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قراءة كتاب Only a Girl: or, A Physician for the Soul.
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Only a Girl: or, A Physician for the Soul.
dismay. "Mercy on me! I really believe you would do anything to torment me into seeming sorry. It would be just like you; for what people say of you,--or 'appearances,' as you call it, are dearer to you than wife or child, or anything else in the world."
She sprang up, and her breath came quick and angrily. Leuthold contemplated her with a kind of satisfaction as she stood before him with flashing eyes and curling lip. She displayed some emotion,--only the emotion of anger, 'tis true; but as enthusiasm is always passionate, so passion will sometimes seem enthusiasm, and lend a kind of nimbus to insignificance.
"I like to see you so!" said Leuthold, drawing her down beside him and laying his cool hand upon her shoulder.
Just then the cry of a child was heard in the adjoining apartment. "Gretchen is awake," cried Bertha, forgetting her anger, and leaving the room so quickly that the boards creaked beneath her heavy tread, and the sofa upon which her husband was seated shook. She soon returned, with a pretty child of three years of age in her arms. After tossing it, notwithstanding its size and strength, up and down like an india-rubber ball, she threw it with maternal pride into her husband's lap. He caressed the little thing tenderly, and a ray shot from his eyes like the gleam of a wintry san across a snowy landscape. For, though there was no genuine paternal love in his heart, there was at least in its place,--what is hardly to be distinguished from it,--fatherly pride.
"How strange to think," said the mother, "that that should be your child!"
"Why?" asked Leuthold with surprise.
"It is so odd that such a slim, delicate-looking man as you are should have such a healthy, chubby little daughter. It is just as if a wheat-stalk should bear penny rolls instead of wheat-ears." She laughed immoderately at the idea, without perceiving that her husband was far from flattered by the comparison. "They say," she continued, "'long waited for is good at last,' and we waited long for the little thing, and she is good." And she put up the child's plump little hand to her mouth as though she would bite it. The little girl shouted with glee, and the sound so sweet to maternal ears did not fail to awaken a return. Bertha shouted too, until her husband's ears tingled. "If Ernestine had only been a boy, she could have married Gretchen, and our child would have been all provided for," she said, after a pause.
"Do not talk such nonsense," said Leuthold. "Hartwich would have loved a son as thoroughly as he detests his daughter, and would have bequeathed to him all his property. We owe our inheritance there to the happy chance that made his child a girl. But even supposing that she were a boy, with the inheritance still ours, do you think I would mate her so unworthily? No! our Gretchen, lovely and rich as she will be, can never marry a simple Herr von Hartwich. She will one day make me father-in-law to some great statesman, some illustrious scholar, or, at least, to some count!"
"And me mother to a countess!" cried his wife with glee.
CHAPTER II.
THE STORY OF THE UGLY DUCKLING.
In the mean time Ernestine had pursued her way. She walked slowly on through the extensive fields in the glare of the four-o'clock sun, whose rays were broken by no friendly tree or shrub. The waist of the dress which she had outgrown was so tight that she was frequently obliged to stand still and recover her breath. The perspiration rolled down her poor worn little face. The sunbeams felt like dagger-points upon her weary head; but she could not go back: fear of her father was more powerful than the torments she was enduring. Better to be pierced by the sun's rays than struck by her father's hard hand. Still, she could not help weeping bitterly that every one seemed so unkind to her. What had she done, that her father should hate her so? It was not her fault that she was so ugly and not a boy. "Ah, why am I a girl?" she sobbed, and sat down upon the hard, sun-baked clods of earth among the brown, dried potato-plants. She clasped her knees with her arms, and pondered why boys were better than girls, wondering whether she could not learn to do all that boys could. The schoolmaster had often told her that she had more sense and learned her lessons better than the boys. What was it that she needed, then? Strength, boldness, courage! Yes, that was a good deal, to be sure; but could she not make them hers in time? She thought and thought. She would exercise her strength. She had once read of a man who carried a calf about in his arms daily, and was so accustomed to his burden that he never noticed how the calf increased in size and weight, until at last he bore a huge ox in his arms. She would do so too; she would accustom herself at first to the weight of little burdens, and go on increasing them until at last she could carry the very heaviest. And she could be bold too, if she only dared, and if her shyness would only wear off. Then, she hoped, her father would be quite content with her. She sprang to her feet comforted and walked on. Her mind was made up. She would be just like a boy.
At the end of an hour Ernestine reached a beautiful and extensive grove, through which she passed, and entered a garden, at the end of which stood a charming country-house. Upon the wide lawn in front, a merry throng of children were running and leaping hither and thither, and from the fresh green a sparkling fountain tossed into the air a crystal ball. At the open doors of a room leading out into the garden sat a company of elegantly-dressed ladies and gentlemen, and servants in rich liveries were handing around refreshments upon silver salvers. Ernestine stood as if dazzled by all this pomp and splendour. She dared not approach. How could she? To whom could she turn? No one came towards her; no one spoke to her. Her embarrassment was indescribable, when suddenly the beautiful, gaily-dressed children on the lawn broke off their play and looked towards her with astonishment. Ernestine saw how the little girls nudged each other and pointed at her. She distinctly heard some say to the others, "What does she want?" She was almost on the point of turning round to run away, when she was observed by the group of ladies and gentlemen, and a servant was dispatched to ask whom she was looking for. Everything swam before her eyes as the tall man with such a distinguished air stepped up to her and asked sharply, "What do you want here?"
"Nothing," replied Ernestine; "I would not have come if I had known!"
"Who are you, then?" asked the servant
"I am Ernestine Hartwich."
"Ah, indeed!" he said, with a slight bow; "that's another affair; you are invited. Permit me." With these words he conducted the passive child to the ladies, and announced, "Fräulein von Hartwich!"
The looks that were now fastened upon Ernestine were more piercing and burning, she thought, than the sun's rays. Those people never dreamed that the quiet little creature standing before them was possessed of a goal so delicate in its organization, so finely strung, that every breath of contempt that swept across it created a shrill discord, a painful confusion; they only looked with the careless disapproval, which would have been all very well with ordinary children, at the straight, black, dishevelled hair, the sunken cheeks, the wizened, sharp features of the pale face, the deep dark eyes, with their shy, uncertain glances, the lips tightly closed in embarrassment, and last, the emaciated figure in its faded short dress, and the long, narrow feet and hands. In the minds of most,