The door of the cottage was locked, the green blinds were closed, the steps and the veranda carefully swept, as directed by the strict regulations of old Baumann, who was now ruling supreme. He sat down outside, lost in thought and resting his head in his hand. In the branches of the beech-tree overhead, a little bird was twittering his monotonous song in ever-repeated melancholy.... How lonely he felt--how lonely and forsaken! Like a child which on its way back to beloved parents has lost its way on the great heath. Here, at this very place, he had been seated, the night before the party, with Melitta; she had rested her head on his shoulder and her lips had whispered the sweetest, most precious words of love. Now all was silent--so silent that he could hear the beating of his own heart. Longing thoughts of the absent one passed through his soul, as birds in their flight to the South pass through the blue ether.
A ray of the sun, which made its way, hot and piercing, through the foliage, admonished him that it was time to go on. He was not in a hurry, it is true. It was an early hour of the afternoon, and he was likely to find some place or other where he might stay over night. Thus he sauntered through the forest on a path which he had not trod before, and which led him, before he was aware of it, down to the beach. Now he followed the strand, sometimes high up on a bluff, if the sea washed the foot of the chalk cliffs so as to leave no path; at other times on the clean shingle of the narrow beach. Here and there a brook came rushing out from the interior of the island, breaking its way through the tall ramparts, and covering by its moisture the whole dell with an almost Southern vegetation. But, with the exception of these few green oases, the eye saw nothing but bare rocks, sterile sand, the monstrous blue ocean, and here and there a white summer-cloud immovable on the blue sky, while below a lonely sail would dot the wide expanse. And with this monotonous view harmonized the monotonous music of the breakers, interrupted at times by the cry of a gull or the melancholy piping of a sandpiper.
The monotony of these lines, these hues, these sounds, would have been intolerable for a heavy, fresh mind, but it suited Oswald's state of mind. There are hours when we welcome rainy weather or a dismal landscape as old friends, on whose faces we can read their sympathy with our sorrow; hours when sunshine and birds' songs and the merry purling of a lively brook appear to us like an insult. Oswald's melancholy mood harmonized with this sober mood of nature that seemed to ignore happiness and joy, but knew all the more of the sorrows and sufferings of life. Did not the sudden cry, the shrill piping of the seamen sound like plaintive notes? Did it not sound as if the sea was perpetually murmuring the confused riddle of life in half insane tones, as the waves were breaking unceasingly and in monotonous accents against the strand? And his own life appeared to him as aimless and hapless as his wandering about among the rocks on the shore. Was it any better than the mark he made on the hard sand which the next wave washed away forever? Why was he born? why did he cause so much grief and pain to himself and others, if it was all to end in nothing? And if fortune really for once seems to smile, it is but for a moment; it is but an illusion which a wicked fairy summons up from the inhospitable, restless sea, to sink us the next instant in its unfathomable depth, just as we fancy we are reaching the shore, with its waving palm-trees and gorgeous palaces.
A small village which lay before Oswald was hid in the innermost recesses of a little bay, surrounded on all sides by tall chalk cliffs, except only a small opening towards the sea. There the water was as smooth and silent as a pond in a garden. A few huts lay near the beach; others followed the banks of the brook, which here fell into the sea, after having washed its way through the deep and wide dell. Little gardens, adorned with bright shells, were before the doors; on the passages within, seen through the open entrance, and strewn with white sand, nets were hanging on long poles; a couple of red-cheeked boys were busy tarring a new boat, and before one of the larger cottages sat three women knitting nets.
Oswald went up to them, and as they looked up with curiosity when they heard his footstep, he asked them if he might be permitted to rest a little there, and if they could get him a glass of water and a piece of bread.
"Stine," said the oldest of the three women--a matron of stately proportions, and an exceedingly good-natured, sunburnt face--to one of the two young girls by her side, "get up and give the gentleman your seat. Don't you see he is tired and hungry? Go into the house and bring out what we have. Sit down, sir. You are, no doubt, a painter?"
"Why should I be a painter?" asked Oswald, taking the proffered seat.
"Well, no man in his senses would climb about in such a heat; it is only people who are not quite right there (pointing with her forefinger at her forehead) that do so. Well, never mind, Mr. Painter, I have had one of your companions to stay with me here, who stayed two weeks; and if you are as steady and orderly as he was, you may stay also with Mother Carsten; but you must not bedaub the walls, I tell you that at once."
Oswald could not help smiling as he saw himself thus unceremoniously transformed into a travelling landscape painter. How? Should he accept the harmless part which chance seemed to allot to him? He was perfectly indifferent as to the place where he might stay; all he wanted was solitude, and could he find deeper solitude than here in this secluded bay, among these simple-hearted, good-natured people, who would not mind it if he should spend half his days climbing about among the rocks? And then he was near Berkow, from which he did not wish to go far, since he had arranged it with Melitta, that if her absence should be unexpectedly protracted, old Baumann would take charge of their correspondence.
"Then you would let me stay here a few days?" he asked.