He was amused. But he was nearly knocked off his
horse. If you lived in America now, you might reap a goodly profit from
that goose."
"America? How?"
"You could put him in a museum and exhibit him as an intimate friend of
the grand duke of Ehrenstein."
But Gretchen did not laugh. It was a serious thing to talk lightly of so
grand a person as the duke. Still, the magic word America, where the
gold came from, flamed her curiosity.
"You are from America?"
"Yes."
"Are you rich?"
"In fancy, in dreams"--humorously.
"Oh! I thought they were all rich."
"Only one or two of us."
"Is it very large, this America?"
"France, Spain, Prussia would be lonesome if set down in America. Only
Russia has anything to boast of."
"Did you fight in the war?"
"Yes. Do you like music?"
"Were you ever wounded?"
"A scratch or two, nothing to speak of. But do you like music?"
"Very, very much. When they play Beethoven, Bach, or Meyerbeer, _ach_, I
seem to live in another country. I hear music in everything, in the
leaves, the rain, the wind, the stream."
It seemed strange to him that he had not noticed it at first, the almost
Hanoverian purity of her speech and the freedom with which she spoke.
The average peasant is diffident, with a vocabulary of few words,
ignorant of art or music or where the world lay.
Pages:
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38