The clock struck one. He could not stand it any longer; he dressed and crept out into the cold, wet March night, a flickering lantern in his hand. The wind caught his clothes and the icy drizzling rain scourged his face.
“Black Susy” glared sulkily out of the dark shed as if she resented being deprived of her last night’s rest.... The lantern threw a ghostly light over the inhospitable place, and each time it flickered the shadow of the machine danced in grotesque forms on the yellow deal wall.
“Shall I wake up the foreman?” thought Paul. “No, let him sleep; I will have the first pain or the first joy all to myself.”
Heaps of coal sank rattling into the great iron jaws. A little blue flame leaped up, flickered all round, and soon a red glow filled the dark interior.... The lantern on the wall shone dimly, as if jealous of the warm, cheerful fire-light.
Paul seated himself upon a coal-heap and watched the play of the flames.... The oven-door began to glow and half-burnt cinders to fall, throwing out sparks all round.
Paul could hear his heart beat, and as he pressed his hand upon it to still its tumult he felt Elsbeth’s flute in his breast-pocket. He had found it lying on the locomobile the day the work was begun again, and had carried it about with him ever since.
“I wonder if I shall ever learn that, too?” he asked himself, in tumultuous joy at what he had already accomplished. He put the flute to his mouth and tried to blow it—the minutes passed so slowly that he was forced to try and while away the time. But the sounds which he produced sounded hollow and squeaky—still less could he squeeze out a melody.
“I shall never learn it,” he thought. “Whatever I do for myself fails—that is a law in my life; I must sow for others if I want to reap.”
But in spite of this he put the flute to his lips again.
“It would have been nice,” he thought, “if, instead of heating engines here, I had become an artist, as Elsbeth used to prophesy.” A thrill of excitement went through him. “Will she live again? Will she?”