III
The walls of the little house were much thicker than those of the houses of Dutch laborers. The small sashes, curtained with white muslin, lay deep in the window-openings, and upon each broad sill stood a flowering plant and a begonia.
When Johannes and Marjon looked in through the window, Markus was sitting at the table. The housewife stood beside him, sleeves tucked up, carrying on her left arm a half-sleeping child, while with her right hand she was putting food upon his plate. A somewhat older child stood by his knee watching the steaming: food.
The mother’s cheeks were pale and sunken, from sorrow, and her eyes were still full of tears.
“Nothing will come of it, after all,” she said with a sigh. “If only he had been wiser! Those miserable roysterers have talked him into it. That’s what comes of those meetings. If only he had stayed at home! The husband belongs at home.
“Do not be afraid, mother,” said Markus. “He did what he sincerely thought was right. Who does that can always be at peace.”
“Although he should starve?” asked the wife, bitterly.
“Yes, although he should starve. It is better to starve with a good conscience, than to live in comfort by fraud.”
This silenced the woman for a time. Then she said, “If it were not for the children....” and the tears flowed faster.
“It is exactly on account of the children, mother. If the children are good, they will thank the father who is struggling for their sakes, even though he struggle in vain. And there is something for them still, else you would not have been able to give to me—the stranger.”
Markus looked at her smilingly, and she smiled in return.
“You—you should have our last mouthful!” said she, heartily. Then, glancing toward the window, she added: “Who are those young scamps looking in? And a monkey with them!”
Then Markus turned around. As soon as the two standing outside recognized his face, they shouted “Hurrah!” and rushed in without knocking.
Marjon flew to Markus, threw her arms about his neck, and kissed him. Johannes, rather more shy, clung to his hand. Keesje, being distrustful of the children, peered around the place with careful scrutiny.
Then there followed in Dutch a brisk, confused interchange of information. All the adventures had to be narrated, and Marjon was very happy and communicative. The mother kept still, looking on with a discontented air, full of her own troubles. The noise awakened the half-slumbering child, and it began to cry.
Then the husband came home, morose and irritable.
“What confounded business is this?” he cried; and the two were silent, slowly comprehending that they were in a dwelling full of care. Johannes looked earnestly at the weary, care-seamed face of the man, and the pale, anxious features of the mother, wondering if there was any news.
“Hollanders?” asked the miner, seating himself at the table, and holding up a plate.
“Yes, friends of Markus,” replied the wife. Then, in assumed calmness, she asked: “Is there any news?”
“We have the best of it!” said the husband, with forced cheerfulness. “We win—we surely win. It can’t be otherwise. What have you to say about it, Markus?”
But Markus was silent, and gazing out-of-doors. Swearing because the food was not to his taste, the man then began to eat. Marjon’s merriment subsided. The wife shook her head sadly, and kissed her child.
“You need to look out, you young rascals,” said the man, all at once. “They are searching for you. Have you been pilfering? Which of you is the girl in disguise?”
“Iam!” said Marjon. “What do they want of me? Now what if I have no other duds?”
“Are you a girl?” asked the wife. “Shame on you!”
“Has not Vrouw Huber a spare garment for her?” asked Markus. “She has so many daughters!”
“We may need to pawn them all,” replied the wife. But Johannes, with a manly bearing, cried: “We can pay for them. I have some money!”
“O-o-oh!” said the others doubtfully, while Markus simply smiled. Thus Marjon was soon back again in her girl’s apparel—an ugly red-checked little frock. Keesje alone was satisfied with the change.
“Have you been singing much?” asked Markus.
“Yes, we sing every day,” said Marjon, “and Johannes has made some nice new songs.”
“That is good,” said Markus. Then, turning to husband and wife: “May they sing here a little?”
“Sing! A pretty time for singing!” said the wife, scornfully.
“Why not?” asked the husband. “A nice song is never out of place.”
“You are right,” said Markus. “It is not well to hear nothing but sighs.”
Marjon softly tuned her guitar; and while the husband sat beside the brick stove, smoking his pipe, and the wife laid her little one in bed, the two children began to sing a song—the last of those they had made together. It was a melancholy little song, as were all those they had sung during the last weeks. These were the words:
“If I should say what makes me sad,
My effort would be all in vain;
But nightingales and roses glad
They whisper it in sweet refrain.
“The evening zephyr softly sighs
In strains one clearly understands;
I see it traced high o’er the skies
In writing made by mystic hands.
“I know a land where every grief
Is changed into a mellow song;
Where roses heal with blushing lips
All wounds and every aching wrong.
