It may be that all has been plain to you. But it was not to him, although he may have thought so. He was yet only a little fellow without beard or moustache, and his voice was still that of a boy.
"My friend," said he to his Guide, "I know now that I have been bad—very bad. But now that you have come and I can cling to your hand, can I not redeem my faults? Is there still time?"
The dark figure kept silently and steadily on beside him in the storm and darkness. Johannes could see neither his eyes nor his features; he only heard the swishing and flapping of his garments—heavy with the rain. Then he asked again, somewhat anxiously, because the consolation he was yearning for was longer delayed than he expected:
"May I not sometime call myself a friend of yours? Am I not yet worthy of that? I have always so wanted to have a friend! That was the best thing in life, I thought—really the only thing I cared about. And now I have lost all my friends—my dog, Windekind, and my father. Am I too bad to deserve a true friend?"
Then there came an answer:
"When you can be a true friend, Johannes, then indeed you will find one."
There was consolation in the soft, low tones, and there was love and forgiveness; but the words were torturing.
"Bad, bad!" muttered Johannes, setting his teeth together. He wanted to cry, but he could not do that. That would have been to pity himself, and that was not in accordance with his Guide's reply. He had not been a good friend to his dog, nor to Windekind, nor to his father. He wished now that he could at once make amends for everything, but that could not be. It had been made clear.
It was desolate on the dunes, and dark as pitch. The wind was whistling through the reeds and the dwarf poplars, but there was nothing to be seen. How far away seemed the quiet sunlight now, the playful animals, and the flowers! Silently and swiftly the two strode on along a winding cart-track through the deep, wet sand, now and then stumbling over the ruts. It was the road that led to the town.