The Czechoslovak Review/Volume 4/Eyes of Sapphire

by Anna Maria Tilschová

Eyes of Sapphire

(Translated from the Čech of Anna Maria by Libuše A. Breuer).

Ida, who was four whole summers older than nine-year-old Bertha, had already read two novels; she had received a real kiss in a game of forfeits; and was not only Bertha’s warm friend, but also her advisor. When the burning Sun beat too mercilessly on the yellow sand in the garden, and on the green trees, and on the blue, white, red, and violet-colored flowers, Bertha and Ida sat on the plush divan in the corner of the salon, behind the portieres. All the while out of doors it was very warm and close—but. the little girls found it just right for talking in the semi-twilight of the little chamber. Bertha would ask questions, and Ida would answer. When would she be a young lady? Is Ida a young lady already? Does a person feel different? Did Bertha still look like a child, or did she seem just a little grown-up; a little older than she really was? The older child would put her arms about her waist and tell her that she should first grow a little, then she would grow a little more, and let down her skirts—and then she would go to dances, and then get married. Of course, love would come in, too. Then Ida divided love into two classes, the fortunate and the unfortunate; fortunate if the lovers married, and unfortunate if they did not. And the mystical and golden dusk of the drawn portieres enhanced the veiled charm of love for the little girls.

One day Ida came running in, flushed, embarrassed, and serious. At first she did not wish to say anything—because she could not say it—but then, when Bertha, eager and impatient, promised her she would not tell to any one, not even to mamma, nor Emma, her best friend at school, if she confided in her, Ida whispered her confession. She loved, right now, at first sight. Like a lightning stroke, love had come to her. Bertha, just the least bit jealous, and very inquisitive, begged, “But who, who?” It did not matter that he was below Ida socially, she wished to share poverty and suffering with him—everything till death. “But who, please, who is it?” Bertha entreated. Ida took her hand in a manner full of mystery, and, drawing her closer, whispered into her inquisitive little ear. “Hugo.” Hugo? But Bertha had never heard that name. Ida, tying and retying the black ribbon on her light braid, rather excitedly stammered out her story. What, did she not know that he was their gardner’s new hand, who came only yesterday in those high, close-fitting boots, and with eyes just like sapphires—and she, Bertha, did not know that? Then, after Bertha promised: she would do nothing to make them conspicuous, and would make no silly witticism about him, Ida took her hand and went to show him to Bertha.

They passed thru the fragrant, shaded avenue of lindens, whispering and laughing; they passed beside the bed of great red strawberries, sweet as kisses, but only passed there. They passed around the rosebushes, full of buds, and suddenly, there by the fish-pond, in which were ruffs and four reddish goldfishes, they saw a hand clipping the bushes, and a cap with a huntsman’s feather, bending over the roses. They hushed their laughing prattle—it was he, Hugo. Ida drew a roll from the pocket, and slowly, slowly began to crumble it in small pieces, smaller yet, still smaller—so the little fishes would not choke—and patiently one little piece at a time, she cast the crumbs into the water. Suddenly the gay, huntsman’s cap behind the bushes was raised, two sapphire eyes gleamed out, and the pleasantest, most courteous voice in the world said: “I kiss your hand, little ladies.”^[1].—‘I kiss your hand,’ he had said,— —and ‘little ladies,’— —Bertha was thinking, and he really did have indescribably beautiful sapphire eyes. And Ida? When she heard the sound of his voice, she did not know whether to laugh or cry for joy, but the simplest thing to do never entered her mind—to return the greeting. And how long she had stood by the pond waiting for him to look up—suddenly she seized Bertha by the hand, jerked her around and disappeared down the avenue of lindens, nor did she stop till she had reached the house, out of breath and angry at herself. What will he think? Want and poverty she wished to share with him, and then she did not even return his greeting—and great, childish tears of distress and mortification fell from Ida’s dark eyes. Bertha pulled at her apron, and said in a very decided tone, “Ida he has eyes just like sapphires!” “Like sapphires,” echoed Ida dreamily,—both happy and sad at once. Then after dinner, when the two little girls had huddled together in the corner, Bertha proudly confided to Ida that she, too, was in love—with the sapphire eyes.

And both little girls, the older and the younger, would go a-wooing, without any unpleasantness between them. They would sing little snatches of song, toss their ball, and roll their great hoops,—in front of Hugo’s window, around the shrubs of quince apple he was trimming, around the rosebushes he was grafting. even around the greenhouse where he was watering the flowers. Like birds they would wheel about him, now showing themselves, now hiding—they would flash among the bushes, disappear in the thicket. They would put their heads very close together, as if telling each other secrets, or call across to each other some humorous bit of nonsense; or sometimes sadly and languidly, overcome by this love-sickness, they would walk thru the garden paths.—They went a-wooing, both the little girls.

