Immensee | Page 7

room is now quieter than ever, except that your old friend
Eric now drops in to see us occasionally. You told us once that he was
just like his brown top-coat. I can't help thinking of it every time he
comes in at the door, and it is really too funny; but don't tell mother, it
might easily make her angry.
"Guess what I am giving your mother for a Christmas present! You
can't guess? Well, it is myself! Eric is making a drawing of me in black
chalk; I have had to give him three sittings, each time for a whole hour.
"I simply loathed the idea of a stranger getting to know my face so well.
Nor did I wish it, but mother pressed me, and said it would very much
please dear Frau Werner.
"But you are not keeping your word, Reinhard. You haven't sent me
any stories. I have often complained to your mother about it, but she
always says you now have more to do than to attend to such childish
things. But I don't believe it; there's something else perhaps."
After this Reinhard read his mother's letter, and when he had read them
both and slowly folded them up again and put them away, he was
overcome with an irresistible feeling of home-sickness. For a long
while he walked up and down his room, talking softly to himself, and
then, under his breath, he murmured:
I have err'd from the straight path, Bewildered I roam; By the roadside
the child stands And beckons me home.
Then he went to his desk, took out some money, and stepped down into
the street again. During all this while it had become quieter out there;
the lights on the Christmas trees had burnt out, the processions of

children had come to an end. The wind was sweeping through the
deserted streets; old and young alike were sitting together at home in
family parties; the second period of Christmas Eve celebrations had
begun.
As Reinhard drew near the Ratskeller he heard from below the scraping
of the fiddle and the singing of the zither girl. The restaurant door bell
tinkled and a dark form staggered up the broad dimly-lighted stair.
Reinhard drew aside into the shadow of the houses and then passed
swiftly by. After a while he reached the well-lighted shop of a jeweller,
and after buying a little cross studded with red corals, he returned by
the same way he had come.
Not far from his lodgings he caught sight of a little girl, dressed in
miserable rags, standing before a tall door, in a vain attempt to open it.
"Shall I help you?" he said.
The child gave no answer, but let go the massive door-handle. Reinhard
had soon opened the door.
"No," he said; "they might drive you out again. Come along with me,
and I'll give you some Christmas cake."
He then closed the door again and gave his hand to the little girl, who
walked along with him in silence to his lodgings.
On going out he had left the light burning.
"Here are some cakes for you," he said, pouring half of his whole stock
into her apron, though he gave none that bore the sugar letters.
"Now, off you go home, and give your mother some of them too."
The child cast a shy look up at him; she seemed unaccustomed to such
kindness and unable to say anything in reply. Reinhard opened the door,
and lighted her way, and then the little thing like a bird flew downstairs
with her cakes and out of the house.
Reinhard poked the fire in the stove, set the dusty ink-stand on the table,
and then sat down and wrote and wrote letters the whole night long to
his mother and Elisabeth.
The remainder of the Christmas cakes lay untouched by his side, but he
had buttoned on Elisabeth's cuffs, and odd they looked on his shaggy
coat of undyed wool. And there he was still sitting when the winter sun
cast its light on the frosted window-panes, and showed him a pale,
grave face reflected in the looking-glass.
* * * * *

HOME

When the Easter vacation came Reinhard journeyed home. On the
morning after his arrival he went to see Elisabeth.
"How tall you've grown," he said, as the pretty, slender girl advanced
with a smile to meet him. She blushed, but made no reply; he had taken
her hand in his own in greeting, and she tried to draw it gently away.
He looked at her doubtingly, for never had she done that before; but
now it was as if some strange thing was coming between them.
The same feeling remained, too, after he had been at home for some