The Quest

And when at last, on the third evening, he found himself among the mountains, he was in raptures. It was a jovial world. Moving, over the Rhine in every direction were brightly lighted steamboats laden with happy people, feasting and singing. Between the dark, vine-covered mountains the river reflected the rosy, evening light. Music rang on the water; music came from both banks. People were sitting on terraces, under leafy bowers, around pretty, shining lamps – drinking gold-colored wine out of green goblets; and the clinking of glasses and sound of loud laughter came from the banks. And, singing as they stepped, down the mountains came others, in their shirt sleeves, carrying their jackets on alpenstocks over their shoulders. The evening sky was aflame in the west, and the vineyard foliage and the porphyry rocks reflected the glowing red. Hurrah! One ought to be happy here. Truly, it seemed a jolly way of living.

Johannes and Marjon bade their long ark farewell, and went ashore. It saddened Johannes to leave the dear boat, for he was still a sentimental little fellow, who promptly attached himself by delicate tendrils to that which gave him happiness. And so the parting was painful.

They now began the work of earning their livelihood. And Keesje's idle days were over, as well. They put his little red jacket upon him, and he had to climb trees, and pull up pennies in a basin.

And the children had to sing their songs until they lost their charm, and Johannes grew weary enough with them.

But they earned more – much more than Markus with his scissors-grinding. The big, heavily moustached, and whiskered gentlemen, the prettily dressed and perfumed ladies, sitting on the hotel terraces, looked at them with intolerable arrogance, saying all kinds of jesting things – things which Johannes only half understood, but at which they themselves laughed loudly. But in the end they almost all gave – some copper, some silver – until the friséd waiters, in their black coats and white shirt-fronts, crossly drove them away, fearing that their own fees might be diminished.

Marjon it was who dictated the next move, who was never at a loss, who dared the waiters with witty speeches, and always furnished advice. And when they had been singing rather too much, she began twirling and balancing plates. She spoke the strange tongue with perfect fluency, and she also looked for their night's resting-place.

The public – the stupid, proud, self-satisfied people who seemed to think only of their pleasure – did not wound Marjon so much as they did Johannes.

When their snobbishness and rudeness brought tears to his eyes, or when he was hurt on account of their silly jests, Marjon only laughed.

"But do not you care, Marjon?" asked Johannes, indignantly. "Does it not annoy you that they, every one of them, seem to think themselves so much finer, more important, and fortunate beings than you and I, when, instead, they are so stupid and ugly?"

And he thought of the people Wistik had shown him.

"Well, but what of it?" said Marjon, merrily. "We get our living out of them. If they only give, I don't care a rap. Kees is much uglier, and you laugh about it as much as I do. Then why don't you laugh at the snobs?"

Johannes meditated a long time, and then replied:

"Keesje never makes me angry; but sometimes, when he looks awfully like a man, then I have to cry over him, because he is such a poor, dirty little fellow. But those people make me angry because they fancy themselves to be so much."

Marjon looked at him very earnestly, and said:

"What a good boy you are! As to the people – the public – why, I've always been taught to get as much out of 'em as I could. I don't care for them so much as I care for their money. I make fun of them. But you do not, and that's why you're better. That's why I like you."

And she pressed her fair head, with its glossy, short-cut hair, closer against his shoulder, thinking a little seriously about those hard words, "no foolishness."

They were happy days – that free life, the fun of earning the pennies, and the beautiful, late-summer weather amid the mountains. But the nights were less happy. Oh! what damp, dirty rooms and beds they had to use, because Fair-people could not, for even once, afford to have anything better. They were so rank with onions, and frying fat, and things even worse! On the walls, near the pillows, were suspicious stains; and the thick bed-covers were so damp, and warm, and much used! Also, without actual reason for it, but merely from imagination, Johannes felt creepy all over when their resting-place was recommended to them, with exaggerated praise, as a "very tidy room."

Marjon took all this much more calmly, and always fell asleep in no time, while Johannes sometimes lay awake for hours, restless and shrinking because of the uncleanliness.

"It's nothing, if only you don't think about it," said Marjon, "and these people always live in this way."

And what astonished Johannes still more in Marjon was that she dared to step up so pluckily to the German functionaries, constables, officers, and self-conceited citizens.

It is fair to say that Johannes was afraid of such people. A railway official with a gruff, surly voice; a policeman with his absolutely inexorable manner; a puffed-out, strutting peacock of an officer, looking down upon the world about him, right and left; a red-faced, self-asserting man, with his moustache trained up high, and with ring-covered fingers, calling vociferously for champagne, and appearing very much satisfied with himself, – all these Marjon delighted to ridicule, but Johannes felt a secret dread of them. He was as much afraid of all these beings as of strange, wild animals; and he could not understand Marjon's calm impudence toward them.

Once, when a policeman asked about their passport, Johannes felt as if all were lost. Face to face with the harsh voice, the broad, brass-buttoned breast, and the positive demand for the immediate showing of the paper, Johannes felt as if he had in front of him the embodied might of the great German Empire, and as if, in default of the thing demanded, there remained for him no mercy.

But, in astonishment, he heard Marjon whisper in Dutch: "Hey, boy! Don't be upset by that dunce!"

