Chapter 35

"Tell me What would my heart? My heart's with thee, With thee would have a part." GOETHE'S West-östlicher Divan.

"There stands the man again-- The man with gloomy mien." Memories of Travel, by B. C. INGEMANN.

Several days passed; the fine crimson again returned to Eva's cheeks. The first occasion of her going out with the others was to see the rape-stalks burned. These were piled together in two immense stacks. In the morning, at the appointed hour, which had been announced through the neighborhood that no one might mistake it for a conflagration, the stalks were set fire to. This took place in the nearest field, close beside the hall, where the rape-seed was threshed upon an out-spread sail.

The landscape-painter, Dahl, has given us a picture of the burning Vesuvius, where the red lava pours down the side of the mountain; in the background one sees across the bay as far as Naples and Ischia: it is a piece full of great effect. Such a splendid landscape is not to be found in flat Denmark, where there are no great natural scenes, and yet this morning presented even there a picture with the same brilliant coloring. We will study it. In the foreground there is a hedge of hazels, the nuts hang in great clusters, and contrast strongly with their bright green against the dark leaves; the blue chicory-flower and the blood-red poppy grew on the side of the ditch, upon which are some tall rails, over which the ladies have to climb: the delicate sylph-like figure is Eva. In the field, where nothing remains but the yellow stubble, stand Otto and Wilhelm; two magnificent hounds wag their tails beside them. To the left is a little lake, thickly overgrown with reeds and water-lilies, with the yellow trollius for its border. In the front, where the wood retreats, lie, like a great stack, the piled-together rape-stalks: the man has struck fire, has kindled the outer side of them, and with a rapidity like that of the descending lava the red fire flashes up the gigantic pile. It crackles and roars within it. In a moment it is all a burning mound; the red flames flash aloft into the blue air, high above the wood which is now no longer visible. A thick black smoke ascends up into the clear air, where it rests like a cloud. Out of the flames, and even out of the smoke, the wind carries away large masses of fire, which, crackling and cracking, are borne on to the wood, and which fill the spectator with apprehension of their falling upon the nearest trees and burning up leaf and branch.

"Let us go further off," said Sophie; "the heat is too great here."

They withdrew to the ditch.

"O, how many nuts!" exclaimed Wilhelm; "and I do not get one of them! I shall go after them if they be ripe."

"But you have grapes and other beautiful fruit!" said Eva smiling. "We have our beautiful things at home!"