The Quest

What could that mean? Johannes felt that something menaced. The play of those little hands portended danger. Most plainly of all he saw the white band – a common, white tape.

Then the hands went out of the room, and Johannes was forced to follow them. In another room – that of Heléne's nurse – there they were, as busy as ever, this time with a pair of scissors. The scissors had fallen upon the floor close to a toilet-table. One point having stuck through the carpet into the floor, there they stood – erect. The invisible one was laughing again – giggling and snickering – and all six little hands were pointing at the scissors.

A light was burning in Heléne's room, but the poor, sick girl was not now complaining. All was quiet there. The door opened, and the nurse came out, leaving it open behind her. The nurse went to her own room to look for something. She was a long time searching, but could not find it. Surely it was the scissors.

All this time they were sticking by one point, in the carpet behind the toilet-table, and the six little hands were pointing at them. But the seeker apparently neither saw the hands nor heard the laughter.

Johannes could not help her. He had to follow the hands. He still heard giggling and snickering, and saw the little hands go away – downstairs, through the hall, outside.

Save for the shining of the stars – sharp and clear in the black sky – it was still very dark out-of-doors.

On the terrace, there was visible to Johannes, a tall, dark figure. He could look at it better than at the sneering ones. He recognized it, instantly. It was He with whom he had traveled by sea.

The dark figure now took the lead with slow, firm strides. Pluizer went next, but in between these two there was a third.

It was quite impossible for Johannes to look at that third one. When he tried to look, he felt an indescribable agony.

That third one! Yes, he certainly knew it well. It wasit! Do you understand? The It which lies in wait around the corner, outside the door, while you dream of being alone in a dark room, vainly trying to call for help.

It, the most frightful object! – so frightful that no one can either look at or describe it.

These three now passed down the dark avenue of the park until they came to the black pool lying deathly still and calmly expectant – shining beneath the starlight.

There the three sat down and waited.

It was still as still could be. Not a leaf rustled.

The star-tips on the water were as sharply defined as points of light upon fathomless darkness.

"Prettily planned; don't you think so?" said Pluizer.

It grumbled, sneeringly.

Thereupon good Death, in a soft, restful voice, said: "Yet all is for the best!"

Then again they sat very still. Johannes waited with them for he could not do otherwise.

The sound of a door was heard in the still night air, and a white figure drew near, with light, swift steps. By the faint starlight Johannes saw the slender girl in a white night-dress, her black hair flowing loose.

For an instant she stood still at the edge of the pool. Johannes could see her eyes shining with both terror and joy, like those of one pursued who sees escape. He tried to call or to move, but could do neither.

Then the girl waded into the water with her arms extended as if to embrace it. She went cautiously, so that the water neither plashed nor spattered; only, the star-points were broken up and became long stripes, and serpentine lines of light. These, after the white garment could be seen no more, still continued – dancing up and down with the ripples.

"We have her!" sneered Pluizer.

"That remains to be seen," said good Death.

At once, Johannes found himself awake, in his own bed. He had been wakened by noises, cries of anguished voices, hasty runnings hither and thither through the hallways of the house, and by the opening and shutting of doors.

"Heléne! Heléne!" rang through the halls, in the garden, in the park. "Heléne! Heléne!"

Johannes dressed himself, not overhastily, for he knew it was too late.

The members of the household were already gathered in the large vestibule. The poor nurse, with a startled face of deathly pallor, came in from the garden.

"I cannot find her anywhere," she cried. "It is my fault – my fault!"

She sat down and began to sob.

"Come, dear," said the countess, in her tranquil voice, "do not reproach yourself. She may be back again in no time; or perhaps the servants will find her in the town."

"No, no," shrieked the poor nurse. "She has long wanted to do it, and I knew it. I never left her door unfastened. But this time I only thought to be gone two seconds. She had knotted a tape into a tangle, and I wanted to get my scissors. But I could not find them … and then… O God! How could I be so stupid! I can never forgive myself. Oh, my God, my God!"

Could not Johannes have run quickly to the pool, and told what he knew? No, for he also knew, quite as surely, that it was too late. And before he could have done it, the men came to say she had been found. He saw her borne into the house, wrapped in a checked bed-cover.

And when he saw them making vain endeavors to resuscitate her he remarked that he feared it would do no good. And he added, "Indeed, I don't fear – but I hope so."

"For her sake," said the countess.

"Surely for her sake," repeated Johannes, in some surprise.

Van Lieverlee had not appeared. But when the corpse of the beautiful girl had been placed upon her death-bed, her slender hands crossed upon her breast, her hair – still moist – laid in heavy braids about the delicate, sallow little face, the dark lashes nearly closed over the sightless eyes, white lilies and snowdrops all around, then Van Lieverlee came to see.

"Look," said he to Johannes, "this is very pretty. I would not have cared to see her taken from the water. A drowned person is nearly always an ugly spectacle. Even the most beautiful girl becomes repulsive and clownlike when being dragged out of the water by leg or arm, with face and hair all duck-weed and mud. But this is worth while. Mind, Johannes, genuine artists are always lucky. They come across the beautiful, everywhere. Such an event as this is, for a poet, a rare bit of good luck."

The next day he was deep in the making of poetry. But Johannes was in a restless, introverted mood, and could find no words for what distressed him.

VIII

A few days later, the two guests were sitting with their hostess at the afternoon-tea table.

"Is it not a frightful thought," said Countess Dolores, "that the poor girl cannot yet have rest, but must do penance for her sinful deed?"

"I cannot believe it," said Johannes.

"But yet it was a sin."

"I would certainly forgive her."

"By which we perceive, Dolores," broke in Van Lieverlee, "that Johannes is much more kind-hearted than his beloved Lord."

"But why, Johannes, can you not assure us about that of which I have so often asked?" said the countess again. "Can you not put yourself into communication with her?"

"No, Mevrouw," replied Johannes.

"But your Mahatma, Johannes!" said Van Lieverlee. "He can do it all right. It is child's play for him."

"Of whom are you speaking?" asked the hostess, looking with quickened interest at Van Lieverlee.