The Quest. Frederik van Eeden
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sat the gardener's wife, knitting black stockings. Over the peat fire in the fireplace hung a big kettle of boiling water. On the mat by the fire lay a cat with folded forepaws – just as Simon sat when Johannes left home.
Johannes was given a seat by the fire that he might dry his feet. "Tick, tack! – Tick, tack!" said the big, hanging clock. Johannes looked at the steam which rose, hissing, from the kettle, and to the little tongues of flame that skipped nimbly and whimsically over the peat.
"Now I am among human beings," thought he.
It was not bad. He felt calm and contented. They were good and kind, and asked what he would like best to do.
"I would like best to stay here," he replied.
Here he was at peace, but if he went home, sorrow and tears would follow. He would be obliged to maintain silence, and they would tell him that he had been naughty. He would have to see all the past over again, and think once more of everything.
He did long for his little room, for his father, for Presto – but he would rather endure the silent longing where he was, than the painful, racking return. It seemed as if here he might be thinking of Windekind, while at home he could not.
Windekind had surely gone away now – far away to the sunny land where the palms were bending over the blue seas. He would do penance here, and wait for him.
And so he implored the two good people to let him stay. He would be obedient and work for them. He would help care for the garden and the flowers, but only for this winter; – for he hoped in his heart that Windekind would return in the spring.
The gardener and his wife thought that Johannes had run away because he was not treated well at home. They sympathized with him, and promised to let him stay.
He remained, and helped them in the garden and among the flowers. He was given a little bedroom, with a blue wooden bedstead. From it, mornings, he could see the wet, yellow linden leaves slipping along the window-panes; and nights, the dark boughs rocking to and fro – with the stars playing hide-and-seek behind them. He gave names to the stars, and called the brightest Windekind.
He told his history to the flowers – almost all of which he had known at home; the big, serious asters, the gaudy zinias, and the white chrysanthemums which continued to bloom so late in the rude autumn. When all the other flowers were dead the chrysanthemums still stood – and even after the first snowfall, when Johannes came one morning early to look at them, they lifted their cheerful faces and said: "Yes, we are still here. You didn't think we would be, did you?" They were very brave, but two days later they were all dead.
But the palms and tree-ferns still flourished in the green-house, and the strange flower-clusters of the orchids hung in their humid, sultry air. Johannes gazed with wonder into the splendid cups, and thought of Windekind. On going out-of-doors, how cold and colorless everything looked – the black footsteps in the damp snow, and the rattling, dripping skeletons of trees!
Hour after hour, while the snowflakes were silently falling until the branches bowed beneath their weight of down, Johannes walked eagerly on in the violet dusk of the snow-shadowed woods. It was silence, but not death. And it was almost more beautiful than summer verdure; the interlocking of the pure white branches against the clear blue sky, or the descending clouds of glittering flakes when a heavily laden shrub let slide its snowy burden.
Once, on such a walk, when he had gone so far that nothing was to be seen save snow, and snow-covered branches – half white, half black – and all sound and life seemed smothered under its glistening covering, he thought he saw a tiny white animal run nimbly out in front of him. He followed it. It bore no likeness to any that he knew. Then he tried to grasp it, but it sped away and disappeared in a tree-trunk. Johannes peered into the round, black opening, and thought – "Could it be Wistik?"
He did not think much about him. It seemed mean to do so, and he did not wish to weaken in his doing of penance. And life with the two good people left him little to ask for. Evenings, he had to read aloud out of a thick book, in which much was said about God. But he knew that book, and read it absent-mindedly.
The night after his walk in the snow, however, he lay awake in bed, looking at the cold shining of the moonlight on the floor. Suddenly he saw two tiny hands close beside him – clinging fast to the bedside. Then the top of a little white fur cap appeared between the two hands, and at last he saw a pair of earnest eyes under high-lifted eyebrows.
"Good evening, Johannes," said Wistik. "I came to remind you of our agreement. You cannot have found the book yet, for the spring has not come. But are you keeping it in mind? What is the thick book I have seen you reading in? That cannot be the true book. Do not think that."
"I do not think so, Wistik," said Johannes. He turned over and tried to go to sleep again, but he could not get the little key out of his head.
And from this time on, as he read in the thick book, he kept thinking about it, and he saw clearly that it was not the true book.
VIII
"Now he will come," thought Johannes, the first time the snow had melted away, and here and there little clusters of snowdrops began to appear. "Will he not come now?" he asked the snowdrops. They could not tell, but remained with drooping heads looking at the earth as if they were ashamed of their haste, and wished to creep away again.
If they only could have done so! The numbing east winds soon began to blow again, and the poor, rash things were buried deep in the drifted snow.
Weeks later came the violets, their sweet perfume floating through the shrubbery. And when the sun had shone long and warmly on the mossy ground, the fair primulas opened out by hundreds and by thousands.
The shy violets, with their rich fragrance, were mysterious harbingers of coming magnificence, yet the cheerful primulas were gladness itself. The awakened earth had taken to herself the first sunbeams, and made of them a golden ornament.
"Now," thought Johannes, "now he is surely coming!" In suspense he watched the buds on the branches, as they swelled slowly day by day, and freed themselves from the bark, till the first pale-green points appeared among the brown scales. Johannes stayed a long time looking at those little green leaves, and never saw them stir. But even if he only just turned around they seemed to have grown bigger. "They do not dare while I am watching them," he thought.
The foliage had already begun to cast a shade, yet Windekind had not come. No dove had alighted near him – no little mouse had spoken to him. When he addressed the flowers they scarcely nodded, and made no reply whatever. "My penance is not over yet," he thought.
Then one sunny spring morning he passed the pond and the house. The windows were all wide open. He wondered if any of the people had come yet.
The wild cherry that stood by the pond was entirely covered with tender leaves. Every twig was furnished with little, delicate-green wings. On the grass beside the bush sat a young girl. Johannes saw only her light-blue frock and her blonde hair. A robin was perched on her shoulder, and pecked out of her hand. Suddenly, she turned her head around and saw Johannes.
"Good day, little boy," said she, nodding in a friendly way.
Again Johannes thrilled from head to foot. Those were Windekind's eyes – that was Windekind's voice!
"Who are you?" he asked, his lips quivering with feeling.
"I am Robinetta, and this is my bird. He will not be afraid of you. Do you like birds?"
The redbreast was not afraid of Johannes. It flew to his arm. That was like old times. And it must be Windekind – that azure being!
"Tell me your name, Laddie," said Windekind's voice.
"Do you not know me? Do you not know that I am Johannes?"
"How could I know that?"
What did that mean? Still, it was the well-known, sweet voice. Those were the dark, heavenly-deep, blue eyes.
"Why do you look at me so, Johannes? Have you ever seen me before?"
"Yes, I do believe so."
"Surely, you must