When it had grown dark, and the workmen and servants had ceased working, he used to poke about the work-room aimlessly for another hour or so, simply because he could not tear himself away from “Susy.” He would have liked best to stand near her as watchman until the morning. He liked to carry with him under his arm some of his plans or a book. This, also, was aimless, for it was dark—he only wanted to have everything nicely in order. All this happened in great secrecy, for no one had a firmer conviction that Paul was a fool than Paul himself.
One evening, when he was searching in the dark for one of his books to take there with him, he put his hand upon something long and round, carefully wrapped up in tissue-paper in the farthest corner of a drawer.
He could feel in the darkness how he blushed. It was Elsbeth’s flute. How was it possible that he had so seldom bestowed a thought upon it or upon the giver? The fair form that he had seen for the last time on the darkest day of his life had gradually faded from his mind as his existence passed into the shadowy realm of sorrow, and now at last, from sheer trouble and care, she had become to him like a shadow herself.
For the first moment he could scarcely recall her features. It was only little by little that her image presented itself to his mind.
He took the flute instead of the books under his arm, crept away to the shed, and sat down on the boiler. He fingered the keys with curiosity; he also put the mouth-piece to his lips, but did not dare to produce a sound, for he did not want to disturb any one’s sleep.
“It would be nice,” he said to himself, “if I could play all sorts of sweet melodies and think of Elsbeth all the while; I could then once more pour out my heart to her, and feel that I, too, was something in the world. But, then, am I in the world for myself alone?” he asked himself, absently laying hold of one of the crooked handles. “As this crooked handle turns and turns without knowing why, and in itself is nothing but a piece of dead iron, so I, too, must turn and turn, and not ask ‘Why!’ There are said to be people in the world who have the right to live for themselves, and to mould the world according to their own wishes. But they are differently constituted from me; they are handsome and proud and daring, and the sun always shines upon them. They may even allow themselves the privilege of possessing a heart and acting according to its dictates. But I! Oh, good God!” He paused, and sadly contemplated the flute, the keys of which dimly shone in the dusk.
“If I were such a one,” he continued, after a while, “I should have become a celebrated musician. I know very well there are many melodies in my brain which no one else has ever whistled; and when I had attained my end I should have married Elsbeth—and father would have been rich, and mother happy; but now mother is dead—father is a poor cripple—Elsbeth will take another—and I stand here looking at the flute and can’t play on it.”
He laughed out loud, and then slid to the front, so that he could reach the chimney. He stroked it, and said, “But I will learn to play this flute that it’ll be a pleasure to hear.”
As he sat there he fancied he heard subdued tittering and whispering in the garden. He listened; there was no doubt of it. A pair of lovers were cooing, or, perhaps, more than one pair, for divers voices were intermingled, like the twittering of a number of sparrows.
“The maids keep sweethearts, it seems to me,” he said; “I’ll show them the way out.”