PAGE 7
Compelled To
by
“Is that really you, Mr. Blom? How are you?”
But Gustav, the waiter, who was so pleased to find himself for a few moments the equal of his master, held a piece of wood in his warm hand and met a pair of eyes which pierced his soul like gimlets. And yet this same hand had given him ten crowns only yesterday, and the owner of it had thanked him for six months’ service and attention in the way one thanks a friend. The waiter went back to his companions and sat down amongst them, embarrassed and snubbed. But Mr. Blom left the verandah with bitter thoughts and pushed his way through the crowd; he fancied that he could hear a mocking: “He hasn’t been able to get dinner, after all!”
He came to a large open space. There was a puppet-show, and Jasper was being beaten by his wife. A little further off a sailor was showing servant girls, soldiers and apprentices their future husband or wife in a wheel of fortune. They all had had dinner and were enjoying themselves; for a moment he believed himself their inferior, but only for a moment; then he remembered that they had not the vaguest idea of how an Egyptian camp was fortified. The thought gave him back his self-respect, and he wondered how it was possible that people could be so degraded as to find pleasure in such childishness.
In the meantime he had lost all inclination to try the other restaurants; he passed the Tivoli and went further into the heart of the park. Young men and women were dancing on the grass to the strains of a violin: a little further off a whole family was camping under an old oak; the head of the family was kneeling down, in his shirt sleeves, with bare head, a glass of beer in one hand, a sandwich in the other; his fat, jolly, clean-shaven face beamed with pleasure and good-nature as he invited his guests, who were evidently his wife, parents-in-law, brothers, shop-assistants and servants, to eat, drink and be merry, for to-day was Midsummer day, all day long. And the jovial fellow made such droll remarks that the whole party writhed on the grass with amusement. After the pancake had been produced and eaten with the fingers, and the port bottle been round, the senior shop-assistant made a speech which was at once so moving and so witty that the ladies at one moment pressed their handkerchiefs to their eyes, while the head of the family bit his lips, and at the next interrupted the speaker with loud laughter and cheers.
The schoolmaster’s mood became more and more morose, but instead of going away he sat down on a stone under a pinetree and watched “the animals.”
When the speech was finished and father and mother had been toasted with cheers and a flourish of trumpets, executed on a concertina, accompanied by the rattling of all cups and saucers that happened to be empty, the party rose to play “Third Man,” while mother and mother-in-law attended to the babies.
“Just like the beasts in the field,” thought the schoolmaster, turning away, for all that was natural was ugly in his eyes, and only that which was unnatural could lay any claim to beauty in his opinion, except, of course, the paintings of “well-known” masters in the National Museum.
He watched the young men taking off their coats, the young girls slipping off their cuffs and hanging them on the blackthorn bushes; then they took up their positions and the game began.
The girls picked up their skirts and threw up their legs so that their garters, made of blue and red braid such as the grocers sell for tying up pots, were plainly visible, and whenever the cavalier caught his lady, he took her in his arms and swung her round so that her skirts flew; and young and old shrieked so with laughter that the park re-echoed.