Chapter 19
The sweet, melodious tone of her voice harmonised wonderfully with the bright child-like smile that accompanied the words.
"How do you know, Fraulein Cilli, who it is that is speaking to you?"
said Reinhold, as he stooped down and freed the light material from the thorn.
"From the same person who told you that my name is Cilli, and that I am blind--from Justus."
"Will you take my arm, Fraulein Cilli, and allow me to see you home? I suppose you live in the house that is just in front of us?"
"I walk safer alone; but give me your hand. May I feel it for a moment?"
She put out a small, soft white hand to him, which Reinhold touched with a feeling of awe.
"Just what he said," she murmured as though speaking to herself.
"Strong and manly--a good, a true hand."
She let go his hand, and they walked on side by side, she by the railing again, feeling the rails, he close to her side, never turning his eyes from her.
"Did Anders tell you that too?" he asked.
"Yes; but your hand would have told me without that. I know people by their hands. Justus's hand is not so strong, though he works so much; but it is as good."
"And as true," said Reinhold.
Cilli shook her head with a laugh, that was as sweet and soft as the twittering of the swallows.
"No, no," said she, "not as true! He cannot be, for he is an artist; so he can have but one guiding star--his Ideal--that he must look up to and follow, as the kings followed the star in the East, which going before them stopped at Bethlehem over the house in which the Saviour was laid in a manger; but beyond that he must be free, free as the birds in the branches overhead, free to come and go, free to flit and flutter and sing to his heart's content."
They had reached the end of the railing. Before them stood the house in which Cilli lived. She rested the tips of her fingers upon the iron pillars which ended the railing, and raised her face with a strange dreamy expression on it.
"I often wish I were an artist," said she; "but I should like better still to be a sailor. Sometimes I have wonderful dreams, and then I fly over the earth on wide-spread wings. Below me I see green meadows and dark forests, and corn-fields waving their golden grain; silver streamlets wander down the hill-sides and mingle their waters in the broad rivers which glitter in the light of the sun as it sinks to the horizon. And as it sinks, and the waters, with the church spires reflected in them, take a rosy hue, a terrible anguish overwhelms me, as I feel that it will sink before I can see it--this sun which I have never seen, of which all I know is that it is above all things beautiful and great and glorious. And when the sun is so low that in another moment it must disappear, there lies before me, boundless, illimitable, the great ocean! It is impossible to describe what I feel then, but I fancy it must be what the dead feel when they rise to everlasting joy, or what great and good men feel when they have done the deed which renders them immortal."
A couple of swallows flitted chirping through the air. The blind girl raised her sightless eyes.
"They come over the sea, but I cannot, I never can get beyond the sh.o.r.e, never beyond the sh.o.r.e!"
For the first time a shadow came over the charming face that was uplifted to Reinhold, but the next moment it was once more lighted up by the bright, child-like smile.
"I am very
She stretched out her hand to him again.
"Indeed I will," cried Reinhold. "I am only afraid that your dreams are more, immeasurably more, beautiful than anything I can tell you about."
The blind girl shook her head.
"How strange! that is what papa always says, and even Justus, though he is an artist, and the whole world lies before him as beautiful as on the first day of creation, and now you say it, who have seen the whole world. I can look at the sun without flinching; you must hide your eyes from its glory. I--I cannot see the loving smile upon my dear father's face, cannot see the faces of those I love. How can my world be as glorious and lovely as yours? But of course you only say that not to make me sad. You need not be afraid; I envy no one. From my heart I can say that I grudge no man his happiness, especially those who are so good, so intensely good as my father and Justus!"
The face that was turned to him beamed once more with the brightest suns.h.i.+ne.
"When once I begin to chatter there is no stopping me, is there? And I have kept you all this time, when you have so much to do of far greater importance. I shall see you again."
She gave his hand a slight pressure, and then withdrew her own, which she had left in his till now, and stepped towards the door, which was only separated from her by the width of the path which on this side lay between the garden and the house. Then, however, she stood still again, and said, half turning over her shoulder:
"Was not Justus right when he said you were kind? You did not smile when I said I should see you again!"
She went into the house, feeling the door-posts with her finger-tips, turned once more as she stood on the threshold, nodded, and stepped into the hall.
CHAPTER VII.
Reinhold had not smiled, but as the fair vision disappeared in the shadow of the entrance he pa.s.sed the hand which she had held so long over his eyes.
"And you thought you knew how to love!" said he to himself. "What are our purest, holiest aspirations when compared with the heavenly purity and goodness of such a mind as this poor blind girl's, who is as unconscious of her beauty and her charm as are the lilies of the field?
How could so lovely a flower have blossomed here?"
He looked around. The bell which had summoned the workpeople to their breakfast as Cilli came out of the house rang again. The men returned to their work. Looking round the corner of the house, he had a peep through the wide-open doors of the workshops, which seemed to occupy the whole of the ground-floor. Crosses and tombstones were being chiselled and carved by busy hands.
A chill came over Reinhold, to see this sad, gloomy sight just now, when the world lay so bright before him, lighted up by the fancies of the blind girl who lived over these melancholy workshops, and in whose dreams the tapping and knocking of these dreadful hammers and chisels must mingle!
He asked for his uncle. No one had seen him that morning; he might be in the engine-room or in some of the back yards. Where was Herr Anders'
studio? Here in this very building, the first door round the corner; the second was the young lady's studio.
Reinhold walked round the house and knocked at the first door, near which was a high window half shaded from within. No one answered, and he was going on when the door opened a little way. But it was not the friendly countenance of the sculptor, with its bright eyes and cheery smile, that met him, but a strange, dark face, from which a pair of black, sparkling eyes glared at him.
"Beg pardon! I expected to see Herr Anders."
"Herr Anders is not here; he is in his own house, the third door upstairs."
He of the dark complexion said this in a forbidding tone and in German, which, though fluent enough, betrayed the foreigner in every syllable.
"Then I will go and look for him there."
"Herr Anders is going to the Exhibition; he is dressing."
"Reinhold now observed that the young man himself was in the act of dressing and still in his s.h.i.+rt-sleeves, whose extreme whiteness made the darkness of his complexion even more remarkable. The interruption of his toilette quite explained the unfriendly tone of his answers, and the want of hospitality that made him hold the door only just enough open for him to speak to the stranger.
"Perhaps you know whether Fraulein Schmidt is in her studio?"
The pertinacity of the question seemed to irritate the young man. The black brows frowned heavily, the delicate upper lip with its slight moustache curled sufficiently to show the white teeth for a moment.
"_Non lo so_," he blurted out.
He shut the door, muttering between his teeth something else in Italian which did not sound like a blessing.
Reinhold felt convinced that Ferdinanda was in her studio, and that the ungracious youth knew it; but at the same time it would not make her very unhappy if he paid his visit later, or did not pay it at all. At all events he must look for his uncle first.
He returned to the yard, pa.s.sing a place where huge blocks of marble were being cut through by the aid of large suspended saws, each of which was regulated by a man. It must have been fatiguing work, requiring great strength, and indeed was only undertaken when the machinery could not turn out enough work, as was now the case; there was no doubt that the machine certainly could do much more. So said the workman, taking the opportunity to get a little breathing-time. The steam saws were in that building; they had just seen the master go there. But Uncle Ernst was not near the steam saws, he had just been there; perhaps he was in the lathe-room close by.