Immensee | Page 8

time and came to see her constantly day after day. When they sat alone
together there ensued pauses in the conversation which distressed him,
and which he anxiously did his best to avoid. In order to have a definite
occupation during the holidays, he began to give Elisabeth some
instruction in botany, in which he himself had been keenly interested
during the early months of his university career.
Elisabeth, who was wont to follow him in all things and was moreover
very quick to learn, willingly entered into the proposal. So now several
times in the week they made excursions into the fields or the moors,
and if by midday they brought home their green field-box full of plants
and flowers, Reinhard would come again later in the day and share with
Elisabeth what they had collected in common.
With this same object in view, he entered the room one afternoon while
Elisabeth was standing by the window and sticking some fresh chick-
weed in a gilded birdcage which he had not seen in the place before. In
the cage was a canary, which was flapping its wings and shrilly
chirruping as it pecked at Elisabeth's fingers. Previously to this
Reinhard's bird had hung in that spot.
"Has my poor linnet changed into a goldfinch after its death?" he asked
jovially.
"Linnets are not accustomed to do any such thing," said Elizabeth's
mother, who sat spinning in her armchair. "Your friend Eric sent it this
noon from his estate as a present for Elisabeth."
"What estate?"
"Why, don't you know?"
"Know what?"

"That a month ago Eric took over his father's second estate by the
Immensee." [Footnote: I.e. the 'Lake of the Bees']
"But you have never said a word to me about it."
"Well," said the mother, "you haven't yet made a single word of inquiry
after your friend. He is a very nice, sensible young man."
The mother went out of the room to make the coffee. Elisabeth had her
back turned to Reinhard, and was still busy with the making of her little
chickweed bower.
"Please, just a little longer," she said, "I'll be done in a minute."
As Reinhard did not answer, contrary to his wont, she turned round and
faced him. In his eyes there was a sudden expression of trouble which
she had never observed before in them.
"What is the matter with you, Reinhard?" she said, drawing nearer to
him.
"With me?" he said, his thoughts far away and his eyes resting dreamily
on hers.
"You look so sad."
"Elisabeth," he said, "I cannot bear that yellow bird."
She looked at him in astonishment, without understanding his meaning.
"You are so strange," she said.
He took both her hands in his, and she let him keep them there. Her
mother came back into the room shortly after; and after they had drunk
their coffee she sat down at her spinning-wheel, while Reinhard and
Elisabeth went off into the next room to arrange their plants.
Stamens were counted, leaves and blossoms carefully opened out, and
two specimens of each sort were laid to dry between the pages of a
large folio volume.
All was calm and still this sunny afternoon; the only sounds to be heard
were the hum of the mother's spinning-wheel in the next room, and
now and then the subdued voice of Reinhard, as he named the orders of
the families of the plants, and corrected Elisabeth's awkward
pronunciation of the Latin names.
"I am still short of that lily of the valley which I didn't get last time,"
said she, after the whole collection had been classified and arranged.
Reinhard pulled a little white vellum volume from his pocket. "Here is
a spray of the lily of the valley for you," he said, taking out a
half-pressed bloom.

When Elisabeth saw the pages all covered with writing, she asked:
"Have you been writing stories again?"
"These aren't stories," he answered, handing her the book.
The contents were all poems, and the majority of them at most filled
one page. Elisabeth turned over the leaves one after another; she
appeared to be reading the titles only. "When she was scolded by the
teacher." "When they lost their way in the woods." "An Easter story."
"On her writing to me for the first time." Thus ran most of the titles.
Reinhard fixed his eyes on her with a searching look, and as she kept
turning over the leaves he saw that a gentle blush arose and gradually
mantled over the whole of her sweet face. He would fain have looked
into her eyes, but Elisabeth did not look up, and finally laid the book
down before him without a word.
"Don't give it back like that," he said.
She took a brown spray out