The farmer invited him to have supper with them, and he gladly accepted. He even accepted an invitation for Easter.
Mr. Tiralla was basking in the light of his Sophia's smiles, and felt so happy that he would have liked to invite the whole world. He sat at the table and laughed as he satisfied his enormous appetite. It was still Lent, and the meal was frugal, "but at Easter, my little Böhnke," he cried, filling his mouth with fried potatoes, "at Easter you shall have a feast!"
Mrs. Tiralla and the schoolmaster exchanged a glance. What impertinence to say, "my little Böhnke!" But he was always so rough and vulgar.
Rosa sat near her father. She did not want anything to eat; she never ate much, and to-day her happiness had quite taken away her appetite. It had been such a beautiful, beautiful day. Was it because she had prayed so very fervently at the altar that her daddy was now so good? He didn't swear at all, he didn't even look at Marianna, although her short, white sleeves were fresh from the wash. They reached as far as her bare elbows, and she had a black bodice on and all her coloured beads round her neck. Now her mother would be kinder to her daddy. Oh, if only it could always be like this. How much nicer it was when her mother didn't cry or look angry. To-day was just like Easter, when the grave opened and Christ rose, hallelujah.
Her quiet happiness had brought a flush to her pale cheeks. She did not say much; Rosa was only eloquent in her prayers and when she spoke of what transformed her narrow, dark chamber into a Garden of Eden, and of what took place between heaven and earth. But she pressed her father's hand repeatedly, and when her mother happened to touch her in passing anything over the table, the child would furtively raise her sleeve to her lips and kiss it.
"Rosa looks better than she did last winter," remarked the schoolmaster, in order to say something. It was really quite immaterial to him if the anæmic child looked paler or not, but his own silence terrified him. Surely the old man must notice something?
"She is certainly much better," answered Mrs. Tiralla hastily. "She only complained of being ill for a short time. Our winters are so raw. But now she's always well and happy, aren't you, darling? How could she be anything but happy, she, the Holy Virgin's favourite? Tell Mr. Böhnke what she has revealed to you in your dreams, darling," and she nodded encouragingly to the child.
"I've not dreamt it." Rosa grew almost angry, and she flushed up to her hair-roots. "You're not to say that I dreamt it, mother. It was really true; I was just as wide awake as you are, and father, and Mr. Böhnke. If you dream you surely don't see the cupboard and the clothes rack and the washstand and the wall, and you don't hear the clock ticking and father snoring downstairs and the wind howling in the pines outside. It was all there as usual, and I was lying in my bed as usual. But the room was full of a bright light. That was because the Holy Virgin was there. She was standing in the middle of the room. She had her crown on her head, and she wore a blue mantle, which was wide and had lots of folds, oat of which little angels were peeping."
Rosa made a pause, as though she wished to note the effect of this wonderful communication on her hearers.
Mr. Tiralla did not say a word. He was sitting with his head buried in his hands.