CHAPTER XVI.
"To be Gretchen, you must count the leaves of your daisies," he said toher, as he painted,--painted her just as she was, with her two littlewhite feet in the wooden shoes, and the thick green leaves behind; thesimplest picture possible, the dress of gray--only cool dark gray--withwhite linen bodice, and no color anywhere except in the green of thefoliage; but where he meant the wonder and the charm of it to lie was inthe upraised, serious, child-like face, and the gaze of the grave,smiling eyes.
It was Gretchen, spinning, out in the open air among the flowers.Gretchen, with the tall dog-daisies growing up about her feet, amongthe thyme and the roses, before she had had need to gather, one to askher future of its parted leaves.
The Gretchen of Scheffer tells no tale; she is a fair-haired,hard-working, simple-minded peasant, with whom neither angels nor devilshave anything to do, and whose eyes never can open to either hell orheaven. But the Gretchen of Flamen said much more than this: lookingat it, men would sigh from shame, and women weep from sorrow.
"Count the daisies?" echoed Bebee. "Oh, I know what you mean. Alittle--much--passionately--until death--not at all. What the girls saywhen they want to see if any one loves them? Is that it?"
She looked at him without any consciousness, except as she loved theflowers.
"Do you think the daisies know?" she went on, seriously, parting theirpetals with her fingers. "Flowers do know many things--that is certain."
"Ask them for yourself."
"Ask them what?"
"How much--any one--loves you?"
"Oh, but every one loves me; there is no one that is bad. Antoine used tosay to me. 'Never think of yourself, Bebee; always think of other people,so every one will love you.' And I always try to do that, and every onedoes."
"But that is not the love the daisy tells of to your sex."
"No?"
"No; the girls that you see count the flowers--they are thinking, not ofall the village, but of some one unlike all the rest, whose shadow fallsacross theirs in the moonlight! You know that?"
"Ah, yes--and they marry afterwards--yes."
She said it softly, musingly, with no embarrassment; it was an unreal,remote thing to her, and yet it stirred her heart a little with a vaguetrouble that was infinitely sweet.
There is little talk of love in the lives of the poor; they have no spacefor it; love to them means more mouths to feed, more wooden shoes to buy,more hands to dive into the meagre bag of coppers. Now and then a girlof the commune had been married, and had ploughing in the fields or toher lace-weaving in the city. Bebee had thought little of it.
"They marry or they do not marry. That is as it may be," said Flamen,with a smile. "Bebee, I must paint you as Gretchen before she made alove-dial of the daisies. What is the story? Oh, I have told you storiesenough. Gretchen's you would not understand, just yet."
"But what did the daisies say to her?"
"My dear, the daisies always say the same thing, because daisies alwaystell the truth and know men. The daisies always say 'a little'; it is thegirl's ear that tricks her, and makes her hear 'till death,'--a folly andfalsehood of which the daisy is not guilty."
"But who says it if the daisy does not?"
"Ah, the devil perhaps--who knows? He has so much to do in these things."
But Bebee did not smile; she had a look of horror in her blue eyes; shebelonged to a peasantry who believed in exorcising the fiend by the aidof the cross, and who not so very many generations before had driven himout of human bodies by rack and flame.
She looked with a little wistful fear on the white, golden-eyedmarguerites that lay on her lap.
"Do you think the fiend is in these?" she whispered, with awe in hervoice.
Flamen smiled. "When you count them he will be there, no doubt."
Bebee threw them with a shudder on the grass.
"Have I spoilt your holiday, dear?" he said, with a certainself-reproach.
She was silent a minute, then she gathered up the daisies again, andstroked them and put them to her lips.
"It is not they that do wrong. You say the girls' ears deceive them. Itis the girls who want a lie and will not believe a truth because ithumbles them; it is the girls that are to blame, not the daisies. As forme, I will not ask the daisies anything ever, so the fiend will not enterinto them."
"Nor into you. Poor little Bebee!"
"Why, you pity me for that?"
"Yes. Because, if women never see the serpent's face, neither do theyever scent the smell of the paradise roses; and it will be hard for youto die without a single rose d'amour in your pretty breast, poor littleBebee?"
"I do not understand. But you frighten me a little."
