 Chapter 4
It made immense talk next day, when Father Peter paid
Solomon Isaacs in gold and left the rest of the money with him at interest.
Also, there was a pleasant change; many people called at the house to
congratulate him, and a number of cool old friends became kind and friendly
again; and, to top all, Marget was invited to a party.
And there was no mystery; Father Peter told the whole
circumstance just as it happened, and said he could not account for it, only it
was the plain hand of Providence, so far as he could see.
One or two shook their heads and said privately it looked
more like the hand of Satan; and really that seemed a surprisingly good guess
for ignorant people like that. Some came slyly buzzing around and tried to coax
us boys to come out and "tell the truth;" and promised they wouldn't ever tell,
but only wanted to know for their own satisfaction, because the whole thing was
so curious. They even wanted to buy the secret, and pay money for it; and if we
could have invented something that would answer -- but we couldn't; we hadn't
the ingenuity, so we had to let the chance go by, and it was a pity.
We carried that secret around without any trouble, but the
other one, the big one, the splendid one, burned the very vitals of us, it was
so hot to get out and we so hot to let it out and astonish people with it. But
we had to keep it in; in fact, it kept itself in. Satan said it would, and it
did. We went off every day and got to ourselves in the woods so that we could
talk about Satan, and really that was the only subject we thought of or cared
anything about; and day and night we watched for him and hoped he would come,
and we got more and more impatient all the time. We hadn't any interest in the
other boys any more, and wouldn't take part in their games and enterprises. They
seemed so tame, after Satan; and their doings so trifling and commonplace after
his adventures in antiquity and the constellations, and his miracles and
meltings and explosions, and all that.
During the first day we were in a state of anxiety on
account of one thing, and we kept going to Father Peter's house on one pretext
or another to keep track of it. That was the gold coin; we were afraid it would
crumble and turn to dust, like fairy money. If it did -- But it didn't. At the
end of the day no complaint had been made about it, so after that we were
satisfied that it was real gold, and dropped the anxiety out of our minds.
There was a question which we wanted to ask Father Peter,
and finally we went there the second evening, a little diffidently, after
drawing straws, and I asked it as casually as I could, though it did not sound
as casual as I wanted, because I didn't know how:
"What is the Moral Sense, sir?"
He looked down, surprised, over his great spectacles, and
said, "Why, it is the faculty which enables us to distinguish good from evil."
It threw some light, but not a glare, and I was a little
disappointed, also to some degree embarrassed. He was waiting for me to go on,
so, in default of anything else to say, I asked, "Is it valuable?"
"Valuable? Heavens! lad, it is the one thing that lifts
man above the beasts that perish and makes him heir to immortality!"
This did not remind me of anything further to say, so I
got out, with the other boys, and we went away with that indefinite sense you
have often had of being filled but not fatted. They wanted me to explain, but I
was tired.
We passed out through the parlor, and there was Marget at
the spinnet teaching Marie Lueger. So one of the deserting pupils was back; and
an influential one, too; the others would follow. Marget jumped up and ran and
thanked us again, with tears in her eyes -- this was the third time -- for
saving her and her uncle from being turned into the street, and we told her
again we hadn't done it; but that was her way, she never could be grateful
enough for anything a person did for her; so we let her have her say. And as we
passed through the garden, there was Wilhelm Meidling sitting there waiting, for
it was getting toward the edge of the evening, and he would be asking Marget to
take a walk along the river with him when she was done with the lesson. He was a
young lawyer, and succeeding fairly well and working his way along, little by
little. He was very fond of Marget, and she of him. He had not deserted along
with the others, but had stood his ground all through. His faithfulness was not
lost on Marget and her uncle. He hadn't so very much talent, but he was handsome
and good, and these are a kind of talents themselves and help along. He asked us
how the lesson was getting along, and we told him it was about done. And maybe
it was so; we didn't know anything about it, but we judged it would please him,
and it did, and didn't cost us anything.
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Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
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