The Quest. Frederik van Eeden
do you mean, my child?" said Death, roused from his meditations. "No, not now. You must grow up and become a good man."
"I will not be a man – like the others."
"Come, come!" said Death. "There is no help for it."
It was clear that this was an every-day phrase with him. He continued:
"My friend, Pluizer, can teach you how to become a good man. It can be learned in various ways, but Pluizer teaches it excellently. It is something very fine and admirable to be a good man. You must not scorn it, my little lad."
"Seeking, thinking, looking!" said Pluizer.
"To be sure! To be sure!" said Death; and then, to Pluizer, "To whom are you going to take him?"
"To Doctor Cijfer, my old pupil."
"Ah, yes. He is a good pupil. He is a very fine example of a man – almost perfect in his way."
"Shall I see Robinetta again?" asked Johannes, trembling.
"What does the boy mean?" asked Death.
"Oh, he was love-struck, and yet fancied himself to be an elf! He, he, he!" laughed Pluizer, maliciously.
"No, my dear child, that will never do," said Death. "You will forget such things with Doctor Cijfer. He who seeks what you are seeking must forget all other things. All or nothing."
"I shall make a doughty man of him. I shall just let him sec what love really is, and then he will have nothing at all to do with it."
And Pluizer laughed gaily. Death again fixed his black eyes upon poor Johannes, who found it hard to keep from sobbing; for he felt ashamed in the presence of Death.
Suddenly Death stood up, "I must away," said he. "I am wasting my time. There is much to be done. Good-by, Johannes. We are sure to see each other again. You must not be afraid of me."
"I am not afraid of you – I wish you would take me with you. Oh, take me!" But Death gently motioned him back. He was used to such appeals.
"No, Johannes. Go now to your task. Seek and see! Ask me no more. Some day I will ask, and that will be soon enough."
When he had disappeared, Pluizer behaved in a very extraordinary manner. He sprang over chairs, tumbled about the floor, climbed up the wardrobe and the mantlepiece, and performed neck-breaking tricks in the open windows.
"Well, that was Hein – my good friend Hein!" said he. "Do you not think him nice? A bit plain and morose in appearance; but he can be quite cheerful when he finds pleasure in his Work. Sometimes, however, it bores him; for it is rather monotonous."
"Who tells him, Pluizer, where he is to go?"
Pluizer leered at Johannes in a teasing, cunning way.
"Why do you ask that? He goes his own gait – he takes whom he can catch."
Later, Johannes saw that it was otherwise. But he could not yet know whether or not Pluizer always spoke the truth.
They went out to the street, and moved with the swarming throng. The grimy men passed on, pell-mell – laughing and chatting so gaily that Johannes could not help wondering. He noticed that Pluizer nodded to many of them; but no one returned the greeting – all were looking straight forward as if they had seen nothing.
"They are going like fun now," said Pluizer, "as though not a single one of them knew me. But that is only a pretext. They cannot cut me when I am alone with them; and then they are not so jolly." Johannes became conscious that some one was following them. On looking round, he saw the tall, pale figure moving among the people with great, inaudible strides. Hein nodded to Johannes.
"Do the people also see him?" asked Johannes of Pluizer.
"Yes, certainly! all of them; but they do not wish to know him. Well, for the present I overlook this defiance."
The din and stir brought to Johannes a kind of stupor in which he forgot his troubles. The narrow streets and the high houses dividing the blue sky into straight strips – the people passing to and fro beside him – the shuffling of footsteps, and the rattling of wagons, effaced the old visions and the dream of that former night, as a storm disturbs the reflections in mirror-like water. It seemed to him that nothing else existed save walls and windows and people; as if he too must do the same, and run and rush in the restless, breathless tumult.
Then they came to a quiet neighborhood, where stood a large house with grey, gloomy windows. It looked severe and uninviting. It was very quiet within, and there came to Johannes a mingling of strange, pungent odors – a damp, cellar-like smell being the most perceptible. In a room, full of odd-looking instruments, sat a solitary man. He was surrounded with books, and glass and copper articles – all of them unfamiliar to Johannes. A stray sunbeam entered the room, passed on over his head, and sparkled on the flasks filled with pretty, tinted particles. The man was looking intently through a copper tube, and did not look up.
As Johannes came nearer, he heard him murmur, "Wistik! Wistik!"
Beside the man, on a long, black bench, lay something white and downy. What it was Johannes could not clearly see.
"Good morning, doctor!" said Pluizer. But still the doctor did not look up.
Then Johannes was terrified, for the white object at which he was looking so intently, began all at once to struggle convulsively. What he had seen was the downy, white breast of a little rabbit. Its head, with the twitching nostrils, was held backward by pinching clamps of iron, and the four little feet were tightly bound along its body. The hopeless effort to free himself was soon over, and the little creature lay still again; the only sign of life being the rapid movement of the blood-stained throat.
Johannes looked at the round, gentle eyes – so wide open with helpless anguish, and it seemed to him that he recognized them. Was not this the soft little body against which he had rested that first, blissful, elf-land night? Old remembrances came thronging over him. He flew to the little creature.
"Wait, wait! Poor Bunnie, I will help you!" And he hurried to untie the cords which were cutting into the tender little feet.
But his hands were seized in a tight grip, and a shrill laugh rang in his ears.
"What does this mean, Johannes? Are you still so childish? What must the doctor think of you?"
"What does the boy want? Why is he here?" asked the doctor, amazed.
"He wants to be a man, and so I brought him to you; but he is still rather young and childish. This is not the way to find what you are seeking, Johannes!"
"No, this is not the way," said the doctor.
"Doctor, let that rabbit loose!"
But Pluizer clutched both his hands, and squeezed them painfully.
"What was our agreement, Jackanapes?" he hissed in his ear. "We were to seek, were we not? We are not in the dunes here, with Windekind, and with stupid animals. We should be men – men, do you understand? If you wish to remain a child – if you are not strong enough to help me – I will send you out of the way. Then you may seek – all by yourself!"
Johannes believed him and said no more. He determined to be strong. So he shut his eyes, that he might not see the rabbit.
"Good boy!" said the doctor. "You appear somewhat tender-hearted for making a beginning. It truly is rather a sad sight the first time. I never behold it willingly myself, and avoid it as much as possible. Yet it is indispensable; and you must understand that we are men, and not animals – that the welfare of mankind and of science is of more importance than the life of a few rabbits."
"Hear!" said Pluizer. "Science and mankind."
"The man of science," continued the doctor, "stands higher than all other men, and so he should overcome the little tendernesses which the normal man feels, for that great interest – Science. Would you like to be such a man? Was that your vocation, my boy?"
Johannes hesitated. He did not exactly know what a vocation was – no more than did the May-bug.
Said he, "I want to find the book that Wistik spoke of."
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