The Quest

"But are they not all there, Jo?"

Gazing up into the great dome of the evening sky, where the pale stars were just beginning to sparkle, Johannes thought it over. He thought of the fine day he had had, and also of what he had felt coming into his head.

"Really," said Marjon, rather drily, "you'll just have to, whether you want to or not – to keep from starving."

Then, as if desperately alarmed, Johannes went in search of pencil and paper; and truly, in came the disorderly children, and he arranged them in file, prinked them up, and dealt them out flowers.

He first wrote this:

"Tell me what means the bright sunshine,
The great and restless river Rhine,
This teeming land of flocks and herds —
The high, wide blue of summer sky,
Where fleecy clouds in quiet lie.
To catch the lilt of happy birds.

"The Father thinks, and spreads his dream
As sun and heaven, field and stream.
I feast on his creation —
And when that thought is understood,
Then shall my soul confess Him good,
And kneel in adoration."

Marjon read it, and slowly remarked, as she nodded: "Very well, Jo, but I'm afraid I can't make a song of it. At least, not now. I must have something with more life and movement in it. This is too sober – I must have something that dances. Can't you say something about the stars? I just love them so! Or about the river, or the sun, or about the autumn?"

"I will try to," said Johannes, looking up at the twinkling dots sprinkled over the dark night-sky.

Then he composed the following song, for which Marjon quickly furnished a melody, and soon they were both singing:

"One by one from their sable fold
Came the silent stars with twinkling eyes,
And their tiny feet illumed like gold
The adamantine skies.

"And when they'd climbed the domed height —
So happy and full of glee,
There sang those stars with all their might
A song of jubilee."

It was a success. Their fresh young voices were floating and gliding and intertwining like two bright garlands, or two supple fishes sporting in clear water, or two butterflies fluttering about each other in the sunshine. The brown old skipper grinned, and the grimy-faced stokers looked at them approvingly. They did not understand it, but felt sure it must be a merry love-song. Three times – four times through – the children sang the song. Then, little by little, the night fell. But Johannes had still more to say. The sun, and the splendid summer day that had now taken its leave, had left behind a sweet, sad longing, and this he wanted to put upon paper. Lying stretched out on the deck, he wrote the following, by the light of the lantern:

"Oh, golden sun – oh, summer light,
I would that I might see thee bright
Thro' long, drear, winter days!
Thy brightest rays have all been shed —
Full soon thy glory will have fled,
And cold winds blow;
While all dear, verdant ways
Lie deep in snow."

As he read the last line aloud, his voice was full of emotion.

"That's fine, Jo!" said Marjon. "I'll soon have it ready."

And after a half-hour of trying and testing, she found for the verses a sweet air, full of yearning.

And they sang it, in the dusk, and repeated the former one, until a troupe of street musicians of the sort called "footers" came boisterously out of a beer-house on the shore, and drowned their tender voices with a flood of loud, dissonant, and brazen tones.

"Mum, now," said Marjon, "we can't do anything against that braying. But never mind. We have two of them now —The Star Song and The Autumn Song. At this rate we shall get rich. And I'll make something yet out of The Father Song; but in the morning, I think – not to-night. We've earned at least our day's wages, and we can go on a lark with contented minds. Will you go, Jo?"

"Marjon," said Johannes, musingly, hesitating an instant before he consented, "do you know who Pluizer is?"

"No!" said Marjon, bluntly.

"Do you know what he would say?"

"Well?" asked Marjon, with indifference.

"That you are altogether impossible."

"Impossible? Why?"

"Because you cannot exist, he would say. Such beings do not and cannot exist."

"Oh, he must surely mean that I ought only to steal and swear and drink gin. Is that it? Because I'm a circus-girl, hey?"

"Yes, he would say something like that. And he would also call this about the Father nothing but rot. He says the clouds are only wetness, and the sunshine quiverings, and nothing else; that they could be the expression of anything is humbug."

"Then he would surely say that, too, of a book of music?" asked Marjon.

"That I do not know," replied Johannes, "but he does say that light and darkness are exactly the same thing."

"Oh! Then I know him very well. Doesn't he say, also, that it's the same thing if you stand on your head or on your heels?"

"Exactly – that is he," said Johannes, delighted. "What have you to say about it?"

"That for all I care he can stay standing on his head; and more, too, he can choke!"

"Is that enough?" asked Johannes, somewhat doubtfully.

"Certainly," said Marjon, very positively. "Should I have to tell him that daytimes it is light, and night-times it is dark? But what put you in mind of that Jackanapes?"

"I do not know," said Johannes. "I think it was those footers."

Then they went into the deck-house where Keesje was already lying on the broad, leather-cushioned settee, all rolled up in a little ball, and softly snoring; and this cabin served the two children as a lodging-house.

XIV

On the second day they came to the great cathedral which, fortunately, was then not yet complete, and made Johannes think of a magnificent, scrag-covered cliff. And when he heard that it was really going to be completed, up to the highest spire, he was filled with respect for those daring builders and their noble creation. He did not yet know that it is often better to let beautiful conceptions rest, for the reason that, upon earth, consummated works are sometimes really less fine and striking than incomplete projects.