Read Online Peter Camenzind by Hermann Hesse - Free Book Online Page A

and sit for her the next day.
    â€œArrivederla,” I said as we parted, giving as deep a bow as I could.
    â€œArrivederci domani,” she smiled, nodding to me.
    After leaving her house, I walked along the street until it reached the ridge of a hill and I beheld the dark landscape stretched out before me in beauty’s strong repose. A solitary boat with a red lantern was gliding over the lake; its blackness was broken by flickering scarlet slivers, and an occasional wave fell in a silvery silhouette. Laughter, mandolin music from a nearby beer-garden. The sky was overcast and a strong warm breeze swept across the hills.
    Like the wind that caressed and shook and bent the fruit trees and the black crowns of the chestnut trees and made them moan, laugh, and quiver, so my passion played within me. On that hilltop I knelt and groveled on the ground, leaped up and groaned, stomped about, tossed away my hat, buried my face in the grass, grasped the tree trunks, cried, laughed, sobbed, raged, wept with shame, shivered with bliss, and then felt utterly crushed.
    After an hour of this frenzy, all tension left me and I felt choked by a kind of sultriness. My mind went blank. I could reach no decision, I felt nothing; like a sleepwalker I descended the hill, walked aimlessly back and forth through town, found a tavern still open, entered it without any real desire, drank two full measures of wine and got home, terribly drunk, in the early morning.
    Erminia was quite startled when she saw me that afternoon.
    â€œWhat happened? Are you ill?”
    â€œNothing serious,” I replied. “It seems I got very drunk last night, that’s all.”
    She propped me on a chair and asked me not to move. Soon I dozed off and slept through the entire afternoon in her studio. Presumably it was the smell of turpentine that made me dream of our skiff back home being freshly painted. I lay on the gravel and watched my father plying the paintbrush. Mother was there too and when I asked her if she hadn’t died, she replied gently: “No. For if I were not here, you’d end up like your father.”
    I was awakened by falling off the chair and found myself transplanted into Erminia Aglietti’s studio. Though I could not see her, I gathered from the clattering of dishes and cutlery that she was preparing dinner.
    â€œHow are you?” she called to me.
    â€œFine. How long did I sleep?”
    â€œFour full hours. Aren’t you ashamed of yourself?”
    â€œA little. But I had such a beautiful dream.”
    â€œTell it to me.”
    â€œOnly if you come here and forgive me.”
    She came but would not forgive me until I told her the dream. So I recounted it in detail and in the process plunged deeply into half-forgotten childhood memories. By the time I stopped, when it had grown dark outside, I had told her and myself the story of my childhood. She gave me her hand, smoothed my wrinkled jacket, and invited me to sit for her again the next day, so that I felt she had understood, as well as forgiven, my behavior.
    Though I posed for her hour after hour during the next few days, we scarcely talked at all. I simply sat, or stood calmly, as if enchanted. I listened to the soft rasp of the charcoal and inhaled the faint smell of paint, delighting in the proximity of the woman I loved, while her eyes rested on me all the time. The white studio light bathed the walls, a few sleepy flies buzzed against the panes, and in the small room adjacent to the studio the flame hissed in the spirit lamp, for at the end of each session she served me a cup of tea.
    My thoughts remained with Erminia even when I was back in my attic. It did not diminish my passion that I was unable to admire her art. She herself was so beautiful, so good and self-confident—what did her painting matter to me? On the contrary, her industry had a heroic quality: a woman battling for her livelihood, a quiet, persevering, courageous