"Then I'll tell you," retorted Johannes, sharply, "that you are too rude and coarse to understand things that are elevated."
"Maybe I am," said Marjon in her coolest, most indifferent manner.
Then Johannes spoke to Markus alone, hoping for an understanding from him. What he said came out passionately, as if it had long been repressed, and his voice trembled with ready tears.
"I have thought for a long, long time, Markus, that there was no use in trying. I cannot bear anything rude and rough, and everything I have yet seen in people is rude and rough—neither good nor beautiful. It cannot be that the Father meant it to be so. And now that I have found something fine, and exquisite, and noble, ought I not to follow it? I had not thought that there were anywhere such beautiful human beings. Markus, they are the most beautiful of all I have ever seen. Their hair is like gold, Markus. Not even the elves have more beautiful hair. And their little feet are so slim, and their throats so slender! I cannot help thinking of them all the time—of the pretty, proud way they raise their heads, of their sensitive lips, of the beautiful, upturned curves at the corners of their mouths, and of the music in their voices when they ask me anything. They danced together to the music, hand in hand, and then their nice smooth stockings peeped out, together, from under their little velvet dresses. It made me dizzy. One of them has blue eyes, and fuller, redder lips. She is the gentler and more innocent. The other has greyer, more mischievous eyes, and a smaller mouth. She is more knowing and roguish. She is the fairer, and she has little fine freckles just under her eyes. And you ought to see them when they run up to their mother, one on each side, when all their hair tumbles down over her, in two shades of gold—brown gold and light gold—that ripples together like a flowing river! And I saw the diamonds in their mother's neck, sparkling through it all! You ought to hear them speak English—so smoothly and purely. But they speak Dutch, too, and I would much rather hear that. One of them—the innocent one—lisps a little. She has the darkest hair, with the most beautiful waves in it. But I could talk more easily with the other one. She is more intelligent. And the mother, also, is so attractive in every way. Everything she says is fine and noble, and every movement is charming. You have a feeling that she stands far, far above you, and yet she acts in everything as if she were the least of all. Isn't that lovely, Markus? Is it not the way it should be?"
Markus made no reply, but looked straight at him, very seriously, and with a puzzling expression. It was kind, but wholly incomprehensible to Johannes.
In his excitement Johannes kept on: "I have just come into a consciousness now of something in the world of people, of which I knew nothing whatever before. My friend Walter, the one who made that poem, lives in that world. She—" pointing to Marjon—"has no idea of it. That is not her fault. I had no idea of it before. But I am not surly, like her; I do not scoff at it just because I do not belong there yet. It is a world of beauty and refinement—a sublime world of poetry and art. Walter wishes to lead me into it, and I think it silly in her now to jeer about it. Do you not think it silly, Markus?"
Markus' eyes remained as serious and puzzling as ever, and his mouth uttered not a word. Johannes looked first at one, then at the other, for an answer to his question.
At last Markus said: "What does Marjon say?"
Marjon, who had been leaning forward as she sat, lifted up her head. She no longer looked indifferent. Her cheeks were glowing, and her eyes, with their dry, red rims, seemed to be afire. She stared with the fixed, glittering look of one in a fever, and said:
"What do I say? I have nothing to say. He thinks me too rude and rough. Possibly I am. I swear sometimes, and Keesje smells. I can't endure those people, and they don't want anything to do with me—certainly not with Kees. As Jo has need of finer companionship now, he must choose for himself."