Chapter I.11
One Saturday, late in June, Thea arrived early for her lesson. As she perched herself upon the piano stool, --a wobbly, old-fashioned thing that worked on a creaky screw,--she gave Wunsch a side glance, smiling. "You must not be cross to me to-day. This is my birthday."
"So?" he pointed to the keyboard.
After the lesson they went out to join Mrs. Kohler, who had asked Thea to come early, so that she could stay and smell the linden bloom. It was one of those still days of intense light, when every particle of mica in the soil flashed like a little mirror, and the glare from the plain below seemed more intense than the rays from above. The sand ridges ran glittering gold out to where the mirage licked them up, shining and steaming like a lake in the tropics. The sky looked like blue lava, forever incapable of clouds, --a turquoise bowl that was the lid of the desert. And yet within Mrs. Kohler's green patch the water dripped, the beds had all been hosed, and the air was fresh with rapidly evaporating moisture.
The two symmetrical linden trees were the proudest things in the garden. Their sweetness embalmed all the air. At every turn of the paths,--whether one went to see the hollyhocks or the bleeding heart, or to look at the purple morning- glories that ran over the bean-poles,--wherever one went, the sweetness of the lindens struck one afresh and one always came back to them. Under the round leaves, where the waxen yellow blossoms hung, bevies of wild bees were buzzing. The tamarisks were still pink, and the flower-beds were doing their best in honor of the linden festival. The white dove-house was shining with a fresh coat of paint, and the pigeons were crooning contentedly, flying down often to drink at the drip from the water tank. Mrs. Kohler, who was transplanting pansies, came up with her trowel and told Thea it was lucky to have your birthday when the lindens were in bloom, and that she must go and look at the sweet peas. Wunsch accompanied her, and as they walked between the flower-beds he took Thea's hand.
"ES FLUSTERN UND SPRECHEN DIE BLUMEN,"-he muttered. "You know that von Heine? IM LEUCHTENDEN SOMMERMORGEN?" He looked down at Thea and softly pressed her hand.
"No, I don't know it. What does FLUSTERN mean?"
"FLUSTERN?--to whisper. You must begin now to know such things. That is necessary. How many birthdays?"
"Thirteen. I'm in my 'teens now. But how can I know words like that? I only know what you say at my lessons. They don't teach German at school. How can I learn?"
"It is always possible to learn when one likes," said Wunsch. His words were peremptory, as usual, but his tone was mild, even confidential. "There is always a way. And if some day you are going to sing, it is necessary to know well the German language."
Thea stooped over to pick a leaf of rosemary. How did Wunsch know that, when the very roses on her wall-paper had never heard it? "But am I going to?" she asked, still stooping.
"That is for you to say," returned Wunsch coldly. "You would better marry some JACOB here and keep the house for him, may-be? That is as one desires."
Thea flashed up at him a clear, laughing look. "No, I don't want to do that. You know," she brushed his coatsleeve quickly with her yellow head. "Only how can I learn anything here? It's so far from Denver."
Wunsch's loose lower lip curled in amusement. Then, as if he suddenly remembered something, he spoke seriously. "Nothing is far and nothing is near, if one desires. The world is little, people are little, human life is little. There is only one big thing--desire. And before it, when it is big, all is little. It brought Columbus across the sea in a little boat, UND SO WEITER." Wunsch made a grimace, took his pupil's hand and drew her toward the grape arbor. "Hereafter I will more speak to you in German. Now, sit down and I will teach you for your birthday that little song. Ask me the words you do not know already. Now: IM LEUCHTENDEN SOMMERMORGEN."
Thea memorized quickly because she had the power of listening intently. In a few moments she could repeat the eight lines for him. Wunsch nodded encouragingly and they went out of the arbor into the sunlight again. As they went up and down the gravel paths between the flowerbeds, the white and yellow butterflies kept darting before them, and the pigeons were washing their pink feet at the drip and crooning in their husky bass. Over and over again Wunsch made her say the lines to him. "You see it is nothing. If you learn a great many of the LIEDER, you will know the German language already. WEITER, NUN." He would incline his head gravely and listen.
"IM LEUCHTENDEN SOMMERMORGEN
GEH' ICH IM GARTEN HERUM;
ES FLUSTERN UND SPRECHEN DIE BLUMEN,
ICH ABER, ICH WANDTE STUMM.
"ES FLUSTERN UND SPRECHEN DIE BLUMEN
UND SCHAU'N MITLEIDIG MICH AN:
`SEI UNSERER SCHWESTER NICHT BOSE,
DU TRAURIGER, BLASSER MANN!'"
(In the soft-shining summer morning
I wandered the garden within.
The flowers they whispered and murmured,
But I, I wandered dumb.
The flowers they whisper and murmur,
And me with compassion they scan:
"Oh, be not harsh to our sister,
Thou sorrowful, death-pale man!")
Wunsch had noticed before that when his pupil read anything in verse the character of her voice changed altogether; it was no longer the voice which spoke the speech of Moonstone. It was a soft, rich contralto, and she read quietly; the feeling was in the voice itself, not indicated by emphasis or change of pitch. She repeated the little verses musically, like a song, and the entreaty of the flowers was even softer than the rest, as the shy speech of flowers might be, and she ended with the voice suspended, almost with a rising inflection. It was a nature-voice, Wunsch told himself, breathed from the creature and apart from language, like