“I have always so many things to think of,” he answered, “and if ever I want to be really happy something always goes wrong.”
“But what do you always have to think about?” she asked.
He reflected for a while, but nothing occurred to him. “Oh, it is all nonsense,” he said; “clever thoughts never come to me, by any means.”
And then he told her about his brothers, of the thick books, which were quite filled with figures (the name he had forgotten), and which they had already known by heart when they were only as old as he was now.
“Why don’t you learn that as well, if it gives you pleasure?” she asked.
“But it gives me no pleasure,” he answered; “I have such a dull head.”
“But something you know, surely?” she went on.
“I know absolutely nothing at all,” he replied, sadly; “father says that I am too stupid.”
“Oh, you must not heed that,” she replied, consolingly. “My Fraulein Rothmaier also finds fault with many things I do. But I—pah, I—” she was silent, and pulled up a sorrel-plant which she began to chew.
“Has your father still such sparkling eyes?” he asked.