He began trying to make verses:
"Ah, scarlet geranium, blossom true!
Ah, lovely lobelia blue!
Why look those eyes so mournfully?
For whom do you wear,
In the morning bright,
Those glistening tears of dew?
"Ah! do you still know me?.."
But he got no further, because he found it too hard, and also because he had no paper with him.
Just then Marjon came up:
"Why do you sit there bungling, Jo, and let me do all the work? As soon as the bread and butter comes you'll be sure to be on hand."
She spoke rather tartly, and it was not surprising that Johannes retorted curtly:
"I am not always thinking of money, and something to eat, like you."
That hit harder than he thought; and now the sun was sparkling not only upon the dew-drops in the lobelia's eyes, but upon those in the two clear eyes of a little girl. However, Marjon was not angry, but said gently:
"Were you making verses?"
Johannes nodded, without speaking.
"Excuse me, Jo. May I hear them?"
And Johannes began:
"Ah, scarlet geranium, blossom true!
Ah, lovely lobelia blue!
Why look those eyes so earnestly?
Why thus bedight,
This morning bright
With glistening tears of dew?
"Oh, do you still think of the olden days…"
Again he broke down, and gazed silently out before him, with sorrowful eyes.
"Are you going to finish it, Jo?" asked Marjon with quiet deference. "You just stay here, I shall get on very well alone. See if I don't!"
And she returned to the fashionable, general promenade, with Keesje, her plates, her eggs, and her apples.
Then Johannes looked up, and suddenly saw before him something so charming and captivating that he became conscious of an entirely new sensation. It was as if until now he had been living in a room whose walls were pictured with flowers and mountains and waterfalls and blue sky, and as if those walls had suddenly vanished, and he could see all about him the real blue heavens, and the real woods and rivers.
The sunny, flower-filled little park of the watering-place was bounded by steep rocks of porphyry. At the foot of them, by the side of a small stream of clear, dark water, was a rich growth of shadowy underwood. A small path led from the mountain, and two children were descending it, hand in hand, talking fast in their light, clear voices.
They were two little girls, about nine and ten years of age. They wore black velvet frocks confined at the waist by colored ribbons – one red, the other ivory-white. Each one had trim, smoothly drawn stockings of the same color as her sash, and fine, low shoes. They were bare-headed, and both had thick golden hair that fell down over the black velvet in heavy, glossy curls.
The musicians, as if aware of their presence, now played a charming dance-tune, and the two little girls, with both hands clasped together, began playfully keeping time with their slender limbs —One, two, three —one, two, three – or the "three-step," as children say. And what Johannes experienced when he saw and heard that, I am not going even to try to describe to you, for the reason that he has never been able himself to do it.
Only know that it was something very delightful and very mysterious, for it made him think of Windekind's fairyland. Why, was more than he could understand.
At first, it seemed as if something out of the glorious land of Windekind and Father Pan had been brought to him, and that it was those two little girls upon the mountain-path, keeping time to the music with their slim little feet.
Then, hand in hand, the two children went through the park, chatting as they went – now and then running, and sometimes laughing merrily as they stopped beside a flower or a butterfly, until, through the maze of promenaders, they disappeared in the halls of a large hotel.
Johannes followed after them, wondering what they were so much interested in, observing the while all their pretty little ways, their intonations and winsome gestures, their dainty dress, their beautiful hair and slender forms.
When he was again with Marjon, he could not help remarking how much less pretty she was – with her meagre form and pale face – her larger hands and feet, and short, ash-colored hair. Johannes said nothing about this little adventure, but was very quiet and introspective. Because of this, Marjon also was for a long time less merry than usual.
That afternoon, when they went the round of the place again, trying to collect money from the families who, according to the German custom, were taking cake and coffee in front of the hotels and the pavilions, Johannes felt himself getting very nervous in the neighborhood of the big hotel into which the two little girls had gone. His heart beat so fast he could not sing any more.
And sure enough, as they came nearer, he heard the very same two bird-like little voices which had been ringing in his ears the whole day long, shouting for joy. That was not on account of Little Johannes, but of Keesje. For the first time Johannes was fiercely jealous of him.
In a gentle, quieting way, a musical voice called out two names: "Olga! – Frieda!"
But Johannes was too much confused and undone to note clearly what he saw. It was they – the two lovely children whom he had first seen in the morning – and they came close up, and spoke to Keesje. Their mother called them again, and then the children coaxed and pleaded, in most supplicating tones, that the delightful monkey might be allowed to come a little nearer – that they might give him some cake, and that he might perform his tricks.
It seemed to Johannes as if he were in a dream – as if everything around him were hazy and indistinct. He had felt that way when he stood in Robinetta's house, confronted by those hostile men. But then everything was dismal and frightful, while now it was glad and glorious. He heard, vaguely, the confusing sounds of voices, and the clatter of cups and saucers, and silver utensils. He felt the touch of the children's gentle little hands, and was led to a small table whence the reproving voice had sounded. A lady and a gentleman were sitting there. Some dainties were given to Keesje.
"Can you sing?" asked a voice in German.
Then Johannes bethought him for the first time that the two little girls had been speaking in English. Marjon tuned her guitar and gave him a hard poke in the side with the neck of it, because she found him getting so flustered again. Then they sang the song that Johannes had completed that morning, and which Marjon had since put to music.
"Ah, scarlet geranium, blossom true!
Ah, lovely lobelia blue!
Why gaze at me so mournfully?
Why thus bedight,
This morning bright
With glistening tears of dew?
"Ah! is't remembrance of olden days,
When the exquisite nightingale sung?
When the fairies danced, over mossy ways,
In the still moonlight,
'Neath the stars so bright,
When yet the world was young?
"Ah, scarlet geranium, blossom true!
Ah, lovely lobelia blue!
The sun is grown dim, and the sky o'ercast,
The winds grow cold,
The world is old,
And the Autumn comes fast – so fast!"
Johannes was singing clearly again. The lump in his throat had gone away as suddenly as it had come.