Once, while Ida was playing Mozart’s Sonata in C major, Bertha ran out by herself, for strawberries,—and to find the sapphire eyes.—She leaped across the ditch, scrambled up the escarpment, to see how the strawberries were ripening—then, just as her foot touched the ground, a stone slipped and rolled down, and a great fat frog hopped out so suddenly that Bertha screamed. But what she did not tell, even to Ida, was that perhaps she would not have become so frightened, and would not have screamed so, had she not caught a glimpse of a huntsman’s cap nearby. “What is the matter with the little lady?” an amiable voice behind her asked. “Why it’s nothing but a frog!” But Bertha, wanting to be pitied in her startled helplessness, said, “I’m afraid, I’m afraid, I’m terribly afraid.” A booted foot stamped, a stone flew from his hand and landed in the grass, a smile fluttered in the blue eyes, and—nothing. But to nine-year-old Bertha, it seemed that this gallant rescue brought her closer to—the eyes of sapphire.

Maybe it was a week, perhaps a fortnight later, that the two little girls were racing along the sun-flecked shadows of the garden. They ran along the path and on the grass, and around Hugo’s window, which was wide open. Shyly and timidly, in the midst of their skipping, they peeped in.—The room was empty, not a soul in it. Like kittens they crept nearer, like thieves they stole up, silently, without a sound. Their inquisitive little eyes had a good opportunity to admire the cupboard and the lamp on top of it, and the shabby coat hanging on the nail, and the table, on which stood a pair of cuffs, one thrust into the other. But suddenly, all at once, the eyes were arrested by a single object. On the table stood a framed picture of a woman, a young woman. It might have been a sister, but to them it was she—their rival; one rival for both the little girls. For a long time they stood there, for a long time they gazed on that picture, and then, no longer quietly, they ran off together.

And in the corner of the salon they talked of his ungratefulness and faithlessness, of his treachery, black as sin. They cried a little over it, scolded a little; but all at once they thought of something. Just exactly as Hugo, with his deceiving eyes of sapphire, was untrue to them, just so could the lady in the picture be unfaithful to him—and then perhaps they could take the woman’s place. Which of them would he choose? Ida, altho she did not say it aloud, decided it would be herself, for was she not only the older, but the prettier also? And Bertha? She was certain it would be herself. Did he not gallantly rescue her on the embankment? But she did not speak of this to Ida. But this nothing worried the little girls as they sat embracing each other, nor kept them from musing and prattling of the treacherous depth of the sapphire ayes.

Just as anything has its end, so the harmonious love of these two little girls had its end, without quarrels or rupture, an end altogether sudden, just as the beginning.

On this day it was not hot, but the rain fell at intervals, and the wind rocked the branches peeping in at the windows. Now and then a swallow flew thru the trees, its white breast and dark-bluish tail glancing against the clouded sky. Late in the forenoon the door in the vestibule creaked, steps resounded on the tiles, and someone knocked on the door. Neither Ida nor Bertha called “Come in!”—little girls never call “Come in!” The door opened, and there, huntsman’s cap in hand, stood he. They sat as tho frozen to their chairs. He wished to know where the “gracious mistress was;” he wished to speak with her. A pause. A long pause. Then Bertha, younger and less confused, said she was in the kitchen. He bowed himself out, the door closed—that precious door, from which had gleamed those jewels, his eyes—retreating steps resounded, and the end came, tho the little girls knew it not.

As before, they could not utter a word, so now one talked faster than the other. They caught hold of hands and danced round and round. Then they decided that the question about his mistress was a mere excuse; that since they had not come out, he wanted to see them. They squeeled, and hurrahed, and sang and danced, and jumped about, and finally flew into a tempest of laughter, now quieting down, now bursting out again, till at last they both scrambled under the bed, so their mad, childish laughter would not be heard in the next room. They did not know why, but they laughed and laughed and laughed.

The next day when the sun shone out again, and the heavens turned blue, the little girls, in light colored dresses, went outdoors. They passed down the linden alley, threw some bread to the little fishes, loitered about the greenhouse, ran thru all the foot-paths, rested in the arbor, but—in vain. Bewildered, they wandered about the first day, restless the next; on the third day they asked about him. Of mamma? No, for they thought that even that question would betray them; but of the waiting maid, just casually, among other questions, one bending over an embroidery frame, the other with her face against the window-pane. Hugo was gone—why, the maid herself did not know; he had to go home, she said. Both little girls’ expression changed mutually. It was just that way in one of the novels Ida had read. He felt, the dear fellow, the dear, foolish fellow, their difference in rank, and so he left; he conquered himself. Could there be any other explanation of his departure? The girl in the frame never entered their minds. And in the corner, their own corner, they both cried over it, each trying to outdo the other in grief and depth of feeling for—the eyes of sapphire. Their tears quickly came, and as quickly dried over the strawberries, cherries and currants, over the carnations and roses, and perhaps even over—their dolls.

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1. In Czechoslovakia the common form of greeting from a person of lower to one of higher rank.