Homo Sum | Page 4

her a particular facility for doing so.
And she fully attained her end, for he drew back with a look of horror,
stretched out his arms to repel her, and exclaimed as he saw her
uncontrollable laughter,
"Back, demon, back! In the name of the Lord! I ask thee, who art
thou?"
"I am Miriam--who else should I be?" she answered haughtily.
He had expected a different reply, her vivacity annoyed him, and he
said angrily, "Whatever your name is you are a fiend, and I will ask
Paulus to forbid you to water your beasts at our well."
"You might run to your nurse, and complain of me to her if you had
one," she answered, pouting her lips contemptuously at him.
He colored; she went on boldly, and with eager play of gesture.
"You ought to be a man, for you are strong and big, but you let yourself
be kept like a child or a miserable girl; your only business is to hunt for
roots and berries, and fetch water in that wretched thing there. I have
learned to do that ever since I was as big as that!" and she indicated a
contemptibly little measure, with the outstretched pointed fingers of her

two hands, which were not less expressively mobile than her features.
"Phoh! you are stronger and taller than all the Amalekite lads down
there, but you never try to measure yourself with them in shooting with
a bow and arrows or in throwing a spear!"
"If I only dared as much as I wish!" he interrupted, and flaming scarlet
mounted to his face, "I would be a match for ten of those lean rascals."
"I believe you," replied the girl, and her eager glance measured the
youth's broad breast and muscular arms with an expression of pride. "I
believe you, but why do you not dare? Are you the slave of that man up
there?"
"He is my father and besides--"
"What besides?" she cried, waving her hand as if to wave away a bat.
"If no bird ever flew away from the nest there would be a pretty swarm
in it. Look at my kids there--as long as they need their mother they run
about after her, but as soon as they can find their food alone they seek it
wherever they can find it, and I can tell you the yearlings there have
quite forgotten whether they sucked the yellow dam or the brown one.
And what great things does your father do for you?"
"Silence!" interrupted the youth with excited indignation. "The evil one
speaks through thee. Get thee from me, for I dare not hear that which I
dare not utter."
"Dare, dare, dare!" she sneered. "What do you dare then? not even to
listen!"
"At any rate not to what you have to say, you goblin!" he exclaimed
vehemently. "Your voice is hateful to me, and if I meet you again by
the well I will drive you away with stones."
While he spoke thus she stared speechless at him, the blood had left her
lips, and she clenched her small hands. He was about to pass her to
fetch some water, but she stepped into his path, and held him
spell-bound with the fixed gaze of her eyes. A cold chill ran through

him when she asked him with trembling lips and a smothered voice,
"What harm have I done you?"
"Leave me!" said he, and he raised his hand to push her away from the
water.
"You shall not touch me," she cried beside herself. "What harm have I
done you?"
"You know nothing of God," he answered, "and he who is not of God is
of the Devil."
"You do not say that of yourself," answered she, and her voice
recovered its tone of light mockery. "What they let you believe pulls
the wires of your tongue just as a hand pulls the strings of a puppet.
Who told you that I was of the Devil?"
"Why should I conceal it from you?" he answered proudly. "Our pious
Paulus, warned me against you and I will thank him for it. 'The evil
one,' he says, 'looks out of your eyes,' and he is right, a thousand times
right. When you look at me I feel as if I could tread every thing that is
holy under foot; only last night again I dreamed I was whirling in a
dance with you--"
At these words all gravity and spite vanished from Miriam's eyes; she
clapped her hands and cried, "If it had only been the fact and not a
dream! Only do not be frightened again, you fool! Do you know then
what it is when the pipes sound, and the lutes tinkle, and our feet fly
round in