"She is so kind-hearted! And I have done so little for her; been able to do so little for her! I have, properly speaking, done nothing but tease her. Even that last evening--you recollect Bemperlein, when you appeared as author--when you kissed each other in the bay-window, when we drank the old hock, and pa afterwards gave his grand speech, the last I ever heard from his lips. Now only I know what it was that moved him so deeply. He took leave of us, not only for the moment, but forever."
Sophie tried to master the emotion which threatened to overcome her, and then she continued:
"I have done so little for Marguerite, and she has done so much for me!
Do you know, Bemperlein, that I was weak enough to become quite jealous of the little one when I saw, in papa's letters, how very fond he was of her, and how he disliked the idea of your getting married even more than our own marriage?"
"And yet it was only by his assistance that we were able to marry; at least Marguerite is indebted to him alone for her trousseau and the furnishing of our house, both of which would otherwise have been almost out of the question. You know, I am sure, what I mean!"
"The Timm affair! Marguerite wrote me about it. What amazed me most was, that Timm should have returned the money so promptly."
"We were all astonished; no one more so than I, who knew best how overwhelmed he was with debts--a fact which led me to dissuade your father earnestly from making a useless effort. The whole affair has caused me, _entre nous_, a good deal of heart-ache; and little reason as I have to like Mr. Timm, I have still been quite sorry when I heard soon afterwards of his being sent to jail. He was unable, it seems, to pay a note long since due, and perhaps only because he had paid us. For all I know, he is a prisoner still."
"What!" said Sophie, "has my old admirer really come to that at last?"
"Your old admirer?"
"Yes; don't you know it? I went to the same dancing master as Timm; and I can well say that I liked him best of all with whom I talked or danced. He is an extremely clever man, and can be most agreeable when he chooses to be so. I am sincerely sorry that he should manage his great talents so very badly. He resembles in that respect----"
"Oswald Stein, you mean. Well, say on. I have fortunately mastered the feeling of bitterness which used to overcome me in Grunwald every time I heard the name mentioned. He does not exist any longer, as far as I am concerned, especially after his last adventures."
"That is hardly right, Bemperly. You know I never liked Stein particularly; but since you all rise in arms against him, and since even Franz, who used to excuse him so long, begins to chime in, I have a great inclination to take his part."
"Of course," said Bemperlein, with a slight touch of bitterness; "that is the old story. Women like a man the better, the worse he is. Even my Marguerite, who generally cannot bear him, breathed the other day a _pauvre homme_ in her softest notes! _Pauvre homme!_ I should like to know what sensible man would think so of him. If a man rushes madly through life, acting not upon principle but upon impulse; if he must needs gratify all his caprices, and if he meets with difficulties breaks out in furious anger; if, instead of loving his neighbor like himself, he runs away by night with his neighbor's wife--they say of him, with tears of sympathy in their fair eyes: _Pauvre homme!_"
"Bravo, Bemperly," cried Sophie, almost with her old cheerfulness; "bravo! You could not preach better if you were yourself the happy neighbor! But tell me, has no one heard anything yet of the reckless couple?"
"As far as I know, no one? The earth seems to have swallowed them up."
"But how does the unlucky husband bear his misfortune?"
"Ah," said Bemperlein, almost angrily, "it is not worth while to sympathize with that class of people. They deserve nothing better, and reap what they sow. Just think, Miss Sophie--I meant to say _Mrs._ Sophie--this man, this Cloten, who, when Stein had run away with his wife, behaved himself as if he never cared to see the sun shine any more, not only found comfort in a very short time, but has inflicted the same injury on his neighbor's house that he himself suffered. Baron Barnewitz, Frau von Berkow's cousin--the one with the red beard, you know, and the broad shoulders. Oh, you must have seen him. No? Well, it does not matter--_Eh bien!_ Baron Barnewitz comes home the other day at an unseasonable hour and finds--so gossip has it--the door to his wife's room locked, suspects mischief, breaks a window, pulls out the whole sash, rushes into the room and catches Baron Cloten, whom his wife is just pushing out at another door! Then follows an explanation; and the result is that Hortense has gone to Italy, and Baron Cloten, after keeping his bed for a week, has retired to his estates without taking leave of anybody."
"What a treasure trove that must have been for the good gossips of Grunwald!"
"You may believe it; almost as great as when Helen Grenwitz became engaged to Prince Waldenberg."
"How is that?"
"As far as I know, the solemn betrothal--I mean the official ceremony--is to be celebrated here in the city in a few days. Anna Maria told me recently that Helen would be here at the beginning of March."
"Then you are still keeping up your relations with the family?"
"I could not well find an excuse for giving up the lessons. Anna Maria honored me all the time with her special favor; and, besides, I have recently become better reconciled with her ways. I believe we have wronged her in many points. She has her very objectionable sides, no doubt; but, if we wish to be just, we must acknowledge also that her position is a very peculiar one. If she procures Helen a rich husband, she does after all only what every mother in her position would do likewise. And her circumstances are by no means as brilliant as they think. Since her husband's death she has nothing but a comparatively small annuity and the income from what she may have saved, but the whole amounts to very little in comparison with her former revenue. And if Malte should follow his cousin Felix's example, and die of consumption, she would lose even that--and the poor fellow looks shocking; he is nothing but skin and bones."
