“I walk safer alone; but give me your hand. May I feel it for a moment?”
She put out a small, soft white hand to him, which Reinhold touched with a feeling of awe.
“Just what he said,” she murmured as though speaking to herself. “Strong and manly—a good, a true hand.”
She let go his hand, and they walked on side by side, she by the railing again, feeling the rails, he close to her side, never turning his eyes from her.
“Did Anders tell you that too?” he asked.
“Yes; but your hand would have told me without that. I know people by their hands. Justus’s hand is not so strong, though he works so much; but it is as good.”
“And as true,” said Reinhold.
Cilli shook her head with a laugh, that was as sweet and soft as the twittering of the swallows.
“No, no,” said she, “not as true! He cannot be, for he is an artist; so he can have but one guiding star—his Ideal—that he must look up to and follow, as the kings followed the star in the East, which going before them stopped at Bethlehem over the house in which the Saviour was laid in a manger; but beyond that he must be free, free as the birds in the branches overhead, free to come and go, free to flit and flutter and sing to his heart’s content.”
They had reached the end of the railing. Before them stood the house in which Cilli lived. She rested the tips of her fingers upon the iron pillars which ended the railing, and raised her face with a strange dreamy expression on it.
“I often wish I were an artist,” said she; “but I should like better still to be a sailor. Sometimes I have wonderful dreams, and then I fly over the earth on widespread wings. Below me I see green meadows and dark forests, and cornfields waving their golden grain; silver streamlets wander down the hillsides and mingle their waters in the broad rivers which glitter in the light of the sun as it sinks to the horizon. And as it sinks, and the waters, with the church spires reflected in them, take a rosy hue, a terrible anguish overwhelms me, as I feel that it will sink before I can see it—this sun which I have never seen, of which all I know is that it is above all things beautiful and great and glorious. And when the sun is so low that in another moment it must disappear, there lies before me, boundless, illimitable, the great ocean! It is impossible to describe what I feel then, but I fancy it must be what the dead feel when they rise to everlasting joy, or what great and good men feel when they have done the deed which renders them immortal.”
A couple of swallows flitted chirping through the air. The blind girl raised her sightless eyes.
“They come over the sea, but I cannot, I never can get beyond the shore, never beyond the shore!”
For the first time a shadow came over the charming face that was uplifted to Reinhold, but the next moment it was once more lighted up by the bright, childlike smile.
“I am very ungrateful,” said she, “am I not? How many people never see the sea even in their dreams as I do, and did only last night! Justus passed our window—we always have lights very late—and he called out that you had arrived, and were so nice and pleasant, and had told so many wonderful things about your long voyages. You must tell me about them. Will you?”
She stretched out her hand to him again.
“Indeed I will,” cried Reinhold. “I am only afraid that your dreams are more, immeasurably more, beautiful than anything I can tell you about.”
The blind girl shook her head.
“How strange! that is what papa always says, and even Justus, though he is an artist, and the whole world lies before him as beautiful as on the first day of creation, and now you say it, who have seen the whole world. I can look at the sun without flinching; you must hide your eyes from its glory. I—I cannot see the loving smile upon my dear father’s face, cannot see the faces of those I love. How can my world be as glorious and lovely as yours? But of course you only say that not to make me sad. You need not be afraid; I envy no one. From my heart I can say that I grudge no man his happiness, especially those who are so good, so intensely good as my father and Justus!”
The face that was turned to him beamed once more with the brightest sunshine.
“When once I begin to chatter there is no stopping me, is there? And I have kept you all this time, when you have so much to do of far greater importance. I shall see you again.”
She gave his hand a slight pressure, and then withdrew her own, which she had left in his till now, and stepped towards the door, which was only separated from her by the width of the path which on this side lay between the garden and the house. Then, however, she stood still again, and said, half turning over her shoulder:
“Was not Justus right when he said you were kind? You did not smile when I said I should see you again!”
She went into the house, feeling the doorposts with her fingertips, turned once more as she stood on the threshold, nodded, and stepped into the hall.
VII
Reinhold had not smiled, but as the fair vision disappeared in the shadow of the entrance he passed the hand which she had held so long over his eyes.
“And you thought you knew how to love!” said he to himself. “What are our purest, holiest aspirations when compared with the heavenly purity and goodness
