Rosshalde by Hermann Hesse Read Free Book Online Page B

Pierre?”
    â€œYes, much more. Pierre is neither your type nor his mother’s. Ah, here he comes. Or is it Albert? No, it can’t be.”
    Light steps were heard outside the door, passing over the flags and the iron foot scraper; the door handle was touched and after brief hesitation turned. In stepped Pierre, darting a friendly, inquiring glance to see if he was welcome.
    â€œWhere’s Albert?” his father asked.
    â€œWith Mama. They’re playing the piano.”
    â€œI see. He’s playing the piano.”
    â€œAre you angry, Papa?”
    â€œNo, Pierre. I’m glad you’ve come. What’s new?”
    The boy saw the photographs and picked them up. “Oh, that’s me. And this one? Is it Albert?”
    â€œYes, that’s Albert. That’s how he looked when he was exactly your age.”
    â€œThat was before I was born. And now he’s big and Robert calls him Herr Albert.”
    â€œWould you like to be grown up?”
    â€œYes, I would. Grownups can have horses and travel. I’d like to do that. And nobody can call you ‘sonny’ and pinch your cheeks. But I don’t really want to grow up. Old people can be so disagreeable. Even Albert is entirely different now. And when old people get older and older, they die in the end. I’d rather stay the way I am, and sometimes I’d like to be able to fly, and fly around the trees way up high, and in between the clouds. Then I’d laugh at everybody.”
    â€œAt me too, Pierre?”
    â€œSometimes, Papa. Old people are so funny sometimes. Mama not so much. Sometimes Mama lies in the garden in a long chair, not doing anything, just looking at the grass; her arms hang down and she’s perfectly still and a little sad. It’s nice not having to do something all the time.”
    â€œDon’t you want to be anything? An architect or a gardener, or perhaps a painter?”
    â€œNo, I don’t want to. There’s a gardener here already, and I’ve got a house. I’d like to do entirely different things. I’d like to understand what the robins say to each other. And I’d like to see how the trees manage to drink water with their roots and get to be so big. I don’t think anybody really knows that. The teacher knows a lot, but only boring things.”
    He had sat down on Otto Burkhardt’s lap and was playing with his belt buckle.
    â€œThere are many things we can’t know,” said Burkhardt in a friendly tone. “There are many things we can only see, they’re beautiful and we have to be satisfied with that. When you come to see me in India some day, you’ll be in a big ship for days and days, lots and lots of little fish jump out of the water ahead of the ship, they have glassy wings and they can fly. And sometimes there are birds that have come a long long way from strange islands; they are very tired, they sit down on the deck and they’re very much surprised to see so many strange people riding around on the ocean. They would like to understand us too, and ask us where we come from and what our names are, but they can’t, so we just look into each other’s eyes and nod our heads, and when the bird has had a good rest, he shakes himself and flies off across the ocean.”
    â€œDoesn’t anyone know what those birds are called?”
    â€œOh yes. But we only know the names that people have given them. We don’t know what they call each other.”
    â€œUncle Burkhardt has such wonderful stories, Papa. I wish I had a friend too. Albert is too big. Most people don’t really understand what I mean when I say something, but Uncle Burkhardt understands right away.”
    A maid came to take the child away. Soon it was dinner time and the two men repaired to the manor house. Herr Veraguth was silent and out of sorts. In the dining room his son came up to him and they shook hands.
    â€œGood evening,