To dare to say "that dunce," and of such an awe-inspiring personage, was, in his view, an heroic deed; and he was greatly ashamed of his own cowardice.

And Marjon actually knew how, with her glib tongue and the exhibition of some gold-pieces, to win this representative of Germany's might to assume a softer tone, and to permit them to escape without an inspection.

But it was another matter when Keesje, seated upon the arm of a chair, behind an unsuspecting lieutenant, took it into his little monkey-head to reach over the shining epaulet, and grasp the big cigar – probably with the idea of discovering what mysterious enjoyment lay hidden in such an object. Keesje missed the cigar, but caught hold of the upturned moustache, and then, perceiving he had missed his mark, he kept on pulling, spasmodically, from nervous fright.

The lieutenant, frightened, tortured, and in the end roundly ridiculed, naturally became enraged; and an enraged German lieutenant was quite the most awful creature in human guise that Johannes had ever beheld. He expected nothing less than a beginning of the Judgment Day – the end of all things.

The precise details of that scrimmage he was never able to recall with accuracy. There was a general fracas, a clatter of iron chairs and stands, and vehement screeching from Keesje, who behaved himself like murdered innocence. From the lieutenant's highly flushed face Johannes heard at first a word indicating that he was suspected of having vermin. That left him cold, for he had been so glad to know that up to this time he had escaped them. Then he saw that it was not the shrieking Keesje, but Marjon herself, who had been nabbed and was being severely pommeled. She had hurriedly caught up the monkey, and was trying to flee with him.

Then his feelings underwent a sudden change, as if, in the theatre of his soul, "The Captivity" scene were suddenly shoved right and left to make place for "A Mountain View in a Thunder-storm."

The next moment he found himself on the back of the tall lieutenant, pounding away with all his might; at first on something which offered rather too much resistance – a shining black helmet – afterward, on more tender things – ears and neck, presumably. At the same time he felt himself, for several seconds, uncommonly happy.

In a trice there was another change in the situation, and he discovered himself in a grip of steel, to be flung down upon the dusty road in front of the terrace. Then he suddenly heard Marjon's voice:

"Has he hurt you? Can you run? Quick, then; run like lightning!"

Without understanding why, Johannes did as she said. The children ran swiftly down the mountain-side, slipped through the shrubbery of a little park, climbed over a couple of low, stone walls, and fled into a small house on the bank of the river, where an old woman in a black kerchief sat peacefully plucking chickens.

Johannes and Marjon had continually met with helpfulness and friendliness among poor and lowly people, and now they were not sent off, although they were obliged to admit that the police might be coming after them.

"Well, you young scamps," said the old woman, with a playful chuckle, "then you must stay till night in the pigsty. They'll not look for you there; it smells too bad. But take care, if you wake Rike up, or if that gorilla of yours gets to fighting with him!"

So there they sat in the pigsty with Rike the fat pig, who made no movement except with his ears, and welcomed his visitors with short little grunts. It began to rain, and they sat as still as mice – Keesje, also, who had a vague impression that he was to blame for this sad state of things. Marjon whispered:

"Who would have thought, Jo, that you cared so much for me? I was afraid this time, and you punched his head. It was splendid! Mayn't I give you a kiss, now?"

In silence, Johannes accepted her offer. Then Marjon went on:

"But we were both of us stupid; I, because I forgot all about Kees, in the music; and you, because you let out about me.

"Let out about you!" exclaimed Johannes, in amazement.

"Certainly," said Marjon, "by shouting out that I was a girl!"

"Did I do that?" asked Johannes. It had quite slipped out of his mind.

"Yes," said Marjon, "and now we're in a pickle again! Other togs! You can't do that in these parts. That's worse than hitting a lieutenant over the head, and we mustn't do any more of that."

"Did he hit you hard?" asked Johannes. "Does it hurt still?"

"Oh," said Marjon, lightly, "I've had worse lickings than that."

That night, after dark, the old woman's son – the vine-dresser – released them from Rike's hospitable dwelling, and took them, in a rowboat, across the Rhine.

XV

Bright and early one still, sunny morning they came to a small watering-place nestled in the mountains. It was not yet seven o'clock. A light mist clung around the dark-green summits, and the dew was sparkling on the velvety green grass, and over the flaming red geraniums, the white, purple-hearted carnations, and the fragrant, brown-green mignonette of the park. Fashionably dressed ladies and gentlemen were drinking, according to advice, the hot, saline waters of the springs; and later, while the cheerful music played, they promenaded up and down the marble-paved esplanade.

Marjon sought such places; for in them more was to be earned. Already a couple of competitors were there before them – a robust man and his little daughter. Both of them were dressed in flesh-colored tights, and in spangled, black velvet knickerbockers; but oh, how dusty and worn and patched they were! The little girl was much younger than Marjon, and had a vacant, impudent little face. She walked on her hands in such a way that her feet dangled down over her black, curly pate.

Johannes did not enjoy this encounter. Marjon and he belonged to the better class of Fair-people. Their caps and jackets just now were not, it is true, quite so fresh and well brushed as formerly, but all that they had on was whole – even their shoes. Johannes still wore his suit, which was that of a young gentleman, and Marjon was wearing the velvet stable-jacket of a circus-boy. They paid no attention to the shabby Hercules and his little daughter.