Little Johann sat between his parents and choked down with difficulty a small piece of white meat with stuffing. He could not begin to compete with Aunt Tilda, and he felt tired and out of sorts. But it was a great thing none the less to be dining with the grownups, and to have one of the beautiful little rolls with poppy-seed in his elaborately folded serviette, and three wineglasses in front of his place. He usually drank out of the little gold mug which Uncle Justus gave him. But when the red, white, and brown meringues appeared, and Uncle Justus poured some oily, yellow Greek wine into the smallest of the three glasses, his appetite revived. He ate a whole red ice, then half a white one, then a little piece of the chocolate, his teeth hurting horribly all the while. Then he sipped his sweet wine gingerly and listened to Uncle Christian, who had begun to talk.
He told about the Christmas celebration at the club, which had been very jolly, it seemed. “Good God!” he said, just as if he were about to relate the story of Johnny Thunderstorm, “those fellows drank Swedish punch just like water.”
“Ugh!” said the Frau Consul shortly, and cast down her eyes.
But he paid no heed. His eyes began to wander—and thought and memory became so vivid that they flickered like shadows across his haggard face.
“Do any of you know,” he asked, “how it feels to drink too much Swedish punch? I don’t mean getting drunk: I mean the feeling you have the next day—the aftereffects. They are very queer and unpleasant; yes, queer and unpleasant at the same time.”
“Reason enough for describing them,” said the Senator.
“Assez, Christian. That does not interest us in the least,” said the Frau Consul. But he paid no attention. It was his peculiarity that at such times nothing made any impression on him. He was silent awhile, and then it seemed that the thing which moved him was ripe for speech.
“You go about feeling ghastly,” he said, turning to his brother and wrinkling up his nose. “Headache, and upset stomach—oh, well, you have that with other things, too. But you feel filthy”—here he rubbed his hands together, his face entirely distorted. “You wash your hands, but it does no good; they feel dirty and clammy, and there is grease under the nails. You take a bath: no good, your whole body is sticky and unclean. You itch all over, and you feel disgusted with yourself. Do you know the feeling, Thomas? you do know it, don’t you?”
“Yes, yes,” said the Senator, making a gesture of repulsion with his hand. But Christian’s extraordinary tactlessness had so increased with the years that he never perceived how unpleasant he was making himself to the company, nor how out of place his conversation was in these surroundings and on this evening. He continued to describe the evil effects of too much Swedish punch; and when he felt that he had exhausted the subject, he gradually subsided.
Before they arrived at the butter and cheese, the Frau Consul found occasion for another little speech to her family. If, she said, not quite everything in the course of the years had gone as we, in our shortsightedness, desired, there remained such manifold blessings as should fill our hearts with gratitude and love. For it was precisely this mingling of trials with blessings which showed that God never lifted his hand from the family, but ever guided its destinies according to His wise design, which we might not seek to question. And now, with hopeful hearts, we might drink together to the family health and to its future—that future when all the old and elderly of the present company would be laid to rest; and to the children, to whom the Christmas feast most properly belonged.
As Director Weinschenk’s small daughter was no longer present, little Johann had to make the round of the table alone and drink severally with all the company, from Grandmamma to Mamsell Severin. When he came to his father, the Senator touched the child’s glass with his and gently lifted Hanno’s chin to look into his eyes. But his son did not meet his glance: the long, gold-brown lashes lay deep, deep upon the delicate bluish shadows beneath his eyes.
Therese Weichbrodt took his head in both her hands, kissed him explosively on both cheeks, and said with such a hearty emphasis that surely God must have heeded it, “Be happy, you good che-ild!”
An hour later Hanno lay in his little bed, which now stood in the antechamber next to the Senator’s dressing-room. He lay on his back, out of regard for his stomach, which feeling was far from pleasant over all the things he had put into it that evening. Ida came out of her room in her dressing-gown, waving a glass about in circles in the air in order to dissolve its contents. He drank the carbonate of soda down quickly, made a wry face, and fell back again.
“I think I’ll just have to give it all up, Ida,” he said.
“Oh, nonsense, Hanno. Just lie still on your back. You see, now: who was it kept making signs to you to stop eating, and who was it that wouldn’t do it?”
“Well, perhaps I’ll be all right. When will the things come, Ida?”
“Tomorrow morning, first thing, my dearie.”
“I wish they were here—I wish I had them now.”
“Yes, yes, my dearie—but just have a good sleep now.” She kissed him, put out the light, and went away.
He lay quietly, giving himself up to the operation of the soda he had taken. But before his eyes gleamed the dazzling brilliance of the Christmas tree. He saw his theatre and his harmonium, and his book of mythology; he heard the choirboys singing
