Page:Georges Eekhoud - Escal Vigor, a novel.djvu/156



this understanding, Guidon came every day to the chateau. Kehlmark shut himself up with him for long hours in his studio. The young peasant applied himself to learning, endeavouring with a neophyte's zeal and ardour, worthy of a creato or apprentice of the masters of the Italian Renaissance. No recreation for either was comparable to this initiation. Guidon was at once the model, the pupil, and the disciple of Kehlmark. When they were tired of writing, reading or drawing, Guidon would take his bugle, or maybe, with his bell-like voice he would sing heroic airs of ancient times, which he had learned from the Klaarvatsch fishermen.

Kehlmark could no longer do without his pupil and had him sent for, if he delayed to come. The one was never seen without the other. They had become inseparable. Guidon usually dined at Escal-Vigor, so that