FullReads

"I’ve just been reading something wonderful, something splendid," he said. They were walking along, eating fruit tablets from a bag which they had purchased at Iverson’s on Mill Street for ten pfennig. "You must read it, Hans, it is Don Carlos by Schiller. I’ll lend it to you, if you wish. "

"No, no," said Hans Hansen, "never mind, Tonio, that’s not my style. I stick to my horse-books, you know. Splendid illustrations in them, I tell you. Sometime I’ll show them to you at the house. They are snap-shots, and you see the horses trotting and galloping and jumping, in every position, such as you would never see in life because they move too fast. "

"In all positions?" asked Tonio politely. "Yes, that’s fine, but as for Don Carlos, it is beyond all comprehension. There are passages in it, you’ll see, that are so beautiful that it gives you a jerk, as if something had suddenly burst. "

"Burst?" asked Hans Hansen. "How do you mean?"

"For example, there is the passage where the king has wept because he has been deceived by the marquis—but the marquis has only deceived him for love of the prince, you understand, for whom he is sacrificing himself. And now the news that the king has wept comes out of his cabinet into the ante-room.’Wept? The king has wept?’ All the courtiers are terribly taken aback, and it just goes through you, for he’s an awfully stiff and strict king. But you understand so clearly that he did weep, and I really feel sorrier for him than for the marquis and the prince together. He’s always so utterly alone and without love, and now he thinks he has found a friend, and the friend betrays him … "

Hans Hansen cast a sidelong glance into Tonio’s face, and something in that face must surely have won him over to this subject, for he suddenly thrust his arm into Tonio’s again and asked,

"Why, how does he betray the king, Tonio?"

Tonio was stirred to action.

"Why, the fact is," he began, "that all letters to Brabant and Flanders … "

"There comes Erwin Immerthal," said Hans.

Tonio was silent. "If only the earth would swallow him up," he thought, "this Immerthal. Why must he come and disturb us? I only hope he won’t go along and talk about his riding lessons the whole hour"—For Erwin Immerthal had riding lessons also. He was the son of a bank director and lived here outside the gate. With his crooked legs and his eyes like slits he came along the avenue to meet them, his school-bag already safe at home.

"Hello, Immerthal," said Hans. "I’m taking a little walk with Kröger. "

"I have to go into town," said Immerthal, "on some errands. But I’ll walk a piece with you … Those are fruit tablets, aren’t they? Thanks, yes, I’ll eat a couple. We take another lesson tomorrow, Hans. "—He meant the riding lesson.

"Fine!" said Hans. "You know, I’m going to get the leather spats now, because I got A on my exercise last week. "

"I suppose you aren’t taking riding lessons yet, Kröger?" asked Immerthal, and his eyes were only a pair of shining slits.

"No," answered Tonio with quite uncertain accent.

"You ought to ask your father, Kröger," remarked Hans Hansen, "to let you take lessons too. "

"Ayah," said Tonio both hastily and indifferently. For a moment he had a lump in his throat, because Hans had called him by his surname; and Hans seemed to feel this, for he said in explanation:

"I call you Kröger, because your Christian name is so crazy; excuse me, but I don’t like it. Tonio … that’s no name at all. But then it’s not your fault, of course not. "

"No, I suppose the chief reason why you are named that is because it sounds foreign and is uncommon," said Immerthal, acting as if he wanted to patch things up.