Victoria Read Free

don’t know. It’s miserable here on earth too.”
    Pause.
    “After those city boys came, you’ve been with them all the time,” he says.
    Another pause.
    “Still, you know, I’m stronger than any of them for carrying you and for lifting you out of the boat,” Johannes continues. “I’m sure I could stand holding you for a whole hour. Look!”
    He took her in his arms and lifted her. She held on to his neck.
    “All right, but now you don’t have to stand me anymore.”
    He put her down. “But Otto is also strong,” she said. “He has even fought with grownups.”
    “With grownups?” Johannes asks doubtfully.
    “Yes, he has. In town.”
    Pause.
    Johannes ponders. “Well,” he says, “that’s that. I know what I’ll do.”
    “What will you do?”
    “I’ll go into service with the giant.”
    “Oh no! Say, are you mad?” Victoria screams.
    “Oh, yes, that’s what I’ll do. I don’t care.”
    Victoria thinks of a way out. “But perhaps he won’t be back anymore now.”
    “He’ll be back,” Johannes replies.
    “Here?” she asks quickly.
    “Yes.”
     
    Victoria gets up and withdraws to the mouth of the cave. “Come, we’d better leave.”
    “No need to hurry,” says Johannes, who has himself turned pale. “He won’t be here until tonight. On the stroke of midnight.”
    Victoria calms down and is about to go back to her seat. But Johannes finds it difficult to overcome the uneasiness he has himself awakened and, feeling the cave has become too dangerous for him, he says, “If you insist on leaving, I do have a stone with your name on it out there. I’ll be glad to show it to you.”
    They crawl out of the cave and find the stone. Victoria is proud and happy. Johannes is touched and says, almost in tears, “You must think of me now and then when you look at it while I’m away. Send me a friendly thought.”
    “Certainly,” Victoria answers. “But you’ll come back, won’t you?”
    “Oh, God knows. No, I probably won’t.”
    They started walking homeward. Johannes is close to tears.
    “Good-bye, then,” Victoria says.
    “No, I can walk you a little farther.”
    However, her callous readiness to say good-bye to him—the sooner the better—makes him feel bitter and kindles anger in his lacerated heart. Stopping abruptly, he says with righteous indignation, “But I can tell you one thing, Victoria: you will never find anybody who would be as kind to you as I. I can tell you that much.”
    “But Otto is also kind,” she retorts.
    “All right, take him.”
    They walk a few steps in silence.
    “I’ll do just fine, don’t you worry. You don’t know yet how much I’ll get in wages.”
    “No. What will you get?”
    “Half the kingdom. For one.”
    “Fancy that! You will, really?”
    “And I’ll have the princess too.”
    Victoria stops. “That’s not true, is it?”
    “Oh yes, that’s what he said.”
    Pause. Victoria mutters to herself, “I wonder what she looks like.”
    “Oh, good Lord, she’s more beautiful than any earthly woman. Well, that we knew already.”
    Victoria is crushed. “So you want her, then?” she asks.
    “Yes, I guess it will come to that,” he answers. However, seeing that Victoria is really upset, he adds, “But it’s quite possible I’ll be back some day. That I’ll take a trip back to earth again.”
    “But then you mustn’t take her with you,” she pleads. “What would you want her with you for?”
    “Well, I can come alone.”
    “Will you promise me that?”
    “All right, I promise. But what do you care anyway! I really can’t expect you to care about that.”
    “Don’t say such things, I tell you,” Victoria answers. “I’m positive she doesn’t love you as much as I do.”
    His youthful heart trembles with a warm delight. He could have sunk into the ground with joy and bashfulness at her words. Not daring to face her, he looks away. Then he picks up a twig from the ground, gnaws off its bark and smacks his hand