“Si, si, Catinka,” said she, while her eyes sparkled with an expression of wildest delight, and at the same instant she bounded forward and kissed my hand twice over.
I was glad to have made my peace, and, placing a chair for her at the table, I filled out a glass of wine and presented it. She only shook her head in dissent, and pushed it away.
“She has odd ways in everything,” said the old man; “she never eats but bread and water. It is her notion that if she were to taste other food she 'd lose her gift of fortune-telling.”
“So, then, she reads destiny too?” said I, in astonishment.
Before I could inquire further, she swept her hands across the strings of her guitar, and broke out into a little peasant song. It was very monotonous, but pleasing. Of course, I knew nothing of the words nor the meaning, but it seemed as though one thought kept ever and anon recurring in the melody, and would continue to rise to the surface, like the air-bubbles in a well. Satisfied, apparently, by the evidences of my approval, she had no sooner finished than she began another. This was somewhat more pretentious, and, from what I could gather, represented a parting scene between a lover and his mistress. There was, at least, a certain action in the song which intimated this. The fervent earnestness of the lover, his entreaties, his prayers, and at last his threatenings, were all given with effect, and there was actually good acting in the stolid defiance she opposed to all; she rejected his vows, refused his pledges, scorned his menaces; but when he had gone and left her, when she saw herself alone and desolate, then came out a gush of the most passionate sorrow, all the pent-up misery of a heart that seemed to burst with its weight of agony.
If I was in a measure entranced while she was singing, such was the tension of my nerves as I listened, that I was heartily glad when it was over. As for her, she seemed so overcome by the emotion she had parodied, that she bent her head down, covered her face with her hands, and sobbed twice or thrice convulsively.
I turned towards Vaterchen to ask him some question, I forget what, but the little fellow had made such good use of the decanter beside him, while the music went on, that his cheeks were a bright crimson, and his little round eyes shone like coals of fire.
“This young creature should never have fallen amongst such as you!” said I, indignantly; “she has feeling and tenderness,—the powers of expression she wields all evidence a great and gifted nature. She has, so to say, noble qualities.'