But Magdalena knew she could not ask him .sx When Melchior at last returned she did not even .sx see him .sx Jakob told her he was back , and she said , .sx " Is he then not coming to see us ?sx " The next day Melchior sent her a little note :sx " Dear Magdalena , I cannot come to see you and your most kind parents at present .sx I am working .sx I see nobody .sx But do not quite forget me .sx Melchior .sx " It was the first note she had ever had from him .sx She handled it tenderly , she carried it all day in her bosom its presence comforted her in some curious way , though all she had of him was a denial .sx XXI .sx JAKOB sat on the grass by the side of a small winding stream .sx It was a delicate spring morning , the light was pale and radiant .sx The sky was a young blue , reflected in the moving waters of the stream , the grass a green as youthful .sx Two slim poplars stood like sisters at the turn of the valley , as though looking for whoever might come , and against the sky gently moved the yellow and silver of willow catkins .sx It was a morning on which it was quite necessary to be joyful , and Jakob felt his troubles slip from his shoulders like a winter cloak .sx There had been many troubles , it seemed to him , looking back .sx Everybody appeared older and much more dreary since this affair of Hedwig .sx Melchior was greatly changed , he had shut himself up , he would not go anywhere , he made excuses that he was working .sx Magdalena looked sad .sx The lovely Hedwig was gone .sx On the whole he thought he was glad she had gone , though it destroyed any hope that she might change her mind and heal Melchior's sorrow .sx But for himself he had grown a little tired of the part of the rejected lover a part to which he was in reality hardly entitled , as he had never been refused .sx He thought he would like to be quite cheerful , for a change .sx There were a lot of very nice things in the world which had nothing to do with women .sx This little river , for instance , sparkling with enjoyment of the sunshine ; all the delicate plants which grew at the edges , among the pebbles ; that bird swinging on the yielding willow bough .sx He wished Melchior would forget Hedwig , and even as he wished it that pure voice singing Melchior's Ein Gleiches came to his mind Melchior would not have written it had it not been for Hedwig , and it was pure beauty , beauty which would last when all this unhappiness had passed away .sx Life was very puzzling , thought Jakob , and even as he made this not entirely original reflection , a voice came to his ears , a voice quite unlike Hedwig's , which protested in sobbing tones that it was tired , that it was hot , that it wanted to be carried .sx The voice came nearer , and round a bend of the little valley Jakob saw a young peasant woman , who herself looked tired and hot , struggling with a little plump girl , too heavy to be carried any distance , who was obviously determined to walk no further .sx The woman looked much more exhausted than .sx the child , and had moreover a heavy basket of rural produce on her arm .sx " I cannot carry you any more , Marta , " she said .sx As they approached Jakob , the child ceased for a time her pleadings in the interest of staring at him .sx The woman set down her basket for a moment , and with a curtsey said to Jakob :sx " Could you tell me , sir , how far it is to Mansberg ?sx " " You walk an hour , " he answered , sorry for her tired look , " so had not you and this small Mdchen better sit down and rest awhile ?sx " " If you permit , sir , " she replied , as though the river bank belonged to Jakob , which naturally made him feel that he must act as host to these wayfarers .sx Marta had been staring at him solemnly with her round eyes she appeared extraordinarily self-possessed when not crying and suddenly sat down on Jakob's knee .sx " Tell Marta a story , " she said .sx Jakob was quite amazed at this , and the warm , round , compact weight of her .sx The mother started up to remove the child , telling her she must come off the gentleman's knee .sx " He's not a gentleman , " said Marta , " he's nice .sx " And she snuggled herself more securely against Jakob .sx He put an arm round her firm little body .sx " Have you heard the story of the cat of Vorbach ?sx " he asked .sx " No , " said she , with a pleased anticipatory wriggle .sx " Tell Marta .sx " " Well , it was this way .sx There is a village called Vorbach , and a long , long time ago it was plagued with rats and mice .sx There were so many of them they used to bite the people's toes in bed and eat up all the food .sx There was another village not far off where things were just as bad .sx And there was not a cat in either village .sx So the people in the two villages decided they would join together and buy a cat .sx They got a large bag , just the size to take a cat , and began putting in it all the Groschen they could get for cats are very expensive till at last it was full .sx Then the pedlar came along the road the pedlar who sells cats .sx Some pedlars sell ribands and sugar sticks and cinnamon cakes , but this pedlar sold cats .sx When he saw the bag full of money he said that was just the price of a very good cat , so he turned all the money out on to the ground he was very careful to pick it all up again before he went away and put a large black Katchen with white feet into the bag , and the people of the two villages went away very pleased with their cat .sx She was a very clever cat , and was rented out by the day to different houses in the two villages .sx That cat had so many opportunities she did not know how to keep all her engagements .sx And that is why we say , if