Do you always read books of that kind?"
"Always? I don't read many books in the course of a year, and the kind
I really like the best are those that have Indians in them."
"But poetry? Oehlenschlager, Schiller, and the others?"
"Oh, of course I know them; we had a whole bookcase full of them at
home, and Miss Holm--my mother's companion--read them aloud after
lunch and in the evenings; but I can't say that I cared for them; I
don't like verse."
"Don't like verse? You said had, isn't your mother living any more?"
"No, neither is my father."
He said this with a rather sullen, hostile tone, and the conversation
halted for a time and made it possible to hear clearly the many little
sounds created by the movement of the boat through the water. The girl
broke the silence:
"Do you like paintings?"
"Altar-pieces? Oh, I don't know."
"Yes, or other pictures, landscapes for instance?"
"Do people paint those too? Of course they do, I know that very well."
"You are laughing at me?"
"I? Oh yes, one of us is doing that"
"But aren't you a student?"
"Student? Why should I be? No, I am nothing."
"But you must be something. You must do something?"
"But why?"
"Why, because--everybody does something!"
"Are you doing something?"
"Oh well, but you are not a lady."
"No, heaven be praised."
"Thank you."
He stopped rowing, drew the oars out of the water, looked her into the
face and asked:
"What do you mean by that?--No, don't be angry with me; I will tell
you something, I am a queer sort of person.
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