What boy wouldn’t have been a prodigal son? The bent sabre alone was worth the sin.
Second picture: Hm—hm. Wicked, wicked! Why, certainly; but not for Walter, who in his innocence attached no importance to the extravagant dresses of the “Juffrouwen.” It was sufficient that all were eating and drinking bountifully, and that they were in good spirits and enjoying themselves. How prettily one of the girls, in glossy silk, was leaning over the shoulder of the “lost” one! How much nicer to be lost than found!—anyway, that was the impression the feast made on Walter. The true purpose of the picture—to deter people from a life of dissoluteness—escaped Walter entirely. Perhaps he knew what it meant; but in his heart he felt that it meant something else. What attracted him most was not the food and drink, under which the table “groaned,” nor the sinful sensuality painted on the faces of the ladies. It was the freedom and unconventionality of the company that charmed him. In order to emphasize the idea of prodigality, the painter had allowed some big dogs to upset an open cask of wine.
The wine was streaming, and straying away as if it were the lost sinner. This pleased Walter immensely. None of the guests seemed to notice such a small trifle, not even the waiters. This ought to have happened just once in the Pieterse home—and even if it were only a stein of beer!
The artist says to himself, Do you suppose I didn’t foresee the seductive influence of such a picture? The next one makes it all right!
Well, maybe so.
Third picture: Magnificent. How romantic this wilderness! Oh, to sit there on that boulder and stare into the immeasurable depths of the universe—alone!
To think, think, think!
No schoolmaster, no mother, brother, or anyone to say what he must do with his heart, with his time, with his elbows, or with his breeches! That’s the way Walter saw it. The young man there didn’t even have on breeches; and he looked as if he wouldn’t have been ashamed to stretch himself out on his back, with his arms over his head, and watch with wide-open eyes the passing of the moon and stars. Walter asked himself what he would think of when he had founded such an empire of solitude.
Hm! Femke could sit on the boulder with him. Prodigal son—oh, sin divine with her! He was surprised that in the whole Bible there was only one prodigal son. Of all sins this seemed to him the most seductive.
And the desert was so—endurable. There were trees in it, which one could climb, when one really got lost, or use to build a nice little cabin—for Femke, of course.