Footsteps down the poplar lane. His heart beat fast. He knew they were her footsteps; and she was alone. Had she seen him? She turned quickly around and walked back. She walked rapidly with the unsteady gait of fright.
“She hates me,” he murmured to himself. Perhaps? There was again a flutter of hope. He had read a great number of romances and began to reason, as if reason ever helped a lover solve the great problem. But he reasoned both ways with equal conviction. She-loves-me and she-loves-me-not are reached by the same route. He found his place of vantage less enticing. The sunset and the restless sea lacked the romantic interest of a moment before. His mind drifted in other directions. He thought of his uncle, of his aunt, of the guests. Why did he find himself out of joint with people around him? What was there that made him rebellious in their midst? Why did he feel their faults so keenly, so glaringly? Why was he not in sympathy with them? He had felt out of place in Gunsdorf, in the Judengasse, and now he was feeling out of place at his uncle’s house. His thoughts, his tastes, his inclinations, his aspirations, were all Hellenic—there was not a vestige of the Hebraic in him, he concluded. He did not yet realize that these vagaries, this very world-weariness—the Weltschmerz—was Hebraic, that what he thought emanated from the Acropolis, came from Mount Carmel and from the plains of Sharon.
In the evening he found himself alone in his room, the silence of the summer night around him. He was thought-weary. He had blown out the candle and welcomed the darkness. A nightingale was singing somewhere in the grove. He pushed the window further open. He caught the distant sound of the waves breaking on the cliffs; it was the sweeping sound of contending forces. A fire-fly was flitting around—intermittent pin-pricks in the dark curtain before him. His fatiguing thoughts had fled. His brain was a blank. He was only a child of the senses. Peace gathered within him, the sweet peace of night and of silence. Emotions possessed him—no, not emotions which stir conflict but those that instill a conscious soothing, a slumbering sensuousness. He leaned back in his chair by the window, unseeing, unthinking.
Gradually—in faint outline—the image of Hilda was before him . . .
There had been dancing earlier in the evening and he now saw Hilda waltzing around the room, her firm little feet moving nimbly, a twinkle in her roguish eyes as she flitted by and glanced over her partner’s shoulder toward where he was seated. Confound it, why had he never learned to dance!
He recalled the last time he had made an effort to learn to dance and laughed at himself. He could now hear that little Frenchman count un, deux, trois—un, deux, trois. The Frenchman shook his head and told him he had no rhythm in his soul! If he had told him he had no rhythm in his feet he could have forgiven him. Albert was in a rage and the French dancing-master ran for his life, and later told everybody that Herr Zorn was quite mad, quite insane.
Yes, he ought to learn to dance. He must learn the amenities of the young, as Aunt Betty had hinted. In some ways he acted like a middle-aged man—this was what Aunt Betty had said smilingly. Perhaps this was the reason Hilda was acting so peculiarly in his presence, he said to himself; she treated him as if he were middle-aged. He was too agitated to sit still . . .
He jumped up from his seat and walked across the dark room. No, no, he could not be like the others—he could not—those shallow-brained parrots, repeating the same phrases, the same platitudes, the same inane compliments to ladies—he could not bear these smug Philistines! But Hilda——
A bird was singing. Yes, it was the melting notes of the nightingale. He was again seated by the window, thoughtless, a delicious sensuousness filling his whole being, his eyes resting on the shadow of the trees in the light of the stars, the tranquility of the night possessed him . . .