“That land, though not so far away,
I may not, cannot enter there;
It is not here where now I stay
And no one saves me from despair.”
“Is that Dutch, now?” asked the miner. “I can’t understand a bit of it? Can you, wife?”
Weeping, the wife shook her head.
“Then what are you snivelling for, if you don’t understand?”
“I don’t understand it at all; but it makes me cry, and that does me good,” said the wife.
“All right, then! If it does you good we’ll have it once more.” And the children sang it over again.
When they went away, they left the family in a more peaceful mood.
Markus took his place in the middle, between the two children, Keesje sitting upon his shoulder, with one little hand resting confidingly on his cap, attentively studying the thick, dark hair at his temples.
“Markus!” said Johannes. “I do not understand it. Really, what has my grief to do with theirs? And yet, it did seem as if they were crying over my verses. But my little griefs are of so little account, while they are anxious about things so much more important.”
“I understand, perfectly,” said Marjon. “Awhile ago, they might beat me as hard as they pleased, and I wouldn’t utter a sound. But once, when they had given me a hard whipping, I saw a forlorn little kitten that looked quite as unhappy as I was, and then I began to cry with all my might, and it made me feel better.”
“Then you think, children, that all sorrow suffered is one single sorrow? But so is all happiness one happiness. The Father suffers with everything, and whoever comforts a poor little kitten, comforts the Father.”
These sayings made things more plain to Johannes, and gave him much to ponder over. He forgot everything else, until they were again in their lodgings—two little rooms in an old, unoccupied mill. Here they were given some bed-clothes, by a girl from a near-by lodging-house. Marjon now slept apart, while Johannes and Markus stayed together, in one room.
The next morning, while they were drinking coffee in the dark little bar-room of the lodging-house, Johannes felt he must speak of what lay on his heart. He brought out the fragrant, violet-colored note, also the one adorned with the crown and the blue sealing-wax; but in his diffidence even his hope of an understanding with Markus drooped again.
“I smell it already!” cried Marjon. “That’s the hair-dresser scent of that fop, with his tufted top-piece.”
That angered Johannes. “Don’t you wish you could make such poems as that ‘fop’ can?”
And, nettled by this disrespect of his new friend, he sprang to his feet, and began excitedly repeating the verses. He had his trouble for his pains. Markus listened with unmoved countenance, and Marjon, somewhat taken aback, looked at Markus. But the latter said not a word.
“I’ll tell you what,” she exclaimed at last, “I don’t believe a bit of it! Not a darn bit.”
“Then I’ll tell you,” retorted Johannes, sharply, “that you are too rude and coarse to understand things that are elevated.”
“Maybe I am,” said Marjon in her coolest, most indifferent manner.
Then Johannes spoke to Markus alone, hoping for an understanding from him. What he said came out passionately, as if it had long been repressed, and his voice trembled with ready tears.
“I have thought for a long, long time, Markus, that there was no use in trying. I cannot bear anything rude and rough, and everything I have yet seen in people is rude and rough—neither good nor beautiful. It cannot be that the Father meant it to be so. And now that I have found something fine, and exquisite, and noble, ought I not to follow it? I had not thought that there were anywhere such beautiful human beings. Markus, they are the most beautiful of all I have ever seen. Their hair is like gold, Markus. Not even the elves have more beautiful hair. And their little feet are so slim, and their throats so slender! I cannot help thinking of them all the time—of the pretty, proud way they raise their heads, of their sensitive lips, of the beautiful, upturned curves at the corners of their mouths, and of the music in their voices when they ask me anything. They danced together to the music, hand in hand, and then their nice smooth stockings peeped out, together, from under their little velvet dresses. It made me dizzy. One of them has blue eyes, and fuller, redder lips. She is the gentler and more innocent. The other has greyer, more mischievous eyes, and a smaller mouth. She is more knowing and roguish. She is the fairer, and she has little fine freckles just under her eyes. And you ought to see them when they run up to their mother, one on each side, when all their hair tumbles down over her, in two shades of gold—brown gold and light gold—that ripples together like a flowing river! And I saw the diamonds in their mother’s neck, sparkling through it all! You ought to hear them speak English—so smoothly and purely. But they speak Dutch, too, and I would much rather hear that. One of them—the innocent one—lisps a little. She has the darkest hair, with the most beautiful waves in it. But I could talk more easily with the other one. She is more intelligent. And the mother, also, is so attractive in every way. Everything she says is fine and noble, and every movement is charming. You have a feeling that she stands far, far above you, and yet she acts in everything as if she were the least of all. Isn’t that lovely, Markus? Is it not the way it should be?”
