Rosshalde Read Online Free PDF Page B

“It’s rusty. We never use the bathhouse.”
    He began to undress and Burkhardt followed suit. When they were on the shore ready to swim, testing the quiet shadowy water with their toes, a sweet breath of happiness from remote boyhood days came over both of them at once; they stood for a minute or two in anticipation of the delicious chill, and the radiant green valley of childhood summers unfolded gently in their hearts. Unaccustomed to the tender emotion, they stood half embarrassed and silent, dipping their feet into the water and watching the semicircles that fled over the brownish-green mirror.
    Then Burkhardt stepped quickly into the water.
    â€œAh, it’s good,” he sighed voluptuously. “You know, we can both still bear looking at; except for my paunch, we are still two fine strapping lads.”
    He rowed with the palm of his hands, shook himself, and plunged.
    â€œYou don’t know how good you have it,” he said enviously. “The loveliest river runs through my plantation, and if you stretch out your leg you’ll never see it again. It’s full of beastly crocodiles. And now full steam ahead, for the Rosshalde cup. We’ll swim to the steps over there and back again. Are you ready? One … two … three!”
    Both with laughing faces, they started off at a moderate pace, but the air of the garden of youth was still upon them, and in a moment they began to race in earnest; their faces grew tense, their eyes flashed, and their arms glistened as they swung them far out of the water. They reached the steps together and together they pushed off. They started back, and now the painter pressed ahead with powerful strokes, took the lead, and reached the finish a little before his friend.
    Breathing heavily, they stood up in the water, rubbed their eyes, and laughed together in silent pleasure. It seemed to both of them that they had only just now become old friends again, that the slight strangeness and estrangement which had inevitably come between them was just beginning to disappear.
    When they had dressed, they sat side by side with refreshed faces and a sense of lightness on the stone steps leading down to the lake. They looked across the dark water which lost itself in the blackish-brown twilight of the overhung cove across the lake, ate fat, light-red cherries which the servant had given them in a brown paper bag, and looked on with lightened hearts as the evening deepened, until the declining sun shone horizontally through the tree trunks and golden flames were kindled on the glassy wings of the dragonflies. And they chatted without pause or reflection for a good hour about their school days, about their teachers and fellow students, and what had become of this one or that one.
    â€œGood Lord,” said Otto Burkhardt in his fresh, serene voice, “it’s been a long time! Does anyone know what has become of Meta Heilemann?”
    â€œAh, Meta Heilemann!” Veraguth broke in eagerly. “Wasn’t she a lovely girl? My portfolios were full of her portraits that I drew on my blotters during classes. I never did get her hair quite right. Do you remember, she wore it in two thick coils over her ears.”
    â€œHaven’t you had any news of her?”
    â€œNo. The first time I came back from Paris, she was engaged to a lawyer. I met her on the street with her brother, and I remember how furious I was with myself because I couldn’t help blushing and in spite of my mustache and my Paris sophistication I felt like an idiotic little schoolboy. —If only she hadn’t been called Meta. I never could bear that name.”
    Burkhardt wagged his round head dreamily.
    â€œYou weren’t in love enough, Johann. I thought Meta was wonderful, she could have been called Eulalia for all I cared, I’d have gone through fire for a glance out of her eyes.”
    â€œOh, I was in love enough. One day on the way back from our five