OCR Text |
Show 109 parents to know that we are away from our beds." Ulrich had come up to us and pounded my back in an excess of heartiness. "Isn't this good sport, Geist, boon companion?" he asked. "Isn't this better than...than...shooting rabbits with an arrow?" When he said that Damien and Dietrich broke into great guffaws which they tried to stifle with their hands. "Oh, that was witty, Ulrich. Such a clever fellow you are." Ulrich turned all the way around and pulled a grotesque face. "Or better than...kissing the Bishop's ring!" he cried in a muffled shout, and the twins convulsed with laughter. I broke away from them and searched for Hilde, but I could not find her. All around me children greeted each other in soft voices, giggled together, then moved to a different group as though they were performing some outlandish dance. None of them seemed ill, only very merry, very friendly, and easily amused. "This is the third night I have slept not the littlest eyelash of a wink," I heard Gunther von Emmern tell a small group, and the children burst into gales of giggles. "When the cock crows we must go home and pretend to be asleep," Maria Gruelhot said. Werner Lothe immediately made the sound of a cock crowing, very muted. "Not yet, you donkey-head," Maria tittered, "but when the real cock crows. You're not a cock, you're a nanny-goat." Then I saw Hilde. She was singing, softly singing into the ear of Gerhardt, who had a blissful smile on his face. |