Markus made no reply, but looked straight at him, very seriously, and with a puzzling expression. It was kind, but wholly incomprehensible to Johannes.
In his excitement Johannes kept on: “I have just come into a consciousness now of something in the world of people, of which I knew nothing whatever before. My friend Walter, the one who made that poem, lives in that world. She—” pointing to Marjon—“has no idea of it. That is not her fault. I had no idea of it before. But I am not surly, like her; I do not scoff at it just because I do not belong there yet. It is a world of beauty and refinement—a sublime world of poetry and art. Walter wishes to lead me into it, and I think it silly in her now to jeer about it. Do you not think it silly, Markus?”
Markus’ eyes remained as serious and puzzling as ever, and his mouth uttered not a word. Johannes looked first at one, then at the other, for an answer to his question.
At last Markus said: “What does Marjon say?”
Marjon, who had been leaning forward as she sat, lifted up her head. She no longer looked indifferent. Her cheeks were glowing, and her eyes, with their dry, red rims, seemed to be afire. She stared with the fixed, glittering look of one in a fever, and said:
“What do I say? I have nothing to say. He thinks me too rude and rough. Possibly I am. I swear sometimes, and Keesje smells. I can’t endure those people, and they don’t want anything to do with me—certainly not with Kees. As Jo has need of finer companionship now, he must choose for himself.”
“No, Marjon, you do not understand me; or do you not wish to understand?” said Johannes, sadly. “It is not because I have need of it, but because it is good. It is good to enter a finer life—into a more elevated world. Is it not so, Markus? You understand me, do you not?”
“I understand,” said Markus.
“Tell her, then, that she must come too—that it would be better so.”
“I don’t think it would be better,” said Marjon, “and I’m certainly not going with you.”
“Tell us, then, Markus, while we have you with us—tell us what we ought to do. We will do as you say.”
“I don’t know yet whether I will or not,” said Marjon.
Then Markus smiled, and nodding toward Marjon, he said: “Look! She knows already we must not promise obedience to any one. Let him who promises obedience promise it to the Father.”
“But you are so much wiser than we are, Markus.”
“Is it enough that I am wiser, Johannes? Do you not wish to become wiser yourself? Because I can run better, ought you to let me carry you? How will you ever learn to run, yourself?”
Marjon stared at him fixedly, with her flashing, flaming eyes, while two red spots burned upon her pale cheeks. She stepped up to Markus and pressed her hand upon his mouth, exclaiming passionately:
“Do not say it! I know what you are going to say. Don’t say it; for then he will do it, and he must not! he must not!”
Then she hid her face on Markus’ arm. Markus laid his hand upon her head and spoke to her tenderly:
“Are you not willing, then, to grant him what you yourself demand—that he should be doing what he himself, not some one else, thinks right?”
Marjon looked up. Her eyes were tearless. Johannes listened quietly, and Markus continued:
“There are frightful events, children, but most of them are not so bad as they seem to be. The fear of them, only, is bad. But the only events that you should dread come through not doing what you yourself think right—yourself, children—yourself alone, with the Father. The Father speaks to us also through men, and through their wise words. But they are indirect vehicles; we have Him within ourselves—directly—just as you, Marjon, are now resting upon my bosom. He wills it to be so, and there we must seek him—more and more.
“Now there is a great deal of self-deception. Self is a long while blind and deaf, and we often mistake the Devil’s voice for the voice of God, and take the Enemy to be the Father. But whoever is too fearful of straying never leaves his place, and fails to find the right way. A swimmer who dares not release his hold upon another—will drown when in peril. Dare then, children, to release your hold upon others—all—all —to follow the Father’s voice as it speaks within yourselves. Let all who will, call evil what seems to yourselves good. Do this, and the Father will not be ashamed of you.”
“But understand me well; close your ears to no one, for the truth comes from all sides, and God speaks everywhere. Ask the opinion of others, but ask no one else to judge for you.”
They were all silent for awhile. At last Marjon stood up, slowly, with averted face, and flinging back her short, ash-blonde hair from her forehead, she stepped up to Keesje, who, fastened to a chain, sat shelling nuts. She loosened his chain, and said gently and affectionately: “Coming with me, Kees? I know very well what is going to happen now.” Then she had him leap to her shoulder, and, without once looking round, she went out into the street.
“Do you also know, Johannes?” asked Markus.
“Yes!” said Johannes, resolutely, “I am going!”