VI
He drew a deep breath. Here in the open air the sun shone so brilliantly, while the house seemed so full of dismal ghosts.
“Good heavens!” said he to himself; “can there be a more terrible lot than to go creeping and groping through life with unenlightened mind, like my poor aunt here!—always dreading treachery and deceit, sin and sorrow; seeing no more of the sunshine, of all the might and beauty of the world, than if she were blind, like that poor girl!”
A young girl was groping her way along the iron railing that divided the courtyard from the garden, which was on rather a higher level. She moved with slow and careful steps, holding in her uplifted left hand a plate, on which appeared to be slices of bread-and-butter, and with her right hand outstretched lightly touched every third rail. It was by these careful movements that Reinhold recognised the blind girl, even before she stood still, and, slightly raising her head, turned her face towards the sun. The sun was very powerful, but her eyelids never even quivered. She had opened her eyes wide, as a flower turns its open petals to the sun, and lovely as a flower was the expression of the sweet, pure, childlike features.
“Poor poor Cilli!” murmured Reinhold.
He had remembered the name from last night’s conversation, and that the blind girl was the daughter of Kreisel, Uncle Ernst’s head clerk. And the man who had been standing in the doorway of the low building a little way off, which from the desks in the windows seemed to be the countinghouse, and now came towards the girl across the intervening part of the courtyard, must be her father—a little old man with a perfectly bald head, that shone in the sun like a ball of white marble.
The blind girl instantly recognised his footsteps. She turned her head, and Reinhold saw the two thick blonde plaits, as they fell so far over her shoulders that the ends were concealed by the stonework supporting the railing. She nodded repeatedly to the newcomer, and when he was by her, bent her head that he might kiss her forehead, and held up the plate with both hands, from which he took a slice of bread-and-butter and began to eat at once, at intervals saying a few words, which Reinhold in the distance could not catch, any more than he could the girl’s answers. But he could have sworn that they were words of love that were thus exchanged, as from time to time the old man stroked the blonde hair with his left hand (the right was occupied with the bread-and-butter), while a happy smile played upon the girl’s sweet face, which he now saw in profile. And now the old gentleman had finished his second slice of bread-and-butter, and taking a white handkerchief out of his pocket, he shook it out of its folds and wiped his mouth with it, then refolded it in its original creases and put it back in his pocket, while the girl, as before, presented her forehead for a kiss. The old man hobbled away, and stood in the door waving his hand; the blind girl waved her hand and nodded in return till he disappeared, exactly as if she could see what she really only heard with her acute ear, or calculated by the time it took, it being evidently a daily habit. Then again she raised her eyes to the sun with the selfsame expression of childlike innocence on the pure face; and taking in her right hand the plate, which before she had held in her left hand, retraced her steps as she had come, lightly touching every third rail with the tips of her fingers.
Reinhold had observed the whole scene without moving. The poor blind girl could not see him, and the old man had not once looked that way.
Now for the first time he recollected himself. The touching scene had riveted his attention as though by a charm, and the charm had not left him, as he followed the blind girl’s movements with breathless attention; mentally he touched each third rail as she did, as though he himself were groping along by the railing, following her light and graceful movements step by step. He waited for her reappearance from behind a whitethorn bush which grew against the railing, and now hid her from his sight, as a sailor waits for the reappearance of a star which he is observing, and which, as he gazes, is for some moments obscured by overshadowing clouds. But she did not reappear as the moments passed, and the bush seemed to be moving. Perhaps she was trying to gather a branch and could not manage it. In a moment he was through the garden gate and at her side.
A thorn from the bush protruding through the railing had caught hold of the end of her little white apron as it was blown about by the wind, and would not let go, though she patiently exerted all her efforts to extricate it.
“Allow me,” said Reinhold.
Before he came up to her she had raised herself from her stooping attitude, and turned her face towards him, which as he spoke was suffused with the loveliest blush. But there was not the slightest trace of embarrassment or terror in the pure features.
“Thank you, Captain Schmidt,” said she.
The sweet, melodious tone of her voice harmonised wonderfully with the bright childlike smile that accompanied the words.
“How do you know, Fräulein Cilli, who it is that is speaking to you?” said Reinhold, as he stooped down and freed the light material from the thorn.
“From the same person who told you that my name is Cilli, and that I am blind—from Justus.”
“Will you take my arm, Fräulein Cilli, and allow me to
