Once embarked on the current of open talk, he went on to offer his views concerning the other difficulties of human life. Mathematics was all right; in fact, he had done very well in a.n.a.lytic geometry. But history and the languages, and above all, German composition! A fellow was sometimes driven to despair by the wretched state of things in this world.

In this Lilly fully concurred. She, too, had little cause to be satisfied with the course of mundane events, and she gave eloquent and pa.s.sionate expression to her sentiments.

"As for you," she concluded, "what tortures your spirit must undergo when it feels itself hampered in its flight by the humiliating demands of the schoolroom!"

He looked at her in some wonderment and remarked:

"Yes, indeed, it's hard, very hard."

"I in your place," Lilly went on, "would not care a fig inside myself for all that vapid stuff. I would just do what is necessary in an offhand way, and then in complete spiritual freedom climb to the height where the great poets and philosophers dwell."

"Yes, but the examinations!" he exclaimed, utterly horrified.

"Oh, those stupid examinations!" she rejoined. "What difference does it make whether or not you pa.s.s?"

Here he became eager.

"You don't understand at all, not at all. Examinations are in a sense the avenue leading to every good position in life, no matter whether you enter the university or study architecture, or merely try for a good place in the postal service. But that, of course, I wouldn't do."

"A man like you!" she interrupted.

He smiled faintly, feeling stroked the right way.

"I don't want to storm the heavens exactly," he said, "but I have my ambitions. What would a fellow be if he had no ambitions?"

"That is so, isn't it?" Lilly cried, looking up to him with a grateful gleam in her eyes. The feeling that she had never experienced such an hour of joy took complete hold of her.

When he arose to go--it had grown quite dark--she felt actual physical pain, as if a piece of her body were being torn from her.

He had almost closed the door when he turned and said as one who wishes to be sure where he treads:

"If it's not troubling you too much, do hunt for the poems once more.

Perhaps you will find them."

Turning back a second time:

"You might lay the book under the door-mat if you find it."

Lilly hastily lighted the lamp and obediently started on the search.

After a time the futility of doing so occurred to her.

He spent the summer vacation in the country with a companion in misery, with whom he crammed for the examinations. The written tests were to be given immediately after the opening of school, and the oral tests about the middle of September.

The young hero looked pale and exhausted, and reddish-brown stubble lay in the hollows of his cheeks like blotches of blood.

Lilly was unable to witness such wretchedness in silence, and one morning, when, returning from ma.s.s, she met him alone in the deserted street, she ventured to stop and speak to him.

"You must spare yourself, Mr. Redlich," she broke out anxiously. "You must keep well for the sake of your parents and those who love you."

He seemed more embarra.s.sed than pleased, and before finding a reply, he cast rapid sidelong glances in all directions.

"Thank you," he stammered. "But later, if you please, later."

He dashed past, scarcely daring to raise his cap.

Lilly realised she had committed an indiscretion. The houses began to dance before her eyes, she chewed her handkerchief, and feared the pa.s.sersby might laugh and jeer at her. When ensconced in her corner behind the entry book, she no longer doubted that she had lost him forever.

She had!

He came and went without greeting her--he came at suppertime and left--she heard his steps all the way down the street.

Over and done for! Over and done for!

But lo and behold! At dusk a knock was heard on the door. No, not exactly a knock, rather a scratching at the door, the way a dog with a guilty conscience scratches when he wants to be let in.

There he stood. Not with the embarra.s.sed yet business-like manner with which he had entered that Sunday evening when the graves of Ottensen had justified his coming. No, this time his heart throbbed anxiously. He was like a thief who lacks skill in the art of thieving.

"Is Mrs. Asmussen here?" he whispered.

"Mrs. Asmussen doesn't come in here at this time," she whispered back, with a deep sigh of joy.

"Then may--I come in--for a moment?"

She stepped aside, and let him enter, thinking:

"How can a person endure so much joy without dying of it?"

He stammered something about "begging her pardon" and "not answering her."

She responded with something about "having reproached herself" and "having meant it well."

Then they sat down opposite each other with the counter between, and did not know what to say next.

He was the first to discover the way into the region of the permissible.

"A fellow sometimes likes to exchange thoughts with a congenial young lady," he said with an emphatic air of importance. "But he seldom finds the time--or the opportunity."

"Oh, as for the opportunity," thought Lilly.

Since she had manifested such kindly interest in him, and since an exchange of views would certainly be edifying to him, especially because of the growing emanc.i.p.ation of women--which--

He had steered into a tight place, but his sense of dignity did not forsake him. He looked at Lilly somewhat challengingly, as if to say, "You see how able I am to cope with this difficult situation."

Lilly had not caught the drift of his talk. From the moment she recovered her power of thinking, she was dominated by one feeling: help him, save him, so that he doesn't work himself to death.

"Once we girls had a teacher," she began, "who delivered glorious never-to-be-forgotten lectures in cla.s.s. He worked too hard, like you, and by this time he must certainly have died of consumption. The same will happen to you, if you don't take care and go more slowly."