Saint Michael. E. Werner

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СКАЧАТЬ admiration in those eyes,–all that he saw was their dreamy, vague expression, a curious stare that irritated him.

      "How old are you?" he asked, in the same tone.

      "Eighteen."

      "And what do you know? what can you do?"

      This question seemed to embarrass Michael extremely; he did not speak, but looked at the forester, who answered for him. "He does not do much of anything, Herr Count, although he runs about the forest all day long, and he does not know much either. I have no time to look after him; at first we sent him to the village school, and later on his reverence took him in hand and taught him. But he couldn't do much with him, Michael can't understand well."

      "But he must adopt some calling. What is he fit for? what does he want to be?"

      "Nothing at all,–and he is fit for nothing," said the forester, laconically.

      "This is a fine account of you," said the Count, contemptuously. "To run about the forest all day long is not much to do, and can be done with but little instruction; it is a disgrace for a strong young fellow like you to be fit for nothing else."

      Michael looked surprised at these harsh words, and a dark flush began to mount into his cheeks, but the forester assented with, "Yes, I think so too; but there is nothing to be done with Michael. Just look at him, Herr Count; no one can ever make a decent forester of him."

      It seemed to cost the Count an effort to continue an interview so repugnant to him, but he controlled himself, and said, sternly and authoritatively, "Come here!"

      Michael never stirred; he stood as if he had not heard the command.

      "Have you not even learned obedience?" Steinrück asked, in a menacing tone. "Come here, I say!"

      But Michael still stood motionless, until the forester, feeling himself called upon to come to the rescue of what was probably stupidity, seized him roughly by the shoulder, encountering, however, decided resistance on the part of his foster-son, who shook him off angrily. There was only defiance in the movement, but it looked like a desire for flight, and as such the Count understood it. "A coward, too!" he murmured. "There has been quite enough of this!"

      He rang the bell and ordered the servant to have the carriage brought round immediately. Then he turned to the forester, and said, "I have a word or two to say to you; follow me," as, opening the door of a small adjoining room, he preceded him into it.

      Wolfram attempted, as he followed, to excuse his foster-son's conduct: "He is afraid of you, Herr Count; the fellow has not a spark of courage."

      "So I see," Steinrück rejoined, with infinite contempt; he could forgive almost anything save cowardice,–that was inexcusable in his eyes. "Never mind, Wolfram, I know you cannot help it; but you must keep the fellow for a while yet; there is nothing for him but this mountain forestry; he may dream away his life here for all I care, since he is good for nothing else."

      He went on talking to the forester without bestowing another glance upon Michael, who stood motionless. The dark flush had not faded from his face, which was no longer expressionless. Gloomily, with compressed lips, he gazed after the man who had just passed so pitiless a verdict upon himself and his future. He had often heard such words before from the forester without their producing any effect upon him, but they had a different sound when issuing from those haughty lips, and the contemptuous glance of those eyes pierced him to the very soul. For the first time he felt the treatment to which he had been accustomed from childhood as a burning disgrace, crushing him to the earth.

      He was alone in the room. Through the bow-window the sunlight streamed in, and fell full upon the writing-table, where the diamonds in the star of the order glittered and sparkled in every colour of the rainbow. Even on the dark wainscoting bright gleams were playing, and they mingled with the glow of the fire upon the hearth, which was sinking away to embers.

      "What are you doing here?" a child's voice suddenly asked.

      Michael turned round; upon the threshold of the adjoining room, the door of which had been left open, stood a child about eight years of age, looking in amazement at the stranger, who now answered, laconically, "I am waiting."

      The little girl, the daughter of the deceased Count, approached and gazed curiously at the lad, then, probably arriving at the conclusion that this coarsely-dressed young man could not possibly be a visitor in the castle, turned up her little nose, although, since he was waiting for somebody, she could not object to his presence. She turned to the hearth, where she amused herself by blowing into the embers and watching the sparks.

      She was a graceful little creature, slender and delicate as a fairy, undeniably pretty, in spite, many would have said, of the red hue of the hair that fell in long thick curls over her shoulders and down upon the black crape of her dress, giving a strange charm to the childish figure. A pair of large eyes, undeterminable in colour, looked out of the rosy little face; they shone like stars, but there was an odd gleam in them,–they were not innocent, childish eyes.

      Before long she grew tired of watching the sparks, and looking about for some other amusement her glance fell again upon Michael, whom she now honoured with a longer inspection. "Where did you come from?" she asked, standing directly in front of him.

      "From the forest," he replied, as laconically as before.

      "Is it far from here?"

      "Very far."

      "And do you like our castle?"

      "No."

      Hertha gazed at him with surprise in her bright eyes; she had asked the question with much condescension, and this strange man had dared to declare briefly and dryly that he did not like a Count's castle. As she was apparently considering whether or not to be displeased, her glance fell upon Michael's hat, which he held in his hand, and which was adorned with a bunch of magnificent Alpine roses. "Oh, what beautiful flowers!" she exclaimed. "Give them to me." And she had possessed herself of the hat and pulled out the flowers before Michael could say a word. He looked rather amazed to see this appropriation of his property, but made no attempt to prevent it.

      The child seated herself in an arm-chair beside the hearth, seeming delighted with her flowers, and began to talk easily and familiarly. She told about the big castle where she had been accustomed to live with her mother and father, and where it was all much prettier than here, of her pony upon which she had learned to ride, and which had unfortunately been left there, of her mother, and of much else besides. The apparent dulness of her hearer seemed to amuse her mightily; she tried to make him talk, and actually did extort from him that he was the forester's son, and lived high up in the mountains in the forest lodge, a fact that interested her much.

      There was something bewitching in the sweet, beguiling childish voice, and in the fairy-like little figure nestling gracefully among the cushions of the arm-chair, where the hair glistened against the dark background. Michael slowly drew near, and gradually began to reply more easily; this beguiling talk and laughter cast about him a spell the power of which he vaguely felt, although he did not understand it, and could not shake it off.

      As she talked, Hertha continued to play with the flowers, which she separated, arranged, and rearranged, but at last wearying of them she began to pull to pieces the nosegay she had so ardently coveted. Her little hands pitilessly destroyed the white blossoms, throwing them heedlessly on the ground. Michael frowned, and in a tone of remonstrance, but still more of entreaty, said, "Do not pull them to pieces! Those flowers were hard to find."

      "But I don't like them any more," declared the child, and she continued her work of destruction. СКАЧАТЬ