One
She was a child of nine who knew no friend. An all-watching child who viewed the play of others in the square; who read in their secret whispering descriptions of herself. She knew the reason for this. She couldn't follow the rules. She misinterpreted signals. Worse, she didn't know how to play. Everything she did was either too much or not enough. Whatever she did, it was wrong.
So she listened for other whispering and found it in the water that bubbled from the fountain, in the rustle of needles in the conifer beyond her window, in the distant call of the early morning vendors as they set up their stalls in the market place. And she would wander further from the small cottage by the granary, to where the wind roams free and where the trees grow tall and tight together. And it was there that she came upon a tree whose ladder-like branches rose up and up.
The tree stood in the Vienna Woods, together with the maples and the elms, the beeches and the oaks. Now, settled high in a fork of its branches, she could hear the whispering of early morning, see the carts trundling into the marketplace, the raggedy boys with hoops scooting behind their turning wheels, trace with a finger the distant ruins of Rauhenstein still cloaked in mist; follow the mayor bustling his way to the town hall as the clock struck the hour.
Soon sunlight would streak from the heavens, like the picture in her Stories from the Bible . With sunlight would come people, walking and talking and laughing, and calling each other by name. The morning would become a different colour and shape, and mask the sounds of silence.
Then on one particular day something broke the silence. The child looked left and right, and behind her. The sound was sharp, made, perhaps, by some animal. But what? And a strange looking creature had appeared out of nowhere and was striding along a path. It was a man. His head was down as though he was searching the ground for something; his hands were behind his back. The child eased into the fork of the tree. The man veered off the path and took another leading in her direction. She eased further into the fork. Now she could see him clearly. The man was small and rugged. His hair was the colour of the maple leaf in autumn and it grew wildly from his head in a tangle of curls. His clothes were shabby, his boots muddy, and around his neck he wore a rag. His unfastened frockcoat, long and blue in colour, billowed behind him as he walked. He reminded her of the stunted waterbirds with the blue-black wings that roam the lake. Suddenly he stopped and lifted his head. The man's face was red, his skin pock-marked. He stood beneath her tree and stared into the sky. Still staring, he started to move his hand up and down, then brought it to his lips and began to tap with one finger ...
In the fork of the tree the child's foot was stuck. As she tried to wrench it free, a branch cracked. The man turned. He didn't seem to register seeing a child in a tree. It was as though he was looking at her but through her to something else, something deep and far away. Now he was scrabbling in his pockets. The child watched as he took out a thick carpenter's pencil and a notebook and started filling the page with strange markings. From time to time he'd stop, move his hand backwards and forwards across his chest. And scribble on.
Now from this way and that came hurrying and scurrying and laughing and calling. As a giggling trio pounded across his path, the man let out an explosion of words, raw and terrible ...
There was only one the watcher in the tree could hear clearly as, his frockcoat ballooning behind him, he raged back in the direction from which he had come.
The word cruel.
Two
In narrow streets by the granary are the cottages where the poor people live. Those who work in factories, who thresh the grain, or those who, for a few Kreutzers, tinkle away on their barrel organs or perform conjuring tricks in the square.
In one such dwelling the child
She was a child of nine who knew no friend. An all-watching child who viewed the play of others in the square; who read in their secret whispering descriptions of herself. She knew the reason for this. She couldn't follow the rules. She misinterpreted signals. Worse, she didn't know how to play. Everything she did was either too much or not enough. Whatever she did, it was wrong.
So she listened for other whispering and found it in the water that bubbled from the fountain, in the rustle of needles in the conifer beyond her window, in the distant call of the early morning vendors as they set up their stalls in the market place. And she would wander further from the small cottage by the granary, to where the wind roams free and where the trees grow tall and tight together. And it was there that she came upon a tree whose ladder-like branches rose up and up.
The tree stood in the Vienna Woods, together with the maples and the elms, the beeches and the oaks. Now, settled high in a fork of its branches, she could hear the whispering of early morning, see the carts trundling into the marketplace, the raggedy boys with hoops scooting behind their turning wheels, trace with a finger the distant ruins of Rauhenstein still cloaked in mist; follow the mayor bustling his way to the town hall as the clock struck the hour.
Soon sunlight would streak from the heavens, like the picture in her Stories from the Bible . With sunlight would come people, walking and talking and laughing, and calling each other by name. The morning would become a different colour and shape, and mask the sounds of silence.
Then on one particular day something broke the silence. The child looked left and right, and behind her. The sound was sharp, made, perhaps, by some animal. But what? And a strange looking creature had appeared out of nowhere and was striding along a path. It was a man. His head was down as though he was searching the ground for something; his hands were behind his back. The child eased into the fork of the tree. The man veered off the path and took another leading in her direction. She eased further into the fork. Now she could see him clearly. The man was small and rugged. His hair was the colour of the maple leaf in autumn and it grew wildly from his head in a tangle of curls. His clothes were shabby, his boots muddy, and around his neck he wore a rag. His unfastened frockcoat, long and blue in colour, billowed behind him as he walked. He reminded her of the stunted waterbirds with the blue-black wings that roam the lake. Suddenly he stopped and lifted his head. The man's face was red, his skin pock-marked. He stood beneath her tree and stared into the sky. Still staring, he started to move his hand up and down, then brought it to his lips and began to tap with one finger ...
In the fork of the tree the child's foot was stuck. As she tried to wrench it free, a branch cracked. The man turned. He didn't seem to register seeing a child in a tree. It was as though he was looking at her but through her to something else, something deep and far away. Now he was scrabbling in his pockets. The child watched as he took out a thick carpenter's pencil and a notebook and started filling the page with strange markings. From time to time he'd stop, move his hand backwards and forwards across his chest. And scribble on.
Now from this way and that came hurrying and scurrying and laughing and calling. As a giggling trio pounded across his path, the man let out an explosion of words, raw and terrible ...
There was only one the watcher in the tree could hear clearly as, his frockcoat ballooning behind him, he raged back in the direction from which he had come.
The word cruel.
Two
In narrow streets by the granary are the cottages where the poor people live. Those who work in factories, who thresh the grain, or those who, for a few Kreutzers, tinkle away on their barrel organs or perform conjuring tricks in the square.
In one such dwelling the child
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