He rose and left his easel and threw himself at her feet on the grass; hetook the little wooden shoes in his hands as reverently as he would havetaken the broidered shoes of a duchess; he looked up at her with tender,smiling eyes.
"Poor little Bebee!" he said again. "Did I frighten you indeed? Nay, thatwas very base of me. We will not spoil our summer holiday. There is nosuch thing as a fiend, my dear. There are only men--such as I am. Say thedaisy spell over for me, Bebee. See if I do not love you a little, justas you love your flowers."
She smiled, and the happy laughter came again over her face.
"Oh, I am sure you care for me a little," she said, softly, "or you wouldnot be so good and get me books and give me pleasure; and I do not wantthe daisies to tell me that, because you say it yourself, which isbetter."
"Much better." he answered her dreamily, and lay there in the grass,holding the little wooden shoes in his hands.
He was not in love with her. He was in no haste. He preferred to playwith her softly, slowly, as one separates the leaves of a rose, to seethe deep rose of its heart.
Her own ignorance of what she felt had a charm for him. He liked to liftthe veil from her eyes by gentle degrees, watching each new pulse-beat,each fresh instinct tremble into life.
It was an old, old story to him; he knew each chapter and verse toweariness, though there still was no other story that he still read asoften. But to her it was so new.
To him it was a long beaten track; he knew every turn of it; herecognized every wayside blossom; he had passed over a thousand timeseach tremulous bridge; he knew so well beforehand where each shadow wouldfall, and where each fresh bud would blossom, and where each harvestwould be reaped.
But to her it was so new.
She followed him as a blind child a man that guides her through a gardenand reads her a wonder tale.
He was good to her, that was all she knew. When he touched her ever solightly she felt a happiness so perfect, and yet so unintelligible, thatshe could have wished to die in it.
And in her humility and her ignorance she wondered always how he--sogreat, so wise, so beautiful--could have thought it ever worth his whileto leave the paradise of Rubes' land to wait with her under her littlerush-thatched roof, and bring her here to see the green leaves and theliving things of the forest.
As they went, a man was going under the trees with a load of wood uponhis back. Bebee gave a little cry of recognition.
"Oh, look, that is Jeannot! How he will wonder to see me here!"
Flamen drew her a little downward, so that the forester passed onwardwithout perceiving them.
"Why do you do that?" said Bebee. "Shall I not speak to him?"
"Why? To have all your neighbors chatter of your feast in the forest? Itis not worth while."
"Ah, but I always tell them everything," said Bebee. whose imaginationhad been already busy with the wonders that she would unfold to MereKrebs and the Varnhart children.
"Then you will see but little of me, my dear. Learn to be silent, Bebee.It is a woman's first duty, though her hardest."
"Is it?"
She did not speak for some time. She could not imagine a state ofthings in which she would not narrate the little daily miracles of herlife to the good old garrulous women and the little open-mout
hed romps.And yet--she lifted her eyes to his.
"I am glad you have told me that," she said. "Though indeed. I do not seewhy one should not say what one does, yet--somehow--I do not like to talkabout you. It is like the pictures in the galleries, and the music inthe cathedral, and the great still evenings, when the fields are allsilent, and it is as if Christ walked abroad in them; I do not know howto talk of those things to the others--only to you--and I do not like totalk _about_ you to them--do you not know?"
"Yes, I know. But what affinity have I. Bebee, to your thoughts of yourGod walking in His cornfields?"
Bebee's eyes glanced down through the green aisle of the forests, withthe musing seriousness in them that was like the child-angels ofBotticelli's dreams.
"I cannot tell you very well. But when I am in the fields at evening andthink of Christ. I feel so happy, and of such good will to all the rest,and I seem to see heaven quite plain through the beautiful gray air wherethe stars are--and so I feel when I am with you--that is all. Only--"
"Only what?"
"Only in those evenings, when I was all alone, heaven seemed up there,where the stars are, and I longed for wings; but now, it is _here_, and Iwould only shut my wings if I had them, and not stir."
He looked at her, and took, her hands and kissed them--but reverently--asa believer may kiss a shrine. In that moment to Flamen she was sacred; inthat moment he could no more have hurt her with passion than he couldhave hurt her with a blow.
It was an emotion with him, and did not endure. But whilst it lasted, itwas true.