anyone is very much in a hurry , " You are as busy as the Katchen of Vorbach !sx ' " Marta likes that story , " said the child , who had become entirely contented and placid .sx " Now tell one about a goose .sx " Jakob did not know one about a goose , so he just made one up out of his head .sx The mother listened with as much admiration and interest as was displayed by her small daughter .sx " Oh , mein Herr , " she said , " I do wish that my old bed-ridden father could hear you tell those tales .sx He do love a bit of a story , keeps him happy all day , it do , and my little Hans , two years older than Marta , and then there is Berta , and the Miller's hunchback " A whole procession of people who were not hearing Jakob's stories seemed to pass regretfully before her eyes .sx When she and the child , both rested and restored by having their minds taken from their footsteps , had departed with thanks and curtseys , Jakob stretched himself on his back and reflected on what the woman had said .sx His mind was full of little stories of which , up till then , he had taken small account , looking upon them as remembrances of his childish days .sx But the world as he was later to discover was also full of simple people , and of children , who liked simple stories .sx These little stories , these Mrchen , fluttered in his mind , like birds that wanted release from a cage to fly out into the world .sx Some he had known from his earliest youth , they had been told him by his Grossmutter and the old women who lived in the Alms-houses .sx Some just came into his mind , he did not know from where they came to him when he looked at things , especially little things , like a snail on a leaf , a thimble , or a carved bone lace-bobbin , a bird in a nest , or a sprouting shoot of corn , or recalled a toy like the small brown and yellow tortoise whose legs waved in the air , enclosed in a tiny glass box , which he had possessed in his childhood .sx He liked to tell these little tales , if there was anyone who cared to listen to them a nice child , preferably a pretty child , but at least clean and gentle , and if it was not pretty , then if it was specially plain or handicapped in some way , his very pitiful heart was touched .sx He had been so much handicapped in his own childhood by plainness , poverty , queer clothes and queerer manners indeed he was never entirely free from this drawback , and from his humiliating habit of blushing , the whole of his life that he knew acutely what it felt like .sx Melchior , as well as children , liked his stories ; he found in them such a contrast to his own outlook that they were a continual refreshment to him .sx The difference in their temperaments was shown in their attitude towards nature :sx they both loved pine forests passionately and spent some of their happiest days wandering there together .sx But to Jakob the Tannenwald was the home of elves , Easter hares , grasshoppers who played little fiddles while the fir-cones danced , witch-like old women , magical charcoal-burners , and all sorts of fantastic and friendly figures .sx But to Melchior these woods were more often haunted by immense and shadowy presences Life , Time , Destiny .sx His more sombre mind , however , did not prevent his enjoying Jakob's little stories , and he often said to Jakob , " Why do you not write them in a book ?sx it is a pity to forget them .sx " Jakob , however , thought so little of them he did not consider it worth the trouble .sx He was quite sure .sx no publisher would want to print such trifling things And for himself he had much larger ambitions .sx So the little stories , the Mrchen , were still shut up in his brain .sx Just now and then a small one got out to amuse a child , and danced about in the sunshine , and was repeated in a garbled form , and nobody knew where it came from after a time .sx And Jakob wandered about the world with his head in the clouds , looking on the mountain-tops or in kings' palaces for fame and fortune , and all the things the Wise Woman of Rodenstein had prophesied were to be his .sx Book Six Solitude .sx I .sx IN one thing Melchior and Jakob were alike they were both restless .sx But Jakob's restlessness took the form of a desire to travel , he wanted to see the world , to go to Russia , Palestine , Turkey , England , even across the wide Atlantic though the sea frightened him to those countries of America which had recently been doing exciting things in making history .sx But Melchior's restlessness was expressed in a perpetual changing of his abode .sx He moved into new rooms .sx With immense labours and incredible damage he would transfer all his belongings which became more chaotic with each move to new quarters .sx He would stand triumphant in the midst of a dire confusion saying that at any rate there was one comfort , he always could lay his hand on anything he wanted .sx Then with a cry of rage he would discover that his latest manuscript or his favourite neck-cloth was not to be found it was his landlady's fault , though possibly the unfortunate woman had not even been allowed to enter her own rooms .sx He would leave at once , he would not stay in such a place .sx Forth he would tramp in search of a new home , and the whole business would begin over again .sx On several occasions he was paying .sx for two sets of rooms , in neither of which would he live , and searching for a third .sx Such a little would drive him away an old gentleman on the same staircase who insisted on saying " Guten Tag " to him when they met ; the fact that the maid who fetched the water from the pump in the courtyard had a hump-back and she should not carry heavy pails for him .sx