As he can find no better subject, he begins to talk about the dancing shoes, wishing at the same time to sound Martin. He is quite agreeable.

Trude is to have her measure taken at once and when she objects to taking off her shoes in Johannes' presence, he angrily calls her an "affected little prude," She is offended, begins to cry and leaves the room. Then towards evening she bashfully appears with her measure and Johannes sends off his letter. The broken vase still weighs heavily on his conscience. When he is alone with her he confesses.

"I say, I've done a clumsy thing."

"What?"

"I have smashed a vase."

"Indeed! was that simply clumsiness?"

"What else should it be?"

"I thought you had done it on purpose," she says, with apparent utter indifference. He gives no answer, and she quietly nods a few times to herself as much as to say, "It seems I was right after all!"

The days pa.s.s by. Relations between Johannes and Trude are cooler than they were. They do not avoid each other, they even talk together, but their former happy-go-lucky mode of intercourse is irretrievably lost.

"She is offended because I kissed her," thinks Johannes, but it does not strike him that he too has changed his behavior towards her.

"Children, what's up with you?" says Martin one evening grumblingly.

"Have your throats grown rusty, as you never sing now?"

For a few seconds both are silent, then Trude says, half turning towards Johannes, "Will you?" He nods; but as she has not been looking at him she thinks she has had no answer and says, turning towards Martin, "You see, he doesn't want to!"

"Don't I though!" laughs Johannes.

"Then why can't you say so at once?" she answers with a timid attempt at responding to his cheerful tone.

Then she puts herself in position, folds her hands in her lap as she is wont to do when singing, and fixes her eyes on the pigeon-house yonder.

"What shall we sing?" she asks.

"Must we part, beloved maid?"--he suggests.

She shakes her head. "Nothing about love," she says rather pointedly, "that's all so stupid."

He looks at her astonished and after some deliberation she starts a hunting song. He joins in l.u.s.tily and their voices blend and unite like two waves in the ocean. They themselves marvel at such harmony; they have never sung so well. But they soon come to an end. The Germans have not many folk-songs which are not at the same time love ditties. And finally she has to submit.

"Rose-bush and elder-tree, When my love comes to me!"

she begins, tacking on a "Jodler." He smiles and looks at her, she blushes and turns away.--She has let herself be caught now.

The two voices grow full of wonderful animation, as though their hearts' pulsation were throbbing through the notes. They swell heavenwards as though impelled by waves of pa.s.sion, they die down as though the bourne of life were stagnant through intensity of hidden woe.

"No words can e'er express my love, In silent longing I adore.

Question my eyes, for they will speak; I love thee now and evermore!"

Why do their eyes suddenly meet? What occasion is there for them both to tremble as though an electric current were pa.s.sing through their bodies?...

"There is never an hour in my sleeping When my thoughts are not waking.

Their flight to thee taking, To thank thee for placing forever Thy heart in my keeping!"

What intoxicating pa.s.sion vibrates through the notes!

How the two voices seek each other as if to embrace!

"O'er the mill-stream bends the willow, In the valley lies the snow, Sweetest love, 'tis time we parted, I must leave thee, broken-hearted.

Parting, love, is full of woe!"

The voices die away in tremulous whispers. It is over--longing and hope, the pain of parting and the agony of death, all resounded in these treacherous, swelling chords.

Trude's lips twitch as with suppressed weeping, but her eyes glitter, and suddenly, standing bolt upright, she begins the old, sad miller-song about the golden house that stands "over on yonder hill."

Johannes starts, and his voice falls in tremulously. They sing through the first verse and begin the second:

"Down there in yonder valley, The mill-wheel grinds away, 'Tis love that it is grinding By night and all the day.

The mill-wheel now is broken--"

Suddenly--a scream--a fall--Trude has dropped down in front of the bench and is sobbing convulsively in the corner with her head pressed against the wood-work.

Both brothers jump up--Martin takes her head between both his hands, and, quite upset, he stammers disconnected, confused words--but she only sobs more violently. He stamps his foot on the ground in despair and, turning towards Johannes, who is deathly pale, he cries; "What ails the child?"

Then Trude flings both her arms around his neck, raises herself up by him and hides her tear-stained face upon his breast, as if seeking refuge. He strokes her dishevelled hair caressingly and tries to calm her; but he does not understand the art of comforting, poor Martin; each one of his half-mumbled words sounds like suppressed scoldings.

She lets her head sink back towards the wall of foliage, her lips move, and, as if she were continuing the song, she murmurs, still half choked with sobs:

"The mill-wheel--now--is broken!"

"No, my child, it is not broken," his eyes filling with tears, "it will not be broken--not _ours_--it will go on turning--as long as we live."--

She shakes her head pa.s.sionately and closes her eyes, as though beholding visions.

"And what makes such things enter your head?" he continues. "Has not everything turned out better than we thought? Isn't Johannes with us too?--Don't we live together in happiness and content?--and work from morn till night?--and--and--aren't your people comfortable too? And don't we take care that your father has a good income--and"--

He groans and wipes the perspiration from his brow. He can think of nothing more--and now appeals to Johannes, who is standing with his face turned away and his head resting against the pillar at the entrance of the veranda.

"Why will you always sing such sad songs?" he growls at him. "I myself got to feel quite--I don't know what--when you began with them--and she--she is only a weak woman."