The Quest

"You are the real Death!" exclaimed Johannes. "The other is a good friend of mine. I have no more fear of him."

The Devil laughed and reached out his hand toward Johannes' little flower. But Johannes caught it up close to his breast. The flower hung limp and seemed to be perishing. The little mirror shook like a leaf in his hand, so that he could scarcely hold it.

"Wistik!" he cried.

He listened, but could hear nothing. And now he seemed to be falling with whizzing speed. Johannes was greatly alarmed. The long ward with its rows of little beds grew ever longer, ever narrower.

"Wistik! Marjon! Let me out! Let me out! Set me free!"

"I have also a classification 'Freedom'," remarked the Devil, pointing out a mannikin who, busy with a long ribbon inscribed with the words "Freedom and 'Justice," kept winding it around his head, arms, and legs until he could not move a muscle.

"No!" cried Johannes, banging with both hands – in which were still clutched his flower and mirror – at a hard, spotted door. This door was marked "Sin and Crime."

"Look out!" said the Devil. "Do you not see what it says over it?"

"I do not care what it says!" cried Johannes, pounding away.

"Take care! For God's sake, take care!" shouted Bangeling.

"Help! Wistik! Marjon! Markus! help!" cried Johannes, crashing through the door.

Before him he saw a black and bottomless night; but it was more spacious, and he felt his distress diminishing.

And now he saw the imps all racing after him, and they were playing with something. It glittered as they threw it, one to another, and they tugged and pulled and spit on it, and did things still worse – such as only very vile and impudent beings could do.

It was a book, and Johannes saw his name upon it – his own and his family name. Johannes was called the "Traveler" of his family.

At last one of the imps caught hold of it by a leaf, and flung it high up in air to tear it to pieces. The leaves fluttered and glittered, but held together. And the book, ceasing to fall, went higher and higher up into the dark night until it seemed in the far distance to be a little star.

Johannes kept looking at it with all his might, and it seemed to him as if he were a light bit of wood, or a bubble, rising swifter and swifter to the surface – from out the awful depths of the sea. Then, slowly, the heavens grew blue and bright.

At last he was drifting in the full light of day. His eyes were still closed, but he felt that he had returned to his day body, and he rested – still a little longer – in the light, motionless, blissful slumber of a convalescent, or of one come home again after a long and weary journey.

XII

"Shall we go to the beach this morning?" asked Countess Dolores after breakfast. "It will be fresh and cool there now."

It was a merry morning trip. Both of the little girls went with them, and Johannes carried a small folding chair, and his friend's book. The countess took a seat in a beach-chair, and Johannes sat at her feet and read aloud to her, while the two children – their skirts tucked up, and their little feet and legs bare and pink in the clear light – busied themselves in the water and sand, with their pails and shovels.

Everything was flooded with sunshine, and clearly, beautifully tinted: – the knotted blonde tresses of the little girls – beneath their broad-brimmed white beach-hats – against the delicate blue of the horizon; the still deeper blue of the sea wherein could be seen the bright figures of the bathers in their red and blue bathing-dresses; and right and left the pure white sand, and the snowy foam.

Johannes had indeed become quite accustomed to what had so pained him at first – the profanation of the sea by human beings – so they were happy hours.

He resolved this morning to resume his inquiries after Markus, as soon as he was at liberty to do so.

They had not been sitting long on the beach when Van Lieverlee came sauntering-up, arrayed in white flannel. He was without a waistcoat, but wore a lilac shirt, and a wide, black-silk girdle, and had on a straw hat.

He gave the countess a graceful cordial greeting, and immediately said to Johannes, this time without irony:

"I sent to my uncle, this morning, for information. Your friend is not there now. He received his discharge last Saturday on account of his disorderly conduct."

"What had he done?" asked Johannes.

"He had delivered an address at the exchange when, mark you, he had gone there on a matter of business. Now," said Van Lieverlee, looking at the countess with a smile, "it is quite obvious that a man of affairs could not retain such a clerk as that. It takes my uncle Van Trigt, who is so jealous of his good name, to deal with such cases."

"Yes, I understand," said Dolores.

"It depends, though, upon what he said," ventured Johannes.

"No! One talks about business at the exchange – not about reason and morality. There is a time and a place for everything. My uncle was well satisfied with him in all else. He had taken him for a rather well-bred person, he said. But the man has a remarkable propensity for discoursing in public places."

"Where is he now?"

"Where is any idler who has received his discharge? Off looking for an easy berth, L should say."

"Is your friend so very poor?" asked the countess, in a serious whisper, as one would speak over the shame of a kinsman.

"Of course," replied Johannes, with a positiveness that was a challenge. "Indeed, he would be ashamed not to be poor."

"I think such men insufferable!" exclaimed Van Lieverlee. "As Socrates said, their conceit can be seen through the holes in their clothes. Without even opening their mouths they – every one of them – seem to be forever preaching morals and finding fault. I hate the tribe. They are of all men the most turbulent and dangerous."

Johannes had never yet seen Van Lieverlee so angry, but he remained cool throughout the tirade, and kept his temper.

The countess said in a languid voice:

"He certainly is very immoderate. I cannot say, either, that such pronounced types are to my taste."

Johannes was silent, and the other two talked together a while longer. The children came up nearer, and lying down in the clean, clear sand, they listened to the conversation. It was a bright group, for they were all dressed in white, except Johannes.

At last Van Lieverlee rose to go, and the countess, clinging to his hand, with a certain warmth of manner said:

"Of course you are coming to dinner?"

"Most assuredly!" replied Van Lieverlee.

After he had gone, there were several moments of constrained silence – a sort of suspense so obvious that even the children did not resume their chatter as usual, but continued silently playing with the sand, as if waiting for something to be said.

Johannes also began to comprehend that something was pending, but he had no idea of what it could be.

At last the lady said, rather hesitatingly, while tracing all kinds of curious figures in the sand, with her parasol:

"Have you not observed anything, Johannes?"

"Observed anything? I? No, Mevrouw," replied Johannes, with some discomposure. He surely had observed nothing.

"I have!" said Olga, decidedly, without looking up.

"I, too!" lisped Frieda after her.