Part 37

He talked, and he told anecdotes, and every one present listened to him with pleasure and deep attention, but no one with more eagerness than an elderly widow of good standing in society; and she was, in reference to all that Herr Alfred said, like a blank sheet of whity-brown paper, that quickly sucks the sweet things in, and is ready for more. She was very susceptible, and totally ignorant--quite a female Caspar Hauser.

"I should like to see Rome," said she. "That must be a charming town, with the numerous strangers that go there. Describe Rome to us now. How does it look as you enter the gate?"

"It is not easy to describe Rome," said the young sculptor. "It is a very large place; in the centre of it stands an obelisk, which is four thousand years old."

"An organist!" exclaimed the astonished lady, who had never before heard the word obelisk.

Many of the party could scarcely refrain from laughing, and among the rest the sculptor. But the satirical smile that was gathering round his mouth glided into one of pleasure; for he saw, close to the lady, a pair of large eyes, blue as the sea. They appertained to the daughter of the talkative dame, and when one had such a daughter one could not be altogether ridiculous. The mother was like a bubbling fountain of questions, constantly pouring forth; the daughter like the fountain's beautiful naiad, listening to its murmurs. How lovely she was! She was something worth a sculptor's while to gaze at; but not to converse with; and she said nothing, at least very little.

"Has the Pope a great family?" asked the widow.

And the young man answered as if the question might have been better worded,--

"No, he is not of a high family."

"I don't mean that," said the lady; "I mean has he a wife and children?"

"The Pope dare not marry," he replied.

"I don't approve of that," said the lady.

She could scarcely have spoken more foolishly, or asked sillier questions; but what did all that signify when her daughter looked over her shoulder with that most winning smile?

Herr Alfred talked of the brilliant skies of Italy, and its cloud-capped hills; the blue Mediterranean; the soft South; the beauty which could only be rivalled by the blue eyes of the females of the North. And this was said pointedly; but she who ought to have understood it did not allow it to be seen that she had detected any compliment in his words, and this was also charming.

"Italy!" sighed some. "Travelling!" sighed others. "Charming, charming!"

"Well, when I win the fifty-thousand-dollar prize in the lottery," said the widow, "we shall set off on our travels too--my daughter and I; and you, Herr Alfred, shall be our escort. We shall all three go, and a few other friends will go with us, I hope;" and she bowed invitingly to them all round, so that each individual might have thought, "It is I she wishes to accompany her." "Yes, we will go to Italy, but not where the robbers are; we will stay in Rome, or only go by the great high roads, where people are safe, of course."

And the daughter heaved a gentle sigh. How much can there not lie in a slight sigh, or be supposed to lie in it! The young man put a world of feeling into it; the two blue eyes that had beamed on him that evening concealed the treasure--the treasure of heart and of mind, richer far than all the glories of Rome; and when he left the party he was over head and ears in love with the widow's pretty daughter.

The widow's house became the house of all others most visited by Herr Alfred, the sculptor. People knew that it could not be for the mother's sake he sought it so often, although he and she were always the speakers; it must be for the daughter's sake he went. She was called Kala, though christened Karen Malene: the two names had been mutilated, and thrown together into the one appellation, Kala. She was very beautiful, but rather silly, some people hinted, and rather indolent. She was certainly a very late riser in the morning.

"She has been accustomed to that from her childhood," said her mother. "She has always been such a little Venus that she was scarcely ever found fault with. She is not a very early riser, but to this she owes her fine clear eyes."

What power there was in these clear eyes--these swimming blue eyes! The young man felt it. He told anecdote upon anecdote, and answered question after question; and mamma always asked the same lively, sensible, pertinent questions as she had asked at first.

It was a pleasure to hear Herr Alfred speak. He described Naples, the ascent of Mount Vesuvius, and several of its eruptions; and the widow lady, who had never heard of them before, was lost in surprise.

"Mercy on us!" she exclaimed; "then it is a volcano? Does it ever do any harm to anybody?"

"It has destroyed entire towns," he replied: "Pompeii and Herculaneum."

"But the poor inhabitants! Did you see it yourself?"

"No, not either of these eruptions, but I have a sketch taken by myself of an eruption which I did witness."

Then he selected from his portfolio a sketch done with a black-lead pencil; but mamma, who delighted in highly-coloured pictures, looked at the pale sketch, and exclaimed in amazement,--

"You saw it gush out white?"

Mamma got into Herr Alfred's black books for a few minutes, and he felt profound contempt for her; but the light from Kala's eyes soon dispelled his gloom. He bethought him that her mother had no knowledge of drawing, that was all; but she had what was far better--she had the sweet, beautiful Kala.

As might have been expected, Alfred and Kala became engaged, and their betrothal was announced in the newspaper of the town. Mamma bought thirty copies of it, that she might cut the paragraphs out, and inclose them to various friends. The betrothed pair were very happy, and so was the mamma: she felt almost as proud as if her family were going to be connected with Thorwaldsen.