"Ah," said Sophie; "why, then Helen's marriage is almost a kind of necessity in the meaning of these people, although I am convinced it must be a very sad necessity for Helen."
"Why?"
"I will tell you in confidence. I think she had given her heart to somebody else when she accepted the prince. Would to God she had been less reserved towards me, perhaps it would all have come differently."
"Don't believe that! The girl has a kind of obstinate pride that no man can bend, perhaps not even fate. She will allow no one an absolute control over her decisions."
"Tell me, Bemperly, what is the truth of this report, that your Frau von Berkow and Baron Oldenburg are living on very intimate terms with each other?" asked Sophie, after a short pause.
"Nothing; nothing at all!" said Bemperlein, very earnestly. "I should like to know what people have to do with that. There is an old friendship between them, which dates back to the years when they were children. That is all. Then they are neighbors, and must needs see each other frequently--is not that perfectly natural? Why could not they marry each other if they liked it? Instead of that the baron goes to Paris, and leaves her, amid snow and ice, quite alone at Berkow. Does not that show as clear as daylight that there is no question of love between them?--or it must be a strange kind of love."
At that moment Sophie started with joy. She had caught a glimpse of a tall, elegant man with a black beard, who was hastily passing the window.
"There is Franz!" cried the young wife, her large blue eyes brightening up and her cheeks blushing a deep red. "Hide yourself, Bemperly!"
"But where?" said Mr. Bemperlein, looking around in the room.
"There, behind the curtain! Hold it together in the middle, so that it cannot open--thus!"
The bell was rung. Immediately afterwards the door of the room opened, and Franz entered with rapid steps.
"Has not Bemperlein come?"
"Do you see him anywhere?"
Franz, it is true, did not see Mr. Anastasius Bemperlein, but upon a chair a gentleman's hat; and, besides, the folds of the heavy curtain arranged in a manner which very clearly betrayed the efforts of a hand to hold them together.
So he said:
"That man Bemperlein is, after all, an utterly unreliable, frivolous, unconscionable whipper-snapper; a man without faith, without principle; a quack, whom I have regretted over and over again to have recommended to Mr. Planke as director of his chemical manufactory, so that he has actually engaged him with a salary of a thousand a year and five per cent, of the clear receipts. He is a perfect Don Giovanni of a Bemperlein, who has secret interviews with the wives of his friends, hides himself when they return behind curtains, and is stupid enough to leave his hat in the middle of the room. A harlequin of a Bemperlein----"
"Stop!" said that gentleman, opening the curtain "I am found out!"
The two friends embraced with great cordiality.
"Do you know whom I have just seen?" asked Franz after the most important questions had been fully answered.
"Well?" cried Bemperlein and Sophie.
"Baron Oldenburg and Frau von Berkow."
"Impossible!" exclaimed Bemperlein, casting an embarrassed look at Sophie, and receiving in return a triumphant smile.
"As I tell you. I met them arm in arm near the palace. Frau von Berkow has given me her address and asked me to call on her. There! Broad street. No. 54. She has furnished lodgings. This, and the circumstance that she has her children with her, make me believe that she has come here for some time. I told her we were expecting Bemperlein to-day, and she seemed to be very glad to hear it. Baron Oldenburg also sends his best regards, and wants you to know that he has returned only yesterday from Paris, in company with Professor Berger. You know, I suppose, that the two met in Paris and witnessed the whole revolution? They are staying at the Hotel de Russie Unter den Linden. I have advised Frau von Berkow, if she has not very pressing business here, to leave the city, because we shall in all probability have very troublesome times soon. Albert street is full of people, swarming to and fro like an ant-hill in uproar. Aids and orderlies are galloping through the streets at full speed. At the corner of Albert and Bear streets they had actually guns in position. Under the Lindens, they say, there has actually been a collision, and an officer of the guards is said to have been brutally ill-treated by the mob. Some said it was Prince Waldenberg. The excitement was so great that the people left the grand opera, although they were giving a new ballet, soon after the beginning of the performance. In Fisher street the mob has attacked a gun-shop, and an acquaintance of mine saw in Gold street the beginning of a barricade. In one word, the city is in a state of feverish excitement, and therefore, little wife, you had better bring out your tea, instead of standing there with your mouth wide open and swallowing the horrible news."
Sophie fell upon her husband's neck, pressed a kiss on his lips, and went out to order supper. The two friends sat down on the sofa and discussed their own and public affairs with that seriousness and thoroughness which becomes wise men.
CHAPTER VII.
The "Dismal Hole" was one of those suspicious places to which respectable people never resort, even after a long and dusty walk, when some refreshment seems to be needed. Young men, perhaps, who have less virtue than desire to enjoy life, and whom the spirit of mischief has led far from their accustomed haunts, occasionally drift into its sombre halls, and find next morning their heads aching furiously, and their minds filled with confused but by no means pleasant reminiscences of the night. Nevertheless the "Dismal Hole" was found in a by-street of a very fashionable quarter of the city, and very modest in the day.