“Well,” said Fräulein Friedemann, “she is excellently provided for.”
“Yes, her husband!” cried Frau Hagenström. “How does she treat him? You will see! I should be the first to insist that a married woman should to a certain degree be reserved towards the other sex. But how does she act towards her own husband? She has a way of giving him an ice-cold look and in a tone of pity saying: ‘Dear friend’ to him, that arouses my indignation. For you ought to see him—correct, a fine figure of a man, courteous, a splendidly preserved man in the forties, a brilliant officer! They have been married four years, my dear.”
The spot in which little Herr Friedemann was to be vouchsafed to cast eyes upon Frau von Rinnlingen for the first time was the Hauptstrasse, which consisted almost exclusively of business houses, and this meeting took place at noon, just as he came from the Exchange, where he had joined in a conversation or two.
He was walking, tiny yet important, at the side of Herr Stephens, a wholesale merchant, an uncommonly large and bulky gentleman with round-trimmed side-whiskers and terribly thick eyebrows. Both wore top hats and because of the warm weather had opened their overcoats. They talked of politics, striking their walking-sticks rhythmically on the pavement; but when they had about reached the middle of the street, Herr Stephens, the wholesale merchant, suddenly said: “Devil take me, if there isn’t the Von Rinnlingen driving towards us.”
“Well met, now,” said Herr Friedemann in his high, somewhat sharp voice and he looked expectantly straight ahead. “I have really not had a look at her yet. There we have the yellow wagon.”
It was indeed the yellow hunting-trap, which Frau von Rinnlingen was using today, and she drove the two slender horses herself, while the footman, with crossed arms, sat behind her. She wore a wide jacket, very light in colour, and the skirt was also light. Her ruddy blond hair spread out from under the little round straw-hat with brown leather band, and was curled over her ears and fell in a thick knot on her neck. The colour of her oval face was a dull white, and in the corners of her brown eyes, which lay unusually close together, there were bluish shadows. Her short but well-shaped nose was saddled with freckles, which were very becoming to her; but one could not see whether her mouth was pretty or not, for she constantly thrust out her under lip and then drew it back, rubbing it against the upper lip.
Stephens, the wholesale merchant, greeted her with extraordinary deference as the wagon reached them, and little Herr Friedemann also lifted his hat, looking at Frau von Rinnlingen with wide and attentive eyes. She lowered her whip, nodded her head slightly, and drove slowly past, looking to right and left at the houses and shopwindows.
After a few steps the wholesale merchant said: “She has been out driving and is now on the way home.”
Little Herr Friedemann did not reply, but looked down at the pavement before him. Then suddenly he looked up at the wholesale merchant and asked: “What did you say?”
And Herr Stephens repeated his sagacious remark.
Three days later at noon Johannes Friedemann returned home from his regular walk. Lunch took place at half past twelve and he was just about to go for half an hour to his “office,” which was situated immediately to the right of the entrance door, when the servant-girl came across the entrance hall and said to him: “There are visitors here, Herr Friedemann.”
“In the office?” he asked.
“No, upstairs, with the ladies.”
“Who is it?”
“Lieutenant-Colonel and Frau von Rinnlingen.”
“Oh,” said Herr Friedemann, “then I will—”
And he ascended the stairs. On the second floor he walked across the hallway and he already had in his hand the knob of the lofty, white-painted door which opened into the “landscape room” when he suddenly halted, retreated a step, turned about, and went slowly back as he had come. And although he was completely alone, he said to himself, aloud: “No. Better not.”
He went downstairs to his “office,” sat down at the desk, and took up the newspaper. After a minute or so, however, he let it drop and looked sideways out of the window. He remained seated so until the girl came and told him that lunch was served; he then went up to the dining-room, where his sisters were already waiting for him, and sat down on his chair, on which three music-books were lying.
Henriette, who served the soup, said: “Johannes, guess who was here!”
“Well?” he asked.
“The new Lieutenant-Colonel and his wife.”
“Really? Well, that was nice.”
“Yes,” said Pfiffi, and the corners of her mouth began to water; “I find that they are both most agreeable persons.”
“At all events,” said Friederike, “we mustn’t wait too long with our return call. I suggest that we go the day after tomorrow, Sunday.”
“Sunday,” said Henriette and Pfiffi.
“And, Johannes, you’ll come with us, of course?” asked Friederike.
“I should say so!” said Pfiffi and she shook herself. Herr Friedemann had utterly failed to hear the question and ate his soup with a quiet and timorous mien. It was as though he were listening to something, to some strange sound.
On the following evening Lohengrin was on
